“This should be a moment of renaissance in education in America.”
- President Bill Clinton, keynote speaker, KIPP School Summit 2012

Advocating for students isn’t easy. Reform opponents regularly engage in ad hominem and anonymous attacks, tactics they condemn in others. The vitriol and anger they express are unworthy of the children they claim to be fighting for.

So it was refreshing to be with educators at last week’s KIPP conference in Orlando who reject that tone. The idea of spending a week with 3,000 dedicated educators, who champion the idea of putting students first, was a lifeline I grabbed with both hands.

In all of my eight years in education, I can honestly report I’ve never experienced anything like a KIPP gathering. The differences were startling and immediate.

KIPP teachers don’t complain about long hours or low salaries. KIPP teachers don’t fear change; they embrace it.

KIPP teachers don’t hold sessions on how to defeat education reform. They don’t hold sessions on how to defeat anti-reformers, either.

KIPP teachers don’t allow anyone to use uninvolved parents or poverty as an excuse for low performance. They don’t allow students to, either.

KIPP teachers don’t teach to the test.

Instead, KIPP teachers are focused on solutions. Their positive energy is contagious. They have hope for the future and talk about what they can do, which is:

Build a better tomorrow. Reach more students who need them the most. Double the number of kids in their schools. Double the number of their graduates in college. This is impressive, considering KIPP graduates go on to graduate from college at four times the rate of non-KIPP students from the same communities.

KIPP teachers at the summit talked about being a catalytic force in the communities they serve. Hearing them talk about how they can be even better was enough to make even the most beaten-down reformer feel good about the movement again.

But then it got better. (more…)

School districts spent nearly $15 billion in the 2007-08 school year to pay teachers extra for earning master's degrees, up 72 percent from four years prior, concludes a report released this week by a left-leaning think tank.

The Center for American Progress suggests money for the so-called "master's bump" was not well spent because research shows there is little difference in effectiveness between teachers who have master’s degrees and those who don’t.

“This increase, which outstripped inflation many times over during the same time period, is music to the ears of those institutions of higher education that cater to teachers and their academic pursuits,” the report says. “But for the nation’s primary and secondary schools, this increase strikes a discordant note and underscores the need to uncouple teacher compensation from the earning of advanced degrees.”

Illinois paid out the most for the average bump, coming in at $11,910. The District of Columbia was second ($11,280), followed by Minnesota ($10,090), Ohio ($8,760) and North Dakota ($8,550). Utah paid the least, at $2,010.

Florida was among the lowest per bump, at $2,850. But in 2007-08, the report shows, that extra pay added up to $197 million.

That total is likely to fall in coming years as a result of Senate Bill 736, which was signed into law last year by Gov. Rick Scott. Among other changes, it mandates that extra compensation cease for teachers whose advanced degrees are not in their certification area.

The report describes the cost for the master’s bump as a “lost opportunity" because, in its view, the money could be better spent on teachers who mentor other teachers, work in high-poverty schools, teach hard-to-fill subject areas like math and science or demonstrate "extraordinary instructional impact."

Editor's note: Here's our latest round-up of interesting stuff from other ed blogs.

Rick Hess Straight Up: Self-Pitying Tantrums Are Poor Way for Educators to Win Friends, Influence People

Fact 1: Teachers feel like they're getting a bad rap in the public discourse.

Fact 2: I've long since stopped reading the comments proffered on RHSU.

What in the world do these two statements have to do with each other? I think it's simple. Self-proclaimed advocates of educators and public education have become so vitriolic, mean-spirited, arrogant, and unreasoning that it's becoming inane to anyone who's not a fellow true believer. This means that they're poorly positioned to convince Americans, and painfully uninteresting to anyone who doesn't agree with them already. ...

I was enamored by the self-identified teacher who wrote, "I honestly wonder what you're doing, writing about a profession that you so clearly despise. I also wonder about the integrity of Education Week, since it keeps publishing more and more hit-pieces by people like you, who openly brandish his anti-union, anti-public education, and anti-public school teachers attitudes, just to satisfy the whims and expectations of sponsors such as the Gates foundation and others...Unlike hacks like you, we can not charge over time, or demand to be payed [sic] by the column, or the word. You sir, are the worst kind of demagogue, attacking a noble profession, while disguising your broadsides as concerns over our benefits." Another wrote, "Well, Rick anyone can blog on and on about the virtues of deceit. Pity the folks in Wisconsin who couldn't quite get it together to alter the lopsided equation." Truthfully, I'm not even sure what this means. Full post here.

