(Oops! That's Contra Costa College.)

@Sue: For starters, Linda Darling-Hammond gave a great lecture on comparative assessment and pedagogy that is linked in a post I wrote on my other blog a couple of months ago: http://beyond-school.org/2008/12/07/how-nclb-could-look-if-america-looked-abroad/

See the School Redesign Network at Stanford's article here: http://www.srnleads.org/press/news/time_ed_abroad.html and note it has many more resources elsewhere on the site.

Ye Olde Wikipedia may take you places too ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_education

Thanks! And have a happy inauguration day!  -Sue

Clay as someone who is not in Education currently and has looked at Education from a non-educators eyes, I too believe that educators should be allowed to educate. <P>
The current financing of our education system does not work.
It is going to take more than a couple of years to get these changes in place.  My question is what do we do for those students who were harmed by the educational policies of NCLB. <P> They will not have the opportunity to be re-educated and they have lost so much.  
<P>I am less concerned about the future, because I believe that there are better days ahead for our students, there are too many people that actually want to change things for the better.  But I really do wonder about this "lost NCLB generation" how they will compete locally, nationally and internationally for work against others who are definitely better prepared academically.<P>
I see it when I talk to the younger workers coming out of college, their research skills, problem solving, public speaking, thinking on your feet and other abilities we take for granted as a job skill are so weak.<P>
Perhaps some of good teachers who left, if some of the changes you and others discuss above, would come back.  If changes were made to let them teach, instead of teaching to a test and paid them a decent wage, not a base salary.  <P>
I might even think more about it?  Not saying that I was a great teacher, but according to my peers, I wasn't bad :)<P>
Well you get my drift 
Harold

It occurs to me that the "systemic approach" you describe (I haven't read Tucker's proposals in entirety, only what you quote) could also promote "try this and try that" at a scale that could have some impact.  
Right now the standards and testing movement we have in response to NCLB has put us in a straight-jacket; hence the failure of charter schools to provide us with much in the way of innovation, as you noted.  I agree that what we need from the federal government is a changed policy environment, and that we need a policy environment that would support, or at least allow, rather than squelch, a diversity of approaches, in conventional public schools and not just in private or charter schools.  And I agree that good policy is more likely to flow from systemic thinking about the kind of policies that will encourage creative thought and action on the part of educators than from attempts to design programs or impose specific program designs, however successful they may be in their context, on the rest of us.  (I would add that the systemic thinking needs to extend beyond thinking about the education system itself, to thinking about other systems.  What would be the impact on other occupations of pulling all teachers--who number in the millions--from the top one-third, let alone one-fifth, of college graduates?  Will the model of professionalism developed for law and medicine work well if applied to teachers in public schools?  I think not--I think we need new models of professionalism, or perhaps just explicit recognition and refinement of some of the unique aspects of the de facto model of professionalism that has evolved among teachers and educators in general.)
So thinking systemically, reather than piecemeal, would be good.  But (you knew there was a "but" coming, right?) Tucker's proposals seem to me to suggest developing some kind of national education system, and the idea of developing a national system makes me nervous.  I live and teach prospective teachers in California, and the sheer size of our system in iteslf creates some of our problems.  There's an inertia and unwieldiness to such a large system, and this would be even more of a concern for a national system.  Further, I'm not at all sure that what is appropriate for inner-city Chicago or L. A. would also be appropriate for small-town Idaho or Alabama.  
So the question becomes what kind of national policy and "systemic change" could promote creativity and diversity in education in a way that improves both the current lives (standards-based and test-oriented classrooms can be miserable places for both students and teachers) and long-term educational outcomes for students?  And how do we retain the (in my opinion) one good idea from NCLB--that results for students must be reported out for all demographic groups so that if we are failing a particular group that fact can't be hidden statistically--while somehow removing the shackles it has placed on us?  

I find the tone of this post fairly depressing - finding solutions and answers that work in one city or neighborhood is unimportant and unworthy of praise since this answer isn't a systemic process that can be used for everyone everywhere and lead to perfection as is. That seems unlikely to ever happen.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead.

Creative solutions with passion and vision may not change every school directly, but that shouldn't be an excuse to say they don't matter and are a waste of time and energy. As school systems become more decentralized each school will have to find answers for their unique problems. The individual great teacher that inspires the (relatively) small number of students that they teach is important even if that doesn't solve all the problems of their school. Each parent that sacrifices to get their child to school and works to make that school better is important even if they aren't making their whole school system better.

We are the young men of urban prep and my group members are Eric Brown, JaBrice Reese, Martise Barnes, Ermon Thomas, and Charles Ward . The issue that we identified is education. The solutions that we came up with are, Designing more college prep schools, Encouraging young people to attend school, Opening more boys and girls clubs, Having a safe environment to go to school in, Giving supplies to students so they can work with, and giving students better transportation to school and back. Those were the solutions that me and my group came up with.

I am afraid........ By J. G. Fabiano


Is there anyone else out there who is afraid?


Back in 1960, I wore a white shirt and dark string black tie in order to become a part of the new frontier. I hoped my future would be filled with Peace Corps activities and with me evolving into becoming an integral part of Camelot.


In 1963, my hopes were crushed. I remember feeling the vacuum of what happens when a person's beliefs are crushed and nothing is put into its place.


I remember being confused to the fact that a man who did not have the same color skin I had could invoke such remarkable hope. I applauded this new face for our future yet did not have the courage to join his quest.


In 1968, I felt distressed. How could anyone hope to destroy a dream by killing its dreamer. I became confused and lost.


But, being young I came back. I remember the excitement of the elections of 1968. I wore the young man's denims hoping to be a part of a new era of belief and trust. I would be part of this new and young future of America.


In 1968, my hopes were crushed. The vacuum returned with drugs and alcohol and defeat taking its place. I cried to myself and swore I would not allow myself to ever open myself up again to trust and hope for my own future.


Now in 2009, as an old man I am again looking up hoping the future of my country will be better than its past. I want to become a part of this tall skinny man's dream of having our nation once again have the all overwhelm the few. I am almost ready to join his crusade.


But, I am afraid. Is there anyone else out there who is afraid?
Jim Fabiano, a teacher and writer who lives in York, is a past recipient of the Maine Press Association’s award for Best Weekly Column, and writes an education blog called 'Dinosaur of Education”. You can E-mail Jim at: jfabino@maine.rr.com, or comment on his blog at: http://fabiano.magic-city-news.com/

I despair as I read this analysis of education's ills, particularly when Mark Tucker is presented as the idea man. I worked as our State's representative to the New Standards Project in the mid 90's when Mark and others tried to operationalize these concepts in the daily educational environment.  They were convinced that standardized tests were the enemy and that performance assessments could set standards of good instruction for teachers and establish world class performance standards for students.  Several years and many millions of dollars were invested pursuing this dream.

What they forgot was the tremendous cost of the instruments that they tried, without success, to develop.  They assumed the positive impact on instruction if these new methods were available, but they relied on the assumption and failed to conduct the experiment to determine whether the anticipated results would actually occur.  Our state invested in development of similar instruments at a cost of 10 to 20 times what other testing would be.  After 12 years in this attempt, this grand experiement has come to an end with a new State Superintendent who was elected by a landslide as the unpopular initiative crumbled under the weight of failed expectations.

We need good tests and other measures of student and teacher performance in our schools.  And the purpose of these activities is not to improve test scores, but to provide accurate measures of the success or failures of our programs and practices.  We need to stop the assumptions of success when an innovative idea is put forth and begin the rigorous evaluation of what works and what does not.  This is the proper role of testing and evaluation and that role continues to escape teachers including the one who initiated this discussion.  Project Head Start and Follow Through was one grand experiment with demonstrable results that we continually ignore.  It was conducted in Chicago in the 60's and early 70's and defined one successful program for disadvantaged children - Direct Instruction.  Englemann and Becker defined the program empirically, implemented it with measureable feedback and fully described each component necessary for success.  What they developed can be scaled for large scale impact at costs smaller than many of the failed practices of the past decade.

