Entrepreneurism is the Key to Quality Teachers

Of all the problems facing public education in the inner city, no need is more pressing than placing quality teachers in the classrooms. I will narrow the focus to high schools, where I believe the opportunity to develop an innovative, passionate, intelligent, and risk taking faculty is most attainable and most pressing.

The centerpiece of my reform idea is the American entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs have been the engine for economic growth and innovation since our nation’s founding, and I truly believe we can capture the spirit of entrepreneurs from Ben Franklin to Steven Jobs and apply those skills to the classroom.

I spent a considerable amount of time studying entrepreneurs, trying to find some common characteristics that define the successful entrepreneur, and I think I have done so. These characteristics can form the metrics to evaluate teachers and to “train” them to be exceptional teachers.

What I have found is that successful entrepreneurs demonstrate five characteristics: they are Passionate, they are well Organized, they are incredibly Knowledgeable about their product, they are Empowering with regard to the people they associate with in developing their work, and they are Resourceful in their ability to gather, organize, and utilize the materials essential to their craft.

Knowing this, we can then build the foundation for creating an exceptional faculty. First, these five metrics can be the basis for creating a system of remuneration that includes performance pay and/or performance ladders. Two things that have always bothered me about my former profession is the use of “years of service” and “degrees attained” as the basis for determining pay, and the lack of any true upward mobility to the profession. There is absolutely no correlation between having an advanced degree and being a better teacher, and treating all teachers with the same years of service the same is a slap in the face to every exceptional teacher; it in fact creates a disincentive for such teachers to continue putting in the time and effort associated with designing a quality “product.” It also “rewards” lazy and mediocre teachers by eliminating any financial pressure to elevate their work. It rewards those doing the minimum.

Using the “entrepreneurial metrics” I suggest, we can devise a system that not only holds teachers accountable for performance with their annual evaluations, something that is being instituted in New Jersey this year, but creates a foundations for rewarding excellent teachers by increasing their pay or promoting them up a “performance ladder” where such teachers will assume greater responsibilities and roles within the school commensurate with their superior abilities. Moving up such a ladder would also be supported with increased pay.

Implicit in the use of these metrics, and consistent with the spirit of entrepreneurism, would be the creation of a policy that gives teachers far greater academic freedom to design their own curriculum. Teachers would in essence start competing for students, so students would also have more freedom to choose course that reflect their own passions and interests. It would be up to the school, by learning more about the “consumer,” to try and align the passions and interests of the faculty with those of the student body.

This of course raises the issue of our state’s Core Curriculum Content Standards, something I consider one of the greatest tragedies in public education. I want to distinguish the CCCS with the currently popular national core standards. These national standards are by and large all skill based rather than content based, and I wholly agree that all high school classrooms should be integrating those core skills into their curriculum. I would argue that these core skills are far more important than any mandated content standards, which are unduly burdensome on teachers and should be greatly reduced. The academics creating these content standards have failed to distinguish between what students could learn, even should learn, and what they MUST learn.

Two more points are important. First, most adults forget almost all the content they learn in high school unless it is in some way connected to their college work, their personal interests, or their employment; it is much more likely they will remember the skills. The reasons for this are two- fold: the content is uninteresting or unconnected to their life, and the broad and onerous content requirements, the “cumulative progress indicators,” cannot be truly learned given the time constraints of the school year. There is a huge difference between being “taught” something and actually “learning” something. Learning is a time consuming process, and most curriculum is never taught in such a way that it can become part of a student’s long term memory. To truly assess learning would require the creation of any number of assessment tools, something that cannot be done today.

More to the point, these content standards are completely disconnected from what every high school student must know to be autonomous, independent, engaged, and knowledgeable citizens in our society. These standards, and the subsequent HSPA evaluation, are much too “college oriented” rather than societally oriented; making things worse is that the test only covers math and English, giving most teachers a “pass” from having to actually teach the CCCS. There is no accountability for the vast majority of teachers.

Scrapping the existing standards and HSPA, and replacing them with standards and tests that are far more relevant to “the real world,” will by consequence free up teachers to develop their own unique “products,” allowing them to express that aforementioned entrepreneurial spirit in the classroom. This would then be tied to a performance based system of evaluation and remuneration. Students will be the true beneficiaries of such a system, attending a school with a vibrant culture of learning steeped in the spirit of entrepreneurism.

In my next post I will turn my attention to new teachers, and how we should reach into our colleges and the workforce to find our future educators. This will be followed by a post explaining how to get our most important stakeholders, the parents, business community, and non-profits, into the fold to further enhance student learning. As the pieces fall in place, a solution to the tragedy that is urban education will come more in focus.

