False Assumptions about Public Education

I am writing what I hope becomes a published book.  The book will not only look at public school superintendents and school board relationships, it will look both at the larger context of those relationships and my own very personal experience with that relationship. Just for the heck of it I share the draft of Chapter 8:


     The preceding chapters have been very personal and included revelations that I find risky and painful.  It is now time in the telling of my tale to be professional.  The current political context of decision making from within and from without regarding public education plays a critical role in the future of public education, the relationship of all Boards and all Superintendents and all communities, and the mission of public schools.

Widely held assumptions about public education have changed.  I believe they have changed as part of a concerted lobbying effort promoted by folks of wealth who would prefer not to be taxed to educate all kids.  Regardless, what our nation and our communities want from public schools, expect of public schools and how they judge public schools has changed dramatically in the last 50 to 60 years.  An entirely new set of governing assumptions has taken root and is now so embedded in the commonly held belief system that to challenge them appears to be blasphemy to many.  Policy makers and parents of local school children accept these assumptions as truths.  They are not.  They are prevarications.  They are invented, not proven.  They are harming kids, communities and our nation.  And the longer we hold on to these assumptions the further we will drift from the real mission of public education.

Assumption #1 is that public schools are or should be subject to a competitive model for the purpose of improvement.  Policies based on this assumption are escalating.  Federal grants are now competitive.  Teacher salaries can be competitive based on student performance outcomes.  Schools are judged based on competitive outcomes.  Funding for public schools in general now competes with the funding of charter schools, and the notion of vouchers pretty well throws down the gauntlet saying that public schools do not win in the competition so parents should have the choice based on competitive outcomes to send their kids to private schools with public tax dollars footing the bill. 

This assumption is grounded in the market economy model, and is advocated by wealthy private sector folks.  They promote consumer choice as a rationale for competition in schools.  Consumers do not have choice if kids attend schools based on an attendance area rather than school performance; hence the support of charter schools and vouchers and competitive funding.

Further, if competition is the appropriate model for public schools then schools must be judged.  Annual reports must be made comparing schools and judging schools based on their product.  These reports read like a Consumer’s Report analysis of public schools: from much better than average to much worse than average.  An incredible amount of time and money are now spent on collecting data that purports to measure how good teachers, schools and school systems are.  Those systems judged as poor receive sanctions, some so severe that the school is closed and the employees fired.  Those systems judged as great, exemplary, outstanding, or “A” systems receive accolades, more flexibility with their funds, and property values therein improve.  No one wants to send their child to an “F” school, or a worse than average school.

Imposing a competitive model on public schools is absolutely the wrong model to use.  It does not fit with the mission.  It harms and hampers the ability of public school folks to teach kids.  In no other arena of public service is a competitive model supported by the government using tax dollars.  Supporting charter schools and vouchers would be the equivalent of government subsidies to UPS and FedEx to compete with the US Postal service using the argument this will help the USPS to improve, such funding taken from the USPS budget.  It is the equivalent of supporting private security firms with tax dollars taken from local police budgets if the local police cannot produce data on crime reduction.  It is the equivalent of tax dollars supporting private sector bottled water companies if the local water system is judged inferior.  Upon just a little reflection it should be clear that any of the above examples should not be cause to reduce funding for the public service for private sector folks, it should be a rationale to increase funding for the public sector.  The post office will not improve if more tax money is diverted to the private carriers, the police will not improve if they lose funding, and the public water supply will not improve if there is less investment in infrastructure and health.  All such attempts would be laughed out of legislatures.  Not true of public schools.  Somehow we have been taught to believe that choice and alternatives funded by tax dollars is a superior model to improve public schools.  This is so ludicrous it would be laughable except that so many now believe this assumption.