Over my 35 years in education, most of that time spent in research and evaluation I have observed a research paradigm practiced all too frequently.  A problem is identified; a solution is hypothesized;  policy is based on that hypothesis with implementation dollars to follow.  Five to ten years later someone detects that the problem remains followed by a new hypothesis...  This is the scientific methodology of the middle ages with Legislative Policy replacing Papal Edicts.

Our answers need to be based in sound research.  Research that defines good practice and includes the measures to determine successful implementation in each classroom and for each student.  Anything less is a continuation of the dogma of the past.  Anything less means we will be back in this conversation when the next president is elected.

@Jerry,

I'm no early literacy specialist, so school me a bit on what DI considers "reading proficiency." From what I'm able to gather, it seems pretty limited to decoding and literal comprehension. If that's so, it a good start, but I'd argue there's a lot more to literacy than that - evaluation of the rhetorical triangle, critical thinking, and such.

Re: your assessment cost and effectiveness arguments, other countries use board-evaluated performance assessments and outperform the US on OECD tests, so how can you explain the assertion that the US cannot afford the same? Sincere question.

Linda Darling-Hammond compares assessment models and student performance rates around the globe, and makes a pretty strong case that many high-performing countries use the types of assessment that Tucker seems to point to in the piece. How do you respond?

Thanks for the interesting input.

Re: Jerry's plug for Direct Instruction, above: Interesting read here ( http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020128/metcalf/single ) questions both the National Reading Panel research and the politics of DISTAR/McGraw-Hill's relations to Bush, Business Roundtable, and more.

As Englemann and Becker and others developed the research basis for DI, they also were forced to develop a theory of instruction and captured these in a book with the same title (Theory of Instruction:  Principles and Applications, Englemann and Carnine, 1982).  One finding was that the teaching of decoding skills only was not effective for disadvantaged children who often lacked language skills as a reference point to support decoding application.  Hence the development of DI Language to support DI Reading.  The same research methodology was used for both and the extrapolation to all aspects of comprehension led through decoding through the establishment of a sight vocabulary for that 30% of the language not accessible via decoding skills to a reading skill set capable of extrapolation to the real reading world.  And there was (and is) a demonstrable research basis for these claims, not a continuation of the argument between the behaviorists and constructivists that has blown its' windy way through education since the 40's when it was first found that Johnny can't read. 

After finishing with the application of these methods to curriculum, they found the need to address teaching with the same methods.  They found the delivery of the curriculum via common classrooms was so varied and imprecise that the outcome was the teaching of errors in application as students moved through grades experiencing the diverse approaches of each teacher.  Hence the scripted lessons that some teachers found so limiting to their individual expressions of the skill of teaching.  Englemann addressed this with highly structured follow-up and created a cadre of master teachers, some of whom I have had the privilege of working with.  They were (are) the best and the brightest.

But I argue not as an advocate for Englemann and crew, but for a high quality research base for our curriculum and instruction.  The notion that a particular type of assessment will cure our educational ills by setting a model for good instruction has run its' course.  Follow the grand experiments of Vermont with their portfolio assessment struggles, of many other states as they constructed their tests around performance assessment models 15 years ago.  What they accomplished was a 10 to 20 fold increase in costs, a reduction in reliability and validity of the instruments they created and a waste of more than a decade in addressing needed reforms.

How many more of these failures will the public process endure before public education is privatized?  And what will be the price to our society of privatization?  What will be the quality of education for those that stay in a limited public system?  What will be the quality of schools deemed ineffective as the enrollment slowly declines with resident children slowly choosing available alternatives?

I've spent time in hundreds of classrooms.  Whenever a teacher challenges me about the need to improve our practices, I challenge her or him to mentally walk down the hall of his or her school to the classroom where the teacher is struggling or incompetent.  This is a conversation topper.  The response always leads to the recognition that we can differentiate between good and bad teaching and that we allow both to occur in our schools without intervention.  Suggesting that a different type of test is the effective intervention is like suggesting the Titanic suffered from poor quality deck chairs.

Let's start the real conversation about reform leading to improvement.  We might just help the public process to do something right, not just delay the process with one more policy based innovation that will make politicians feel better until, ten years from now, someone points out that nothing has changed and Johnny still can't read.

I read the various posts and opinions mentioned I must say, that I agree with Jerry. We have spent too many resources (time, money, and children) on this transparent reform process that we have endured for the last 30 years.  The key to creating reform I believe is to understand why education is important. Do we want children who will grow up and be innovators, great thinkers in our society or do we want them to be programmed to be perfect employees. If the later is our way or focus of thinking then by all means pull out the policies and researchers to give us some more tests to throw at our children. If we want innovators, great thinkers, creative and expressive individuals who are able to affect change on a global  level then what is needed is a whole new point of view of education. As for the generation of the "NCLB era" I believe those of us who have walked the educational plank will make for them great coaches and support. Hopefully we as a society will be able to "uneducated" them of their ways.I read posts regarding public education and even privatization of education, however there is one more sector of education that needs to be addressed. Homeschooling. Although perceived as private education it has its merits. I think the structure for a success full education program is a combination of private, and home schooling. I seriously disagree with public schools and "think tanks" telling us what we did wrong in terms of education. Why can we not create an educational system based on what colleges want for those children who want to attend? Furthermore why can we not offer changes to fit those students who will choose to go into other lines of work as well?  Where are classes in poetry, real writing, woodworking and such? Are those not careers that will be needed in the future? If anything the ideas for curriculum reform should be in line with the needs of all students whether they choose  a career such as a lawyer or doctor, or painting; to better create and compete in a world post a depression.

Just to toss in a bit of perspective: arguments about methodology go back hundreds of years, not mere decades.  And no doubt will go on into the foreseeable future.  We want to make progress, to do better by our children--but we don't agree all that well on what constitutes progress or (as evidenced in this thread) how to measure it.  Is it to be based entirely on outcomes?  If so, what kinds of outcomes?  Or do we also value the current lives of children (and teachers)--do we need to pay attention to the quality of life within classrooms?  Does anyone expect Americans to come to consensus on such questions any time soon?  I sure don't.
However, as I sometimes tell my students, what's different in the past 50-60 years from the previous several hundred is that we actually know stuff.  We don't know as much as we think we do (in my opinion), and we definitely need to know more, but we do know something about learning and teaching.  And that's new.  (Let me hasten to modify this: insightful and experienced teachers have always "known stuff"--but they pretty much figured it out for themselves.  What we as a society "knew"--public-doman knowledge--was extremely limited and often false, frequently more of a statement of values than knowledge.  What's new recently is that this public-domain kind of knowledge is much less limited, we are accumulating an empirical knowledge base, and some of what we think we know may even be true and turn out to be effective.)
I agree with Jerry that research is an important and valuable source of information, and that we need more of it.  I suspect strongly, however, that we don't agree about what constitutes good research in the field of education, or how to craft a policy environment that would get the best use out of what we learn from it.  
In my opinion, we need more diversity of approaches to teaching and learning, not less.  Students get one thing from this teacher, that from another.  Teachers as a group can accomplish some things within one type of system, others in another.  I consider myself to have become a reasonably good teacher of teachers (for math) over the years, but I worry about students who have had too many classes from me, with no exposure to other points of view or approaches to teaching math.  I have broadened my thinking and my repertoire, but even so I am not and never will be (for example) a strong advocate for or purveyor of behaviorist-based methods.  Since there are some things that such methods do seem to do very well, this leaves a gap in the preparation of my students that I can only point to, not help them fill.  Conversely, there are things I do well that no behaviorist educator will.  The system as a whole needs both of us.
On the other hand--we do need some structure to the curriculum and the system, and we do need measures of what we are and are not accomplising, and we do need some kind of accountability for the system as a whole and the people in it.  Currently, we have pieces of all this in place, but in a way that overall is not contributing to the quality of the system.  We are using test information only (or pirmarily) for accountability, and we do that punitively, as though the problem is only that people are not well-motivated.  Structure is being supplied by curriculum standards of varying quality and then de facto defined by multiple-choice standardized tests which measure only what's easy to measure with such a test, and, increasingly, scripted curricula, all of which combine to produce a whole range of bad effects.  
For instance, scripted curricula are Procrustean beds not only for teachers (and droves of good, experienced teachers have left the system because of their imposition), but also for students.  To stick to a scripted curriculum requires, virtually by definition, that what children are actually learning be ignored; when what matters is only that the teacher is on the right page going through the correct motions, formative assessment becomes nearly irrelevant because the information it gathers can't be used.  This is true even for the good ones (and some are better than others, for sure) purely by virtue of their being scripted.
Teachers see this happening every day, but because of the punitive nature of the current approach to accountability, most respond by complying with orders from above and sticking to the curriculum, in what is essentially a CYA move: if I do exactly as I'm told, and the children's test scores don't go up (or the test scores do go up but the students are shown to have not learned in other significant ways), it's on the heads of the powers that be who gave me those orders in the first place. 

