Why FIRST Robotics?

This is my fourth and final year participating in robotics programs in the Everett School District. For personal reasons I have decided to end my role as co-advisor to Cascade Bruin Robotics, but I will always be a passionate believer in and promoter of FIRST and Washington FIRST Robotics. I hope others will, too.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded in 1989 by inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen to provide students with a competitive experience that combines STEM with business, design, communication and organization. FIRST isn’t just about robots. Its programs are growing exponentially and expanding all over the world, and FIRST participants are eligible for significant scholarship opportunities.

The two abiding principles of FIRST are Coopertition and Gracious Professionalism. Coopertition “is displaying unqualified kindness and respect in the face of fierce competition.” Gracious professionalism means that robotics teams “learn and compete like crazy, but treat one another with respect and kindness.” Surely our students want to win. But winning isn’t everything and it isn’t the only thing. It is simply the icing on the cake. Dean Kamen calls FIRST a “varsity sport for the mind” and “the only sport where everyone can go pro.”

At our recent FRC competitions, FIRST Washington founder Kevin Ross exhorted the seniors to take their skills and values into the world, to college and beyond. During this presidential campaign I have been deeply  disheartened by the violent and hateful rhetoric and imagery by some candidates and their supporters. The students of FIRST give me hope for our future.

Imagine a world where our leaders are FIRST alumni who embrace gracious professionalism in every aspect of public life. Imagine a world where we win by helping to bring others up instead of down. That world could be a reality if we provide more opportunities for students in every school to join a FIRST Robotics team. We can all help. If you have time, volunteer as a team mentor (engineering skills not required). Make donations to your local robotics team. At the very least, if you are an Amazon shopper, use Amazon Smile and select FIRST Washington Robotics as your designated charity. FIRST. More than robots. Inspire the World!

Postscript: For another, better perspective on FIRST Robotics, please see this post: Top 10 Differences Between High School Sports and Robotics.

 

An Open Letter to Our Washington State Legislators

I am a high school physics teacher and robotics team mentor in the Everett School District. I know you are hearing from many teachers about the WEA position on school funding, class size, and teacher evaluation. Rather than simply repeat themes that others have probably expressed better, I would like to share with you a personal story about meeting a young woman with a degree in electrical engineering who is thinking about becoming a physics teacher.

When I hear an incredibly bright, passionate, motivated young woman express a desire to share that passion with younger students, I am of two minds. The heart that brought me to teaching has never forgotten the yearning for a journey of discovery shared with young, inquiring minds. I would like very much to encourage this young woman to go into teaching because our profession, our students, our society would benefit from her choice. But would she? How can I, in good conscience, encourage an intelligent, capable young woman to leave a highly paid STEM career track for a profession that is becoming increasingly deprofessionalized, for a job whose demands and dictates are driven by non-educators who presume they know better than teachers what is in the best interests of our students?

Our state has adopted the national narrative of failing schools and underperforming teachers, while refusing to address the systemic long term effects of underfunding both public education and the social safety net. There are too many articles that address both of these issues for me to cite them all, but belief in and response to ideas promoted by education “reformers” are addressed in this scholarly report by The Economic Policy Institute: Fact Challenged Policy by Richard Rothstein. Even if you buy into the notion that most schools are failures, starving them into greater failure hardly seems like a reasoned response, not to mention that it puts the legislature in contempt of the McCleary decision.

Our most grievous concern when it comes to the education of children should be the number of children in poverty. As a scientist, I rely on evidence and data, and the science is very clear that socioeconomic factors are the biggest predictor of academic success. The devastating effects of poverty are well documented in a recent study featured in Nature: Poverty shrinks brains from birth by Sara Reardon.

If you choose to dismiss my previous points by invoking the need for the NCLB waiver, I would respond by saying that many states have figured out it will cost them more to implement the tests and evaluations demanded by DoE than the states will receive in federal funding. The legality of the waivers are questionable at best and, I would argue, unconstitutional. But, since they apparently fit the “reform” agenda of both parties, they go unchallenged.

Integral to obtaining the waiver is an agreement that teacher evaluation be tied to student test scores. There have been many news reports describing how these methods have been poorly implemented in other states. There are many scholarly articles that raise scientific concerns about using test scores for evaluations. I provide one from the Economic Policy Institute: Problems with the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers by Richard Rothstein, et al.