Further, this assumption is grounded in the belief that those of us in public education are here to better ourselves financially at the expense of others.  Nothing could generally be further from the truth.  Teachers do not drive to work worried about how they are doing compared to the local charter school or even the neighborhood school next door.  Principals are the same as are superintendents.  We compete on Friday nights on the football field, but all the meaningful improvement we accomplish in public schools occurs through collaboration, not competition.  Rather than patenting an instructional strategy that works for kids we are eager to share it with others.  Why?  Because if we know something that would help kids learn and do not share it we are hurting kids and that is absolutely immoral and unethical.  We are not like pharmaceutical companies seeking to patent a new drug for our own profit.  There is no corporate espionage or spying in public education.  Our first goal is to do no harm.  Not sharing, not collaborating harms kids and professionals and schools and communities.  Competition nurtures non collaboration.  Moreover, if the motivation of public educators is to make money I argue, unless they are all nuts, that public education is not the profession they would have chosen.

Most interesting to me is the data regarding the so called competitive models.  Few charter schools outperform public schools when demographic characteristics of the kids are accounted for in the outcomes.  We do not know how private schools perform because they are exempt from the same measures for which public schools are held accountable.  I happen to believe that private schools are not nearly as successful as public schools because it is the mission of the parents of private school children for their child to be successful and behave else wise they will be kicked out of the private school.  Private school teachers can transmit information and kids are required to get it or leave.  Better teaching occurs in public schools every single day.  Every public school teacher I have ever fired for incompetence was hired by a private school.  Place the faculty of a private school in a public school setting and vice versa and the private school teachers will fail and quit while the public school teacher will dramatically outperform the private school teachers and feel like they have died and gone to heaven. 

The assumption that public schools are or should be subject to a competitive model for the purpose of improvement is not only false, it harms kids and harms the efforts of public school staff to teach kids. 

It is very difficult to find a member of the legislature, a school board member or a parent who has not been convinced that this assumption is true. 

The second assumption, grounded in the first, is that standardized measures of student outcomes are meaningful and useful for the purpose of judging schools.  The assumption is another effort to apply private sector models to public schools, and on the surface it appears to be rational.  Why don’t we simply collect an array of data regarding dropouts, graduation rates, attendance rates, disciplinary data, and combine it with student performance on a high stakes standardized test to see which schools are better than others, or which teachers are better than others.  Only with such data con we judge or compare schools.

Again, there are severe underlying flaws in this assumption.  First, the data regarding dropouts, graduation rates, disciple, etc., are much more a reflection of the demographics of the students served than the performance of the school.  In wealthy districts with efficacious parents the data on these variables is always stellar.  In districts that serve poor kids the data is always worse.  If that is a function of the school rather than the community than a simple staff swap would improve the performance of poor kids.  That, of course, is ludicrous, and none of the current reformers is suggesting such.  They know. 

The reported outcomes of the high stakes standardized tests are even more spurious.  An entire year of learning is judged by one test on one day administered in a high stakes secure setting to children aged 10 to 17.  The outcomes of that one day of testing are used to judge the kids, the teachers, the school and the school system for an entire year.  Failure to perform up to established cut scores labels all the above as poor performers.  The stakes are higher for the staff and school than they are for kids because the sanctions for staff and schools are greater than they are for kids.  Again, brief reflection on this practice should reveal the flaw in this logic.

There are 4 million school children in Texas, taught by hundreds of thousands of teachers in tens of thousands classrooms.  The human variables in such an equation are so vast as to be impossible to enumerate or to measure.  To judge kids, the teacher, the school and system based on one day of data collection per subject each year is the equivalent of giving a meteorologist one day of radar and satellite imagery and ask for accurate weather predictions for the coming year.  We all know that the variables surrounding weather prediction are so vast that we forgive meteorologists for getting it wrong, even when they are wrong most of the time.  And meteorologists have continuous data collection tools, 24-7-365.  The human variables in all the classrooms and schools in Texas are more varied than the weather variables and the data collection only occurs on one day, once a year.  In no way should these data be used to judge kids, teachers and schools and hang a label on them that will last a year.  It is ludicrous beyond belief.

