Statewide
Education Summit
April 18, 2008
EDUCATION POLICY FORUM: Keeping Texas Schools Ahead of
the Curve
Panel summary
Dr. Don McAdams, President, Center for Reform of School Systems
Dr. McAdams is dedicated to educating school boards and school district superintendents for high achievement. The real unit of change in our school system is the school district. This institution is obsolescent now as it was designed years ago to educate only a certain portion of the population. We now need to educate everyone and, therefore, school districts have a new purpose and need to be redesigned for this new purpose. A state policy framework is necessary for this change but the state legislature cannot do it alone. Each locale must have a part in this process. Presently, public education is dong its best job but for standards based reform in our school to proceed, we need to accelerate the rate of change so as to remain ahead of the curve. The following four recommendations would contribute to this necessary change: 1) Academic standards are too low and need more clarity, alignment and specificity in K-8. HS standards are a bit more complex and need more flexibility. Multiple pathways with equal rigor are necessary. 2) More resources are needed by schools to accommodate growth and inflation as well as implementation of new standards. In particular, more money is needed to recruit and maintain high school math and science teachers. The legislature needs to make this happen. 3) A simpler accountability system is needed that is balanced, fair, and more easily understandable in order to change future behavior. 4) More local control is needed. School boards need to stay out of management and govern for change. Superintendents need to redesign their districts for high performance for all.”
Dr. Rod Paige, U.S. Secretary of Education, 2001-2005
Dr. Paige’s topic today is teacher unions and the part they play in the school reform process. “Over-unionization” is a barrier to the school reform process. I have no objection to the existence of teacher unions as there is definitely a need for representation for teacher rights and employment issues. The problem occurs when school boards trade off demands to unions, and the result is a choked school system. This is not as serious a problem in Texas as in some other states. The core political issues to address are policy and the administrative system and how the collective bargaining organizations play into this. The behaviors of school boards must be addressed if change it to happen. A clarification of the term, “teacher union,” is necessary. Teachers are the professionals with low pay who look eye to eye with students everyday. The union is made of highly paid lobbyists. General school improvement today is not addressing two main issues: 1) The drop-out rate and 2) the achievement gap among student groups. We are making small incremental gains but these gains are not substantial change in a reasonable timeframe. We must examine and deal with the political forces that retard this process because we have allowed it to go too far. We will never catch up if we don’t.”
Dr. Larry R. Faulkner, President, Houston Endowment, Inc.
Dr. Faulkner is the President Emeritus of The University of Texas as well as holding many other titles but he comes to us today in his capacity as Chairman to the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (President Bush issued an executive order creating a National Mathematics Advisory Panel to advise him and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings with respect to the conduct, evaluation, and effective use of the results of research relating to proven-effective and evidence-based mathematics instruction) to summarize their findings about mathematics education in the public schools. The report is available in hard copy today as well as from the official web site at http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/mathpanel/index.html.
“First the panel studied what the research base says about how to prepare kids for math education, specifically algebra, and found out that success in algebra correlates with future educational success. There are forty-five (45) conclusions listed in the panel’s executive summary including content, learning process, teachers and instructional practices, assessment and research mechanics and policies. As far as content is concerned, the panel concluded that American schools are attempting to cover too may topics too shallowly. The curriculum needs to be streamlined with closure brought to the cyclic process that exists now without such closure. The core items that lead to algebra success need to be strongly emphasized. In order to facilitate this examination, the panel arrived at a definition of algebra, the core elements leading into algebra and a set of benchmarks with grade level and age specificity. Texas is actually doing better than the national achievement levels in early math education but the progress at the 12th grade level is not impressive. There seems to be a systematic weakness occurring in the 4th-8th grade years. There seems to be too little emphasis on fractions (manipulations and conceptual elements), and the curriculum needs to be streamlined with an emphasis on core elements. The learning process is also to be considered. Early age math concept development or what kids bring to school initially is very important. Also, the idea that effort matters needs to be promoted. Children who believe they can achieve do achieve. Our culture gives up too early sometimes and halts the achievement process. There is also a deep philosophical division about instructional practices (student-centered or teacher-centered) for which there is no basis in research. There are many things that can be done now at almost no cost at the district level to improve this situation.”
