Visiting Denver on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan hailed the education system in Colorado for its spirit of “tough-minded collaboration,” in which people are working together and “there is a real sense of trust.”
Duncan made his remarks this morning during a town hall discussion at the Denver School of Science and Technology-Green Valley Ranch campus, the first of several public appearances on his calendar for his visit to the metro area on day two of what has been declared Colorado Literacy Week.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan / File photo
Joining Duncan at DSST were Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia, state Commissioner of Education Robert Hammond and Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg.
After brief prepared remarks, Duncan answered questions for about 30 minutes from an audience of several hundred students, educators and education officials.
Brother Jeff Fard, who runs a cultural center based in the Five Points neighborhood, asked Duncan what is being done to address the ethnic achievement gaps in public education, or whether a discussion of racial issues was “a taboo subject.”
“We have to talk about race,” said Duncan. “We can’t have anything that is taboo or off the table. When you talk about achievement gap, by definition, we have to talk about race. I wish there was an easy answer. There isn’t one.”
Duncan said any solution has to be multi-faceted, starting with greater investment in early-childhood education, to improve kindergarten readiness, as well as a greater focus on “wrap-around” programs, enrichment opportunities that will keep children in school once they get there.
And, he said, “We have to get the most talented and effective teachers and principals into those communities. In many communities, there have been incentives for the most talented to go to the wealthier communities and no incentive to get them to go to the communities who need them the most.” That, he said, needs to be reversed.
One young male student asked for the secretary’s thoughts about paving the way to higher education for undocumented students – an issue Colorado is tackling with the legislature’s consideration of Senate Bill 12-015, the so-called ASSET bill.
“I think right now as a country we’re just crazy on this issue,” said Duncan, who said it was “insane” to create roadblocks to college after educating undocumented students at from kindergarten through high school.
“I have been desperately frustrated by the lack of progress we have had on this in Congress,” he added. “This is one where right now, quite honestly we don’t have the support in Congress to get the right thing done. We need their talents in this country. We are cutting off our nose to spite our face.”
Garcia used the occasion to announce a program dubbed One Book 4 Colorado, an initiative aimed at providing one new book to every four-year-old in Colorado, and simultaneously supporting parents as their child’s first teacher. The program was developed in partnership between Reach Out and Read, the Colorado State Library, public libraries, the private sector and numerous foundations.
Duncan celebrates environmental literacy
After the town hall, Duncan stopped by the Green Schools National Conference to promote the department’s Green Ribbon Schools program and to praise environmentally-conscious educators who he said have toiled in obscurity for too long.
“For too long, greening our schools, developing environmental literacy, have been afterthoughts in education,” he told the gathering of several hundred students, educators and others at the Colorado Convention Center. “This gathering today is a powerful testament that the green movement is no longer a sidelight in schools.”
Duncan said the evidence shows that investing in eco-friendly school buildings and programs doesn’t have to mean de-funding other programs.
“You’re helping to debunk the zero-sum myth,” he said.
In fact, green schools use roughly a third less energy than conventionally-designed schools, and on average save $100,000 per year on operating costs.
“That’s enough to hire two new teachers or purchase 5,000 new textbooks,” he said.
He noted that it isn’t just new school buildings that are racking up big savings on energy bills. Even old buildings can take simple steps to promote environmental stewardship and save money in the process.
Indeed, Boasberg, who introduced Duncan, noted that by replacing less-efficient water fixtures, DPS has managed to reduce water consumption by 40 percent, saving more than 50 million gallons of water annually.
Duncan said that environmentalists have changed the culture of American schools, just as they’ve changed the culture of America.
He noted that in 2001, fewer than 19,000 American high school students took the Environmental Science Advanced Placement exam. Last year, nearly 100,000 did.
“That’s an amazing movement in the right direction,” he said.
Duncan said the Green Ribbon Schools program, recently launched to recognize schools that excel in promoting healthy and environmentally-friendly learning environment, came about because schools requested it. He said it marks a sleeker, more partnership-driven model of initiative.