 

New Jersey Schools Under Siege?

There was an amazing amount of hyperbole on display in yesterday’s Trenton Times OpEd by Frank Breslin, “Laying Siege to New Jersey’s Public School System.” Breslin’s outrageous exaggerations and palpable cynicism regarding the intent of Governor Christie is unbecoming of a professional educator. Armed with no real facts, the article is little more than innuendo and gross oversimplifications.

The supposed “target” of the piece is charter schools, which Breslin characterizes as little more than “diploma mills” that have lost sense of their primary mission as laboratories for innovation. Breslin sees enemies everywhere, and this paranoia blinds him to the real problems facing our inner city schools in particular.

The Christie Administration’s main focus has been on the subject of accountability, and on that issue alone he deserves high marks. Setting in motion a system of performance review is a critical step, and while I agree with critics who believe that devising a fair system, one that utilizes qualitative as well as quantitative metrics, is problematic.

Breslin also bemoans efforts to encourage veteran teachers to consider early retirement as some kind of nefarious policy, but as one cog in the effort to get new teachers into our urban schools, early retirement is a reasonable position. Teachers have proven, for the most part, to be risk averse, and this is most evident- for different reasons I suspect- in our youngest and oldest teachers. Aversion to risk is a serious hindrance to innovation and reform, and anything we can do to encourage, and reward teachers to be risk takers are essential.

Charter schools will never, on their own, be able to provide broad reform to our education system in the current environment, where charters are seen as competitors rather than partners in the reform process. Individual families in the inner city do deserve the opportunity to send their children to quality schools, but rather than siphon off money, resources, and proactive families and students from the urban schools, I would rather the inner city public schools themselves be given the freedom to act like charter schools.

It is obvious to me that there is an unfortunate negative correlation between government intrusion and the performance of urban schools; greater government oversight and mandates has done nothing to improve performance in these schools, and in many cases performance has actually declined.

New Jersey public schools are not “under siege,” but they are being mismanaged, poorly staffed, unduly burdened by government, and resource poor. It will take comprehensive, holistic, iconoclastic solutions to improve the quality of instruction received by inner city students. The solutions to what ails our schools will be, in many cases, counterintuitive to conventional thinking, and that is a main reason that so little has been accomplished.

Rather than see charters as the enemy, Mr. Breslin should join me in calling for greater cooperation between our public and our charter schools, ; working together these schools can share ideas on “what works” and make a positive contribution to instruction and management.

More to the point, what public education requires for them to be successful is the adoption of a more entrepreneurial mindset. From management of the school to management of the classroom, we must kindle in our schools the entrepreneurial spirit that has proven so successful in our general economy.

In my next posting I will explore more deeply what it means to be an entrepreneurial educator, and how we can improve the quality of instruction delivered to our children in the inner city. This entrepreneurial spirit, when tied to essential reforms in our state curriculum and testing, and to the greater involvement of key stakeholders in our business and non-profit communities, holds the key to education’s future.

The Sincerity of Choice Advocates and the Failure of Urban Education

While I am, and will continue to be a strong advocate for charter schools, I have to tell you that some of the most ridiculous drivel I hear in the education reform movement comes from supporters of school choice. A great example is today’s Trenton Times Op-Ed by Chris Boyajian in favor of choice and the Opportunity Scholarship Act.

The idea behind the Act, allowing parents in low performing districts to send their kids to the out of district school of their choice, is all well and good, but in reality will only benefit a very small number of the children in poor school districts. I sympathize with these parents and their kids, they are doing what any good parent would do and advocating for their kids. What drives me crazy is that people like Mr. Boyajian somehow rationalize that this Act will somehow benefit the poor school district these children were attending. “The OSA will effect (sp!) positive change in chronically failing districts by providing students with the funds necessary to attend the school of their choice.” Huh? Am I missing something?

Mr.Boyajian leaves it to our imagination to figure out how siphoning off the supposed “better students,” and the tuition money that would follow them, will benefit the “chronically failing district.” Exactly how will the school benefit?

Choice advocates give nothing but lip service to the notion of improving underperforming districts. Their concern is not with the schools, but with the individual students and families. Unless you are going to trudge out the unsubstantiated claim that losing these students will somehow spur competition among schools to keep these students, and that competition is in fact a desirable strategy for improving schools, then choice advocates should drop the canard and stick to their primary position that it is individual students, not schools, that they care about.

