The title of this post is also the title of an incredible professional learning opportunity for educators to be hosted by Sabot at Stony Point, a PK-8 independent school in Richmond, VA.

The title is actually a little misleading, as the Reggio Approach is not “new.” A recent piece in The Atlantic does a pretty good job of describing the history of this progressive approach to education.

Born out of a desire to provide children with an enriching environment, the Reggio schools came to emphasize art and the beauty of the classroom. Children were encouraged to pursue their own projects and to use materials from nature in their work… More than anything, the schools were designed to bring color and activity into the lives of children of war. Teachers who came to the schools after their founding often brought university educations and a theoretical approach to teaching with them, but when applying their training they became eclectic, drawing on a number of thinkers (Dewey, Vygotsky) and testing their ideas to find a combination that seemed to work for students.

Of particular note and interest to me is the involvement of Dr. Lella Gandini, the United States liaison for the dissemination of  the Reggio Emilia approach. Dr. Gandini has written extensively about the Reggio Emilia approach, especially for early childhood education. While the Reggio Approach is typically considered an orientation for early childhood education, the principles of progressive education embodied by the approach are widely applicable to education and learning at all levels. Sabot at Stony Point, the school hosting the event, lives the Reggio Approach from PK-8.

Please consider attending the event described below. It should be a wonderful opportunity to explore a context for teaching practice that may not be new per se, but that may be new to you and others in your community.

[FULL DISCLOSURE: my son attends Sabot at Stony Point. The school stands to generate revenue from this event. But, please know I wouldn't send my child to the school if I didn't strongly believe in the Reggio Approach. Therefore, I would promote this event whether my son's school stood to benefit or not.]

I have been meaning and meaning to write about the Virginia Governor’s 2013 education agenda, Part I and Part II, and so I will (belatedly) and it will be brief (mercifully).

First of all, as it’s sprinkled liberally throughout his agenda, it seems that the Governor hasn’t received the memo on the term “achievement gap.” Even TFA got that memo and has responded with a good ol’ liberal arts-style deconstruction (not that I would ever in my wildest dreams imagine that Virginia GOP Political Leader would be caught dead reading such a thing).

And speaking of TFA. . .

1. Teach for America Act (HB 2084):

You probably already know what I think. I have written about TFA before. It’s my most popular piece.

The only thing new I have to say is why does Virginia need TFA? There are budget and teaching positions being cut across the state and I hear it’s hard for our college graduates to get teaching positions. Where is the evidence that there’s a teacher shortage anywhere in Virginia? And if there were, why don’t we have a Teach for Virginia, instead? Teachers who are being laid off could be given incentives to go and teach in hard to staff areas. Top students at Virginia colleges and universities, especially ones seeking a teacher’s license, could also be granted incentives to start their careers in these supposedly “hard to staff” places.

Otherwise, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s fighting it, so meh.

2. 2% increase for Virginia Public School Teachers

I don’t know any other way to say this, so here goes: This is a lie. The governor is pledging a one-time grant of 58.7 million dollars to contribute towards a 2% raise. That means the state will only fund a certain percentage towards the 2% increase and will not re-new that funding next year. Basically, the governor is promising a raise that he doesn’t really plan on paying for in any sustainable way. So he’s making promises on behalf of broke localities.

3. A-F School Report Cards (I can’t find a bill for this)

Hopefully, I can’t find a bill for this because it’s just a ridiculous idea. If you want to read why (and hear a more nuanced version of “ridiculous idea”), read here and here.

4. Stem-H Incentives

This grants extra money to “high quality people” (um, I think you meant to say highly qualified individuals, Mr. Governor) teaching math, science, technology, health, and engineering. Yes, it’s harder to find people able to teach those, but I’m not sure a one-time grant of $5K will make the difference. If we raised the stature, education, and pay of ALL teachers, we might stand a chance.

5. K-12 Red Tape Reduction (SB 1189, maybe)

Yeah! Red tape reduction! Wahoo! Because who likes red tape, right?

Wait a minute. The explanation on the VDOE site says, “Local school divisions may be released from Board of Education-approved regulations and standards of quality requirements.” Well, which regulations and standards of quality? If it’s something stupid, by all means, let’s get rid of it. If it’s a standard that says all elementary students must have a certain amount of art per week, I’m not so sure I want my kids’ school district getting a waiver from that.

6. Strategic Compensation Grant Initiative

Otherwise known as: Merit Pay. Merit pay for teachers doesn’t work.

7. Staffing Flexibility for School Divisions (I think this is HB 2098 or 2066 or both)

From what I’ve read, this seems to make sense, though if someone can tell me why it doesn’t, please speak up in the comments.

8. Educator Fairness Act

The VEA (Virginia Education Association) thought this was a grossly unfair educator fairness act and it seemed so to me, too. Since then a deal has been agreed to that all parties seem happy with, so I will say no more. (But, readers, speak up, if you feel or have evidence to the contrary.)

9. Teacher Cabinet

I’m all for a teacher cabinet to advise the governor.

10. Governor’s Center for Excellence in Teaching

As long as this is to promote excellence in teaching and not excellence in testing, I’m all for it. The proof will be in the pudding, though.

11. Reading is Fundamental Initiative (HB 2114)

Ugghhhh! Again with this reading stuff! Yes, dear readers, that is the sound of my head banging against the wall. I can not get anyone in this state to hear me on this.

I have written about this even more than I have written about TFA. And it’s a place where I find common ground with some in reformy pro-TFA factions. If you don’t want to take the time to read what I’ve written, watch this and read this.

The idea behind this is well-intentioned but terribly misinformed. They think that kids can’t learn about science and social studies until they can read, that they have to focus on reading as a skill and then learn content. Yes, kids need to learn to decode. Decoding is a skill. Yes, kids should be presented with one-time mini lessons on reading strategies. But reading comprehension is not a skill; it’s not transferable. Reading comprehension depends on knowledge. So, if we cut science and social studies and other subject matter “to focus on reading,” the kids will not progress. They “can’t read” mostly because they’re not being taught about enough stuff. They will learn that they are bad at reading and that school is not interesting.