“This represents a departure from the usual way of doing things,” he said. “We didn’t have to wait for a dysfunctional Congress to act, and we didn’t have to hire a lot of new staff to administer this program. You didn’t ask us to reinvent the wheel. Instead, we brought together some underused resources into one coherent program.”
Q and A with Duncan on current events
With the news that three children are now dead in the wake of the shooting at Chardon High School in Ohio, Duncan commented on the tragedy in a brief morning press conference:
“Obviously, your worst nightmare. My wife and I have two children in public schools and you never, ever, ever want to see something like this happen. So there will obviously be a thorough investigation. Our team has been in touch with local school officials there, to provide whatever assistance we can. But it’s a devastating tragedy.”
One reporter asked Duncan why such incidents are happening “more and more.”
“We actually just had a recent report that came out that said school violence is down so big picture, trends are going the right way; but obviously any incident is unacceptable, and when these kinds of things happen, it’s absolutely devastating.
“It’s something we have to learn from, we have to be more vigilant, we have to push hard to reduce bullying and to understand what’s going on there. Folks will be looking very, very carefully at what can be learned here, so that these kinds of things never happen again.”
On a day when Republicans in Michigan and Arizona were going to the polls in those states’ presidential primaries, Duncan was asked to respond to candidate Rick Santorum’s recent remarks on the campaign trail that President Obama was a “snob” because he “wants everybody in America to go to college.”
Duncan didn’t even let the question finish, cutting it short with, “I’m not political, so I’m not going to comment.”
Then he commented:
“Everyone here knows that the unemployment rate for college-educated folks is less than half that of those who don’t have a college degree,” he said. “Lifetime earnings are dramatically higher.”
His non-comment comment continued:
“There are no good jobs – none – in the legal economy today for a high school drop-out, nothing out there. And there are almost none if you just have a high school diploma,” Duncan said.
“Some form of higher education – four-year universities, two year community colleges, trade, technical, vocational training, whatever your dream, whatever your passion is, whatever your interests, some form of higher education has to be the goal for … every single young person around the country.”
Arne Duncan has been the biggest disaster in education since Margaret Spellings. Before Denver jumps on his corporate financed band wagon, look closely at his Chicago legacy and the public dollars flowing into failing privatized education initiatives.
Education “Reform” has been a disaster.
- Wider achievement gaps
- More children in poverty
- Increased need for college remediation
If accountability is about effectiveness and efficiency than why do we tolerate leaders who do the wrong things that cost more money. Centralizing control at the federal and state department levels have meant fewer dollars for kids and negative outcomes in education.
I’m not sure what “sense of trust” to which he refers. He needs to talk to the parents at Smiley Middle School about whether they trust the district. They are activated because the district will be removing some of the important parts of their IB program, even though the district committed to support it. Those parents certainly don’t feel they can trust the district. But I guess that’s the by-product of student based budgeting.
If anyone cares to watch, the parents have set up a live stream of their meeting about the future of Smiley, today at 6 p.m. You can attend in person at Odyssey school, or you can watch online here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/smiley-middle-school. The video will be available for watching later as well, through that link.
And I couldn’t agree with Angela more. Duncan has been abysmal for public education, and his waivers from NCLB are not-so-thinly-disguised excuses for even more testing and more closure of schools with high numbers of English learners and poor kids.
I also wonder what “sense of trust” he’s talking about. Colorado threw its teachers under the bus with SB 191. The majority of teachers in this state certainly don’t have a “sense of trust” when it comes to reform issues. I’d say it’s more a sense of outrage and doom, hardly synonyms for “trust.”
I also take exception to Duncan’s assertion that we need to get the most talented teachers out of the affluent schools and into the poor schools, that this simply isn’t happening and needs to be reversed. I work in a very poor school, and I’ve seen some of the most talented teachers there that I’ve ever seen. I’ve worked in an affluent situation as well, and while the teachers there were also very good, they weren’t better at all than the teachers in my poor school. In fact, with all due respect to teachers of affluence, who deal with their own demons, I think teaching in a poor setting really, really improves a teacher. Teachers in poor schools really have to step up to the plate. His insinuation that the teachers in poor schools are untalented (and, by tacit extension, the cause of the achievement gap) is truly insulting.