What is interesting is that the data we do receive continues to confirm that wealthy kids with efficacious parents tend to outperform poor kids.  OK, we know that.  Quit testing and let’s move on.  Rather than preparing for a test that will judge us for a year yet to come, let us spend those resources on seeking strategies to help those kids who are not successful become successful.

The issue is not data collection.  The issue is what to do with the data.  If the data is collected to inform and improve instruction then that makes sense.  But, the data is so late getting back to the schools that it is virtually impossible to modify instruction for the sake of the kids.  Make no mistake, the data is not collected to help kids or teachers or to improve instruction.  It is collected to judge kids, teachers and schools.

No one else uses snapshot data for long term judgment.  Not meteorologists, not medical doctors, not even engineers.  When I attempt to sell my house and discover that the survey of my property is more than 6 months old I must get a new survey.  If dirt can move in six months what might a kid learn in six months?  Further, when my doctor takes my blood pressure he is not done for the next year.  And, we do not judge the doctor for my blood pressure.  He looks at the data, makes a prescription, checks the data soon thereafter and may alter the prescription.  That is not what we do in public schools.  Schools are held accountable for the blood pressure of their students.

Add to the above the statistical approach of norming the scores and determining quartiles of schools and we really have a problem.  If the outcomes on a standardized test are normed, that is they are forced into a normal or bell-shaped curve, then the likelihood of improving a school’s position on that curve is slim.  To improve, every other school would have to do worse the next year, and no educator wants that.  Holding our own each year is in fact a major accomplishment that should be celebrated. 

Further, if all that matters is the outcome on a standardized test then schools and teachers have little choice but to focus on test preparation rather than real learning.  The second assumption that standardized measures could and should be used to label and judge schools is not only wrong, it is preposterous. 

However, it does serve to bolster the arguments of those who wish schools to be judged by the competitive model.  Two false assumptions do not yield the truth.

The third assumption is that a legislative mandate or requirement will result in improvement.  If the government requires schools to reduce dropouts, improve standardized test scores, develop more college readiness, improve teacher evaluations, etc., then there is a belief that those things should happen.  If the government requires that teachers teach a standardized state defined curriculum then the assumption is that instruction will improve.  The entire assumption is based on the belief that if I tell you to do better you will.  It is based on the assumption that when the state or federal government sets standards that everyone will accomplish achieving those standards.

Were that a valid assumption I would simply send memos to teachers and principals telling them to do better and my job would be done.  (Well, it is done anyway, but not for a lack of memos.)

The entire assumption creates an environment of compliance.  Teachers want to keep their heads down.  Principals are reluctant to speak out.  Superintendents, who as a group are really risk adverse, lay low as well.  We begin to brag only on the areas where we show the most success complying with all the standards and all the mandates.  So called instructional leaders become instructional managers ensuring that we comply with everything.  We have become much more concerned with doing things right than we are with doing the right things. 

Compliance reduces leadership and individuality and creativity and collaboration, all the elements I believe are necessary for schools to improve.  Worse, the decisions regarding where and how we should improve schools comes from the outside-in, not inside-out.  No real improvement happens that way.  If I were mayor of my town and wanted all the homes here to be more like some model home, I could require everyone to engage in home improvement projects to measure up to the outside-in imposed standard.  Folks might comply, but they would complain.  Real home improvement happens when the folks in the home decide what they want and need to do to improve their home and set about doing it.  In an inside-out improvement effort there is excitement, commitment and celebration.  In an outside-in required improvement effort there is compliance and a loss of morale.

Further, the assumption is based on the wrong work model.  If I am an uneducated assembly line worker then mandating improvement based on constant monitoring as a strategy for improvement may improve my productivity.  However, the “improvement” in such settings is usually the profit margin of the corporation.  The sanction is quick loss of job.  The monitoring is consistent and constant, and the variables monitored are tangible, measurable products.  Schools, however, are not like that at all.  In every classroom is a degreed, licensed, certified professional.  Each of these professionals must make decisions on a minute-by-minute basis for the purpose of educating the large numbers of little humans that surround them.  There are no widgets, no products to measure.  The event horizon of success with students lies well in the future, not in June when the scores arrive.  To assume that effective management of a professional cadre of adults should be based on effective management strategies of the assembly line is crazy.  Worse, it is totally demeaning to the professional.

