Radical (22 page)
Authors: Michelle Rhee
We were misguided.
There will always be doubters. Journalists will scrutinize school systems. It's their role. But our reaction shouldn't be to push back at every cynic or negative article. We have to welcome scrutiny. We don't want any doubt about the success of our students. If that means we audit every test, so be it. Journalists and investigators are critical to showing us what we are doing well and where we need work. If audits and investigations expose cheating on tests, we are cheating our kids.
Well before
USA Today
raised questions, we ordered a comprehensive review of allegations of wrongdoing on the part of the some teachers and administrators in D.C. For the first time in the history of DCPS, we brought in an outside expert to examine and audit our system. Caveon Test Securityâthe leading expert in the field at the timeâassessed our tests, results, and security measures. Their investigators interviewed teachers, principals, and administrators.
Caveon found no evidence of systematic cheating. None. Moreover, the District of Columbia inspector general conducted a seventeen-month examination of testing procedures and results. It found problems in only one school. The report concluded there was “insufficient evidence on which to conclude that there was widespread cheating” on tests across the city from 2008 to 2010.
D.C. students are proving the doubters wrong with their continued progress. Since the initial tests that the
USA Today
story focused on, DCPS has released six sets of standardized test scores for public school students. Each of these exams has been administered under greater scrutiny and increased testing security. Some tests have included greater numbers of special education and students not yet proficient in the English language. If there had been rampant systematic cheating, as some allege, you would expect to see dramatic drop-offs in these scores after new security measures were implemented. We saw the opposite. As a whole, D.C. students have either held steady or made significant gains.
The
Washington Post
noted these results in a series of editorials under the headlines
“CHEATING ALLEGATIONS CAN'T MASK REAL GAINS IN D.C.'S SCHOOLS”
and “
MORE EVIDENCE THAT D.C. EDUCATION REFORMS ARE WORKING.”
Investigations into testing procedures are ongoing. Test scores keep rising. The best response to allegations of cheating is more transparency and higher achievement.
O
UR FIRST YEAR WASN'T
easy. We had ambitious goals but didn't yet have the infrastructure in place to always support our efforts the way we wanted to. We were flying the plane as we were building it. In many ways, we were a typical start-up.
But the dedication of our staff and our members was remarkable. By the end of year one, we had met our goals and exceeded some. We had helped change more than sixty policies in seven states. We had attracted more than a million members. We were making headway with our fund-raising goals. Given that we had started from scratch in January, we engineered an encouraging start.
I came away with a new understanding of our potential.
The power of StudentsFirst is not in playing the inside game. The teachers unions have a thirty-year head start on walking the halls of state capitols, bonding legislators to their causes and meting out retribution to those who cross them. We are not going to beat them at that game.
We have to play and win in the outside game. We have to bring pressure on legislators through our members. In Florida, we brought in teachers to testify for our agenda. We mobilized so many members in Michigan that legislators begged for mercy.
In the long term, if we are going to be successful, it will take focused and concerted action by our members. We will have to put pressure on legislators they have never felt from anyone other than unions. We will need to counterbalance the unions' money with our members.
I
met Wanda Smith midway through my third year as chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools. Little did I know that we would leave a lasting imprint on each other.
Wanda taught kindergarten at Kimball Elementary School, in a predominantly African American neighborhood east of the Anacostia River, at the foot of Fort Dupont Park. For two years the school had done a solid job of raising student achievement.
When I talked to the principal about it, she said, “Great! Can you come out and meet my teachers? They were afraid you'd be disappointed!”
A few weeks later I ordered lunch for the staff. We broke bread, and I congratulated them for taking their students to new levels in both math and reading. Many of their students came to school every morning from difficult circumstances. The staff, such as fifth-grade teacher William Taylor, whose gains with students were among the best in the city, set high expectations, and the students met them.
As I was leaving, one of the teachers approached me. She was older and had that knowing look behind her bright eyes and broad smile. “My name is Wanda Smith,” she said. “I want you to come to my classroom.”
Wanda had been at Kimball for about fifteen years. She had been a dependable teacher of young kindergartners. When I visited, her classroom was orderly, her kids were attentive, and her lessons were sound. I could tell that she sent her students to the first grade with the tools to continue their progress.
Wanda and I started up an email correspondence. We talked about her classroom and the latest in pedagogy. And we gossiped about our lives.
“What are you doing with that fine man you have?” she asked when she heard I was dating Kevin Johnson. When she learned we had gotten engaged, she wrote, “I want to plan your wedding.” The next week she brought a wedding planning book to my office. “I know you're too busy to do this stuff, so I thought I'd give you some assistance,” she joked.