Doesn’t add too much to the “trust” thing.
But that’s what you get when basketball players run the Department of Education and MBAs start charter schools. You get reformer kool-aid. And you get polices, and people, who are a real threat to poor and minority children, even to democracy itself.
“Tough minded collaboration” and a “real sense of trust” must be phrases used to describe other states than Colorado. In this state, it’s authoritarianism and distrust of teachers that best describe the climate. SB 191 is the latest version of crony authoritarianism. For example, principals are evaluated by the same teachers they choose to retain or hire. Thus, the cronyism that had been standard procedure in many schools was crafted into law by SB 191. Angela Engel and Andrea Merida have already stated the obvious. What needs to still be said is that “education reform” has produced no tangible results worth mentioning. Instead, the results define a “lost decade”, because our public schools definitely need reforming, We’re stuck in a system that best fits the industrial age, not the information age. That’s still the status quo.
Mary, some of the finest teachers I know are the ones at Kepner, who can move kids to English proficiency in less than 3 years, when all the research says it takes 7-8 years.
“Joining Duncan at DSST were Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia, state Commissioner of Education Robert Hammond and Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg.”
Here’s a couple multiple choice questions for you:
What is the combined k-12 teaching experience of these four good old boys?
A) 0
B) 1 year
C) 2 years
D) 3 years
If you guessed zero, you are “above proficient”, unfortunately they are not which explains why policy making in education is all about money and power instead of kids.
I’m so sick of the rhetoric and simplistic soundbites. When do we get to hear from the experts: teachers, parents and kids?
Second question:
How many of these “education leaders” come from a business background:
A) All of them
B) 3
C) 2
D) none of them
The answer: A or B is accepted; Duncan was appointed to a non-profit and played basketball in Australia
I don’t know what planet you guys live on, but it’s not what I know or see. If this were not a Democracy and President Obama could just tell you what to do and it would be done, none of this mess would continue. There are people who can organize and work their way out of a paper bag, and then there are those that tear the edges of the bag and the bag still remains. The grass is always greener.
Sometimes when you feel like “nobody understands”, it’s because you do not understand.
Ed, help me to understand how a teacher evaluates his/her own principal thereby ensuring cronyism. If 50% of a principal’s evaluation is based on student growth and the other 50% is based on various standards, where does the cronyism come in? What am I missing in SB 191 that proves your point?
I think Ed is referring to the mutual consent clause of SB 191. It actually went into effect a year ago. Principals no longer have to lay off by seniority. Teachers are basically at-will employees now, although most don’t realize it. My district has graciously agreed to not implement anything about the bill until 2014, but they’re being nice, and they don’t have to be.
We were just asked, though, to evaluate our Ps and APs and it was not an anonymous evaluation. I happen to have very good administrators, but what if I didn’t? I wouldn’t be too likely to say so in an evaluation in which my comments, along with my name, go to the person who’s going to decide in a couple of months who to let go. They weren’t sneaky about it; they were very upfront that our name, and our comments would go to the administrators being evaluated.
So I think Ed is right when he says that principals are evaluated by the same teachers they choose to retain or hire. It (mutual consent) may not be the case yet in a lot of districts, but it’s coming to your district for sure in 2014.
What this will mean, as an aside, is that teachers will no longer be able to speak out against practices they know are wrong, won’t be able to say no to extra duties and responsibilities, won’t be able to advocate for children as they do now. Come May of each year, if they have cuts to make in schools, they’ll be getting rid of the squeaky wheels or the ones who just can’t take any more time away from their families, or the more expensive ones. I’m sure Mike Johnston is patting himself on the back over his huge success. I wonder if he will also take responsibility for the terrible unfairness of what is about to ensue.
I know some will tell me that I’m painting too bleak a picture, but I don’t think so. Read the law. If your school, or in secondary, your department, needs to RIF a teacher, the P can RIF anyone s/he wants to. The implications of this are frightening. Just imagine how the Douglas County teachers must feel.