12. Literacy and Algebra Readiness Initiative (HB 2068)

As long as they avoid the pitfalls mentioned in item 5 above, this isn’t so bad as far as I can tell–it targets grades K-2 which are the younger de-coding grades.

As for the algebra part, I happen to be in the pro-algebra group, as in, I think it is necessary and I think people do use it in their everyday lives. Otherwise, I don’t know as much about math education except to say that the math SOLs seems to be far superior to the Language Arts ones. If you have thoughts, speak up (though I’m decided on algebra, so don’t waste your breath there).

13. Funding for Reading Specialists

Meh.

By now, you already know how I feel about teaching reading as a subject past second or third grade and why I think so many American kids struggle with reading, so I’ll spare you.

14. Kindergarten Readiness

I’m all for giving teachers for information and diagnostic tools to help them figure out where their students are, but I’d have to learn more about these particular tools and how long they take, if they’re developmentally appropriate, and if there a part of our wrong-headed accountability structure.

15.  Effective School-Wide Discipline

I’m in favor of giving teachers more training and practice in classroom management, but I don’t know what the particulars are of this disciplinary program.

16. All About Students

Blah, blah, blah, achievement gap. Blah, blah, blah, innovation. Blah, blah, blah, school choice.

This is All About Reforminess a la Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee, and ALEC.

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Update: I’m not sure why I didn’t notice this in the Governor’s agenda, but thanks to Kirsten Gray, a parent of two Richmond Public School parents and board member of the Alliance for Progressive Values, I just became aware of HB 2096, part of the goal of which is to create an “Opportunity Education Institution.” In any case, this bill seems like bad news. As Kirsten commented,

I do not trust this bill. This “board” is appointed. This “institution” is created by the governor and can take over any failing school (based on data from tests is my guess). We know most of these “failing” schools are predominately in poor areas serving families without means. The charters this “institution” puts in place aren’t likely to be charters created by parents and communities. No they are likely to roll in the “for profit” charters. I think they are banking on it. Read all the stuff in yellow in the second half of the bill.

“B. The Board shall supervise and operate schools in the Opportunity Educational Institution in whatever manner that it determines to be most likely to achieve full accreditation for each school in the Institution, including the utilization of charter schools and college partnership laboratory schools.”

It was reported and referred to the Appropriations Committee for budget concerns. Hopefully, that means the end of it.

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Rachel Levy is a writer, teacher, and parent who lives in Ashland, Virginia. With a license in Social Studies and ESOL, she has taught middle school, high school, pre-school, adults, as well as elementary school-aged children. Her education writing has appeared at TeachHub.com, The Washington Post’s The Answer Sheet, Truthout, Education Week’s Teacher in a Strange Land, The Core Knowledge Blog, Blue Virginia, and So Educated. She normally blogs about education at All Things Education. Follow her on twitter: @RachelAnneLevy. All opinions are her own.

Virginia has allowed charters since 1998, but despite some improvements, the legal and operating framework remains hostile, and today only three of Virginia’s nearly 1,900 public schools are charter schools.

Virginians note with pride the state’s historic role as a leader for quality public education. In the past two decades, Virginia has earned a reputation for its willingness to undertake bold reform with the implementation of the Standards of Learning and Standards of Quality. But in recent years, the commonwealth has lost substantial ground in both of these areas.

As its reform momentum has slowed in recent years, Virginia students have slipped backward toward national averages for student achievement, and pernicious minority achievement gaps have grown, not only in cities but in suburbs as well.

Two in five black eighth-graders here scored at woeful “below basic” levels in reading and math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) last year, while only one in six of their white classmates did. The record for on-time graduation rates reveals even wider gaps between black and Latino students and their white classmates. Passing rates for the Standards of Learning told a similar story.

Nationally, charters have proven to be especially effective in such areas as reversing minority achievement gaps and raising graduation rates, where they are well-suited for Virginia’s current challenges. Virginia is in the enviable position of being able to draw from the best practices of top-performing charter schools to add new options with proven track records at addressing particular educational needs.

“In order for Virginia students to have the skills needed to compete in a global economy, our educators need to have every available tool to help them improve achievement and try innovative approaches, and today that means having enhanced options to use charter schools,” observes James Dyke, who served as Gov. L. Douglas Wilder’s secretary of education.

Interest in charter schools has continued to grow across Virginia, and the number of high-quality charter applications has increased. These currently include promising charter school projects in counties including Rockbridge, Fairfax, Prince Edward and Loudoun.

Charters are contracts between the school and its authorizing agency, where students’ academic performance targets are agreed upon in exchange for limited autonomy and a bargained-down share of the per-pupil funding.

Because Virginia’s laws offer charters little operational autonomy, and no guarantee of funding levels on which to project future years’ budgets, relatively few serious applicants have chosen to make the investment of time and resources required to produce a high-quality charter plan.

Currently, Virginia is one of very few states where only local school boards have the authority to open and close charters. This arrangement tends to make charter deliberations needlessly confrontational, political and reliant on district office staff lacking in charter school experience. A system where charter school applicants have multiple paths to approval offers numerous advantages, and helps deter school districts from rejecting charters as a matter of policy.

Many of the nation’s most famous charter schools have achieved their success with college preparatory schools in urban settings. But quality charters come in all shapes and sizes.

Blended online learning programs that integrate class time at computers with traditional classroom teaching are demonstrating remarkable efficiency of instruction and could be particularly effective serving families on Virginia’s military installations. The strong character education program offered by Michigan’s National Heritage Academies schools could appeal to many Virginia families.

Effective charter schools can be homegrown as well, and programs like Charlottesville-based Core Knowledge schools or Richmond’s highly successful Patrick Henry Charter School of Science and Arts could also provide valuable models.

There has been consensus among the recommendations of charter school experts and leaders when asked what Virginia would need to change to enable them to succeed here. These recommendations include:

• Empower the state board of education to review and approve charters. Alternately, a meaningful appeals process for opening and closing decisions would ensure charter leaders (and philanthropists) that their continued operation would depend more on their results than on local budget or political dynamics.
• Allow autonomy for charters to select, hire and manage their own employees.
• Provide equitable funding for charter students, and access to vacant school buildings.