Perhaps it may be more meaningful to end as I began, with a personal story. I believe in assessment as an important evaluative and diagnostic tool. I have for my entire career tracked student learning with pretests and post-tests. New technology makes it easier for me to compare students from one year to the next with similar or identical tests. Each year I have seen decreases in student motivation, increases in distractions due to electronic devices, and test performance is consequently worse. I am working as hard as I can to help students learn material late in the semester because they weren’t willing to keep up with the work when they were supposed to. I have become so disheartened by the attitude of so many who believe that if students do not do well in my class it is my fault. Elected officials and many in the media have become so disrespectful to teachers that I would be hard pressed to recommend this profession to anyone.

I hope that Washington State will not follow the path of other states that are destroying their public schools by using unscientific evaluation systems and diverting public funds to untested charter schools. Lastly, briefly, I will suggest that we begin to address long term funding shortfalls by implementing the Washington Investment Trust once championed by Senator Bob Hasegawa (see Washington State Joins Movement for Public Banking by Ellen Brown).

Kristine McLane Responds: Charter Schools

In response to my previous post Ten Reasons to Say No to Charter Schools, Kristine McLane, librarian and parent, offered this:

The parent/teacher trigger is one of  the most troubling parts of this flawed legislation. If 1240 passes, then any school in the state could become a charter school by petition of either parents or teachers. In this scenario, all local control over that school AND the building its housed in is gone. An approved charter operator could start to circulate a petition among, let's say, Shorewood High School teachers asking them to approve the conversion of the high school that my property taxes will be paying off for the next 20 years, and if 50 percent plus 1 of them sign the petition to convert, then Shoreline voters will have zero say in the operation of the new high school still under construction.  Shoreline parents and taxpayers would  have no say in any of the curriculum decisions, policy decisions, or building use decisions.  On top of that, the district taxpayers would be obligated to pay for all maintenance, utilities, etc., and to fork over any share of future levies that are approved. 

This initiative has very little to do with improving the educational opportunities for underserved or special needs kids and is simply a power and money grab by individuals and companies who see public education as a way to line their pockets.  All of the organizations that support the initiative are funded by Bill Gates and a few other wealthy individuals who stand to profit immensely if this initiative passes.  Rupert Murdoch has invested millions in companies that provide standardized testing services to schools.  We don't need to guess what side the WSJ comes down on when it comes to "holding teachers accountable" by looking at how well their student test scores improve.  If 1240 passes, you can bet money that the non-profit charter operators that are approved by Washington state will soon be signing multi-million dollar contracts with companies owned by Murdoch, Nick Hanauer, Gates, Allen, Broad, Walton, etc...

Please Vote NO on 1240 and preserve locally controlled public education in Washington State.

Ten Reasons to Say No to Charter Schools (No on I-1240)

1) Funding

The Washington State Supreme Court has ruled that the state has never fulfilled its paramount duty to fully fund public education. The charter schools initiative does not provide additional funding for new schools. It simply aims to siphon off per student funding to additional schools, leaving the schools that are already here even more desperately underfinanced. Those of us in education know how critical those first day counts are to get funding for the entire year. Sixty students under projected enrollment could mean a loss of two staff members. In states with charter schools, reporters have documented the practice of charters enrolling as many students as possible (in some cases teachers had caseloads well above 250 students).  Many of these students were weeded out very quickly after their funding was secured from the state. These students ended up in regular public schools that did not receive any funding for them.

2) Privatization

Although Initiative 1240 states that charter schools are public and nonprofit, there are no restrictions on school operators who wish to contract with private organizations for any and all services. In many other states, “public” charters are managed by CEOs who earn very high salaries (in some cases charter school managers have been paid well over a million dollars a year). High administrative fees lead to less money for students and teachers.

            I find myself dumbfounded that in the wake of a devastating financial crisis resulting from private market actions and deregulation there are many who still believe that the market will always do better than the government. There is a reason Rupert Murdoch is investing heavily in education and promoting education investment. I don’t think it’s because he cares about the achievement gap.

3) Teacher Turnover

Personal individual anecdotes aside, evidence clearly shows that experienced teachers are better for students, and novice teachers perform better with experienced mentors. I am a much better teacher now than I was in my first year, and the teachers I respect the most continue to improve their practice no matter how skilled and experienced they are now. Many charter schools experience very high teacher turnover for a variety of reasons, including poor working conditions and low salaries. Something we often forget amid the union bashing is that teaching conditions are learning conditions.

