EduGuru

$700 Billion Bailout for Education.

A little perspective is appropriate for the $700,000,000,000 bailout of Wall Street.  That’s enough money to do any one of the following:

• Spend $14,000 on every public school student in the country.
  
• Pay every teacher over $200,000.
• Invest $14,000,000 in each low-performing school.
• Reduce the pupil-teacher ratio to 5 to 1 nationwide.

The EduGuru speaks:  But Congress insists we will get a return on our money by investing in Wall Street.  Ummm. Wouldn’t we get a better return by investing in our kids?

The $1 Million Question: Are you smarter than Kathy Cox?

Kathy Cox, State Superintendent of Education, Georgia, is the first contestant to win the top prize on “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?”  Thanks to her familiarity with Queen Victoria and General Cornwallis, Kathy aced the final two questions.  We’d like to see Victoria on “The Nanny,” and the General on “The Biggest Loser” (Yorktown).  Kathy, a history major, drew two world history categories when the stakes were the biggest.  She never needed her “Cheats” from the actual fifth graders.

Congratulations Kathy, you were not only entertaining, but the $1 million goes to schools in Georgia.  Think your Legislature was paying attention?  Maybe they should get you on “Deal or No Deal.”  Your admonition to all students at the end of the show to stay in school was great. 

Wonder if Michael Phelps would have gotten Olympic swimming questions.

1^st Grade Math: How long is the 400 meter freestyle relay?

Phelps: 3 minutes, 8.24 seconds

2^nd Grade History: Who won 7 Olympic Gold Medals in one year?

Phelps:  Me

3^rd Grade History: Who won 8 gold medals in one year?

Phelps:  Me too

4^th Grade Science: What’s the temperature of the pool water in Beijing?

Phelps: Cool, like when I win by a touch

5^th Grade American Culture: How many viewers saw you on Saturday Night Live?

Phelps: Don’t know.  I was watching Kathy Cox win $1 million.

The EduGuru speaks:  Whew!  So glad an educator not an athlete was the first to be smarter than a fifth grader.

Leveraging Compliance Data for Instructional Improvement.

Not buying it?  Compliance data are those collected and reported to satisfy audit and accountability requirements, e.g., reporting attendance for state funding, females in organized sports for Title IX, minorities in AP classes for the Office for Civil Rights, proficient students in math for NCLB, on and on.  These data don’t inform instruction for teachers when they are reported months later in aggregate form.  In fact, teachers can look out over their classroom and know these statistics on a moment-to-moment basis. 

Then why do we hear people from the U.S. Department of Education to every state education agency trying to tie their data to daily classroom instructional processes?

The EduGuru speaks:  ROI.  The policy wonks desperately want their efforts to help the millions of students and thousands of teachers directly rather than indirectly.  The Eduguru praises them for this vision.  However, that’s not your job. 

The data that inform the work of state and federal government (statistics to calculate funding formulas and accredit schools) are not what teachers use on a daily basis (personal information about individual students and their immediate instructional needs).   

…and that’s OK.

The job of the state and federal bureaucrats is to get out of the way of the schools and districts and let them achieve data-driven decision making.  That can be done by making the local to state and state to federal reporting processes as efficient and unobtrusive as possible.  One aspect of that is to follow consistent data standards that allow the schools and districts to keep “one set of data books.”  Collecting, storing, and reporting data consistently across all systems is the key.