The third assumption that legislative mandates and requirements will result in improvement in the schools is false.  Like the other two assumptions, this assumption hurts kids, teachers and schools and does more to inhibit real improvement than to promote such improvement.

The fourth assumption is that anyone and everyone is qualified to set school policy, standards, and direct school improvement. 

It has been such an interesting time to be a public educator.  I have experienced the transition from holding a position of respect in my community to someone who simply disagrees with what we need to do to improve schools.  Today, a majority vote for a candidate appears to be all the qualification necessary to become an expert on schools.  Or, amassing a personal fortune empowers individuals to not only lobby for their own brand of school improvement but to conduct experiments in public schools.  As a professional educator that is extremely frightening.  I know of no other profession where that is true.  In fact, I know of no skilled labor arena where that is true.  To assume I could improve the operation of forklifts because I received a majority vote is crazy.  Why we are not equally horrified by legislators setting school policy and direction is beyond me.

I believe this assumption took root because of all the standardized and competitive data collection.  We have systematically convinced our constituents and our communities that our schools are in trouble.  Given that schools are run by professionals and there is now data to indicate that they are in trouble then they, the non-professional school community, must step in to improve schools.  Sadly, the current non-professional improvement model calls for more data collection, more competition, more choice, more sanctions and the cycle accelerates to empower non-school folks to do with us as they please.

I earned a bachelor’s degree.  After a successful stint in the private sector I returned to college as a post graduate to take the necessary courses to become a teacher.  I passed a rigorous state standardized test to become a teacher. I taught for ten years, learning my profession and improving my practice each year.  I earned a masters degree in educational administration, attending school at night and successfully completing 45 graduate hours in public school administration complete with a constant review of the professional literature regarding what works and does not work from classroom to board room.  I passed a rigorous state standardized test to become an administrator.  I became a campus administrator for 4 years. I worked in a central office for 4 years.  I attended a host of professional development sessions and later presented a host of professional development sessions at state and national conferences.  I pursued a PhD. in educational administration accumulating an additional 130 hours beyond the masters toward a doctorate.  I passed a rigorous state standardized test to become certified as a superintendent.  I have been a superintendent for 17 years.  I have been totally immersed in public schools for 40 years, the practice, the theory and the process.  Evidently my background is inadequate as a host of publicly elected folks do not take my advice and act on their own belief systems regarding public schools, belief systems grounded in false assumptions.

I remain amazed that a radio talk show host was elected to the Texas Senate and has set about changing public schools based on the above assumptions.  He has gone so far as to personally attack a set of packaged lesson plans claiming they are un-American because they promote critical thinking.  He has successfully bullied his political way in to censoring instructional materials.

I remain amazed that a newly elected member of a Board, a man with no education beyond a high school diploma, a man with no training or experience in public education other than he attended the local high school, a man who supervisors no one at his job, a man who works shift work on an assembly line at a local plant feels more qualified to determine school policy and direction than I.  In fact, he spends a great deal of time telling me his philosophy of education rather than learning from me.  He is wrong.  He does not know what he does not know.  He has totally subscribed to the false assumptions now driving public education and he is not interested in hearing a thoughtful, professional rebuttal.  His lack of education contributes to his lack of critical thinking skills and promotes adherence to a belief system not grounded in fact.  He so deeply believes in his belief system that he perceives anyone who does not subscribe to his beliefs as immoral and un-American.  He and the talk show Senator are the new leadership of public school improvement, not I. 

The final false assumption is that competition, standardized measures, legislative mandates and non-expert claims of expertise are all grounded by data that indicates schools are failing kids.  They are not.  Data collected and outcomes measured are much more a reflection of the demographics of the community served than the efficacy of the instructional staff.  We assume schools and teachers can change the ills of society and can do so in 7 hours a day for 180 days a year.  We hold teachers and schools and school systems responsible for the demographics of their constituents.