4) Inequity

Even with a lottery system, students whose parents are unaware of or unable to sign up for the lottery will not have the opportunity to be considered for a charter. The location of a charter school will limit the ability of some interested parents who will have scheduling or transportation challenges. The most disadvantaged students will get the least benefit from any changes in the school system.

5) Resegregation

In states where charter schools have been implemented, there is a clear trend toward racial as well as economic segregation. This nation fought a painful and bloody battle many years ago for civil rights and desegregation. While one can argue that we are already on the path to increased segregation in public schools, charter schools are hastening and facilitating this process. Some have argued for segregation as a way to help close the achievement gap. I have seen no studies that support this approach, and returning to the path of “separate but equal” should be fought at all costs.

6) Disrupting communities

The sad reality in our country is that the schools that struggle the most are in the communities with the greatest poverty. Neighborhood schools are often the cornerstones of these communities that are damaged by school turnaround models which dismantle schools and send students in different directions. The parent trigger component of the charter school initiative could create a similar dismantling of public schools. Rather than disrupt a community, why not support and nurture a school and its students on the path to improvement?

7) Accountability and Transparency

In many states, charter schools are not held to the same standards of accountability and transparency as public schools. I have read reports from other states (Florida is one example that comes to mind) where the legislators have actually passed laws to make it easier for well-heeled charter school boards to skirt some of the state auditing requirements, and in some states charter school test scores are not reported to the media or made available to the public.

8) Narrowing the Curriculum

If there is transparency in reporting, charter schools (along with many traditional public schools) prize high test scores above all else, and a significant amount of time is spent on prepping for tests in core subjects at the expense of music, art, shop classes, and similar electives. Many people call such classes enrichment; I think they are fundamental, and they are being lost at a phenomenal rate throughout the country.

9) Performance

If charter schools were consistently doing a better job than public schools as measured by high test scores, challenging and rewarding course options, high graduation and college acceptance rates, low student and teacher turnover, a diverse student population and no achievement gap, I think I would be a strong supporter of charters. The reality is that on average charter schools do no better and many do worse than the schools they are supposedly competing with, even though their student population is less diverse than that of nearby public schools. This has been documented in many studies. Charter school supporters will point to a few shining examples of successful charter schools while ignoring the far from stellar truth about the vast majority. 41 states now have charter schools. They have been operating in some states for decades. We have plenty of data to show that charter schools clearly have not delivered on their early vision and promise.

10) The Wrong Solution to the Wrong Problem

In order to decide if charter schools are the solution, we must first define the problem. One argument is that charter schools are needed because public schools are failing, and (in a free market mindset) charters will provide competition that will force public schools to improve. I have never read of any study anywhere that supports the market competition approach to improving public schools. Some schools are struggling for reasons that have more to do with factors outside the school environment. For more on this please see How about reform based on evidence and data?

            Another argument for charter schools is parental choice. If X number of dollars is attached to my child, shouldn’t I get to choose where that money is spent? If parental choice is the primary motivation for charter schools, then it makes more sense to give parents vouchers for schools (public or private) with a track record than to implement costly new schools that may not succeed. Vouchers are still problematic for many of the reasons already described. Public schools are part of the social contract and people with no school-age children pay taxes that support public schools. For more on this, please see 7 Reasons why public school dollars should stay with public school students.

Please vote No on I-1240.

Disclosure: I am not a journalist or a researcher, and my statements have not been footnoted. My views are based on hundreds of articles I have read over the years. If you would like to see some of these source articles you may find some of them here and here.

How about Education Reform Based on Evidence and Data?

When we discuss education reform, there is always an underlying assumption that public schools are deteriorating and teachers today are worse than they have ever been. This is simply not true. DoE and NAEP data show that black students today are performing better on many measures than white kids were in the 1980s. There is still an achievement gap because white students have improved as well. When we make international comparisons, our schools with a poverty rate of less than 10% outperform all schools except those in Shanghai, which doesn't release demographic data. When the PISA rankings were released, they were downplayed in China, and many Chinese education officials have come to America to see how we foster creativity and innovation. With the "reform" efforts now taking hold here, I wonder if in a few decades American officials will be making similar trips to China.

There is much animus directed at teachers and unions. We have heard many unflattering anecdotes of individual teachers that have had the unfortunate effect of tainting all. For each of these anecdotes there is often a story of a union charged with protecting those teachers at all costs to the detriment of students, parents, and schools. I am inclined to believe that the rest of the story in each case is not so simple. I would never support keeping an abusive and/or incompetent teacher in the classroom. It is up to administrators to do the work of removing these teachers, even as I support their due process. We cannot tarnish the reputations and motivations of all teachers because of the actions of a relative few.