What I didn't realize at the time is that I had been giving some assistance to Wanda Smith, too. True, she had been a good teacher before I became chancellor. But she took my challenge that “we can't keep making excuses in DCPS” and “every child can learn, and every child will learn” to heart.
Wanda Smith had upped her game.
At the end of the year, we invited teachers who had been rated “highly effective” in the IMPACT evaluations to a reception at Union Station. Since this was our first group of highly effective teachers, we wanted to celebrate them in a resounding way. We announced that each of them would be receiving a check ranging from $3,000 to $25,000 and that we would be holding a black-tie gala in their honor at the Kennedy Center in a few weeks. The teachers were thrilled.
Wanda Smith ran up to me. Of course she had made it.
“I want you to know you made me highly effective,” she said.
“That's not true,” I said. “I had nothing to do with it! You have been a great teacher for years before I showed up.”
“Not the case,” she said. “I've been teaching for fifteen years, and I was an okay teacher, but I didn't know how to be really good until you laid it out for me. You established the expectations for being an excellent teacher. I haven't always been as good as I was this year.
“You made that happen.”
Several weeks later, Wanda was one of the 662 teachers honored at the Kennedy Center in the first “Standing Ovation for DC Teachers.” It was the last night of my tenure as chancellor, and it might also have been the best night.
T
HE CONFLICTS AND CONTROVERSIES
of my three years made headlines and dominated coverage: the layoffs, the union protests, the school closings.
What got lost were the stories of the great teachers who took the new culture we brought to DCPS and ran with it. Wanda Smith was not alone.
Holding people to a high standard is a way of showing respect. I hold students to a high standard because I am pro-student. I hold teachers to a high standard because I am pro-teacher.
So it is with utter dismay that I find some people portraying me as anti-teacher. This couldn't be further from the truth.
How can I be against teachers when I come from teachers? Teachers made me who I am. My father's father was a principal in Korea. My mother's mother taught kindergarten. Inspired by their example, I spent the first three years of my career after college as a full-time teacher in a classroom in Baltimore that served primarily disadvantaged students. Many of my aunts were teachers and came to the United States to help make supplies for me when I taught in Baltimore. My best friend and sister-in-law are both teachers. After graduate school, I launched a nonprofit focused on recruiting and placing teachers.
But more than that: how can I be anti-teacher when I believe, and research has repeatedly shown, that it's teachersâhigh-quality teachersâwho hold the key to improving student achievement?
To paint me as anti-teacher is simply inaccurate, a caricature to fit a political agenda. It is neither honest nor real.
This myth was especially clear during my time as chancellor of DCPS. The reality in DCPS was that, for the first time, we finally raised our expectations and appreciated the potential of great teachers like Wanda Smith.
Consider the case of Eric Bethel, a fifth-grade teacher who had been teaching for seven years at DCPS before IMPACT was rolled out. When StudentsFirst launched in 2010, he wrote on our blog: “It was extremely enriching to finally receive feedback that could help move my teaching forward. In the seven years prior, I never received feedback from an evaluation that allowed me to grow specific areas of instruction.” Eric Bethel wanted feedback that would help him grow as a professional. At StudentsFirst, we have conducted many surveys of teachers, and significant majorities of teachers want what Eric Bethel and Wanda Smith wanted: high expectations and clear feedback that will help them develop.
Crucially, at DCPS and StudentsFirst, we also paired high expectations with high compensation. It's not all about the money, but significant compensation rewards for excellent teachers are a way of signaling appreciation, raising the status of the profession, and retaining great teachers.
As Eric wrote in that same blog post: “Lastly, but certainly not least, especially if you ask my wife who has been dreaming of us owning our first home for years now, is the compensation connected with being a highly effective teacher. In the next few weeks, I am set to receive a highly effective bonus that is about half of my entire teacher's salary from last year. This bonus will greatly contribute to our dream. It is incredible that my district has moved beyond the lip service that teachers have become accustomed to hearing and has actually decided to show that they get how meaningful yet challenging teaching is. They are showing that they get it by appropriately compensating teachers who can do a great job at this extremely meaningful and incredibly challenging work.”
S
TORIES LIKE THOSE OF
Wanda and Eric too often get lost in a more negative narrative. Consider the media stories about the District of Columbia's IMPACT evaluation system in July 2011, nearly a year after I had resigned from DCPS. At that time, 227 teachers were asked to leave the system for poor performance: 65 who received “ineffective” ratings that year, and another 141 who were “minimally effective” for the second year in a row. These headlines were reported in many newspapers. But you had to read deep into the stories, and sometimes search through several newspapers, to find out that 663 teachersâthree times as many teachers as were let goâwere rated as highly effective, making them eligible for bonuses of up to $25,000. And another 2,765âmore than thirteen times as many as were let goâwere rated as “effective,” meeting the raised standards that we placed on them.