We definitely need some good, new thinking about all this in order to avoid simply repeating endlessly the pendulum swing of the past century or so.  And part of that good new thinking would be to take into account what we've learned, so that we don't just throw out the old and bring in the "new" (usually retreaded old), constantly taking ourselves back to scratch, which we've had a tendencly to do over the past several decades.   But some of this thinking needs to be genuinely new, not just grinding old axes--which we all have a tendency to fall into.

I logged on to this blog trying to find a way to provide service in my area of expertise in the spirit of our new president's call for participation.  After 35 years in education, mostly in educational research you can imagine that there are few new arguments worth spending time on and I have little interest in repeating past experience.  Every time someones pet project turned out to have little impact or worse yet a negative impact on student learning we engaged in this philosophical meandering getting us nowhere.

So here is my offer.  Let's try to define a handfule of issues worthy of federal funding.  If we walked into the Oval Office for a meeting with President Obama and he asked us to give him a list of those areas where funding could make a difference, what would they be?

My list:

Fund a meta analysis of pre school programs designed to determine which are effective in meeting goals of academic preparation and support the implementation of these programs in communities with demonstrable needs.

Fund a replication of Project and Follow Through of the 60's and refine the impacts of preschool programs on elementary school success.

Fund a model program that will provide guidelines for teacher training programs.  There is near universal agreement among the teachers I have known that their colleges failed to prepare them to be effective teachers.

Fund principal training in the effective supervision of teachers.  This linkage is trivial in our current educational environment resulting in few opportunities for good teachers to achieve excellence, bad teachers to improve and ineffective teachers to be removed.

Fund a project to determine the necessary and sufficient multiple measures necessary to differentiate effective schools from ineffective ones.  We need to identify the ineffective schools and intervene with all necessary resources to make them effective.  

Fund the study that will identify the effective school intervention process described above.

Create or support  a research facility to develop effective curricula.

 This is my list.  Add or delete, but don't expect me to argue or defend.  If we can identify a critical list, perhaps we can create the necessary momentum to impact policy development and the political process.

@Jim,

The "Actions" link at the top of the page will send you to the page meant for all who want to initiate actions they support. Explore it and see if it fits the bill?

Jerry said he doesn't want to argue his ideas. But for me, that sort of discussion would be very valuable. (I thought what I had to say would sound like argument, but now that I've written it, I see that it doesn't much. Our ideas are so different that I didn't end up saying much about his.)

I'm new to thinking at the policy level. I teach (math, mostly at college level), I'm a parent (6-year-old son), I've thought deeply for decades about how learning happens, but I haven't thought much about what kinds of national policies I'd like. Perhaps that's exactly because of one difference between Jerry and I - his policy proposals seem rather top-down to me.

I think that the best education is very different from what the schools are trying to do right now, which is stuff lots of information into kids' heads. I'm not sure my ideal school would appeal to many parents, who would have trouble understanding why and how it would work.

So, I think it's important that there be lots of different sorts of model schools available within the public school system. That will help make the process more of an evolution. Parents will see over time what good schools might look like, and they can slowly change in their own ideas of what they want.

My ideal public school is pretty much what Deborah Meier has been doing with Central Park East, described in The Power of Their Ideas. Her Coalition of Essential Schools sounds like it's doing great work on spreading these ideas, although I haven't followed it at all closely.

My list would start with:
1. Respect children more. Give them more choice in what they learn and when. Respect the vast differences in timing among children in their development. Don't say a child is behind because they start reading later. (Homeschoolers are well aware that a child who starts to read late often catches up, and surpasses their grade level within months.) Provide a rich environment, with adults who love learning.

Do not assign homework in the early years. Provide homework as an option for parents and children looking at ideas together, but don’t require it. Currently, even children in kindergarten are being required to do substantial amounts of homework. This is very destructive for families.

2. Respect public school teachers more. This means: paying them better, giving them more autonomy in how they teach, giving them smaller classes to work with, and giving them more prep time.

Teacher training should include a much more in-depth interning/apprenticeship component, in which the future teacher picks a teacher she would work well with.

3. Respect the school community more. Testing isn't the way to measure success. Deborah Meier's success is well-measured by the exceptionally high rates of graduation and successfully going on to college her students enjoy. (Central Park East is part of the public schools of New York City, but is organized very differently. It gets no more funding than other schools there.)

Curriculum decisions should be made jointly by teachers and their schools, not by school districts and states. Along with smaller schools, perhaps we need smaller schoolbooks.

I'm sure more could be said about how to respect the school community.

4. Expect and celebrate differences among model schools. At the state and national level find ways to celebrate vision and excellence, without implying that only one way works.

Just a new little note.  Obama and Michelle both have significant backgrounds in knowing the value of education. Her father had only one year of college went to work in boiler plant to put ALL his younger siblings and children through college...I had a grandmother who in l907, l911 and l915 on the birth of her daughters promised and demanded that they all get college educations! They did, even during the depression.
The OBAMA's have two daughters...that is our and their best stimulus to continuing to invest in the American Educational system.

Higher Education is BIG BUSINESS.

I think the prescription for superlative education is expert, brilliant, highly-paid teachers, paid, in fact on a par with professionals in other fields, small classes, emphasis on problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity (thinking "outside the box"), world-class classroom equipment and technology, community involvement, parental guidance.  Testing should be tied to promotion at every grade level, and should be difficult.  Our kids can handle it!  In short, we have to make superlative education a goal for the entire country, and a priority on a par with the space program. 

Pedagogical ability in the teaching of error is no virtue, and the government cannot guarantee that error will not be taught in government-sponsored schools, which is the whole reason why we should let people educate themselves according to the dictates of their own consciences. School vouchers is the only fair and equitable way to do this.
TAKING CHILDREN FROM THEIR PARENTS WHEN THEY ARE 3 YEARS OLD IS AN EXTREMELY BAD IDEA.
Think about it...is democracy PROMOTED by centralizing power in a small group of people, or rather DESTROYED by centralizing power in a small group of people?
SOME of us might call something like that CRADLE ROBBERY, but then the government doesn't much care anymore about what us common people think...the people in power never do...they just pretend like it so we'll give them more power.

The changes in education must be spot-on and they must be sweeping. Yes, make the teaching profession more remunerative to attract more and better people - but that won't necessarily guarantee better teaching.