Ultimately, the success in making Virginia a friendly environment for high-performing charter schools will depend heavily on the details of the plan and how it is implemented. But for now, these next steps will be the most critical.s its reform momentum has slowed in recent years, Virginia students have slipped backward toward national averages for student achievement, and pernicious minority achievement gaps have grown, not only in cities but in suburbs as well.

Don Soifer is Executive Vice President of the Lexington Institute, a nonpartisan think tank headquartered in Arlington, VA.

Each day this week I have presented a response to different parts of Governor McDonnell’s “Opportunity to Learn” education agenda. On Monday, I gave an introduction and talked about the goal of advancing literacy in the early grades. On Tuesday, I wrote about implications for repealing the unpopular Kings Dominion Law. On Wednesday, I talked about proceeding thoughtfully and carefully with expanding choice in the Commonwealth. On Thursday, I discussed evaluating principals and teachers. This concluding post brings me to the end and back to the place where I started in the first post of this series: Money.

It looks like McDonnell has some great funding initiatives in his agenda, but it’s hard to reconcile them with the major budget cuts and bleak fiscal outlook across the Commonwealth.  Every day I read a new tale of budget woes, possible layoffs of essential staff from school districts across Virginia including Culpepper, Norfolk, Richmond, York, Hanover, Pittsylvania, and Northern Virginia, and of cuts to essential education programs such as preschool for low-income kids.

I understand that a big part of budget woes stem from the mandated VRS contributions that localities now have to make. The Virginia Association of School Superintendents has said that the proposal to put $2.2 billion in Virginia’s retirement system is a big cause of the draconian cuts. At my most cynical, I think that McDonnell is doing this here and now to make the benefits we give our public servants look unsustainable and to starve the public schools of funds so that they’re set up to fail.  At my most charitable, I think  the Governor is understandably nervous about having debt and wants to remedy the situation ASAP and that he doesn’t understand that while there is always room to be more efficient, quality education is not something that can be done well on the cheap.

The public has to realize that retirement benefits are not extras; rather, they are deferred compensation. They have been promised as part of an agreement the state made with employees. The problem with striving to replenish the VRS funds all at once versus gradually is that it will cause another bigger and longer-term problem: compromising the quality of education districts in Virginia can provide. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul.

We will never improve our public education system by starving it of funds and pushing it to a breaking point. Redlining our schools is the wrong thing to do. Unfortunately, in this context, money matters. The government is not a business; schools are not businesses and they shouldn’t be run as such–that’s for car dealerships and supermarkets.  While there are always ways to reduce wasteful spending, providing a quality public education to ALL of Virginia’s children is inherently inefficient. But, in Virginia (as in every state), it’s required by law and it’s what good governments in healthy, democratic societies do. Fiscal conservatism is one thing, fiscal lunacy is quite another. As former Harvard President Derek Bok put it, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”

So, Virginians, where should we go from here?

The VASS (Virginia Association of School Superintendents) set a fine example by presenting their vision in an education reform blueprint. Why not convene task forces and associations of other stakeholders from across Virginia to present their ideas? Teachers and principals from across could tell us what they specifically need to better support and evaluate all teachers, to attract and retain high-performing teachers, and to remove those who shouldn’t be in the classroom. Parents could discuss what improvements and changes they’d like to see for their children’s education and what they value in schools. Educators from colleges and universities in Virginia need to be consulted: What deficits are K-12 students arriving with and what are K-12 schools doing well? Virginia-based industries should also be called on to let us know what kind of education and skills they need potential employees to have. Virginia’s scholars could examine the curriculum and practices in schools and let us know where the gaps in the curricula we’re presenting exist and how we can improve our pedagogy. School finance experts could let us know what’s smart spending, what’s wasteful, as well as what’s possible. Finally, we need to hear from a diverse group of students about the kind of learning communities they’d like to be a part of.

I urge Virginia’s governor and legislature to resist the pressure to bow to the interests of big money and lobbyists, to hear their constituents, the taxpayers, and the people of Virginia. The Governor and the legislature must do what’s best for quality education for Virginia’s public school students, in line with what their parents envision for them, with what our professional educators say is sound practice, with what Virginia’s communities and industries need to grow and thrive, and with what’s best for the future of the Commonwealth.

The next and most crucial step will be for Virginia’s politicians to listen.

Welcome to Part IV of my response to Governor McDonnell’s “Opportunity to Learn” education agenda–we’re almost to Friday, folks! On Monday, you read about advancing literacy. On Tuesday, you read about extending the school day/ year. Yesterday, you read my thoughts on expanding school choice in Virginia. Today, I’ll share my thoughts about McDonnell’s ideas for evaluating, retaining, and recruiting teachers.

The “Enhancing Teacher Quality, Strengthening Teacher and Administrator Contracts, Evaluation Policies and Streamline Grievance Process” section proposes to establish annual contracts and evaluations for teachers and principals. This, the McDonnell administration says will, “allow for a new evaluation system to work by attracting and retaining the top-tier educators in our K-12 public schools.” The agenda also calls to streamline the grievance process. As long as due process is built in (and no, merely saying, “don’t worry there will be plenty of due process” is not sufficient) no one I’ve heard of disagrees with streamlining the grievance process. However, McDonnell’s ideas to “enhance” teacher quality and “strengthen” contracts are more controversial.

First of all, teachers and principals should be evaluated yearly and observed and given feedback even more often. The biggest question, though, is how this will be done, based on what, and with what consequences. Will teachers be evaluated with an eye on craft and content or with an eye on test scores? Will the goal be to improve practice and strengthen curriculum? Will the goal be to support teachers? Or will the eye be on standardized test scores parading as real achievement and learning, de-selection, and playing gotcha? If the eye is narrowly focused on boosting test scores and de-selection, we’re going to lose good teachers and fail to attract new ones.

