STP! Stop, think, and praise.

As I look back on my decision to run for another four-year term as your school board member I remember how difficult that decision was. Serving as a school board member, many will say, is a thankless job. I don't find that to be true however, and I freely admit that I enjoy the stops in the grocery store, or in other venues, when folks thank me for my service, and talk about how pleased they are with one aspect or another of the changes we have made! I smile as they say to me that they are sure it is "a thankless job" even as they thank me.

The truth is that working together, we have achieved so much in this community. As the only candidate still running who was endorsed by Community Action for Public Education (CAPE), I remember all too well the conditions we found in a school system that had been neglected by far too many in this community. Schools were crumbling all around us, and there had been no new schools built for thirty years or so. Buildings at Lee High and Woodlawn and other sites had been condemned, but not removed. All roofs leaked every time it rained. Working together with the community we identified well over a billion dollars worth of immediate needs in the physical condition of the schools. The job is not done…. But so much HAS been done!

More importantly, the community had, in fact, nearly given up on their schools. No new taxes had been passed in many, many years, and teachers were being paid significantly less than those in many other districts, and in fact they had been furloughed for three days when a previous board ran out of money! Today, our teachers are paid competitive salaries, and we don't worry about covering up equipment in all the schools when it rains. The citizens in our community have passed tax renewals and new taxes with large margins, and new schools and buildings are going up around the district, on time and under budget. The long running desegregation lawsuit, which began before I was born, is over, and there is no forced bussing at all in Baton Rouge. None. Although I am still amazed to see uninformed people saying that we should end bussing in Baton Rouge! Should all students be forced to walk to school?

During my 16 years on the school board time I have remained true to the principles that CAPE espoused. In spite of the constant bashing of our schools, we have come so very far in the last 16 years. As a community, we sometimes have short memories, especially in the midst of an election when it seems every new candidate wants to show just how bad things are. Some of the things you will never hear from challengers include those items just mentioned, such as new schools, an end to forced bussing, and other things I have referred to in some of my other posts on here. Things such as the cooperation of the School System with the EBR Fire Department, the EBR Library, BREC (all of whom share facilities and land with us all over the parish, something that did not happen before) are forgotten in the unceasing desire, it seems to heap more abuse on our schools.

In spite of pullouts, including two areas that included some of our highest performing schools before they left the system, we have continuously improved on the scores for every subgroup in the parish. By subgroup, I mean different groups of students whether by race or ethnicity, or by other characteristics such as whether or not the student qualifies (based on family income) for free of reduced meal prices. For example, our EBR school system was just recognized as having the ninth highest on-time graduation rates for Black males large districts across the country. I am still amazed that some will take that fact, and turn it on its head and complain that the rate is far too low! (By the way, I agree that the rate is too low… but with an important caveat! Can't we at least take a moment to recognize that every district in the country is having problems increasing the graduation rate for this group of students, and your neighbors and friends, the teachers in our schools, are doing better than almost every other district in the country!) For students who are white, EBR ranks 5th out of all the districts in the state for their achievement, and for students who do not qualify for free or reduced price meals, our students rank 6th out of all districts in the state.

In another study, the researchers at Education Week, the premier weekly that focuses on pre-K through high school issues, calculated the "predicted" graduation rates for districts across the country, based in part on risk factors outside of school control, so called "out of school factors," and then compared the predictions with the actual graduation rates. Again, East Baton Rouge Parish Public Schools were ranked 31st in the entire country out of all the large school systems! No one that I know of us is saying that we have reached the mountaintop…that we can now rest, for the job is done! However, can we not take a moment to thank teachers for the progress they have made? Against incredible odds, and in spite of all the bashing they take?

Intellectual honesty is something I often talk and write about. I ask each of us to set aside our prejudices, our preconceived notions about ideology and what "we believe," and actually look at some of the data and research out there. It might just cause us to pause the next time we have a knee-jerk reaction about "our failing school system." I admitted that I enjoy receiving a "thank you" every now and then… but I would be happier still if this community thanked our teachers for their efforts, each and every day, to educate ALL students who walk (or roll) through the doors of OUR schools. To the teachers and staff of OUR schools, THANK YOU!

The Elusive Graduation Rates….

When I was in school "back in the day" as my son would say, a dropout was someone who "dropped out" of school and went to work or joined the military. For us, a "dropout" was someone who never finished high school.