Just logically, without any added finger-pointing-drama or polysyllabic super-eloquence here:

a) Private or government is not the issue. Effectiveness is the issue. Rigorous and unbiased testing of educational methods and structures is absolutely vital in order to isolate those factors that DO consistently lead to engaged learning and graduates who can effectively and consistely apply what they have learned in order to choose and succeed in a constructive career that forwards the health and prosperity of the nation. Those methods and structures must then be implemented from the ground up throughout our educational system without wiping out local initiative - where that local initiative does not lessen the educational end result. If it is a private organization that has those methods, fine. If it is a group of teachers on a government payroll, fine. If it is a religious school or a religious affiliated organization, fine. The important thing is to isolate, without any bias or mumbo-jumbo, what works. And yes, testing that in some agreed-upon way that actually measures the student's increased understanding and ability is going to have to be a part of that analysis, obviously.

b) Simultaneous to the above, an objective analysis must be undertaken to isolate exactly what changed in our nation's teaching methodologies at the point in history where our student's average SAT scores began to collapse. It starts at an exact point in history. Look it up - those graphs exist. It isn't something vague - something MAJOR was altered in the way our nations teachers were taught to TEACH, at that exact point in our history. Something that has continued on to this day, riding as a hidden poisoning influence in the training lineup of every licensed teacher in this nation, a fundamental idea in the area of "how to teach" which is dead wrong. What was/is it? I know what I think it was, but that could easily be my bias. The facts are there waiting to be uncovered by objective analysis.

my only comment on education is this :

It is unacceptable how schools force children to use windows and microsoft office, and microsoft products to take part in the education.

Supposedly they get reduced rate licenses, but in reality they are being cut off from the ability to use the software for making money as well and this causes them to become pirates.

I think that it is a real shame how schools have sold the rights of the children to microsoft on a whole sale basis.

In the wise words of Henry David Thoreau, what our American system of education truly needs is to "Simplify, simplify, simplify". We are far TOO focused on analysis, test scores, pushing little minds into one mold. We are forgetting that the students are individuals and from the time they are born have ideas and agendas all their own. Lets get back to teaching the individual, making the learning process one that is interesting and inspiring and get away from worrying so much about test scores and analysing children to death. We need to recognize individual learning styles and find ways of grouping students with like minds and learning styles together with teachers with similar styles. There needs to be more hands on learning for the students and less emphasis on everything being written on paper. That is imporntant, but some lessons are better remembered when learned from a first hand experience. We also need to recognize that the ADHD student is not a "handicapped" student, but that they are generally kinesthetic learners and require more one on one time with their mentors, smaller classroom sizes, greater emphasis on organizational skills and hands on learning. Students also need to know that when they have a thought or idea that  is new or different than what their educator has stated, that they will not be chastised or made to feel stupid by that educator. We are all different; that needs to be recognized and each person needs to be valued for their own worth (not monetary-but cognative) so that we can once again become the nation that produces great inventors, authors and world leaders. Pushing children into square molds is not the answer.

See: Charlotte Mason Education, Maria Montessori, John Holt, John Taylor Gatto and remember the Ancient Roman philosophies of Mentoring the student

As a grandmother and someone concerned about children's welfare, I agree with Charlotte Spears about the importance of respecting and working with children's individuality and ways of learning.  And of course I recognize that this requires more money for teachers, more teachers so there can be more individual attention.I am disturbed that in the posts so far no one has addressed the issue of social development, or emotional intelligence.  I have only recently begun researching this topic, but there appear to be some school districts having good success in improving children's ability to deal with their feelings, and thus with each other and the world at large, by using such programs (Social Development, PATHS, Casel) school-wide.  Producing good citizens, who work well with and care about others, should be as important an educational as producing scientists and other academic achievers.  I have read that in schools where social development programs are part of the school culture, performance in academic areas improves.   I have also heard it suggested that making such learning part of the peer culture of a student body could be more effective than individual work with an adult (counseling) or even a parent.  I don't know if there's any research on this, but it has a common-sense ring to me.

I agree with Charlotte Spears and Lesley Tabor. One thing I am concerned about is the idea of "educating" someone else. It is impossible to "educate" another. The individual is the only one who can truly educate himself or herself. In other words, teachers may INSPIRE others to educate themselves, but the individual must decide and do the necessary work of self-education. The texts and methods used in the public arena--and private too, are (for the most part--I know one can always find exceptions) uninspiring.

I believe the family does and should have the greatest impact on children's education--wherever their children attend school. Do the children SEE THEIR PARENTS read, write, discuss, challenge, and think? Are the parents reading to their children good, quality, inspiring books (not fluff that would make your brain deteriorate)? Are the parents taking a lead in using those good books to discuss ideas, see patterns--and challenge the popular trends? Example truly works wonders. I've seen the power in my own home. What my children DON'T see me do is waste time on mindless entertainment. We have created a culture in our home of reading, writing, and discussing. It's inspiring. I see my 3 year old play at "studying" because she sees me do it. There is no force involved.

Let's work harder to inspire parents to take their responsibilities of parenthood seriously--and not "outsource" the rearing and "educating" of our children to those who are less passionate about our children than we are (and whose values often don't align with ours).

The answers are more simplistic than we think. Look at Leonardo Divinci--he actually had time to observe nature and think--leading him to create many inventions based on those observations. He wasn't forced to do "busywork". Let's look closer at the lives of great people who have accomplished much good an emulate them. They provide the inspiration and the patterns to success.

James Buels: Testing should be tied to promotion at every grade level, and should be difficult.

Matthew Veencker: And yes, testing that in some agreed-upon way that actually measures the student's increased understanding and ability is going to have to be a part of that analysis, obviously.

There are a number of problems with this sort of dependence on testing.

#1: It is developmentally inappropriate for young children.

#2: It is impossible (or at least very difficult) to accurately test for the sorts of learning I most value: problem-solving, unique perpective on issues, pulling ideas together, knowing how to work with others on a problem (this relates to Lesley's excellent ideas above).

You may have heard of free-writing on standardized tests being scored by using rubrics which describe high-quality responses. I recently read something about how those are scored. (Hint: they don't do as good a job as they claim.) Here's a link: http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=1869575&tstart=30

#3: It is inherently biased. You have to test what can be tested, which causes the problem I listed above. But there's still more. In math (my field), women tend not to test as well as men, when the test scores are compared to their performance in math classes. In other words, if you look at people who scored over some cutoff, the women will do better than the men in future classes. So the test is biased against the women. (Unless it's the class that's someohow biased against the men...)

That's math. In most other subject areas, the class and race biases show up. There's plenty of literature out there explaining how standardized tests are biased. In vocabulary tests, which words are chosen? Are they words rich people are more likely to have in their daily experience? (regatta, polo, ...) Other examples are more complex, but bias is impossible to avoid. Every good writer knows that writing is inherently biased one way or another, and testing works like that, too.

#4: It is destructive of learning. How many people fear math, because they have trouble at test time? If people are learning for the joy of it, they learn more deeply. Testing interferes with that.

More, anyone?

Jennifer, I love how you describe the learning that happens in your home.

It sounds to me like maybe you're saying everyone should home-school. I love what homeschoolers can do. I agree with you that it is (or can be) the best way to help children learn deeply. But most families can't afford to have one parent stay home. (I'm a single parent myself.) And many parents know that their own skills are limited and want the schools to help their children surpass them.

There are schools that look at learning much the way you do, and try to provide authentic experiences for the children in their care. I find Waldorf methods very interesting. And two books you might like are The Power of Their Ideas, by Deborah Meier and Raising Curious, Creative, Confident Kids: The Pestalozzi Experiment in Child-based Education, by  Rebeca Wild  (out of print, but perhaps available through a library).

I'd love to know what you think about these books.

My family has great hope that NOW our Government Leaders will take action to ensure CHILDRENS' CIVIL RIGHTS EQUALITY by ABOLISHING PHYSICAL (CORPORAL) PUNISHMENT (PADDLING WITH WOODEN BOARDS) OF CHILDREN IN SCHOOLS where it is still legal and practiced without parental consent or notification with legal impunity in 21 states.  We live in a small, low-income rural community of Tennessee and my daughter comes home telling of overhearing the same kids being paddled in the hallways of her school every week. Apparently, the paddling is not teaching kids the appropriate behavior nor problem solving skills students will need in the lifetime. The "educators" here are big on physical punishment and obedience.  Most American Citizens believe, incorrectly, that Physical (Corproal) Punishment of Children in schools is illegal.  AWARENESS is key to ensuring ALL children are treated with human dignity and equal civil rights at school, and have access to equal education standards that ensure a safe, healthy and supportive learning environment.

