What's Become Clear

Below you will find an interview with my friend Bentley Richert. Bentley now teaches at Inman elementary school that was a coworker for many years. Over those years we spent many hours discussing school change. Bentley decided to go back to the classroom and see if all those ideas really make sense.

I think you’ll enjoy our conversation that ranges from authentic engagement to standardized tests. Bentley expreses his ideas about individualization and customization, learning by doing, and the use of technology in the 21st century.

Bentley teaches at Inman Elementary School and has a background as an educational specialist at ESSDACK, teacher at a charter school and as a classroom teacher in the Haven school district.

What’s Become Clear w/ Bentley Richert from Steve Wyckoff on Vimeo.

What’s Become Clear w/ Bentley Richert from Steve Wyckoff on Vimeo.

The federal government, through No Child Left Behind, has set the direction for school change in America. The NCLB act appears to be focused on two issues; develop a set of national standards that are adhered to by all schools, and raise standardized test scores. There is a fair amount of rhetoric around innovation and creativity but very little action.

Recently however, I listened to a very interesting podcast by Neil McCluskey of the Cato Institute. The first thing that I found interesting was that Dr. McCluskey pointed out that since data has been kept in the 1950s, the United States has never led the world in standardized test scores.

Where we have always led the world is in creativity and innovation. And yet, creativity and innovation are exactly the areas we are reducing in order to increase standardization of processes and content. Other countries, such as China, are making a conscious effort to make their students more innovative and creative. No such movement exists in America, in spite of the urging by many researchers and experts. Politicians are hell-bent on raising test scores. At any cost.

The second push by the federal government is to move us to national standards. It’s always pointed out to us that the top 10 or 12 countries on standardized tests (again, who cares) all have national standards. What Dr. McCluskey points out is that the bottom 12 countries all have national standards. There is simply no evidence that national standards lead to higher test scores, even assuming you want higher test scores.

In a time were school change should be all about customization and individualization for every child, our federal government is forcing us in exactly the opposite direction. I hope, but seriously doubt, that there are enough rebels out there telling the federal government to stick it, and doing what’s best for our kids in spite of the consequences, to overcome this disastrous direction. – Steve Wyckoff

It’s Saturday morning and I intended to get up, drink my coffee, and catch up on the news. But when I checked my e-mail I had a slug of comments from our Facebook group Rural Education and Community Development Collaboration. So I read through them first. Big mistake. I read a post from Craig Stranathan and it pissed me off!

I’m always thinking about school change so when I saw the link that Craig posted for a conference in Oklahoma City I clicked on it. My first response was “WOW!” They are having some of the most influential people in the world speak at their conference. The two that jumped out at me were Sir Ken Robinson and Daniel Pink.

Then I watched the little video on the front page of their website. That’s when I got pissed off.

Oklahoma. Are you kidding me. We make fun of Oklahoma. But here they are hosting a conference that we should be hosting in Kansas.

They’re talking about creativity and innovation. I just attended two recent conferences in Kansas. We’re talking about raising standardized test scores.

They’re talking about preparing their students for the future. In Kansas were talking about preparing our students for the past.

They’re talking about finding every student’s passion. We’re talking about figuring out how to make students passionate about standardized test.

They’re talking about helping every student become remarkable. Were trying to figure out how to make every student a remarkable test-taker.

They’re trying to inspire, were talking about pep rallies to raise test scores.

Thanks Craig! I was in a really good mood! We had a great conversation yesterday with a group of schools really interested in the future of their kids. But compared to what Oklahoma is doing we are in the slow lane being passed by everyone. Were making school change at the speed of a glacier, they’re facing the big issues head on. – Steve Wyckoff

The annual KSDE conference was held this past week and I was interested in some themes that seem to be emerging from the many conversations. You can decide which conversations were the good news, and which were the bad.

Conversation number one. As always I had the opportunity to talk to a great number of superintendents about this years enrollment. The trend started early, superintendents were telling me that their enrollment was up. I don’t know what the numbers are, yes this opinion is unburdened by data, but I quickly became aware of how many school districts reported that they had increased enrollment. If this trend holds it is definitely a reversal from recent years.

Conversation number two. Actually, this was the un conversation that I became aware of when I talk to Terrel Harrison from Colby. She told me that it had been a much more pleasant fall without the constant threat of imminent budget cuts. That’s when I realized I hadn’t had a single conversation about money.

Conversation number three. The new Deputy Commissioner appointed just the day before the conference started was on many peoples’ minds. Some were exuberant in their support, many reserved judgment. Concerns for those that had them seemed to center on the issue of his support for innovation and creativity in schools, or would his traditional paradigm stifle the innovators? This will be an issue worth watching since the goal of the state Board of Education is the redesign of the delivery model. It’s hard to redesign the delivery model without turning the creative and innovative people loose to experiment.