Alas, today's use of the words "dropout" has an entirely different meaning. When you hear the startling statistics about the number of "dropouts" you might be hearing incredibly high numbers, and wondering just how horrible our schools have gotten! Before you lose all hope, you might want to explore a little about what, exactly, all these numbers mean! When you hear the term "dropout" it might be used in quite a number of different ways. For example, it could be that I was a dropout in high school. I "dropped out" of high school, since I did not graduate with my class. In fact, I remember going by Lee High School and saying "hi" to everyone as they were preparing to go to Panama City during their break to celebrate their upcoming graduation. I was heading to Panama City as well, only in my case the Panama City was in the Republic of Panama. I graduated at the end of the Fall Semester of my Senior Year, and enlisted in the army. It is very likely that a "cohort graduation rate" would have missed the distinction that I graduated early. The easiest (but not particularly accurate) way of determining a "cohort graduation rate" for a school district is to take the number of graduating seniors at the end of a given year, and divide by the number of ninth graders four years earlier. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it.

A "cohort dropout rate" on the other hand, would be the "cohort graduation rate" subtracted from 100%. OK, that sounds fairly straightforward. A district with a cohort graduation rate of 58% would be one where 42% of the students do not graduate. For the record, I just intentionally made the same mistake made in article in The Advocate this morning; and by so many politicians who are trying to show us just how bad our education is! What was the mistake? To put it simply, whenever talking about the "cohort" rates, we need to distinguish that we are talking about students graduating on time! It seems simple to include those two important words, but the number of Presidents, Governors, and so called "education reformers" who forget to mention the two words is phenomenal. In today's parlance, a dropout is anyone who does not graduate on time, that is to say with her or his classmates who started together.

So, does the cohort graduation rate above mean that 42% of seniors did not graduate? No. Does it mean that 42% of students in the school did not ever graduate? Again, the answer is no. It indicates that 42% of those in the freshman class did not graduate exactly four years later. Some of them might have taken an extra semester to graduate based on illness, or failing a particular course. Some of them might have moved, and lost credit for a course they didn't finish at one school that was not offered at the new school. Some might simply have left the school system, and so they did not graduate with their peers. The most important point to make, I believe, is that many, if not most of these students, actually do graduate or pass their GED tests, signifying that they have in fact mastered high school level material.

For perspective, and something that is almost never mentioned by the politicians and "reformers" doing everything they can to tell the public how important it is that we all sup at the table of their particular educational changes currently being promoted, remember that when many of us were young, life was simpler. We didn't need to do that much math. If you dropped out of school, and did not graduate, at all, then you were considered a "dropout." Today, it is necessary to do a chronological study and determine when you should have graduated! For another perspective, colleges evaluate their progress by determining their graduation rates in a different way. They use a standard "six-year graduation rate" for their undergraduates, even though most, if not all of their undergraduates are in four-year degree programs. Their numbers, in most cases, are "worse" than the average high school "four-year graduation rate."

Now… let's look at some other complications when calculating our "graduation rates" for school districts. As The Advocate newspaper reported today, East Baton Rouge Parish public schools were highlighted in the national Schott Report as having the ninth highest "cohort graduation rate" for African-American males among all large school systems in the country with at least 10,000 African American males. This report, as do others from the Louisiana State Department of Education, likely contains some common errors. For example, how do the rates calculated account for the fact that EBR schools four years ago included Central High School, one of our larger high schools. For the last few years, those students continued to graduate, but they were no longer in the EBR system, since the citizens of Central formed their own school system. So dividing the EBR graduating class by the number of EBR students four years earlier gives you an error! Do the math! It is interesting to note that the effect of the error is much greater for white students than for African-American students, since the vast majority of African-American students in Central High School returned to EBR schools, since they were in a variety of choice programs, whereas most other students did not. So the Schott report likely underestimates the graduation rates for all EBR students.

What other ways can you imagine that graduation rates can be misleading? Or asking the question in another way, why should we always ask how such rates are being determined? Take a look at www.noelhammatt.org to see some of the things EBR has been doing to increase the real graduation rates

An important note: I cannot criticize the author of the article in our newspaper this morning, for he is relying, in a quotation in the story, on one of the following two statements from the same Schott Report! See if you can spot the subtle, but important, differences in meaning!

Yes We Can, The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males, starkly illustrates that only 47% of Black males graduate from high school—far short of the trajectory and post-secondary credentials needed for our nation to be globally competitive by 2020. (Page 1)

Yet, unfortunately, the graduation rate for Black male students for the nation as a whole in 2007/8 was only 47%, that is, most Black male students did not graduate with their cohort." (Page 6)

Breaking Out of the "Reformers" Box!