Another problem is that this walks and talks like yet another unfunded mandate. Virginia principals barely have enough time to do the evaluations they have. Furthermore, while there are certainly incompetent principals out there, at least one reason that incompetent teachers aren’t removed faster is because principals have so much to do. Has Governor McDonnell ever been inside a public school principal’s office and seen the students waiting outside, the stacks of unfinished paperwork, and heard the phone ringing off the hook? Has he ever tried to schedule an evaluation? Or how about re-schedule an evaluation?

Streamlining the grievance process may eliminate some paperwork, but mandating yearly high-stakes evaluations without making other changes will merely replace it, and then some. Tennessee recently changed their teacher evaluation process without thinking it through and it’s been a nightmare for principals and a largely useless, bordering on absurd, process for many teachers. If we want all principals and teachers to be evaluated once a year, we had better fund it, staff it, and make sure the process is fair and that the tool itself is useful.

I would add a peer evaluation component to the evaluation process. I’m not quite comfortable with students doing high-stakes evaluations, but I certainly think collecting and implementing feedback from students should be a required part of a teacher’s evaluation process. I’d like to see master educators in each school who evaluate and mentor other teachers while still teaching some courses of their own. Also, we need to diversify evaluations; what a first-year teacher needs is different from what a veteran needs and what a math teacher needs is different from what an art teacher needs.

For ideas about where Virginia divisions might go, Massachusetts teacher Kim Marshall, who has published a book on the subject, has some great ideas for better evaluations. Montgomery County, Maryland, has had great success with their peer-review teacher evaluation process. Two districts in California have done well revamping their teacher evaluation systems by integrating support and evaluation. Finally, Accomplished California  Teachers put together an important report about improving teacher evaluations, with one of the authors, NBCT David Cohen, offering some further insights on the process here.

As for one-year contracts, I don’t see how using them (which by the way will not be a big change in some Virginia districts as budget woes have forced many principals in recent years to offer one-year contacts) strengthens contracts. In fact, it sounds more like weakening contracts (and like spinning one’s education agenda). I also don’t see how offering them exclusively will attract top-tier educators. Here’s a job. Please leave the one you have or give up other opportunities for this one-year contract. Now run along and get those test scores up. I don’t see that as a winning recruitment strategy. Moreover, as Chad Sansing pointed out, it’s not really going to grow the profession as much as it will offer “jobs.”

One-year contracts will also undermine stability and continuity in communities. Of course I want my children to have the best teachers possible, but the fact that the educators at the schools my kids attend have gotten to know our community, our family, and my children as learners, facilitates that. Most of them and most of the educators I have worked with work long hours with too much to do. I, for one, don’t want to reward them with the prospect of one-year contracts and I don’t want the uncertainty of not knowing which educators will be back each year. In these hard economic times, Virginia’s families have enough uncertainty already.

I’ve also heard McDonnell wants to use merit pay. I was glad that his administration took a more cautious route and merely piloted merit pay before going all out with it. And as I explained here, I think we need to raise salaries across the board, as well as differentiate pay more than we do currently, based on a combination of  responsibility and experience. Educators who lead extra-curriculars, or who take on mentoring, peer evaluating, or more responsibilities should be paid more. Also, we should pay teachers more who work in hard to staff schools with more challenging populations. They have to work harder and have more difficult jobs. Also, it is harder to attract STEM people. It just is. I am not a STEM person and I don’t like that they would get paid more, but I understand we can’t ignore labor market forces. Nevertheless, merit pay should not be based on a boost in test scores and nor has such merit pay proven to raise achievement in other places. As it has in DC, such an approach easily turns into: Here, you teach the more affluent kids who score higher on standardized tests. Congratulations! Here’s some extra money.

By all means, let’s re-imagine and then revamp our evaluation tools and processes in Virginia. Let’s pay educators more and let’s attract the best ones we can to our state. But let’s do so in ways that are fair, meaningful, and cognizant of the unique roles educators play. A hasty switch to annual high-stakes evaluations, one-year contracts, and merit pay based on standardized test scores will increase paperwork and teacher turnover and lower morale without growing the profession or improving the quality of teaching. We can do better by our educators and by our students.

Rachel Levy is a writer, teacher, and parent who lives in Ashland, Virginia. With a license in Social Studies and E.S.O.L. (English for Speakers of Other Languages), she has taught middle school, high school, as well as elementary school-aged children, preschoolers, and adults. Her education writing has appeared at TeachHub.com, The Washington Post’s The Answer Sheet, and Truthout. She normally blogs about education at All Things Education and is a contributor to The Core Knowledge Blog, Blue Virginia, and So Educated. Follow her on twitter: @RachelAnneLevy. All opinions are her own.

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I’ve been busy responding to our governor’s education agenda. On Monday, I wrote about the initiative to advance literacy. On Tuesday, I wrote about possible implications of repealing the Kings Dominion Law. Today will be a much meatier post, about choice. I want to take a minute to acknowledge that school choice is a very thorny and complex issue; I do my best to approach it as such. To read a sampling of related posts on my blog, please go here.

In “Expanding Educational Options for Virginia’s Students,” McDonnell talks about virtual learning, charter schools, university lab schools, and granting tax credits to businesses that contribute to private school scholarships for low-income students. Many of these ideas seem to have been borrowed from Florida. One recent Richmond Times-Dispatch op-ed praised education reform in Florida, but Florida has hardly proceeded carefully. Virtual schools have a very mixed record there with some schools giving out worthless diplomas. The McKay Scholarship Program, intended to give vouchers to parents of special needs, though a savior for many who know how to navigate the choices, has been a harrowing experience for others “pioneering” an industry of fraud and chaos. As for charter schools, those in Florida enroll far fewer poor and special needs students. Furthermore, they operate as a parallel school system controlled largely by for-profit management companies and private landlords with very little oversight and too much corruption. Finally, by their own measurements, charter schools in Florida aren’t getting the results advocates said they would. Virginia’s education system and efforts to reform it would be better served if we learned from Florida’s mistakes rather than if we imitated them.