Conversation number four. Testing, testing, testing … Insanity!

Conversation number five. The recommendations starting to come out of the Kansas Education Commission. There seems to be large and growing support for project-based learning, or more generally learning by doing; focusing on authentic student engagement, not just test scores; and the tension that is growing between college ready, career ready, and more generally, life ready.

In my opinion the news was a mixed bag. Some good, some bad, some wait and see. I am still very concerned that the federal government is absolutely forcing us in the wrong direction, but there are more and more conversations about how to mitigate the damages done by ESEA. We have had 12 years and two administrations encouraging the wrong kind of school change.

I am encouraged that there are more and more conversations about doing what’s best for kids rather than what’s best for the federal government. Stay tuned. – Steve Wyckoff

I couldn’t have said it better … NO REALLY! I COULDN’T HAVE SAID IT BETTER! So I’m not going to try. Here is a post from my friend Deb Haneke’s blog. I will take credit for inspiring her to write this post because I placed the link to this video on our group page on Facebook, Rural Education and Community Development Collaboration. And credit Jerry Butler for sending me this intriguing video by Sir Ken Robinson. Sir Ken hits school change right on the nose!

Deb’s Post …

I’ve heard other presentations by Sir Ken Robinson, but this eleven minute video does a great job of really summarizing many ludicrous things about our current design in education. From the myth that a college degree will guarantee you a job, to the idea that the most important thing about kids is the date of manufacture (meaning we group them and run them through the system based on their birthdate) Sir Ken shines a flashlight on many myths and outdated practices, that are not serving kids nor the economy of this country.

In addition to the profound quote I included below, I also appreciated the research he shared about divergent thinking which he clarified is not the same thing as creativity, but rather an essential capacity for divergent thinking. This longitudinal study clearly showed all persons have the capacity for divergent thinking but it deteriorates over time. According to Sir Ken, education is likely a key factor in these results.

Sir Ken recognizes that it is not teachers who want things this way. Rather he refers to the “gene pool of education.” I hope you enjoy this insightful, and thought-provoking video as much as I did.

With the opening of schools I’ve had the opportunity to speak to several faculties about school change. I especially enjoy the dialogue that I get to have with the teachers even though we never have enough time to really dig in to the most important topics.

One of the questions that I ask of any audience I speak to is, “If all of our students were proficient on state standardized tests, and we had no dropouts, would society be satisfied with our graduates?” In the last week I’ve had the opportunity to ask this question of several hundred teachers. Not one, zero, nada, teacher said that society would be satisfied.

My point is this, we are working harder than we’ve ever worked in education, and getting better results than we’ve ever gotten, focusing on standardized tests, and more recently reducing the dropout rate. Yet there is a sense that even if we reach our goals, they are the wrong goals.

Nobody wants to talk about it but there’s a real sense that we are not focusing on preparing kids for their future in the 21st century, but rather the pursuit of higher test scores to please politicians and bureaucrats. I don’t think that’s the kind of school change we were looking for. – Steve Wyckoff

I’ve long preached that the measure we should look at when we talk about school change, is the degree to which our students are authentically engaged in the educational process. That isn’t a new thought by me, W. Edwards Deming said it something like this, every child should leave school loving to learn. If they did everything else would take care of itself. I couldn’t agree more.

The other day Dr. John Burke, my friend and superintendent at Haysville public schools, shared with me a student survey developed by the people at Gallup.The Gallup student poll. Check it out, it’s very interesting stuff. Here is the purpose and the three things the poll measures.

Purpose:

Through years of research, Gallup discovered three true indicators of student success; hope, engagement, and wellbeing. These three key factors drive students’ grades, achievement scores, retention, and future employment.

Hope: the ideas and energy we have for the future. Hope drives attendance, credits earned, and GPA of highschool students. Hope scores are more robust predictors of college success than are high school GPA, SAT, and ACT scores.

Engagement: the involvement in and enthusiasm for school. Engagement distinguishes between high-performing and low-performing schools.

Wellbeing: how we think about and experience our lives. Wellbeing tells us how our students are doing today and predicts their success in the future.

And it’s free! I don’t know if this is the best survey, but I know if Gallup created it it is completely research-based and valid and reliable.

It is my hope that in the near future when we talk about measures, and evidence, of school change and student success, that we have some measure of student engagement that has equal weight with standardized tests. – Steve Wyckoff

Maybe school change can happen. In May the Kansas State Board of Education authorized the formation of the Kansas Education Commission to examine the framework for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). I have the honor, at least I think it’s an honor, of having been selected to serve on the commission.