According to some high tech businesses, Americans are not able to handle the jobs so foreign educated persons must be hired. This may be true because of College Professors pushing their personal agendas instead of teaching. These must be weeded out. Colleges must be ruled with an iron hand to make sure the students can and will learn a profession rather than political views. If students disrupt a speech, they must immediately be expelled so as to allow the ones who are there to learn have freedom to learn. As it is, only the radicals have freedom of expression, not those who are in school to learn and progress. Foreign students should be banned; let's educate American students first. I believe President Obama will put America FIRST as it should be.
Student tuition fees should be lowered for those in higher grades. There is help to get them started but when they began to reach the higher echelons of education, it gets more expensive.

There are at least two quite distinct discussions happening among these comments at this point: 1) a discussion about federal policy, and what federal policy and actions could improve education in this country, and 2) a discussion at the level of teachers and schools about how, specifically, we should be teaching and assessing students.  The latter is more gripping for the average person, because we all encounter education at that level--but if the point of the blog is to consider ideas that could be taken up by the Obama administration, the former is the more relevant.  Both discussions are worthwhile, but only peripherally related. Most of the changes being advocated in the second discussion would be appropriately be implemented by states and/or local districts, not the federal government.
The basis for the role of the federal government in education is two-fold, as I understand it.  There is a limited role spelled out in the Constitution, having to do primarily with data collecting and reporting and research (if I remember correctly).  In recent years, federal funding of special programs has become the lever that provides a broader role for the federal government in education.  If states are willing and able to forego the federal funding, they can simply ignore all federal mandates (though these days, few are willing or able to do so.)  
If the focus is on what the new federal administration can do, it will be helpful to keep in mind the specifics of the federal role in education.  They can support research, they can collect statistics (which will support research), they can modify funding to special programs, and (as they have done with NCLB, which many of us deplore, but which they also did with equal access to edcuation (desegregation, education for children with special needs), which most of us support, at least in concept) they can make access to federal funds contingent on implementation of designated policies.  
What they can't, or at least shouldn't, be doing is trying to manage schools or dictate specifics of how teachers will teach.  Nor, IMO, imposing some kind of national curriculum (though many disagree with me on that one).  The money lever means they can try to do these things--but (again IMO) we will all be far better served if the distinction between policy and management is maintained.  In my experience, the further removed school management is from the school being managed, the worse things get for students, teachers, and parents.  
Jerry's list is right on the nose in terms of an appropriate role for the feds in education, in that he points them to research and data collection and dissemination.  I even agree with some of the specific recommendations he makes, though insofar as he seems to believe there is a "one best way" waiting to be discovered and promulgated, I think he is mistaken.  But a lot of what is being discussed and recommended here is not the business of the feds, it's the business of states, school districts, teachers, teacher educators, etc.

Jean, I see what you mean, but I think the Feds can still speak to these more local issues, in terms of offering vision.

And getting the feds out of the high-stakes testing business is vital.

I'd love to work with someone used to thinking in these terms, to flesh out my own ideas.

All these ideas are still inside the failing paradigm that does not fit at all how children grow up and learn. I am a child psychologist, the author of Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, public speaker on education and parenting, and internationally published parenting and education columnist: http://authenticparent.com/
Children learn best not by being taught (no matter how well) but by generating their own learning in total freedom. This is why children who do not go to school shine out in our society, win competitions and are displayed as prodigies in the media.  If you are curious, get the 7CD set, Trusting Our Children, Trusting Ourselves from amazon, or from my site and listen to my key notes in the “Rethinking Education” Conference.
In addition to their superb learning, when free, children also develop much better emotionally and become powerful and resourceful people. This is the reason home schoolers and kids who go to free schools do not have learning disabilities and emotional difficulties so common among kids in school.
I am not suggesting to abolish schools. I am fully aware of the fact that many parents cannot provide the best education to their children. I am suggesting that we don’t imitate other countries who have better results in the existing paradigm, but lead the way of a democratic society and stop raising children autocratically. 
We lead the world in democracy yet we still raise children with a goal of creating the next generating of workers and consumers. 
What is revealed once old ideas are left behind is always astounding. We cannot see other possibilities when we are still boxed in the idea that children should be taught and that they cannot lead their own development optimally with adults supporting and guiding but not planning and controlling.
The democratic schools movement, educationrevolution.org, and other flourishing free schools can be a starting point, but I would just open it all up for a shift in paradigm.

Well we now have the wide ranging conversation that blogging is famous for.  The question of purpose remains.  To respond to a few of the issues.

One theme addresses testing.  It just isn't accurate to say that testing is developmentally inappropriate.  The point is that we can get reliable and valid information from relatively brief testing activities that can be used to benefit children if handled appropriately.  At the risk of saying something positive about NCLB, as a result of that legislation every school and district in the nation now knows the effectiveness of their programs and practices on boys and girls and each racial group of children they serve.  No longer will a mission statement presenting equity of purpose suffice.  Now we must teach minority and disadvantaged children how to read, a skill without which access to any of the content areas is limited or eliminated.  We have found over and over again that Johnny can't succeed if Johnny can't read.  My prayer is that educators will now quit writing flowery mission statements and improve the quality of education offerred in their schools.

For those who say the measurement of our effectiveness shouldn't be limited to test scores, I wholeheartedly agree.  In addition to academic assessments of several kinds, we need non-cognitive indicators of school effectiveness and graduation rates and dropout rates are examples included in NCLB.  There are others: parent satisfaction surveys, attendance rates, course taking patterns, AP performance, graduate follow-up studies that might include the proportion of students needing remedial math and reading and writing when they arrive at their college of choice.  We are buried in data that will help us define effective schools and differentiate between effective and ineffective ones and help us measure the progress of those that are ineffective until they improve.  If you want a background primer read Rueter:  15,000 hours.

And we are misuing our test scores.  A single score relates mostly to the socio-economic status of the students served in that school.  Correlations of .60 or greater between scores and SES are common.  We need to focus on growth or at least weight the scores in such a way that we don't simply dump a greater load on the poorest schools in each state.  Some of the lowest scoring schools are highly effective, bringing students a long way from where they started, but competion with the wealthiest districts does not provide a level playing field.  George Sanders in Tenessee has one method to level this field.  Weighting using multiple regression is another method.  This is one area where federal funding could identify valid and reliable methods to identify which schools are working and which are not.  So far we might just as well pick the poorest schools since point in time test scores add little of value.

Some interpreted my earlier comments as the identification of one best way.  That is not accurate.  I am hypothesizing many effective ways, all identified using sound research methods.  I have heard so often educators who ought to know better state as solutions to educations ills procedures with an effect size approximating zero.  Arguments that a particular item type on a test will have a profound impact on classroom instruction defines one case in point.  This set the standard for increases in the cost of testing 10 to 20 fold and resulted inreductions in reliability and validity of those instruments.  This is hardly a remedy for our problems.

I certainly hope President Obama does something innovative for education. The student loan industry is badly  in need of reform.

I belong to a grassroots organization called Student Loan Justice (www.studentloanjustice.org) founded by a University Place, Washington man. It has grown into a nationwide movement.

In 1997, student loan companies such as Sallie Mae successfully lobbied Congress to amend the Higher Education Act (HEA) and remove consumer protections, making defaulted student loans among the most lucrative and easy debts to collect. The loan companies actually have a vested interest in debtors defaulting on their loans, and great leeway to collect on those loans.

According to Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren in a Wall Street Journal article written by John Hechinger, "student loan debt collectors have power that would make a mobster envious." The link to that article is below:

http://tinyurl.com/d47a6g

People are suffering needlessly to satisfy the greed of CEOs, like those of Sallie Mae. Some have even committede suicide.

Naomi, I recently read your book and loved it. (It helped me be a better parent at a time when I really needed that help.)

I think you'd enjoy the books I mentioned above. (Rebeca Wild's school is in Ecuador.)