Using technology to expand learning spaces, methods, and opportunities is exciting and well worth exploring, but as with extending the school year or day, it needs to be done thoughtfully, based on evidence and with strong considerations of design. I was incredulous when a high school teacher in my district told me about p.e. as an on-line class, but when she explained to me the requirements and curriculum, I changed my tune. With that in mind, as we explore virtual education options, we should first tap the knowledge of our in-state resources. We need to look at what our districts are already doing in this arena and learn from their successes and failures. Furthermore, we should consult with Virginia-based virtual learning scholars such as VCU’s Jon Becker. Even then, we need to be very careful that virtual learning is offered for the good of students and not merely for the benefit of those with a financial stake in the virtual education industry. Furthermore, we need to ensure that for Virginia students, any virtual learning is quality learning–for some caveats, see here, here, here, and here.

As for charter schools, if the goal is to offer more choices and further racial and socio-economic integration, magnet programs such as have been started in Miami-Dade County, Florida and Wake County, North Carolina, seem to have relatively stronger and more stable track records. We should also consider merging some of our urban and suburban school districts such as has been done in the afore-mentioned Wake County and also recently in Memphis, Tennessee, challenges notwithstanding. Montgomery County, Maryland, offers a magnet school/ choice-system of sorts at their traditional high schools–an effort worth studying. Each district in Virginia should examine its structure and programs–magnet schools and programs, Governor’s Schools, alternative schools, vocational and trade schools, and even course offerings per school–to make sure it’s offering the most options possible in the most inclusive and accessible way possible, towards meeting the needs of ALL students.

After this, if the people of the Commonwealth decide they do want more charters specifically, then we must make sure they’re done right: initiated and managed by communities and educators and held accountable to the districts where they exist. Chad Sansing has a great post on this. As he describes the already existing charter schools in Virginia:

These schools matter to their students and communities and serve as examples of grass roots start-up efforts in Virginia schools. Because of their local origins and capacities to address local needs, these schools might not “scale up”, but the community-based processes used in their development are definitely replicable.

Districts, for their part, need to stop being hostile to groups of parents and educators who want to try something different, lest they drive them into the arms of profit-minded and unaccountable outsiders. Finally, while charters such as Richmond’s Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts were started with a mind towards more integration, we must keep in mind that nationally charters are leading to increased segregation.

One final thought on charters: They will only be as “innovative” as high-stakes-testing and accountability schemes allow them to be. Schools will only be as good as what we hold them accountable for. Most of the glowing reports about Patrick Henry, for example, in the same Richmond Times-Dispatch op-ed cited earlier, glow about their test scores:

Recently, Richmond’s first charter school (and the state’s first elementary charter), the Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts, announced that its students surpassed school district and state averages in every subject on the Standards of Learning tests in its first year. In fact, every group of its students (white, black, economically disadvantaged) outperformed both district and state, an accomplishment made more impressive by the fact that the school teaches a more truly diverse population of students than any other in the city.

Test scores certainly give us some information about how a school is doing and we can glean some other useful information from them, but what’s more important is what kids are actually learning (curriculum) and how they’re being taught (pedagogy or instruction). If we keep doing the same thing we’ve been doing for the past ten years and focus on scores on limited and narrow standardized multiple-choice tests, instead of on what is actually being taught and learned and how, education in our state will not progress or innovate, and our students won’t engage in meaningful, challenging learning, whether they’re in traditional schools or charters.

If we’re going to expand choice in Virginia, we need to do it with two goals in mind. First, we should make choice as fair, equitable, and democratic as possible. Exclusion of special needs students and English Language Learners, and increased racial and socioeconomic segregation should not be the outcome of increased school choice. Second, the choice provided should be diverse options between different schools, rather than a competition to get the best test scores. Increased choice could be among programs that provide rich and meaningful learning and quality teaching along different dimensions (such as language, science, or arts magnet schools) while meeting the needs of all students. Or choice could simply be among schools beholden to the same corrupting incentives that undermine real student learning  in our current system, which means having many poor choices, which, frankly, is no choice at all.

Rachel Levy is a writer, teacher, and parent who lives in Ashland, Virginia. With a license in Social Studies and E.S.O.L. (English for Speakers of Other Languages), she has taught middle school, high school, as well as elementary school-aged children, preschoolers, and adults. Her education writing has appeared at TeachHub.com, The Washington Post’s The Answer Sheet, and Truthout. She normally blogs about education at All Things Education and is a contributor to the Core Knowledge Blog, Blue Virginia, and So Educated. Follow her on twitter: @RachelAnneLevy. All opinions are her own.

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Yesterday, I posted the first post in a series of five in response to Governor McDonnell’s recently announced education agenda, entitled, “Opportunity to Learn.” The first post provided an introduction and discussed McDonnell’s ideas to advance literacy.

Another major piece of Governor McDonnell’s agenda included “Reducing Mandates on Local School Divisions,” which in this case means a repeal of the “Kings Dominion Law.” In substance, this is mostly uncontroversial and seems to make sense, i.e., letting districts decide how to set their calendars. Some have made the leap to, “the Governor is pushing a longer school year,” but so far, I don’t see it. Many school districts don’t like the law, and thus the Governor wants to repeal it.

Now, I’m in a bit of a bind here because my county, the home of Kings Dominion (otherwise known as The Promised Land among the under-10 set in my house) is opposed to repeal of the law as it would mean a big loss of revenue in particular for them. Given our bleak budget outlook, particularly for education, we need that revenue. Of course, there are (horror of horrors) other reasonable ways to raise revenues. Also, it is rather ironic that as the current local political climate is infused with cries for smaller government and fewer mandates, some seem to want an exception made for the mandate that helps them. Sigh.

Back to the topic at hand, if the idea is in the long run to reorganize the school year and extend the school year and/or school days, it needs to be done thoughtfully. While doing so would certainly benefit many kids and I bet many working families in Virginia would welcome it, the most important thing is not adding more time but rather what is done with the added time (or even with the time we already have . . .).