Since my invitation I have given a lot of thought to my personal approach to the commission and I’m ready to put some of it in writing to see how it looks and sounds. I’m trying to clarify in my own mind what I think the state of Kansas should be thinking about in the redesign of schools. So here we go…

1. I believe that schools need to move from a push platform to a pull platform. If you haven’t read The Power of Pull by John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison it’s a must-read. They do a remarkable job of describing how the world is changing. How we are moving away from centrally controlled and organized systems to empowered individuals, connected to others with similar interests and desires, creating our own knowledge and achievement as we go.

2. The core curriculum, that curriculum mandated by the Kansas Board of Regents, has always been the “main dish” of education. It’s time that the core curriculum be relegated to a side dish. The main dish of the system needs to be the inspiration of every student to discover what it is that they are so passionate about that they begin the journey to becoming remarkable at it.

3. We also must recognize that our system was designed to prepare large numbers of students in basically the same way, for the same work experience in their lives. Today instead of large numbers of students being prepared for a few work experiences, we must prepare small groups of students for vast numbers of work experiences. The “mass production” of students in a “factory model” school is simply intolerable in the 21st century.

4. I believe with all my heart that if a state like Kansas creates a 21st-century school system, even begins intentionally moving towards a 21st-century school system, individuals and businesses from around the world will flock to Kansas to join the movement.

5. As a state we need to minimize as much as possible the impact of the federal government on our system. The perverse focus on standardized tests and national standards is crippling us, and our students. We need to do the minimum to comply, and hope to do as little damage to our students as possible.

So do I think the Kansas education commission will lead to real school change? I think it has a chance, but I remain skeptical. I’m not sure this situation is desperate enough… yet! I remain hopeful. – Steve Wyckoff

Real school change will only happen when the “main dish” of education is a student centered, learning by doing experience. When our 115-year-old core curriculum is relegated to a  “side dish.” There is such a school, Erie High School in Erie Kansas. At Erie high school students have the option to be in a project based curriculum. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, I believe that students at Erie high school who are in the project-based learning curriculum, are the best prepared students in the state of Kansas to face their lives in the 21st century.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting with school leaders in the Erie school district. We had a very engaging and ebergetic discussion about many aspects, and affects, of project-based learning. About their journey to create a school that strives to help every student become remarkable. And not on standardized tests.

But as good as the conversation was the highlight of my day was to tour their new school that will open in the fall of 2010. Over the last 40 years I have been in many, many new school buildings. But this one was different. Oh, there were many of the same features you would see in any school. But what you won’t see in any school is a learning space specifically designed to enable and enhance student learning in a project based environment.

From the state-of-the-art natural lighting, to the large open aesthetically pleasing spaces that will house the individual student workstations, the new facility is amazing. And it’s not just the aesthetics, architect Allan Milbradt, and Superintendent John Wyrick, took the time to show me all of this state-of-the-art green technologies that are designed to enhance learning, reduce cost, and not do damage to the environment.

I only hope that visitors to the school will pay as much attention to the way that students are learning as they do the beautiful facility. The educators in Erie are making tremendous strides towards creating a learning experience that truly prepares every student for their life in the 21st century. This is rural school change! – Steve Wyckoff

I recently listened to a podcast from the Cato Institute on National Curriculum Education Standards. This is an extremely interesting podcast in spite of the fact that the first segment is done by a politician. Neil McCluskey, of the Cato Institute, has a very interesting take, and also interesting data.

Several points stood out to me, given my repulsion to national standards and standardized tests. The first point that Dr. McCluskey made was against the argument that a modern country should have one set of educational curriculum standards. The evidence that has always given is that India and China are gaining on us. Therefore we need national standards. But wait a minute, both India and China have realized that they need to de-centralized their educational system not centralize it more. Why then are we centralizing more?

Furthermore it is always pointed out that the countries that do better than us on standardized test all have national standards. What is never pointed out is that 33 of the 39 countries that ranked below us all have national standards. In 11 of the bottom 12 countries have national standards.

Which leads to another point that I found very interesting. There is no empirical evidence that national standards produce better results. Isn’t that interesting? In no Child left the use of research-based practices is mandated. Yet conspicuous by its absence is the research on national standards. Yet no research has been done on the use of national curriculum standards.

Call me a skeptic, but I think national standards are more about control than they are about improving educational opportunities for our children. In the 21st century it’s all about individualization and customization, national curriculum standards are just the opposite. If we want real school change we should be focusing on customizing and individualizing the educational process to meet the individual needs of every child. Otherwise we are doing a great job of further preparing kids to work in the factories that no longer exist, doing jobs that no longer exist. – Steve Wyckoff

I just saw a tweet about the book The School Principal Visionary Leadership and Competent Management. In part of the summary there is a quote, “Today, school-level administrators are expected to be both visionary leaders and competent managers.” I haven’t read the book but my first impression was, “I don’t think so.”