Mary Nanninga effectively answered Mark Sass. Still, I recommend reading the legislation. It’s readily apparent how cronyism has been legitimized. And, how will this evaluation system be funded? Initial estimates suggest millions of dollars will be essential to implement it and those dollars can only come from the classroom. Students will pay in lost instruction.
Why would a principal let an effective or high performing teacher go if the principal has to rely on effective or high performing teachers to keep their job? Mary, the fact that your district chooses to survey teachers about their administrators without anonymity is a district, not state decision.
Mutual consent refers to the manner in which teachers are placed into schools. This is from the Ed News story last May on mutual consent: “But the law also enacts mutual consent, which states teachers with at least three years experience who lose their jobs can no longer be assigned to another school without the approval of the teacher and the new school’s principal.”
Seniority no longer is a trump card used to save jobs. Your performance based on the new evaluation system is the guiding factor used to assess your value to the school and students. Teachers are not basically at-will employees.
Mary or Ed, can you point to the language in the law that says principles can RIF any teacher they want to?
Read the part about displaced teachers having two hiring cycles to be rehired and how the P of the next school (or the new school) must consent to the teacher’s hiring or rehiring.
In a turnaround district, this is very important stuff. If the staff is required to re-apply for their jobs, and only half are allowed to be re-hired, we could have a lot of masters degrees and a lot of years of seniority out on the street. The school would be within its rights to cut a lot of non probationaries for a bunch of TFAs. If a school in turnaround is replacing half the staff, then it’s just like a new school and the P can keep and cut whomever they want. Once a teacher is out, they can only be hired if the P of the next school agrees that they’re a good match (just as the P at the old school would be able to decide if the teacher is or isn’t a “good fit”).
In a district that’s not threatened with turnaround, it’s probably not a big deal to those teachers. To districts that have this threat hanging over their heads, this mutual consent is going to mean a lot of experienced (expensive) teachers get fired and replaced by newbies or wannabes. All that has to happen is a reorganization of the school, in which all must reapply for their jobs, and principals and districts will have carte blanche in regards to firing and replacing. All they have to say is that the principal didn’t consent.
Yes, I realize very well it was my district and not the state that asked us to evaluate our administrators. But Ps’ evaluations are based on the standards and teachers opinions are part of their evaluation on the standards. Maybe not yet in your district, but you will be part of that evaluation eventually. If they decide it’s not to be anonymous, well, you decide how that might go. Now say it’s not anonymous and you’re in a school targeted for turnaround. If the evaluation doesn’t say what it should, I contend you’re about to be found “not a good fit” for the turned-around school and not re-hired. Once that happens, good luck.
The whole SB 191 thing is a lot easier in more affluent schools and districts than it is in the ones they’re gunning for. For us, this mutual consent thing is going to mean something very different.
Mary, I guess it comes to to the intent and interpretation of the law. It states: THEREFORE, EACH EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT EXECUTED PURSUANT
TO THIS SECTION SHALL CONTAIN A PROVISION STATING THAT A TEACHER MAY BE ASSIGNED TO A PARTICULAR SCHOOL ONLY WITH THE CONSENT OF
THE HIRING PRINCIPAL AND WITH INPUT FROM AT LEAST TWO TEACHERS
EMPLOYED AT THE SCHOOL AND CHOSEN BY THE FACULTY OF TEACHERS AT
THE SCHOOL TO REPRESENT THEM IN THE HIRING PROCESS, AND AFTER A
REVIEW OF THE TEACHER’S DEMONSTRATED EFFECTIVENESS AND
QUALIFICATIONS, WHICH REVIEW DEMONSTRATES THAT THE TEACHER’S
QUALIFICATIONS AND TEACHING EXPERIENCE SUPPORT THE INSTRUCTIONAL
PRACTICES OF HIS OR HER SCHOOL.
I read it to say that the principal, using input from two teachers who have been elected by the school’s teachers, makes the decision. Principals are evaluated according to standards, which include 50% student growth.
Can you explain the concern you have that SB 191 is gunning for less affluent schools? Do you mean less affluent schools or lower performing schools?