If a longer school year and day means more test prep, more narrow focus on reading strategies and math drills, then Virginians should say: No, thank you. However, if we’re talking about more time for meaningful and interesting project-based learning, extra-curriculars, clubs, school newspapers, unstructured play, P.E., sports teams, science, social studies, art, music, theater, practical skills (cooking, financial literacy, etc.), foreign languages, gardening, computer science, robotics, entrepreneurship, etc., then we should say resoundingly: Yes, please!

Furthermore, any longer day or school year must be matched with increased pay, staffing, and resources. Otherwise, we’ll have yet another unfunded mandate. And no, throwing some cheap math workbooks at teachers does not count as increasing resources, nor will piling such activities on to the school day improve the quality of education Virginia’s children receive.

If we’re going to extend the school year and day in Virginia, we need to do so in a way that’s smart, fair, and that will provide meaningful and rich learning experiences for students.

Rachel Levy is a writer, teacher, and parent who lives in Ashland, Virginia. With a license in Social Studies and E.S.O.L. (English for Speakers of Other Languages), she has taught middle school, high school, as well as elementary school-aged children, preschoolers, and adults. Her education writing has appeared at TeachHub.com, The Washington Post’s The Answer Sheet, and Truthout. She normally blogs about education at All Things Education and is a contributor to The Core Knowledge Blog, Blue Virginia, and So Educated. Follow her on twitter: @RachelAnneLevy. All opinions are her own.

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On Monday, January 9th, Virginia Governor McDonnell announced his education agenda, entitled, “Opportunity to Learn.” This has been covered by The Virginia Education Report, The Washington Post, as well as commented on by many throughout the state (For Chad Sansing’s excellent commentary, read here. Or, for a partial listing of other reactions, see here.) I am going to offer my reactions in a series of posts starting with this one.

Before I comment on the agenda, I want to reiterate a point that Chad Sansing made in his piece:

McDonnell’s blueprint promises “a bold education proposal that will dramatically increase money for Virginia’s teachers and students by $480 million a year.” Meanwhile, his budget plans also include “hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts, including to child-care subsidies for low-income families and to health and parent-education programs for poor pregnant women.” Families who need social and support services to help their kids attend school and access curriculum won’t benefit from McDonnell’s cuts.

I will return to issues of budgeting and funding in later posts but for now I’ll assert: We’re not going to succeed in improving education for low-income children with one hand if we’re squeezing their parents and communities with the other. As I explained here, single-issue advocacy is problematic and students don’t lead single-issue lives. Furthermore, the more we deny help to those in need, the more needs our students will come to school with and the more resources our schools will need to adequately serve those students. And right now there is a growing number of people in need.

Now, on to the education agenda:

In the “Raise Standards – College Workforce and Readiness” section, the McDonnell administration proposes, among other things (“other things” being streamlining diploma requirements, positive youth development, and expanding dual enrollment programs–none of which I have any objections to, so far), advancing literacy. McDonnell wants to make sure all third graders can read before they move on to fourth grade. That is a worthy goal, but I’m not sure that his way of achieving it is sound. McDonnell wants to pay kids who learn to read. Harvard Researcher Roland Fryer tried something similar to this, and it didn’t really work. If kids aren’t reading by third grade, it’s not (good grief!) because we’re not paying them. Nor do I think the strategy of waiting until third grade and then simply holding kids back will help much–it’s too reactive.

If we want struggling readers to struggle less, we need to do two things:

1) Invest in reading intervention programs that work and reach out to struggling readers long before third grade. Many of the children who are likely to struggle with reading would benefit from the very preschool programs McDonnell is looking to cut, so if he wants to advance literacy he should reconsider cutting those programs. One program that my school district successfully uses and that helped my own son when he was struggling to learn to read was Reading Recovery. Such programs are expensive and require investment and commitment. (UPDATE: After I drafted this post, I read that McDonnell proposed adding $8.2 million to the budget for early reading programs. This is good news, though I’d want to know more about the efficacy of the specific programs being funded and the real estimated impact of the dollars allotted.)

2) We need to spend much less time teaching reading as a subject and teaching reading strategies beyond their utility and much more time teaching content or subject matters, such as literature, science, social studies, p.e., art music, foreign languages, technical education, etc. Yes, most kids need to be explicitly taught to decode and yes, to a point reading strategies are useful. Of course, content should be taught as reading and writing intensive. However, literacy is largely representative of someone’s background and content knowledge, and knowledge of vocabulary and does not develop or improve without it. As the University of Virginia’s own Dan Willingham says, teaching content is teaching reading. (It’s also much, much more meaningful and interesting for kids.) My regular readers know that I talk about this ad nauseum. In case you’re new to my writing on education, here are some posts that elaborate further: here, here, and here.

You know what I’ve found, as a parent and in my observations of my kids’ teachers, is the best reward for kids who are working hard to learn to read or who are already reading? More books. Let’s reward students for reading by giving them more books.

UPDATE: In a misguided effort to get Virginia third graders to do better on reading and math tests, State Senator John Miller (D-Newport News) wants teachers to spend even more time on reading and math and even less on science and social studies. And he wants to do so to get test scores up in fifth grade (not necessarily because it will mean better education). Ughh. Even supporters of NCLB say the bill is too limited in scope by just focusing on math and reading. Sorry, Senator Miller, but this bill will take us in the complete wrong direction!

Rachel Levy is a writer, teacher, and parent who lives in Ashland, Virginia. With a license in Social Studies and E.S.O.L. (English for Speakers of Other Languages), she has taught middle school, high school, as well as elementary school-aged children, preschoolers, and adults. Her education writing has appeared at TeachHub.com, The Washington Post’s The Answer Sheet, and Truthout. She normally blogs about education at All Things Education and is a contributor to The Core Knowledge Blog, Blue Virginia, and So Educated. Follow her on twitter: @RachelAnneLevy. All opinions are her own.