Thank you Sue. I will check it out.
I forgot to relate to the absurd concept of testing. Testing lives in the paradigm of control and dictatorship. "I will test you and define if you know what I think you should know." That's exactly what I mean when I say that we must shift paradigms. We can't go on thinking that it is up to us to decide what a child should learn and subject the child to interrogation to see if he meets our dictatorial expectations. This harms children and quenches their love for learning and their talents.

The school system is designed to feed the industry with clones. It does not care about each individual optimal development.

No child should be ever subjected to this useless and often painful/scary experience. Children who are self-directed and free to have the knowledge THEY need. I have seen the great success of such freedom and respect of children all around the world through my work. It is amazing. Then people say, "well he is gifted, that's why it is fine for him..." But he is gifted because of the freedom. They are all gifted. We should be aiming at unleashing their gifts, not at teaching them.
No highly self-esteemed and self-directed person would agree to be tested. Try to test children who believe in themselves. You won't be able to. This means that our schools indoctrinate children to be docile and inauthentic and that their self-esteem is harmed (or why are the willing to subject themselves and jump through out hoops?) I suggest again, that we reinvent the whole way or thinking about education from ground zero.

I also suggest that we create parent education and support so children can get optimal care at home from the start.
Naomi AldortAuthor, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves

I've been concerned with the quality of education available to the public since the days when I was "in the system." I was invited to testify as a (jr. high school) student at the USOE Western Regional Conference/Hearing on the needs of the Gifted and Talent in 1970. I was later invited to contribute an article to the National Elementary Principal, expressing my ideas about how to successfully deal with gifted and talented students. I worked for ten years for Apple, in various technical roles, during the heyday of the Apple II in education and the early years of Mac. These days, my wife runs a private school in our town and I provide some curriculum support for her and occasionally fill in as a teacher or tutor in various subjects. I'm saying all this to establish that I've been paying quality attention to "the system" for a long time and have been involved with education, in one way or another, for much of my adult life. My opinions were not formed yesterday.

After the path I have walked, and the things I have seen and done, I firmly believe that the best hope for our children is to dissolve "the system" and replace it with a network of private schools, putting the parents once again firmly in the drivers' seat of their own kids' education by virtue of writing a check to the schools in which their children are enrolled. I echo earlier comments here, that educators need freedom that I think they will never get in the centralized, politically controlled "system," regardless of reform attempts. Yes, the change we need is sweeping, and it will largely come from getting both the Federal and State governments out of education. Until that happens, I fear that education will remain a political football, and that even the "boldest reforms" will amount to only rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking ship. The fundamental model is in error, and the freedom necessary to pursue and implement a better model isn't ever likely to come from government control, but rather from the entrepreneurial efforts of people working in the free market.

Hi Clay,Your argument to take back reform and experimentation from the private sector, which is intended to find ways to improve education,  and return it to public servants in the government based on the argument that ""It's no secret that the private sector couldn't be trusted with the economy, so it takes no genius to doubt it will do any better with the education sector"" is so naive or biased or ill-informed that it's silly.  (Please provide any example of what the government  does that's better than its equivalent in the private sector.)  If you want an explanation of how mostly democratic politicians (and mostly democrats in the private sector) caused the problems in the economy, and how democrats now perpetuate it, email me and I will return and explain it to you.

Naomi, Do you object to the testing in martial arts to 'move up a level'? I agree that most testing is in a 'power-over' mode, but it doesn't have to be. 

The kids at the 'freeschool' my son goes to asked the other math teacher to give them a test. They wanted to see how they'd do. Partly that's because they're familiar with the standard school paradigm, and want to make sure they'd measure up if they ever had to go to a 'regular' school. But it's also fed by their curiosity and desire for challenge.

I want the schools to feel like a family sort of environment, with loving adults who are really into learning themselves. Deborah Meier's work seems to me to be going in the right direction.

Nothing is wrong with any kind of learning as long as the child chose freely to do what he is doing, with zero coercion or seduction. However, like you said, without school and comparison, these kids were unlikely to be asking for a test. But they may try to test themselves, do things fast, or create challenge. If it is their initiative and joy, why not. That's totally different.
Martial art has its own package deal and if the child wants to take the class (freely) and knows what it entails, I don't see the harm. However, the teachers can place them easily in the next level without official tests and based on their progress in class. So it is really just a ceremony and some children go through anxiety when tested even in martial arts. I would suggest to the teacher to tell the kids that he can place them either way, and ask if they want to do a test. Maybe those who want to can do a test or demonstrate in front of the group as a closure. Those who would rather not, should not have to do it.
Naomi AldortAuthor, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves

I wanted to add that my doubt that "the system" can be effectively reformed, and my conviction that it needs to be dissolved, are strengthened by the many antagonistic responses, by those who work in "the system," to voucher and charter school "reforms." In my own neck of the woods, voucher proposals are strongly resisted, while charter schools are viewed with deep suspicion, treated like red-headed stepkids, and are even actively opposed with liberal amounts of vitriol, despite documented success of our local charters, and even in the face of national recognition or awards that they or their students have achieved. It almost seems as if, around here at least, "nothing fails like success."

I've only been associated with the private education sector for a few years, now, but it didn't take long to see that, for all the insecurity that attends a real-world business venture, the freedom that private educators have to adopt appropriate technologies, to personalize curriculum and pedagogical approaches to suit every student, and to cater to special needs kids in creative and effective ways, far exceeds that of any public school I have ever encountered. More importantly, the level of parental involvement is gratifyingly high, and comes in large part from the parents' reasonable desire to see for themselves that they are getting value for tuition expense. I  have always thought that parental involvement is key, but over the years, I realized that it is not enough to declare parents as "partners" in the process, "equal" or otherwise -- if parents see themselves as being anything less than the drivers of their children's education, they too often become "silent partners."

One way to stimulate the growth of the private education sector would be to declare a full tax deduction or even better, a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations to an educational institution, especially to pay tuition for ANY student or students. Families would get that tax benefit for paying for their own students. Other people could enjoy that benefit by paying for others' tuition, either directly to schools, or indirectly, to scholarship funds.

Of course, even given liberal tax deductions or credits for education -- even if the States and Federal government stopped collecting taxes for education altogether -- there would be many families that couldn't afford to "write a check" to educate their kids. The biggest challenge I see that is faced by privatization efforts is to replace tax-based funding with a combination of direct payment and scholarships from charitable contributions, such that everyone who is now eligible for public education is able to get an education that is at least as good as what they can get from the current system -- and, we hope, better. I think that this could be achieved by establishing one or more large scholarship funds, which would grant partial or full scholarships to students based on need, and which would be endowed by the no-strings-attached contributions of individuals and corporate entities who could then claim the associated tax-deductions or credits. Like big pension funds and other large accumulations of private-sector capital, these scholarship funds would augment their endowments by prudent investment practices.

As in higher-education, guaranteed and non-guaranteed loans would also be available to parents, though the guarantee would come not from government and the taxpayer, but from one or more of the private sector scholarship funds -- the fund might even assume the "Direct Loan" function now offered by the Federal government, with all interest being subject to the same tax benefits for the interest-payer as other educational contributions, and the proceeds going toward augmenting the endowment.

Finally, as now with private schools at all levels, scholarships based on merit, rather than need, could benefit a great many students. These could be offered by the schools themselves, by the aforementioned foundations, or by different ones.

These are just broad brushstroke suggestions, of course. To be serious about privatization, many details, especially concerning funding and access by the economically disadvantaged, remain to be worked out. But I just wanted to mention a few possibilities, to illustrate the basis for my belief that the sky needn't fall -- I expect that it definitely won't fall -- if we shift to a privatized system. I fully expect technology to be exploited with far more agility to lower costs and tuition fees in a privatized system, as each insitution seeks to run a better business than and gain an edge over the competition. So even in the case where a family had limited or no access to financial subsidy, a quality education could be more affordable than an equivalent education is now.