This is not to denigrate in anyway the job of the principle but I simply don’t see our principles as visionary leaders. They have an extremely difficult job, that is getting more difficult all the time. And maybe it’s just a difference in the definition of leaders versus managers. When I think of leaders I see their role as deciding what to do, and the job of managers is how to do it. Leaders ask the question, “Are we doing the right things?” Managers asked the question, “Are we doing things right?”

I think all the “visioning” has been taken out of the hands of our school administrators by bureaucrats. By default our vision is for schools to look like they always have. All of the rules and regulations being forced upon us by state and federal bureaucrats are based on the assumption that schools will look exactly like they have for the last hundred years. And the measure of what we are doing has been dictated as standardized test results.

They assume that our schools will be organized by age, compartmentalized by content area, prepare kids to go to liberal arts colleges, and learn in the abstract absent a context.

It is my opinion that if our principles were “leaders” they would be looking at society and asking the question, “Is what we’re doing in our schools preparing our kids to be productive members of a 21st-century society?” Perhaps I’m in the distinct minority, but I can’t imagine anybody thinking that what we are doing in schools today is in any way visionary, and preparing our kids for the 21st century.

Again, I am in no way trying to disparage school principals, but a constant focus on raising test scores is management not leadership. – Steve Wyckoff

It seems to me that the only acceptable measure of school change is standardized test scores. I have a real problem with that. It’s not that I devalue standardized test scores completely, I do believe that they are one small indicator of how we’re doing. But when I see the over emphasis on standardized test scores I have to shake my head.

I hear the stories from teachers and parents about the crazy things we do in order to raise test scores. I’m completely convinced that we spend more time on test taking strategies, and memorizing material for tests, then we do on real learning.

I am constantly reminding myself, and usually anyone else that will listen, about the analogy of getting your drivers license. When you got your drivers license you took two tests, a written test and a driving test. It’s obvious which one is the more meaningful. In fact in most states, perhaps all states, when you renew your driver’s license, send you the test in the mail along with the answers. That’s because the stuff that’s on the test is meaningless in the real context of driving and we don’t remember it. The truly important stuff we remember because we practice it on a daily basis, and because for the most part it is non-conscious.

It’s not that the stuff being tested isn’t true, it’s just that out of context of driving its meaningless. For example, how far before you turn are you supposed to turn on your turn indicator? When I ask this question of an audience most of them get it wrong, not because they can’t drive but because the context of driving often times dictates using your turn signal sooner than the law requires.

It’s the same on our standardized tests. The stuff we test our kids on is true and in many cases used in context would be meaningful. But taught, and tested out of context makes what the student is learning meaningless.

We should be testing the student’s ability to use the context in new and, predictable and unpredictable situations. That’s when the material is useful.

I always cringe when I hear an educators talk about “improved achievement.” Real school change would include authentic assessment of the use and application of knowledge and skills in a contextually based problem. – Steve Wyckoff

If we really want  real school change we have to consider how students learn, not just measuring traditional student learning. Students, in fact everyone, learns by doing. Ask anyone to recall their most memorable learning experiences and they will invariably tell you about doing something. I’ve written before about the steps involved in learning so I won’t rehash all of that. Suffice it to say that if the student isn’t emotionally involved in actually doing something they won’t learn. They may remember something for a test, but they haven’t learned it.

The student must be involved in setting their learning goals and developing their plan for reaching those goals are learning to be successful. Even more importantly the student must experience failure for learning to occur. That point at which a student fails and subsequently receives an explanation is the exact moment that learning occurs.

In schools however students are penalized for failing rather than encouraged to stretch their experiences, knowing that failure will occur. The research is clear, when we tell students that if they fail they are not  ”smart” it dramatically reduces their motivation to try and learn new and challenging things.

Real school change must put student learning by doing as a primary focus. They’ll still do okay on standardized tests, and in fact will be much better prepared for life.

Yong Zhao has written a wonderful blog post about the role of testing in China and the United States. It is a must read for educators as they ponder the direction they want to take our schools relative to standardized tests. I’ve written before about my objections of standardize tests and their impact on school change. In light of Dr. Zhos’s blog post our emphasis on standardized tests is even more disturbing.

While the Chinese are apparently gaining momentum in terms of changing their schools to prepare their kids to be more productive and more well suited to participate in 21st-century economies, we are going exactly the opposite direction in America. Their schools are trying to figure out how to make their kids more creative and innovative and at the same time we are trying to figure out how to clone test takers.

This is a disturbing trend. Americans in general, and educators more specifically, believe that we cannot possibly lose our standing as the predominant country in the world. When I hear these comments I always remind the person who makes them that 100 years ago the sun never set on the British Empire. Today the British Empire has come back to the pack and has been passed by many, many countries. It can happen to us to.

Political leaders and educational leaders alike are taking us down a path to become a second rate country. We should be striving for school change that propelles us to a leadership role among countries in the 21st century, the path we are taking now is doing just the opposite. -  Steve Wyckoff