Over the last few years I have pointed out to state education officials that there is a clear pattern that should be obvious to anyone looking at so-called "failing" schools in Louisiana. I shared with leaders the average demographics of the schools threatened with takeover by the state: approximately 95%+ of the students qualify for free or reduced price meals, and approximately 95%+ of the students are African-American. For the record, I am neither making any kind of "predictions" as to the academic achievement of the students in these schools based on "low expectations" nor am I saying that African-American students from low income families cannot learn or achieve high academic standards. On the other hand, I am stating that we should be carefully examining why it is that these are the shared demographics of these schools.

Researchers have found, by and large, that neither race/ethnicity nor the income of families has much to do, directly, with student achievement. What researchers have found, however, is that many of the underlying conditions that are found to impact student achievement are disproportionately distributed by race and income. These underlying conditions, which include such things as number of parents in the home, the number of books in the home, the number of hours of televisions watched, and the number of times a week children are read to, are all powerful predictors of student achievement, and are not under the control of our schools. I asked Paul Pastorek, the State Superintendent, to join with a number of groups looking at developing initiatives to impact some of these out-of-school factors. Instead, he started highlighting what he calls high poverty/high performing schools. None of these schools come close to overcoming the kinds of challenges faced by those schools taken over by the state.

I decided to look for "75/75/75 schools" in Louisiana. These would be schools where 75% or more of the student body was African-American, and at least 75% of the students came from families qualifying for free-or reduced meal prices, and 75% or more of the students in the school met state proficiency standards in both reading and math. I did a search using data from a nationally recognized school data engine, School Data Direct, and discovered the following. In the latest data set, Louisiana had 359 public schools in the state where over 75% of the students were African American, and over 75% of the students were receiving free or reduced meal prices. Out of these 359 schools only one school met the 75/75/75 criteria. I won’t even mention the school’s name, because it is not likely that the school actually created the success, since it is elementary, in New Orleans, and is a school of choice. Due to these factors it would require a bit more analysis to determine if it is the school that is achieving these results, or whether the results are the product of some selective admissions practices, and score-scrubbing which appears to currently be a problem in New Orleans. At any rate, ignoring the patterns of the 358 out of 359 schools does a disservice to the students in those schools, and a policy based on the one school that appears to be an outlier would likely not be fruitful. A policy based on exceptions is not likely to be an exceptionally good policy! Instead, let's work together to develop interventions that impact the underlying conditions!

We must break out of the box that limits education reforms to the limited time that students spend at school!

Want to meet your child's first teacher? Look in a Mirror!

The first and most solidly based finding is that the largest source of variation in student learning is attributable to differences in what students bring to school – their abilities and attitudes, and family and community background. (OECD, 2005, page 2)

For some examples of the incredibly powerful nature of out-of-school factors, you might explore the Educational Testing Service report, “The Family: America's Smallest School (ETS, 2007). In this Policy Information Report, the authors point to research looking at state level data for four out-of-school factors in order to predict eight grade reading scores for each state. The four factors were ratio of students to parents (number of single parent families), attendance rate data, television watching data, and the percentage of children whose parents were reading to them every day. (Note that schools do not generally have any direct influence on three of these variables.) Using the data, researchers predicted the scores for each state, and in 45 states, the predicted scores were within six points of the actual scale score for that state. (Really close, in other words.) The authors from ETS are careful to point out the complex nature of student achievement factors, and caution the readers of their report about coming to premature conclusions about the relative importance of any factors.

When the OECD (The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international group which includes the United States, talked about the greater importance of outside (of school) factors in student learning, they followed the statement which opened this post with this statement.

Such factors are difficult for policy makers to influence, at least in the short-run.

Is it really beyond the realm of possibility to develop a comprehensive public relations campaign based on impacting at least three of the above factors? How controversial would it be to invite parents to understand the relationships between television access, reading to their children, getting them to school, and the academic achievement of their children? Is this really any harder than a similar campaign aimed at stopping parents and caregivers from “shaking babies”? Why do policy makers seldom consider these possibilities? In part, because we accept myth-information and are looking for “quick results.” Haven’t we learned anything from the business models so loved by those seeking to foster these “competitive practices” in our nation’s schools? A focus on the next quarterly earnings report, driving out a focus on long-tern viability or the public good, sounds an awful lot like focusing on the next round of student testing results.

It is my hope that those who read this blog will carefully evaluate the claims (and myth-information) presented by so-called education "reformers" and ensure that presentations and reports which might be used to guide their policies are screened and fact-checked prior to their incorporation into policies which impact our state’s school children. In addition, it is my fervent hope that the ideology of those who would hold our schools totally accountable for the academic achievement of all students will be questioned by leaders with an understanding of the research on educational achievement that clearly does not support such ideology or mythology.