Finally, I wanted to point out that the goal of returning education to "public servants" may be BETTER realized by privatized education than by the public system, because, with parents in control of the funding, the school and its employees will TRULY be their "servants." All too often, the immunities and insulations afforded to public employees leave citizens (parents, in the context of schools) with little real leverage or influence in the ways their tax money is spent or the functions of government are fulfilled. At private schools, everybody knows who pays the bills and that the parent-customer can always walk away: this is a powerful incentive to engage with parents and provide true service to them and their children, which I have seen firsthand.

Clearly, with a privatized system, there will always be the danger of consolidation under big corporate umbrellas, of McTeaching, etc. But what are the present "joint union" school districts, and State and Federal Departments of Education, but large corporate, monopolistic entities that are even LESS responsive to their customers than private sector corporations could afford to be? Just because they call themselves arms of "government" and declare themselves to be "public servants," doesn't erase the fundamentally bureaucratic, corporate nature of those agencies, which is fairly antithetical to the agile, creative, common sense approaches to education that I sense a great many here would like to see practiced.

I agree that the system must be dissolved. The people within the system cannot let go of old concepts; the context inside which they think is trapped in the old paradigm. Its like trying to alter a rotting square wooden building into a stone new round one by moving the rotten wood around.


I also agree that privatizing is best but think that parents shouldn't have to foot the bill either, or we will end up with schools defined by neighborhoods. James, your ideas are good but scare me in terms of how much paperwork may be required to keep generating the money. The way it is now, huge sums are spend not on education, but on the system that controls it. We want to avoid repeating that mistake. Simplicity is a must.



I have some radical ideas which I will want to share directly when they can actually be implemented and when I am clearer on how to do so.

>The people within the system cannot let go of old concepts

But I am working within the system, teaching math at a community college. And I would be delighted to 'let go of old concepts'. I believe there are lots of us who'd love to be mentors for learning, rather than the power-over situation we're in now.

I hate having power-over (grading), but I think/hope I do more good than harm.

How would privatizing work for poorer people? I don't see it. I think we need single payer health care, which puts the government in the middle of that, too. And I think we need to find a way to have the government support education, but bring the decisions back more locally.

Take a moment and read the NewSchoolAmerica proposition by Education|Evolving  www.educationevolving.org It provides a template for disruptive change at the state level that is needed now.  Based on the ideas brought forth in the book Disrupting Class, disruptive innovation will only occur in public education when there is a "safe place" to do so.  Everybody has an opinion on what to change, this is a guide on how to change, which is sorely missing in a lot of the discussion.   

Along with Disrupting Class, I suggest Turning Learning Right Side Up by Ackoff and Greenberg, for more on radical change.  

Lastly, if you can get your hands on Re-Imagine, written in 2003 by Tom Peters, read Chapter 22 on Education and you will have your battle cry on why this is so important.  

In reading (OK, skimming after a bit) the commentaries above, I'm both heartened and overwhelmed.
I am a public school teacher at a charter high school in Los Angeles.  I'm very familiar with the models of Green Dot and KIPP, and also work with several members of TFA.  All are worthy organizations, but I agree with Clay - none represents a panacea for what ails education.
I guess the small contribution I would like to make to the thread, from a beleaguered teacher's perspective, is that too often we strive for sweeping educational reforms but, as Jerry pointed out, fail to anticipate the results.
What I see, from my in-the-trenches point of view, is that rather than using data to drive instruction, reformers often presume a certain outcome based on their personal beliefs.  They then design a school/curriculum that forces the implementation of strategies and assessments that will, if successful, support their original thesis about what makes education work.  (Sorry so clunky)  It's backwards.  It's not informed by either best practices or proven results.
If you're a classroom teacher, what that means is that, even if your strategies are working - even if you have attained "proficiency" as defined by NCLB - you're still asked to recreate the wheel in your classroom.  You then must throw out everything you've been doing, and redesign your curriculum to conform to the latest methods outlined by the new hot theory in educational research.
It's frustrating and demoralizing.  It also undercuts one's professional pride and sense of efficacy, and renders the classroom a laboratory for someone else's research.  If it doesn't work, of course, the teacher owns that failure, too.  
I hate to sound like a whiner, because I believe reform is possible.  But it has to be systemic, and it won't come from the small schools movement.  It's too fragmented, too susceptible to the whims of a few, and too fragile, often, to allow a single, solid educational philosophy to come to fruition, given budget constraints and competition from public and private schools.

Elizabeth, You have inspired me to make one more comment on this blog.  The recent comments have approached the bizarre at least with respect to the question of what the new administration might do to help improve education.  But you remind me of many teachers I have known, caught in the bind between what they knew would work in their classroom and the most recent phenomenon spun from the educational fad cycle.

In one such period during the late 80's and early 90's I was the testing and research director reporting test score results that continued to decline with the scores for minority and disadvantaged student plunging rapidly.  This in the context of a district with a mission statement claiming equity as goal one.  While I got to report the scores to our Board, others in the organization filled in the answers for why.  Mostly they said the 'demogaphics were changing', an attempt to lay blame on the students rather than examine the programs and practices they supported.

The Board became frustrated with these responses and begin asking for private meetings with me to get my response to these issues.  This is, of course, a strict no no and resulted an angry superintendent and rifts between my department and others in the organization.  I left to pursue other job opportunities because I knew the fad would have to course its way through the system before anything positive could happen.  It was another 5 years before that administration changed with one assistant superintendent fired and the superintendent choosing to leave.

Results have been used for every purpose except positive improvements in learning.  The examples of research directors who have lost their jobs after reporting results not consistent with the current rhetoric are several.  We need to create a pervasive culture where proven programs and practices are clearly identified.  There may be one best way.  There may be several good and effective practices, but we need to know about effectiveness before selecting programs, we need to closely follow implementation with a positive and unbiased flow of information flowing from teachers and students and parents and management. 

The arguements about charter schools and home schooling and who makes what decision miss the point.  It is not about these issues it is about students and their learning.  Schools should be caring places, but are not responsible for loving and caring of students.  That is for parents and family. 

I have tried adding a comment to this discussion many times, but always throw away my effort because it seemed too self-serving or too narrow.  Maybe instead of composing my thoughts off-line, I just need to do it rough and in the moment.  We'll see how it works.
While I think it is essential for the federal government to sponsor and support research identifying best practices, to develop model programs and projects to implement the findings from research, to support the development of model curriculum, and (perhaps most important) to guarantee equal opportunities for all students, I think many of the suggestions made so far miss the point.  They do so for one particular reason.  No two classroom environments, and no two students, are ever the same.  No matter how good the best practice, no matter how exemplary the program or curriculum, it cannot ever be replicated at another site.
I am a retired classroom teacher.  I taught for 20 years in a self-contained 4th-8th grade classroom (in a small K-8 school with an enrollment of 24-40 kids), spent about five years working as a staff developer in an NSF-funded Systemic Change Initiative Project, and finished my career in a small middle school teaching 7th grade Medieval History and English/Language Arts.  I developed most of my own curriculum, either creating activities or entire units of instruction or adapting materials for the needs of my students that were commercially available.  Throughout my career, I wrote curriculum for various projects in which I was involved, provided large-scale training for those units and one-on-one follow-up support for many participants.  Additionally, I acted as a presenter and a support person for projects, programs and curriculum developed by others (Project WILD, SAVI-SELPH, OBIS, Adopt-A-Watershed, Project Storyline, and the like).
From my own experience and from my experience in working with hundreds of other teachers of varying experience, I know that almost no teacher takes curriculum material and implements it exactly as it is designed.  Heck, I really looked forward to teaching in a "normal" middle school, where I could plan a writing unit (for example) and use it for two or three classes each day, and then recycle it the next year.
Never happened.  And I think it is a good thing it never happened.  Each class was different.  Students in each class changed from day-to-day.  I constantly modified my lesson plans for the different sections I had on the same day.  I went home at night and based on the formative assessments I conducted practically non-stop, modified the next day's instruction.  How can a good teacher not do so?
Which leads me to suggest the following.  Model lessons and units and instructional materials must be provided for teachers to use.  But the federal government also needs to provide the structures and the time for teachers to talk to one another about the instruction that they are providing.  If they know their content, are well-versed in varying methodologies or pedagogical approaches available, and clearly understand the learning/teaching objectives, then teachers must be prepared and supported to be able to modify their lesson planning based upon individual student needs.
There is much more to be said about systemic change and learning environments, but I am going to stop here.  If anything I said does not make sense, please feel free to ask.