Communities In Schools is a forty year old, nationwide organization dedicated to two things – preventing children from dropping out of school and helping them graduate. A state-wide public-private 501(c)(3) organization, CIS identifies at-risk students in low performing schools. These at-risk students are then surrounded with coordinated community support services so that they stay in school, graduate and obtain meaningful post-secondary training, education, or work. Throughout CIS’s forty-year journey, they have learned that students who do not get these services tend to drop out; those who do get them tend to stay in school. So, to use a business term, Communities In Schools is a “leverage point” to enable access to resources by those who need them most, and at a delivery point where we know they can be accessed effectively — in school.

Having served 15,025 students in nearly 40 schools last year at a cost of $154 per student, CIS has been asked to replicate their successful program in other areas ofVirginia.

Plans for targeted areas of expansion include:

• Expanding local programs in Hampton to a regional program that includes Portsmouth and Norfolk Public Schools and is slated to begin serving students in the fall of 2013.
• As the result of a feasibility study by a southwest Virginia task force (CISSWV), eleven school districts in the area have been targeted for a regional Communities in Schools program to most efficiently aid at-risk students in that area.
• Also, there is high interest for Communities In Schools of Virginia to develop regional programs in Petersburg, Northern Virginia, and Southside Virginia. Many of the Superintendents of these target areas are enthusiastic about developing a public-private partnership.

The requested funding dollars would be used to develop Communities In Schools model programs in the target areas; provide technical assistance to assure adherence to national total quality standards; develop a community base of support; and, develop a board of directors and other local leadership.

Several years ago, I toured a Communities In School (CIS) site in Richmond, Virginia. Throughout my tour, I was amazed at the amount of support given to students, and the unique partnerships that were developed to assist student with reaching the goal of graduating from high school.

Most of all, I was impressed that decisions within the program were data driven, and the approach used to educate these students was a proven research-based process. Since then, I have been a strong advocate for bringing CIS to Southwest Virginia.

A high dropout rate is one of the most persistent social ills with which our society must deal. According to a June report by the Alliance for Excellent Education, if Virginia were to reduce the dropouts from 2010 by half (16,200), they would likely add $207 million in increased earnings, $19 million in tax revenue and $150 million in home sales. Failure to tackle this issue effectively means our public education system will be mired in a cycle of underperformance for the indefinite future. These statistics speak only to the cumulative impact of dropping out; the costs to individuals are staggering as well.

As chairman of the Communities In Schools Task Force in Southwest Virginia, I am excited about the possibility of bringing Communities In Schools of Virginia to our region for many reasons – one of which is pure economics. According to that same June report by the Alliance for Excellent Education on the effects of reducing the class of 2008 dropouts by 50%, after earning a high school diploma, fifty-two (52) percent of these new graduates would likely continue on to pursue some type of postsecondary education. An educated population is a large driver of economic development.

Scientific research showed that the Communities In Schools’ model works. It both reduces dropout rates and increases on-time graduation rates. Through the CIS data-based approach, they can guarantee accountability in every aspect of this program. CIS will track and report on their effectiveness with a set of metrics for measuring success. Thus, CIS is not offering an experiment, or “a wing and a prayer”, but rather a proven, nationally tested and replicable program. Communities In Schools is a cost-effective and accountable program with a 40-year track record addressing a problem that is a drain on our economy.

CIS can provide support that will aid in full and complete employment of our young work force. Furthermore, accreditation ratings for 2011-2012 are the first to include a Graduation and Completion Index (GCI) for high schools. This new accountability measure was approved by the Board of Education in 2009. School districts across the Commonwealth could use a research based program with the longevity and success achieved by CIS to provide the tools needed to increase graduation rates. Therefore, I enthusiastically support the Governor’s funding of Communities in Schools, and the CIS approach to dropout prevention.

Thomas Brewster, Ed. D. is an educator who currently serves as a member of the Tazewell County Board of Supervisors and Chairs the CISSWVA Task Force. Brewster served as a member of the Virginia State Board of Education under Governor Tim Kaine.

It’s typical education budget double-speak. For example:

McDonnell’s blueprint promises “a bold education proposal that will dramatically increase money for Virginia’s teachers and students by $480 million a year.” Meanwhile, his budget plans also include “hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts, including to child-care subsidies for low-income families and to health and parent-education programs for poor pregnant women.” Families who need social and support services to help their kids attend school and access curriculum won’t benefit from McDonnell’s cuts.

Furthermore, more than a fifth of McDonnell’s proposed bump will go to higher education. Part of the bump will also come from McDonnell’s mandate that districts spend 65% of their budgets on instruction. Other bits and pieces will likely come from double-dipping and cross-promoting of economic development as education spending.

At the same time those in college and business benefit, kids struggling to make it through school lose out: K-12 public education will actually suffer cuts to support staff funding, putting a double-whammy on positions like teachers-aides. As salaries for such positions go down, qualified and motivated aides will have to find more or other work, and it will be difficult to attract equally strong candidates to those positions. Teachers aides absolutely make a difference in the lives of the children whom they serve because they more often act as students’ aides and advocates who know their clients better than teachers do and who form the kinds of selfless relationships with kids teachers struggle with because of their “authority” and responsibility to “discipline” children who act and learn outside the norm. So $480 million doesn’t buy those kids jack in their classrooms.

To put it another way, neither 4% of the money I spend on materials in my classroom nor 4% of the money I make as a classroom teacher would buy 1 site license for a reading intervention program like Read 180. (For comparison, look here and here). I can’t imagine that the money school shifts into instruction will be given to teachers, but if it is, it will be used to save positions, not to boost salaries. Instead, I predict McDonnell’s reallocated millions will be used to buy stuff. When faced with the kind of on-going budget crunch out schools face – the kind that freezes salaries and cuts positions – it’s easier to buy programs that promise results than it is to recruit teachers who live and breathe to teach past the tests. The money will go right out schools’ doors into private coffers.

Moreover, the pressure to keep instructional spending at 65% could accelerate another piece of the governor’s agenda – making the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) a defined-contribution system It should be noted that before that can happen, McDonnell is shoring up the VRS. By mandating 65% spending on instruction, McDonnell can begin to hamstring divisions into a accepting defined contribution systems.