Can educators improve? Of course - we improve with experience, with professional development, with supportive administrators and collaboration. I am concerned about the loss of collaboration if our test scores will be compared to the teacher next door. I am concerned about what happens to the evaluation of teachers who are especially gifted at working with special education students who struggle to perform on standardized assessments. I am concerned about a culture of test-taking that narrows the curriculum and stifles creativity and problem-solving, the true 21st century skills. I am especially concerned about the very unscientific and bizarre  value added measures used to rank teachers in New York City and the public humiliation and excoriation of many teachers that soon followed. (For more on this, please see the NEW YORK section on the Education Reform page. It may be important to keep in mind that this sort of practice is already taking place in several other cities.)

I am concerned about the soaring profits of testing companies who have always produced appalling question banks for tests (ask any teacher who has had to create their own tests because the textbook exams were so poor). I am concerned that we are implementing significant changes to education (narrow standardized testing, value added measures, charter schools) that have not been demonstrated to consistently improve teacher effectiveness or student achievement (and in fact many studies have shown all of these changes to be more detrimental than helpful). The amount of instructional time lost to standardized testing is significant. For students who care, the stress of testing can be destructive. Students who don't care can have a devastating effect on the process for those who do. For example, a middle school teacher told me about a student who deliberately disrupted the testing environment. He knew that low test scores would be inconsequential to him but would reflect negatively on the teacher and school. If a teacher's job depends on test scores, this sort of malicious sport will be elevated to high art.
 

I am concerned that we are doing exactly the opposite of what Finland - a PISA success story - is doing. Finland invests in the basic needs of its children, has great respect for its teachers and pays them extremely well. They do not have the high stakes tests we have here, and a teacher's evaluation is not based on students' test scores. And, in Finland, teachers are represented by unions.

I am concerned that the voices of  "reform" do not include true educators, that there is no evidence to support the changes advocated by Duncan, Gates, Rhee, et al. I am concerned about the persistent and pernicious drumbeat vilifying teachers while our society takes no responsibility for a collapsed financial system that has dramatically increased poverty in this country. When teachers express concerns about the students who go hungry, lack safety and stability at home, and have behavior problems so severe that it hampers our ability to teach, I am deeply troubled by those in the "reform" camp who respond by saying we are simply making excuses for our own ineptitude and laziness. Mostly I am concerned for the nation's children and for the loss of a public education system envisioned by Jefferson as the true foundation of a great democracy.


Post Script:  The following article provides a detailed analysis of actual educational data and the Gates Foundation's misuse or misrepresentation of the data. In the article Arne Duncan and Bill Gates are both quoted making statements that, while not dismissed by the author as false, are simply not supported by evidence. Fact-Challenged Policy by Richard Rothstein, Economic Policy Institute.

Reflections on Reform: A Response to Michelle Rhee

My father sent me a link to a recent Newsweek article by Michelle Rhee, and I couldn't help but respond to some of her points.

Rhee accepts nominal responsibility for things she says she didn't do well, but still seems focused on the notion that poor educational outcomes are entirely the fault of bad teachers. How can she be so clueless to the obvious - that exemplary teachers in some settings would struggle greatly in others? That poverty and apathy and uncertainty at home will affect performance at school?

She states: "Spending on schools has more than doubled in the last three decades, but the increased resources haven’t produced better results." She doesn't take into consideration the tremendous financial burdens absorbed by school districts that are required to fully fund educational opportunities for ELL, SpEd, and students who fall under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Don't get me wrong - we should provide funding - but it is important to be able to account for why we have doubled our spending, and I believe the dramatically increased spending on special needs students is part of the equation. Read The Death of Common Sense by Phillip Howard. He highlights many ways in which unfunded mandates of SpED and ADA laws have had devastating financial impacts on school districts across the country.

Rhee doesn't explain the source of her statement, and we all know the quote about "lies, damn lies, and statistics." If we are truly spending twice as much on schools now compared to three decades ago, then we are getting one heck of a bargain educating significantly more than twice as many students today. I have seen so many statistics bandied about to support the overspending vs. underfunding arguments that it is hard to know where to start. But what we see on the front lines are ever shrinking budgets for classroom supplies, money paid out-of-pocket by teachers, class sizes increasing, struggles to find enough desks and chairs, teachers spending time cleaning their own classrooms because of insufficient custodial hours, teachers accepting reductions of salaries and/or benefits, the list could go on and on.