Myth-Takes in Reform Efforts

Dr. Tabitha Grossman recently made a presentation to Louisiana’s Blue Ribbon Commission for Educational Excellence. In her remarks she made reference to the importance of teacher quality, as she does in documents referenced herein, saying that teacher quality is the largest single factor impacting student achievement. I would like to point out a major mistake in her reporting of research, and one that rises to such a level as to raise questions of whether such a mistake is possible given her credentials, or whether this was simply another, in a long line of “myth-takes” by prominent researchers based on ideology.

Dr. Grossman is listed as the author of “Building a High Quality Workforce: a governor’s guide to human capital development” (hereinafter referred to as The Guide) which was produced by the National Governor’s Association Center for Best Practices, Education Division, where Dr. Grossman holds a position as Senior Policy Analyst.

On page 1 of The Guide, the following quote appears:

Teacher effectiveness is the primary influence on student achievement, followed by principal effectiveness.1 Given this reality, state efforts to improve student achievement should focus on workforce policies and practices, and on workforce funding decisions that improve the quality of the education workforce. To do this, governors should consider a comprehensive human capital approach that strategically invests in teachers and principals and that, in turn, can improve student outcomes.

The reference given in the above quote is: 1. The Wallace Foundation, Becoming a Leader: Preparing School Principals for Today’s Schools (New York: Wallace Foundation, 2008). The quote below is the only location in that entire document on the relative importance of teacher and principal influences on student achievement. See if you can note the not-so-subtle differences between Dr. Grossman’s passage and the passage from the Wallace Foundation document.

The importance of effective school leadership and the accompanying need to provide principals with more appropriate training to meet today’s needs are getting long-overdue attention. Teachers have the most immediate in-school effect on student success. But there is growing agreement that with the national imperative for having every child succeed, it is the principal who is best positioned to ensure that teaching and learning are as good as they can be throughout entire schools, especially those with the highest needs. (page 1)

Any researcher specifically referencing another publication has a responsibility to accurately capture the essential elements of the publication being referenced, even if the researcher wishes to disagree with the findings outlined in the document. In this case, Dr. Grossman somehow confuses “…the most immediate in-school effect on student success” with her statement that “Teacher effectiveness is the primary influence on student achievement.” The two statements are not at all synonymous. If Dr. Grossman had merely made such statements in her spoken presentation to the BESE, one could argue that she simply made a mistake. Having included the statement, and the reference, in a written document does compound the error. But she doesn’t stop with the one reference.

On page 3 of The Guide, in a section titled “Why is a Human Capital Strategy Necessary?” Dr. Grossman again emphasizes the point she made earlier, by making a very clear statement. “Research shows that teacher quality is the primary influence on student achievement.5” Putting aside the question of whether such a statement should actually provide some reference to actual research, this statement might again have referenced the Wallace Foundation study cited above, but Dr. Grossman this time provides the following reference: “5. Organisation (sic) for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), Attracting, Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers—Final Report: Teachers Matter (Paris: OECD, 2004).” In its overview of this report, the OECD authors include the following on page 2:

Three broad conclusions emerge from research on student learning. The first and most solidly based finding is that the largest source of variation in student learning is attributable to differences in what students bring to school – their abilities and attitudes, and family and community background. Such factors are difficult for policy makers to influence, at least in the short-run.

The second broad conclusion is that of those variables which are potentially open to policy influence, factors to do with teachers and teaching are the most important influences on student learning. In particular, the broad consensus is that “teacher quality” is the single most important school variable influencing student achievement.

The first paragraph above makes it difficult to accept Dr. Grossman’s use of this document as a reference… since it makes clear that “the largest source of variation in student learning is attributable to differences in what students bring to school….” While it goes on to state “such factors are difficult for policy makers to influence, at least in the short run” we should be careful not to make the incredible ‘leap of faith’ that Dr. Grossman appears to have made. Just because taking policy actions directed at what students bring to school may be difficult, it does not then follow that “research shows that teacher quality is the primary influence on student achievement.” (I will be shortly providing a post on what we CAN do about some of the out-of-sachool factors!)

What is troubling about Dr. Grossman’s compounding of what I call “myth-information” is that it becomes part and parcel of public and political efforts to develop policies holding schools accountable for circumstances beyond their control, while carefully hiding from the public the actual research results which clearly point to the greater impact of out-of-school factors. These factors, pointed out in the OECD report cited earlier, are best summed up in the words of the group, “A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education.”