But it's not just about evaluations. It's also about listening. One of the major unreported stories of school reform is that it is the reformers who are actually listening to teachers, while the status quo is demanding silence and conformity.
During my time in D.C., we held teacher listening sessions a few times a month. I would choose a school and show up for a meeting after class. There was no agenda. Administrators were not allowed to attend. It was simply an opportunity for teachers to ask questions, express concerns, share ideas, and tell me whether our reforms were working for them. These sessions were a great way for me to keep my finger on the pulse of classroom teachers. They were not always easy or positive. Teachers were honest. They trusted me enough to air their concerns. We were able to oftentimes establish strong, true bonds.
T
HERE'S A MISCONCEPTION THAT
because teachers unions are against certain reforms, then teachers must be against those reforms. That's anything but true.
In D.C., while the national teachers union opposed the changes we wanted to make in the union contract, 80 percent of the membership ended up voting for it. My staff at StudentsFirst is full of former teachers, and tens of thousands of our members are teachers. When I speak in other cities, teachers often come up to me afterward to tell me how much they appreciate my approach. They stop me in airports to show their support.
What people do not know are the many sacrifices some teachers have made to fight the status quo and come out strongly to advocate for policies that put kids first.
Rhonda Lochiatto, a seasoned teacher in Florida, is a great example. She drove four hours each way to testify in Tallahassee in support of teacher quality reform policies. For her brave stance, Rhonda was harassed by the opposition, but she remained strong and fought to put kids first. Rhonda still emails me with a message I have come to find invaluable: “I need you to stay strong so I can stay strong.”
In Michigan, Todd Beard helped lead the fight for reform against the strong opposition of his local union leader. Not only did he testify before the House Education Committee, but he recruited and ferried other teachers to Lansing to do the same.
On July 4, 2012, KMJ and Iâas Sacramento's first ladyâwere walking the Independence Day parade route down the California capital's Cottage Way when a young woman rushed up to us. I expected her to want to take her picture with my husband, as had happened all morning. As I looked for her camera so I could snap the picture, she looked me straight in the eye. She was a teacher at Jedediah Smith Elementary. “I just want you to know that I love what you are trying to do, and I want you to know I am with you,” she said in stride.
There are countless teachers across the country who have been fighting side by side with me to establish policies that put kids first. Their message is consistent: keep up the fight. Perhaps they are the silent majority of teachers. But they know that the public school teaching system is broken, and they want to see it fixed.
The question is, How?
F
INLAND HAD AN OPPORTUNITY
to re-create itself after World War II. The Nordic nation had survived decades under the control of either Sweden or Russia. As an infant nation, experimenting with independence, it struggled to figure out how to establish a successful economy and compete in the global marketplace. It chose to build on a foundation of public education. It exalted teachers.
In 1963, the Finnish parliament voted to focus the small nation's civic energy and financial resources on public education. “It was simply the idea that every child would have a good public school,” writes educator Pasi Sahlberg in his book
Finnish Lessons
. “If we want to be competitive, we need to educate everybody. It all came out of a need to survive.”
The Finns did more than survive. They put their teachers on a par with doctors and lawyersâin training, expertise, status, and job satisfaction. Teaching became a very attractive career, respected and desired across the country. In 2010, Sahlberg says, about 6,600 applicants competed for 660 primary school training slots.
Now Finland ranks top among nations in students' abilities in reading and math.
We cannot compare ourselves to a small, Nordic country, of course. We are a huge, diverse nation with two hundred years of devotion to public education. But I do believe we can take a lesson from Finland's approach to elevating teachers in its society.
Why not devote our entire nation, as Finland did, to putting teachers first among professionals? Why not make teaching an endeavor that will attract our best and brightest? Why not treat teachers as professionals to whom we entrust the academic development and future success of our children, for generations to come, literally, for the future of the United States?
My goal is to help create an environment where teachers can thrive as they do in Finland. But that will take time and some wrenching changes.
I
N
F
INLAND, TEACHERS ARE
expected to take the child who comes to their classroom and teach him to read and write, to add and multiply, to reason and understand. No excuses. Every child gets to learn.
Not so in some quarters of the United States.
There is an odd and somewhat unhealthy debate going on today in education reform circles that can serve to compromise a teacher's standing in the community. Unfortunately, I find myself in the middle of that debate. It has to do with the role of teachers, how much teachers can actually influence student achievement, and to what extent we can hold teachers accountable for that growth.
On one end of the spectrum you find the people who believe that teachers can have little impact on kids when environmental circumstances are tough. They argue that the trials and tribulations of poverty, uninvolved parents, violence in the community, a lack of health care, and inadequate nutrition present insurmountable hurdles that schools cannot overcome. They believe that we cannot hold teachers accountable for student academic growth in the face of these tremendous obstacles.