Scott, 
I think you make a salient point regarding differentiation and the unique nature of each individual class and classroom.  Obviously, you are a talented and accomplished educator, so you are able to modify lessons, or create your own, according to the diverse needs of the students you teach.
My response, though, is that not all teachers enjoy that type of facility with lesson planning.  New teachers, in particular, rely heavily upon pre-fabricated lesson plans and information regarding best practices (specifically as they pertain to classroom management).  When we consider that turnover rate for teachers in inner city schools is astronomically high, and that Baby Boomer teachers are retiring quickly, we must contend with the reality of many inexperienced teachers in our classrooms.
In that respect, I think searching for methods and practices that work, with some degree of regularity, does merit further time and study.  I know that, though I too prefer to generate my curriculum from scratch, I often find inspiration and a renewed sense of purpose in learning about things that great teachers are doing in my discipline.

Lesson plans, rather - I am not authorized to create my own curriculum - oops.  Sorry.

Sue, I do know that some educators in the system are ready to dissolve it and create newly. My dear friend John Taylor Gatto was a school teacher who thinks the same. (He is the author of Dumbing Us Down and three times teacher of the year in NYC and NY state.) But people like you and him are the exception. I do not see a way to change the system. Only to start over. Too many assumptions would prevent transformation.

Here are a few of these assumptions:
Children should be taught or they won't learn. On their own, children don't want to learn.Playing is not learning.Learning occurs with books while sitting.Children have short attention span.Children should learn and play with their own age group.Adults know what children should learn.And on and on, it is a long list. Even the structure of the buildings does not fit the way children learn. Classrooms, groups, same or close in age, teacher and students... these are all concepts that prevent learning. Teaching prevents learning. Testing thwarts learning. Homework impedes learning. Classroom prevents learning. Sitting prevents most learning etc.
I agree that privatizing is a financial problem. Everyone should have equal access to education without a huge system of fund raising. But, communities should be free to use the money as they wish and each family should have access to the yearly sum that is spent per child if they prefer to not use a school, as long as it is spent on education.
Naomi AldortAuthor, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves

I also agree with you Jerry, that schools are not a replacement for loving homes. Warmth, love and care and close relationships are crucial for development and are part of the family experience. No teacher or friend is a substitute for mom and dad.

Therefore children should start school at age ten and spend fewer daily hours in school. The money saved should be spent on parent education and on keeping mothers at home to care for their children. 

Our first problem is that so many children are raised by strangers in day time orphanages called daycare, instead of being raised by loving parents. That's tragic. By school age they are already emotionally harmed. Modern food and vaccinations are another ignored factor in children's ability to learn and thrive. We must start with parent education and support and that too can be part of a school that is child driven and community based.

Sue and Naomi, I really enjoy your comments. I will look forward to reading those books you suggested, Sue. Naomi, I really enjoy John Taylor Gatto's thoughts.

Sue, I AM suggesting that all parents home school, but not in the way you might be thinking. What I mean is that parents can be (and I think should be) the biggest influence in their children's lives. They can choose to create environments in their home that inspire their children to learn on their own--nothing coersive, of course. They should be their examples. Too often families are too scheduled and busy to sit down and read a great book to their children--and to read a great book themselves while their children are watching. Whether or not one chooses to send children to public, private, or homeschools, the parents should take upon themselves to be their children's number 1 mentor. I love the book "The Chosen" and the way Reuven's single father provides a scholar example to his son. Reuven goes to a private school, but his father is the one who really set his son on the scholarship path. This is what I mean by the comment that we should do more to inspire parents to take upon themselves more of their parental responsibilities instead of "outsourcing" education. Too many parents send their kids off and expect a school to give them "all they need to know" for success in life. I disagree with this.

Let's inspire parents to do what will REALLY make a difference in their children's lives. If this administration can inspire parents to read more great books to their children, I will be so happy.

You may want to read "A Thomas Jefferson Education" by Oliver DeMille. It's easier to appy these principles in a home school, but they are being applied in public and private schools also. I think every parent would benefit from reading and implementing these principles, whether or not their children stay at home for school.

I became an inner city schoolteacher from a fine career in the arts and publishing. I wanted to "do some good", but also wanted to go in to the system as a keen observer to share what I found. Now in my 2nd year in a Bronx middle school, I recognize several problems, but the most glaring is the lack of understanding of basic Education research reflected in the policies that dictate how schools run. 
After obtaining a Masters degree from a prestigious teaching college, it became clear to me everything taught in Education courses frowns upon standardization, particularly for schools-in-need. Effectiveness, we are taught, comesmore often through proper "differentiation", or customization of instruction that taps into specific needs of individual students, recognizing multiple intelligences, varying pacing and employing a host of alternative methods to avoid repeating what has been failing consistently for decades. 
Particularly in this media-saturated age where tech advances actually create divisions between generations, standardized assessments often fail to describe the dynamics of what's happening in school. Many kids by 12 are actually very verbal, extremely fast processors, with a surprising knowledge of the "adult" world, media and digital gadgets, while they are far below grade level as measured by standardized math and literacy tests. 
To discount the brain power of these kids is a mistake - many are simply not "buying in" to "book-based" learning because traditional teaching methods aren't selling them on a valid reason to participate. On the other hand, because of their motivation for social networking, they are self-taught in use of the internet and texting devices, versed in the etiquette and language of their peers. I find it embarrassingly ironic that my school doesn't have basic functional computers in classrooms while many of my 8th graders have wireless web available in their pockets. 
Methods taught in the field of Education should be employed in schools rather then using high-stakes standardized testing developed by privatized consultants to judge whether our teachers are doing their jobs right or whether our kids are prepared for life. If we scrap the top-down, unfunded mandates of Bush's NCLB program, where a healthier, more well-rounded education is curtailed to do year-round test prep. This artificially raise scores on paper while preventing teachers from using techniques recommended by experts in the field of Education. Federal centralization also reduces a community's ability to control what and how kids are learning. 
Another significant reality is chaotic student behavior. As one disruptive student can hamper the progress of a whole class, better integration of meaningful social services into school culture would help in quickly dealing with dysfunctional families. From the standpoint of cost-effectiveness alone, it is vital for teachers and staff to reduce the damage done by what is an extremely tiny minority of chaotic students. School counselors are often reticent to initiate intrusive home study cases for fear of opening a can of worms, but the reality is that many students are living under abusive, neglectful or traumatizing conditions and their resultant misbehavior (or 'cries for help') can completely dominate staff time and resources. For this kids will be transferred between classes or schools but what we truly need is some form of home intervention that addresses students who are taxing the system. 
Also of concern is the inability to ferret out and fire non-performing teachers and aides. Speaking as a teacher who took a pay cut to come in to a underperforming school, I'm saddened to see paraprofessionals who sit around and read the paper when they should be attending to their charges (the NY Daily News is delivered to our school free of charge every morning). In short, there should be a social contract between educators, parents, students, authorities and the taxpayers where we all have a role and responsibility to do what works. This is evident in good schools - teachers teach and students learn. Parents who send chaotic kids into schools should be held as accountable as any principal or teacher for the lack of progress being made in that class. Instead, NCLB gives those parents the power to simply switch schools. If our Mayor, Governor or President really wanted to improve our schools, they would appoint real educators to run them, not businessmen, lawyers or all the corporate consultants following McDonalds' business model. They would push caseworkers more aggressively into the few dysfunctional homes that drain school budgets. Teachers could stop protecting non-hackers and catch up with students in the use of technology for a more practical look ahead.