I know no good way to point out the flaw in this thinking.  It is perhaps the equivalent of judging both plastic surgeons and oncologists using the mortality rates of their patients.  Or judging ER doctors and dentists on the survival rate of their patients.  Or judging police departments based on the number of crimes committed. Or fire departments based on the number of fires.  Or churches based on attendance figures and the number of bars and sexually oriented businesses in the community.  None of those data directly connect to the performance of the folks in that business.  We get that.  To judge all teachers in all settings serving all kids with the same measures and held accountable for the same outcomes is a total disconnect.  Teachers and schools are not in the business to fail kids.  We are in the business to teach kids and only fail to do so when we have exhausted every means we know and all the resources available.  The actual learning we purport to measure is not what the teacher knows; it is what the kid knows.  Teachers cannot open heads and pour knowledge in.  Kids themselves must learn.  Kids in an affluent context will learn.  Kids in the context of poverty will not learn as much.  Is that because such kids are stupid?  No.  It is because their social context does not value, trust or support an organized effort to learn and the skills, support and self-discipline necessary to learn have not been taught or valued.  If we judge teachers solely on outcomes and punish those who perform worse than others, then who will teach the poor kids?  If we do the same for doctors, who will want to be an oncologist?

I know teachers and schools can make a difference.  I see it every day.  I believe that if each of us in public education did not believe that we could make a difference we would choose another profession.  But there is no formula, no magic bullet, no commercially developed program, no state mandate or state required curriculum that can guarantee this difference.  The difference emerges due to a complicated mix of teacher attributes, abilities and motivation, student attributes, abilities and motivation and the cultural context of each.  Punishing teachers in the most challenging arenas is absolutely the worst thing we can do to promote improvement.  It is for those teachers in the most challenging arenas that we should provide the most support, the most resources, and the most trust. 

Schools cannot cure poverty, nor the attributes, abilities and motivation of the children of poverty.  Every educator understands that while being judged for that.  That is morally wrong.  We know the number of kids living in the context of poverty is increasing.  Sadly, even if I held the assumptions outlined above, would it not be morally right to promote the reduction of poverty to help improve learning outcomes?  To support policies that simultaneously increase poverty while holding schools more accountable for outcomes most influenced by poverty is immoral. 

All five of the above assumptions are false, yet they are the driving forces in public education.  Standing up to those forces is risky, perhaps professionally terminal.  The likes of Bill Gates, the Broad Foundation, the Koch brothers and a host of other billionaires are shaping school policy and pouring money into alternative models of schooling, none of which have proved overwhelmingly successful in any way except to divert public tax dollars from public schools to private sector folks who are now making money, tax money.  Other symptoms abound.  The new Texas Commissioner of Education is a non-educator.  He is a professional bureaucrat.  He announced to the superintendents in Texas that he did not know education, but he was a quick study.  A weekend and a six pack of beer was all he would need to be all caught up.  School boards are hiring superintendents who are not graduates of professional educational programs, but are graduates of private sector preparation programs so that the new supes believe in the assumptions above as well.  The superintendent in Houston, Dallas and now El Paso are of this ilk and are wrecking havoc on the schools there while thrilling the local board and the private sector with their total attention to standardized measures.

Perhaps the motives of these folk are good hearted.  I think not, but perhaps.  I sense that their underlying motive is to reduce the tax burden necessary to support successful public schools, promote private sector profit from public tax dollars, and claim to care about educating all kids while they systematically deconstruct public education, especially for poor kids.  I think they want to save their own tax money and make more money from tax dollars.  I think they resent paying for the education of all kids.  I find that immoral.

I rail against these assumptions and all their manifestations.  I have done so in a conservative community in Texas.  I am no longer superintendent there.  I have resigned.  I was not run off by Congress or the Texas Legislature or the Commissioner of Education.  I was run off by my local board. 

Wonder why?