If schools systems have to spend a set percentage on instruction, it would help them budget if they had a defined contribution to make to employees’ retirements each year. Given our whirly-gig economy, that might not be a bad thing for the fiscal health of the commonwealth or of many school divisions. However, the bigger issue here is the continued miscommunication between pop culture and school culture. Educators remember the unspoken social contract between them and society – we will educate your children and take on all the intellectual, emotional, and manual labor that requires in exchange for an arguably low salary, benefits that keep us from having to work other jobs, and time away from school to let go of last year and prepare for the next. (And let’s remember that school is stuck with an agrarian calendar – teachers didn’t ask for the summer off; society told them to take it; let communities support year-long schooling and it will happen; teacher salary and summer vacation should be a non-issue).

Educators remember that contract; money does not. Populist political memory is short and focused on survival. Therefore, an responsible education proposal for Virginia would table retirement and spending mandates until the commonwealth is in better fiscal health and can have a reasonable discussion about how to change school for the better. Teachers don’t want to lose benefits they have been given since the 1940s. If teachers do lose their current benefits, not only do they lose the value of those benefits, but teachers’ unions have one less cause to champion – one less cause around which to rally their members and collect their dues.

Retirement costs need to be addressed; they should be negotiated in good faith, not legislated under fiscal duress. And, frankly, unions should champion exceptional teaching and learning – not labor issues. If society valued teachers’ work more, compensation would be less of an issue. Because the unions and their right-to-work-state equivalents concentrate on labor, they are letting neighborhood schools lose market share in the public imagination.

I look at it this way:

Educators look back. Politicians look at the present. The people want something – anything – better for the future. Until educators leap-frog politicians, politicians’ proposals will be closer to the hearts of the people than teacher are, even though the plight of our teachers is the plight of our students.

So where does all of that leave us?

Right here in Virginia with a likely education budget that does more harm than good to us. The big us. The Commonwealth of Virginia us.

And I get it.

We all want something more – more money, more stability, more assurances, more results. We especially want all of these things during times of crisis. We can afford more ambiguity when we can all afford more, period.

But at some point, we in Virginia have to decide if we want something more or if we want something else.

Are we schooling for higher scores? Higher graduation rates? More students enrolled in the commonwealth’s university system? More revenue, more earnings, more stuff? On one hand, we should be schooling for these things foe our students’ sakes – the more students we help access higher earnings, the more graduates will be able to afford material comfort. The more material comfort our graduates enjoy, the better able they will be to support their schools and communities.

On the other hand, what does any of that buy us that we don’t already have? Another generation sold on a an obsolete industrial model of education? Under-funded, over-mandated public schools staffed by embattled employees in competition with extra-local corporations – and I’m not even talking about charter management organization here (CMOs). I’m talking about the companies that sell the products we buy with tax-payer money that we tell salaried teachers to use in place of their own plans in traditional public schools and the products that bankroll travel for public education officials, including our Virginia superintendent.

More spendings and more savings won’t change our schools for the better. The money is a red herring – McDonnell, for example, is harping on allegedly questionable spending that amounts in nearly each case to tenths of a percent of the money he proposes to spend on education (not that truly wasteful spending deserves a free pass). He’s also belaboring a 59% increase in the state department of education’s budget from 2000 to 2008 – which is the same window of time during which we instituted a battery of SOL tests, the student information system products needed to keep track of test results, and the offices and services necessary to administer sanctions to schools put into “improvement” by failing to meet Adequate Yearly Progress under No Child Left Behind. The governor’s rhetoric here as is not big on causality.

The money is an uncritical mess; it’s a blunt political construct – shaped by special interests and the exigencies of our election cycles – that doesn’t quite fit through the classroom door. We can’t talk over coffee with our kids’ teachers – or over cocoa with our kids – about hundreds of millions of dollars. However, we can talk about something else.

We can talk about teaching and learning. We can talk about the kinds of schools we see out past the event horizon of standardized testing. We can talk about what’s possible right now and how our choices shape the future.

Our talk about education has to stop being about what to count; it has to be about what to do.

For a fraction of what the commonwealth requires a school to spend, we could open community learning centers – or call them “schools” – that

• Put kids in contact with expert practitioners in every field.
• Teach kids to learn in their communities, instead of apart from them.
• Acknowledge and advance all kinds of learning.
• Put reading, writing, and math into the service of kids who are learning how to make real things and solve real problems.
• Partner meaningfully with parents.
• Serve all students in innovative ways.

What value do we add to our schools by tracking dozens of test scores per child for, give or take, a dozen years? What value do we add to our schools by taking up weeks – if not months – of the instructional time McDonnell wants to bolster with test preparation and administration? What value do our schools add to the lives of students who are assigned to class after class of test-preparation for fear that their scores might cost a school and its division their accreditation?

Because of the way we run our schools and validate our tests, we will always need kids to “fail” so that other can “succeed.” The money, despite its amount, as poorly as we’re spending it, won’t change that fact. I don’t mean to suggest that we can magic up all the resources we’ll ever need so that everyone lives like royalty. I mean to say that we could be spending what we do have in different ways and that – if we wanted to – we could get rid of the artificial scarcities created by zero-sum games like class rank (but maybe not state budgeting) by using government to support a broader range of educational opportunities than traditional school. Outstanding educations abound outside, as well as inside, traditional schools and universities.

Education in Virginia doesn’t need a new budget; it needs a new vision. Instead of something more, it needs something else – it needs us, not the commonwealth, to dare something worthy of in education reform so that our kids have can pursue a real-world education of obvious and lasting value to them to and their communities. We need schools – or learning spaces – that will help our kids manage their future better than we managed ours. The schools we have now are driven by the policies of people who were good at counting in school.

We need to send a mandate to our leaders to transform education. We need to stop accepting our leaders’ mandates to transform kids into scores.

While it’s hard to lose sight of money in a budget season, it’s tragic to lose sight of what matters – of what stays possible out past Wednesday night.

Chad Sansing teaches humanities at a Virginia charter school and blogs on reforming classroom practice and democratic education.