Bills like the OSA are mere window dressing, school reform on the cheap. There is so much that is dysfunctional in New Jersey’s educational system that nothing short of a complete paradigm shift will be needed. The need for iconoclastic thinking has never been greater. Holistic solutions to inner city education are urgently needed. Disuniting the urban and suburban schools in the policy making process is critical. Improving communication between urban public and charter schools is vital. Integrating the business community directly into the learning process in the inner city is essential. Enticing the best and brightest among our college graduates into a career in teaching would reap huge benefits, as would interjecting performance pay and/or performance ladders into the remuneration process. And getting the grip and domineering presence of the State out of the urban schools is paramount. Is it just a coincidence that the performance of these schools has plateaued or decreased as the number of state mandates and directives has risen? I don’t think so.

Urban schools are as dissimilar from suburban schools as oranges are to apples. The need for career and college tracking, for its own unique core content standards, and for its own graduation assessment, are all justified by realities “on the ground.” Of the 100 worst performing schools in the State, 99 of them are from DFG A,B,or C and are located in our urban areas. 

We really need to take a sober look at why a district like West Windsor-Plainsboro is so successful, and why Trenton is a failure. Until we take an honest look at the differences, and they go beyond just wealth, we will never be able to honestly improve our worst schools. Getting into college, and especially a top tier college, is a pervasive goal of the families in WW-P, and the parents have the resources to help make that a possibility. College is not, nor should it be the driving force at Trenton High School. But our state curriculum and state assessments are all influenced by this goal, expounded by our President, that every child should have college in their future. This way of thinking is holding back true progress in our urban schools.

In this day and age of MOOCS (massive open online courses), the need for having college as the organizing principle for urban high schools is no longer necessary. Soon these MOOCS will be offering certificate programs that employers will look as favorably upon as a traditional degree, maybe even more so since “MOOC students” can be designing a curriculum from colleges across the globe, tailored to meet existing opportunities in the modern workplace.

Boy did I go off on a tangent, so let’s get back to the original point. Choice advocates should drop the insincere position that choice will improve the quality of failing schools. It’s not their policy goal and would never achieve that policy goal. Choice advocates sole concern is individual families, and there is nothing wrong with that. That is one of many reasons why I support charter schools.   

As one component of a comprehensive education reform strategy, Opportunity Scholarships are all well and good, but if that is seen to be a major piece of the puzzle then we’re in a lot of trouble.             

Open Lines of Communication Between Public and Charter Schools

As much as I applaud our Governor's administration for its efforts to address issues of accountability and the quality of instruction, I remain adament that nothing they do will improve the learning outcomes of our inner city students until we accept the reality that fundamental differences exist between urban and suburban schools, and that unique policies must be constructed for each in the areas of curriculum and assessment.

Charter schools have been an enduring feature of our education landscape, but as of yet their presence has done little to improve student performance. This is not to say that there haven't been some successes in a few charter schools, but that really isn't the point. The intent of the original charter school legislation was not to create schools that would compete with public schools, but to create schools that would serve as "laboratories for innovation," places where new strategies and policies would be instituted and evaluated. Alone, no amount of charter schools will make a dent in the performance of the general student population, and wasn't that the point?

What we need in New Jersey is a committment to the idea that our charter schools and urban public schools are in essence a partnership, and that it is incumbent on our leaders to create a system to facillitate greater communication between these schools. Whether on a state wide, regional, or city wide level, it is imperative that our administrators and teachers get together to share "what works" with their colleagues at other schools.

Success in the classroom is mainly the result of trial and error. When methods work, that knowledge should be shared. It would distressing to find that teachers and administrators are so territorial and so protective of their successes that they are reluctant to share their work with others. I call on the State Department of Education to take the lead on this issue and bring together representatives of our charter and urban schools to spend a few days each year communicating their successes and failures with one another. This collaborative approach to learning will directly benefit students who otherwise might not ever be exposed to strategies that will improve the teaching of content and skills.

If we really care about providing a quality education to as many students as possible, and not just to a few select families, then we must honor the original intent of our charter school legislation and work together for the good of the children. And isn't that what we all really want anyway?

A shocking story to share

This past weekend I attended my nieces bat mitzvah, and as expected I got into another high spirited discussion with my youngest brother.

The subject turned to education and the inequities between urban and suburban schools.  It was then that I learned some disquieting news.

It turns out that parents who have a child performing below grade level, and that subsequently get classified with a learning disability, are able to receive even more money from the state SSI program. I'm sure the school also receives additional funding through Title 1.

The ramifications of this are incredible, as this is in essence an incentive to be an unsupportive parent. I know this assumes the parent has less than noble intentions, but when you look at the inordinately high percentage of under performing and special ed students in the inner city it does establish at least a prima facie case that an abuse of the system exists, to the detriment of any child caught up in this naked, selfish grab for money. At the very least the issue deserves someone's attention.