Rhee states: "The U.S. is currently 21st, 23rd, and 25th among 30 developed nations in science, reading, and math, respectively." I was just watching a news story about the latest international "school report" data, and all of the countries that came out on top (mostly Asian countries and Finland) are very homogeneous and do not have a lot of transient or immigrant populations. In some of the Asian countries there is no commitment to compulsory education, so the students who are tested are the ones who stay in schools. (U.S. high school data has always lagged behind in international comparison studies, but our elementary scores have been competitive. I believe that this may be due in part to the fact that we attempt to keep all kids in school through high school and do not track them the way schools in Europe do.)

Rhee uses these numbers to support her contention that education (specifically teacher quality) has been declining for decades. Yet in similar international comparisons of 30 years ago, the U.S. was never ranked near the top (in fact, the rankings were similar to what they are today).

She goes on: "The children in our schools today will be the first generation of Americans who will be less educated than the previous generation." I'd like to know where she gets her data. Until compulsory education laws, many students dropped out and never made it to high school. My students are graduating with more math and science education than I had in high school. NAEP (our "national report card") data show that black kids today or performing better than white kids were 30 years ago. There is still an achievement gap because white students are also performing better. But those data don't fit the Rhee narrative of incompetent teachers and failing schools.

Rhee states: "Go to any public-school-board meeting in the country and you’ll rarely hear the words 'children,' 'students,' or 'kids' uttered. Instead, the focus remains on what jobs, contracts, and departments are getting which cuts, additions, or changes." What sweeping generalizations and, I believe, wholly incorrect! Promoting the notion that teachers and school boards are focused on protecting teacher's jobs without any focus on students is just appalling. I can imagine such a statement being used to describe contract negotiations between districts and unions, but our union has been fighting for the freedom of teachers to use our professional judgment to make appropriate instructional decisions for our students. I have heard stories about principals who are trying to force all teachers to work from a script and to be teaching exactly the same thing as their colleagues on the same day. That's micromanagement on steroids and totally counter to all that we know about good instructional practice.

I am not cutting myself or my colleagues any slack. We should be held accountable. But we need a data driven, scientific approach to school reform that is lacking in much of the rhetoric, including Rhee's article. (Read The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diana Ravitch. She once supported NCLB but has changed her mind based on DATA. What a concept!!) We need to recognize that current societal values (such as lack of student motivation, students' sense of entitlement, lack of respect for authority) and innovations (such as the double-edged sword of technology and multitasking) have led many good and dedicated teachers to feel a sense of battle-weariness and despair about what they are able to accomplish.

In the countries that are doing well in the international data comparisons, teachers are given more paid time for professional growth and collaboration, and students are in school for longer hours and more days.*  This costs money which no one will be willing to spend (and which we do not have). It is much easier for reformers to strike fear into the hearts of teachers so they will work longer and longer days and get professional development on their own time and their own dime. Do they even care about the effect this has on the home lives of teachers, especially those with school-age children? Changing the fabric of society itself, so that basic needs are met and common values are shared widely, seems like an impossible task but may ultimately be what we need for true school reform to be realized.

Well, that's my 2 cents worth. Not that it'll do much good.

Post Script:  I recently came across an article from the Washington Post, which extends the discussion about international test scores and what we can learn from them. It is worth the read.

Post Script 2:  FiringLine: The Grand Coalition Against Teachers by Joanne Barkan is a deeply thoughtful, well-researched and provocative article that addresses many issues in the education "reform" movement and is well worth the time to read.  However, for this post I wish to focus on an excerpt that takes a closer look at the PISA data I referenced above:

"U.S. students in public schools with a poverty rate of less than 10 percent (measured by eligibility for free or reduced-price lunches) scored 551, second only to the 556 score of the city of Shanghai, which doesn’t release poverty data. The U.S. students outperformed students in all eight participating nations whose reported poverty rates fall below 10 percent. Finland, with a poverty rate of just 3.4 percent, came in second with a score of 536."

When Joel Klein makes public statements about the American education system being abysmal, then turns around and awards a no bid contract to an online education program owned by Rupert Murdoch, for whom he now works, one wonders if he truly cares about the education of students in poverty, or even of the students who are already doing well but may have radical changes in their education due to the current obsession with high stakes testing.

*Post Script 3: I have learned more about the Finnish system since writing this, and believe I was wrong about their students attending longer hours and longer days. More articles about education reform can be found on my supplemental page Education Reform.