Evidence demonstrates, however, that achievement gaps based on socioeconomic status are present before children even begin formal schooling. Despite impressive academic gains registered by some schools serving disadvantaged students, there is no evidence that school improvement strategies by themselves can substantially, consistently, and sustainably close these gaps. A Broader, Bolder Approach

Through the creation (or repetition) of a myth about teacher quality being the most important factor in student achievement, Dr. Grossman, et al. develop the groundwork for such policies as “pay for performance” and the “competitive compensation” proposals so enamored by those who see as socialist evils, unions, teacher pay scales, and civil service policies.

Such “myth-informed” policies cannot have the impact suggested by Dr. Grossman and others, since the impact of teachers on student achievement is much smaller than her statements suggest. In fact, policy makers would do well to heed the suggestions of the signatories to “A Broader, Bolder Approach” by focusing on issues related to out of school factors as well as in school factors. In future posts I will outline some of my proposals in these areas.

Reflections on a neighborhood walk through North Baton Rouge

Today I was privileged to join with member of the East Baton Rouge Parish School System, the District Attorney's Office, the Sheriff's Office and a number of other groups to walk the neighborhoods of one of our North Baton Rouge Schools. The purpose of our walk was to remind parents of the fact that school starts this coming Wednesday, to ensure that their children were registered, and to provide information to help them get to school on time and prepared.

Jennie Ponder from the Truancy Office and I teamed up to walk one side of the street, and we met some of the nicest, most sincere and caring parents one can find anywhere. We also saw living conditions that were absolutely appalling. We saw well-kept lawns and small, cute houses, and we saw totally overgrown lawns and boarded up houses covered with graffiti. We saw adults drinking beer and smoking cigarettes (this was at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning) surrounded by young kids. At one home we suddenly realized as we were talking to a mother that her young child, perhaps 18 months old, had a pack of cigarettes in one hand and was chewing on one. While the situation was quickly dealt with by the mother, when she noticed us looking at her child, it was a scary reminder of what children live with. In a number of homes kids were home alone, and we spoke through the doors to children who knew not to open the door to strangers.

I am always reminded anew, when I walk through neighborhoods and see the conditions in which some of our students live, that those who argue that teachers alone are responsible for the education of our youth somehow just don't get it. We are educated from the moment we enter this world, and the conditions of our young lives impact us every day of our lives. While we all know of children who have overcome tremendous odds to succeed, we can also recognize the incredibly strong correlations between early childhood resources and conditions and academic success. In all the homes we visited, we saw not a single book. Televisions were on, and children were present, but no books did we see. The words of Peter, Paul, and Mary come back to me…. "Oh, when will we ever learn? Oh, when will we… ever learn?" I often end a speech in the community with these words… "We will have the schools, and the community we want, when each of us wants, for other people's children, what we want and demand for our own children." It is going to take so much work, and so much caring, to short-circuit the cycles of poverty, economic and spiritual. There is no better time to start than today!

Historic Change in East Baton Rouge Parish Schools

It is so interesting how some people have such an incredibly high regard for themselves that they think the only change that "counts" as change is the change they support. There have been those who claim that I am not interested in change, so I thought I would point out a few of the changes I helped create in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System. It is only a small portion of a larger list, and I welcome readers' comments on changes they have noticed over the last 16 years.

We ended the desegregation lawsuit that began prior to my birth! Since 1996, students have been eligible to attend their local attendance zone schools! No forced bussing across town! That is change!

When I joined the school board in 1995, the voters had not supported taxes for new schools or major maintenance in almost thirty years! Since then, the voters have approved "pay as you go" plans and every single tax renewal over the last 16 years. That is change!

When I was a teacher in the school system, prior to my joining the faculty at LSU, there were regular rain drills in the schools, for every building leaked! Since then, we have re-roofed every building in the system, and leaks are rare. That is change; change for the better!

In the last year I worked for the school system, my pay was just over $20,000. A new teacher today in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System brings home over twice what I made! That is change!

I will provide more examples of change in later postings, but I wanted to mention a small change that I encouraged, and received a consensus from my fellow Board Members to implement. It is, in a sense a small change, yet it represents something much larger I think! For as long as I could remember, the parking places in front of the School System Main Office had signs reading "Reserved for School Board Members." There was no handicap parking in front of the building, and no ramps for those in wheelchairs. Such is no longer the case! The signs now read, "Reserved for Visitors" and there are clearly marked handicap accessible parking spots, and a ramp for visitors in wheelchairs! The message I wanted to send was this. We, the School Board Members of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, are here to serve, not to be served with special privileges! That is, to me, the kind of change we need to see at all levels of government! What do you think?