Inner city children already exist in an environment that compromises their right to an education that properly prepares them for life after high school. Equity and greater opportunity are in short supply in New Jersey's public education system. To think that some parents may be contributing to the challenges facing their children is too sad for words.

The Christie Administration's Great New Initiative, Now for the Final Pieces to be Put in Place

Today's announcement that the DOE will be partnering with Princeton University to seek out the "best and brightest" college graduates to pursue careers as math and science teachers for low performance schools represents another positive achievement for our Governor.

As a former alternate route teacher, I can say unequivocally that, at the high school level, a degree in education is a meaningless indicator of future performance. It is in fact a detriment to higher learning and achievement, as these graduates have nowhere near the level of knowledge and passion embodied in graduates with degrees in other fields of study such is engineering, statistics,  astronomy, accounting, government, kinesthetics, or other specialized fields.

Teaching is the ultimate "learn what works on the job" profession. Trial and error, when supported by excellent supervisors, is how teachers succeed. A Mobil sponsored television commercial getting airplay these days is right on the mark: teachers with greater knowledge of the subject matter are best able to inspire students and provide higher level learning.

The true test of this initiative, however, will be in keeping these new educators motivated to make teaching a career. As reported in the Scientific American, 25000 young STEM teachers left the profession before their tenure year. This flight out if education must be thwarted.

So what can be done to improve the profession so we can create faculties full of passionate, intelligent, and effective teachers? I'd like to suggest the following steps:

Most important is to begin thinking of teachers as entrepreneurs, with their class and curriculum as their product, and students as future entrepreneurs being mentored. Give teachers ownership of their course and incentivize the workplace so they can profit for exemplary performance. I truly believe this should be the future of education. The difficult part is that it will require a more decentralized system where our politicians and bureaucrats are less involved, relinquishing power and their inclination to  micro manage  education, ESPECIALLY in low performing inner city schools. The absence of any real improvement in student performance at these schools is as much an indictment of their policies as it is of the schools themselves.

In conjunction with this change to an entrepreneurial model, with "teachers as entrepreneurs",  important practical steps need to be taken. (I will explain the importance of these steps in subsequent posts)

First,  require all Title 1 schools to have a clinical supervisor on staff to work with new and at-risk teachers.

Second, replace the current HSPA with an assessment that tests across the curriculum rather than the current test, which only assesses math and language arts.

Third, completely gut and rewrite the core curriculum content standards to reflect what students MUST know to become independent, healthy, and  empowered citizens that understand and can function in our democratic, free market system.

Fourth, give teachers the academic freedom and latitude to design their own unique curriculum/products.

And fifth, incentivize the system of teacher remuneration with either performance pay or performance tiers, replacing a system built around years of service with one that rewards exemplary work.

Currently our State treats suburban and inner city schools the same when it comes to indicators of success and failure, in spite of the fact that the huge gulf in performance between these type of schools renders the use of "one size fits all" metrics a harmful joke.

The needs of urban schools are different, the immediate goals of the schools are different, and so the policies that guide theses schools should also be different.

Our inner city schools should be seen as fertile grounds for dramatic reform and laboratories for innovation and risk taking. I humbly suggest pursuing the course I have laid out above. Given the current state of education in our inner cities, there is much to gain and little risk that things can get worse than they are now.

With this latest initiative, the Christie  Administration has shown itself receptive to bold new ideas. I certainly didn't expect to be saying this when he took office, but the Governor has proven to be a champion for public education.

Much more needs to be done by our State. Our limited resources need to be channeled to where they will do the most good, new partnerships with stakeholders need to be undertaken, and ineffective mandates and initiatives coming from Trenton must be ended. Though it may seem counter intuitive, what is needed in our urban schools is less, not more, government oversight and intrusion into learning. Let local educators design "student friendly" high schools that young adults want to attend and we'll be on our way to real improvement in student performance.

Deplorable Trenton High Infrastructure

A recent story in the Trenton Times documented the abominable conditions inside Trenton High. Is it any wonder that the kids, and faculty for that matter, get the impression that the public, as communicated through our elected officials, just don't care?

As a former teacher, I just can't imagine trying to create an environment conducive to learning. If I was a student or faculty member I'd invite the media and stage a walkout.

Perception is important. It must be frustrating enough as a student to see so few opportunities on the horizon. There are no distractions facing low income students both in and out of the school building. They shouldn't have to worry about getting sick we're getting injured by the very school they see as there gateway to a better life.