Cato@Liberty: State Rep. Balks at Voucher Funding for Muslim School

Just as Louisiana’s legislative session was wrapping up earlier this month, state Rep. Kenneth Havard refused to vote for any voucher program that “will fund Islamic teaching.” According to the AP, the Islamic School of Greater New Orleans was on a list of schools approved by the state education department to accept as many as 38 voucher students. Havard declared: “I won’t go back home and explain to my people that I supported this.”

For unreported reasons, the Islamic school subsequently withdrew itself from participation in the program and the voucher funding was approved 51 to 49. With the program now enacted and funded, nothing appears to stand in the way of the Islamic school requesting that it be added back to the list, and it is hard to imagine a constitutionally sound basis for rejecting such a request.

This episode illustrates a fundamental flaw in government-funded voucher programs: they must either reject every controversial educational option from eligibility or they compel taxpayers to support types of education that violate their convictions. In either case, someone loses. Either poor Muslims in New Orleans are denied vouchers or taxpayers who don’t wish to support Muslim schools are compelled to do so.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Read post here. (more…)

Editor's note: The set-in-stone narrative about education reform is progressives vs. conservatives, Republicans vs. Democrats, teachers unions vs. the "corporate agenda." The truth is more complex - and more colorful. One of the more dynamic angles is the degree to which progressives are divided. In this guest post, former teacher Catherine Durkin Robinson makes a case that progressives have become too resistant to needed change - and that fellow progressives need to do a better job persuading them.

When I began working in education reform, some of my Democratic friends and fellow activists weren’t happy. Some had long railed against any attempt to change education, empower parents or hold teachers responsible for their own performance. While plenty of Democrats support reform, including President Obama, some of my friends looked at other supporters of the movement - supporters like Jeb Bush - and freaked out.

I was one of them, once.

Years ago, as a new high school social studies teacher, I wondered how testing fit into the curriculum. I looked at too many students, with hungry bellies and less than ideal home lives, and wondered how to help them learn. I looked at my special education students, too often seen as afterthoughts, and wondered how to provide the unique help they needed. They already came to me so far behind their peers. How would I reverse years of a failed system in just under 45 minutes each day?

Then I got to work.

By my eighth year of teaching, I was helping even my most challenging students learn and grow. I prepared them for important assessments without teaching to the test. I showed them history and economics could be entertaining. The recipe? An unwavering belief in my students’ ability to learn, setting high expectations for them, and working hard to follow through and do justice to those principles.

But then I looked around me.

Too many other adults in the lives of these students relied on excuses for why they couldn’t do an effective job. While passionate educators devised creative and unique lesson plans, ineffective teachers blamed parents or faulted an unfair society. Principals faulted a lack of resources and elected officials blamed others. (more…)

That quote just had to be a headline. It’s from Louisiana’s state superintendent of education, John White, responding this week in the Baton Rouge Advocate to letters from teachers complaining about ed reform. Sometimes an op-ed is worth printing word for word:

The Advocate has recently published several letters to the editor on public education. I have to say as an educator, I’m disappointed with the prevailing tone and content of those letters opposing change.
Here are some passages that illustrate a common thread:

“We, the public school teachers of East Baton Rouge schools, can’t educate children who don’t want to be educated. We can’t educate children whose parents don’t care and are not involved.”

“ … the state is going to require that very poor students take the ACT … . The weaker of these students are not college-bound students who have no intention to attend college, yet he has to be compared and compete.”

And one writer simply stated, “Poverty is a significant factor affecting academic scores,” leaving it at that — as if that absolves us of any responsibility to educate the child.

I’m so disappointed in these comments for two reasons. First, they betray a mindset that forsakes the American dream. They show a sad belief among some that poverty is destiny in America, defying our core value that any child, no matter race, class or creed, can be the adult he or she dreams of being. Yes, poverty matters. Yes, it impacts learning. And that fact should only embolden us to do everything we can to break the cycle of poverty so another generation of children does not face the same challenges.

Second, and perhaps more disappointing, is that these letters were written by professional educators. (more…)