Should there be guns in schools?

I intend to share this letter with my governor and as a letter to the editor. I would appreciate your feedback in the comments. Thank you in advance.

=====

Dear Governor Snyder,

On November 8th, the Michigan Senate passed legislation (584, 585, and 586) allowing individuals with concealed weapons permits to request permission to carry guns in schools (and other previously gun-free zones) with extra training. “[A gun-free zone is] a target-rich environment for people that don’t abide by the law, and people should have the ability to protect themselves, wherever they are,” explained State Senate Majority Leader (and my senator) Arlan Meekhof. This follows the narrative often accompanying such legislation: the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. 

I understand why this is a compelling story; it makes us feel safe, empowered, and may even touch on our dreams of being a hero. There's even a recent example of a good guy with a gun helping to stop a bad guy. But law enforcement officials, like the Houston Police Department, want you to consider a different story when involved in an active shooter event: run first; hide if you can't run; and fight only as a last resort.

Why would the police discourage you from being a hero? A couple of storylines come to mind:

• Good guy with a gun shoots an innocent student or teacher while trying to stop a bad guy (with or without a gun); and
• Good guy with a gun shoots some other good guy with a gun after misidentifying him as a bad guy with a gun.

We must also consider that confronting an active shooter isn't the only story that can be told around a good guy with a gun in a school. In fact, the good guy with a gun is unlikely to actually encounter an active shooter in a Michigan school given current statistics. So what other stories might we tell that involve a good guy, a gun, and a school - minus a bad guy?

• Good guy with a gun gets angry about something and shoots the student, teacher, administrator, or parent that made him angry;
• Child finds good guy's gun carelessly left laying around and shoots self or another child; and
• Child finds good guy's gun carefully hidden away and shoots self or another child.

I get why we would rather not consider these tragic storylines. Most everyone would prefer the happy ending associated with "good guy with a gun stops bad guy with a gun." But just because you like one ending better than the other doesn't make it more likely to happen - especially when you compare the hundreds of children accidentally shot each year with the handful of heroes.

We ought not be making laws based on Hollywood happy endings. Instead, we need to consider the reality and the possible unintended consequences that occur when a gun is added to any situation. If we truly want to use "common sense" when addressing gun violence, just remember that no one ever got shot in a place without guns.

Should these bills reach your desk, please exercise your veto. Do not put our children at risk just so a few people can dream of being a hero.

Sincerely,

David Coffey

What needs changing?

The Michigan Department of Education is considering changes to Michigan teacher certification and asking for feedback. Here is more information about their proposed certification structure.

Feedback is due today. (Sorry, I'm still a bit of a procrastinator.) However, if you consider yourself as having any stake in education, I encourage you to complete the survey, as soon as possible. It'll take maybe 45 minutes to watch the video and answer some questions.

For what it's worth, here's my response. (And, yes, I know I am biased.)

My issue with the structure being proposed is that it seems to presume that new teachers ought to be completely prepared upon certification. Even if we focused on giving specific grade-level certification, there is no way to address all the issues (textbooks, culture, community, resources, …) new teachers might encounter across the state (or country). Furthermore, this structure will limit the options available to teachers and potentially restrict administrators' ability to fill positions. I can imagine school districts asking for waivers to put PK-3 certified teachers in 4th grade because of a lack of options - a teacher that may have no training at that level.

I encourage that the state look at the Grand Valley State University teacher certification program as a model. We support the development of teacher-leaders in content areas by requiring even pre-service elementary teachers to get a subject major. Local districts regularly call us looking for recent majors because they know they will be content experts who can also integrate other subjects into their practice.

Also, the MDE needs to rethink professional development for inservice teachers. Because no teacher is truly finished learning, we must return to a robust professional development process that helps teachers build on current education experiences to deepen their pedagogical content knowledge in all discipline they might be teaching. Such a system is especially important now because we have so many new, inexperienced teachers entering the profession.

This professional development ought to be in partnership with accredited bodies responsible for initial teacher certification. These institutions are aware of the training new teachers bring to the profession and can provide meaningful experiences that can expand teachers’ current abilities. The experiences would be the result of the institutions and inservice teachers collaborating on areas needing improvement.

In my discipline, we often hold up Dr. Deborah Ball (former dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Education) as the model elementary math teacher. However, we fail to recognize that Dr. Ball rose to this level after identifying this as an area of weakness in her teaching – after being a certified, inservice teacher (see p. 9). She decided to do something about it by going back to school and learning more about the subject and its teaching. We need to allow all inservice teachers to follow the path from awareness to adjustment without fear of being labeled unprepared or ineffective. 

While teacher preparation institution must make changes to better prepare teacher-leaders, teacher certification is not the primary problem. A lack of opportunities for meaningful professional development is the issue. Changing teacher certification to try to address a broken inservice support system focuses our efforts in the wrong direction and may do further damage to education in Michigan.

Thank you, in advance, for your attention to this issue.

Isn't it great to be a teacher?

from http://perceptionvsfact.com/13to 

Yes, it is great to be a teacher. However, unless you are a teacher or know one very well, it's probably not for the reasons you think. The one example that I am constantly having to explain to people is the whole misunderstanding about the summer pay thing.

"Isn't it great to be a teacher and have a paid summer vacation every year?" asks a person I just met when she/he finds out I am a teacher. 

I explain that the money I get paid is deferred from what I earn during the school year. Much like a pension or Social Security, it helps me make it through a time I would not normally be earning a salary. Also, it helps most districts to spread payments out over the year. Win-win, right?

But what happens if the district is in financial trouble and runs out of money before paying the deferred salary to teachers? This is not a hypothetical question. It is happening right now in Detroit. And state politicians are having a hard time understanding why the teachers are worried about their summer pay.

Let's do the math. Imagine a Detroit teacher works for 9 months, September to May, for $36,000 (These are rough estimates. I am simplifying the problem to make it easier to follow.) The teacher can take the payment across 9 months, $4,000 per month, or 12 months, $3,000 per month. If a teacher in Detroit chose to spread her pay over 12 months and the district runs out of money at the end of June, then she will receive 10 months of pay or $30,000 of the $36,000 she earned. This translates to 7 1/2 months of teaching or through the middle of last month (April). In other words, if the legislature does not come through with the necessary funds, Detroit teachers have already worked for roughly 10 days for free. 

The governor's office tells teachers not to worry - that a $715 million aid package is moving through the legislation. Unfortunately, according to the New York Times: 

A year ago, Mr. Snyder, a Republican, proposed a $715 million aid package for the Detroit district, but it has been bogged down in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

No wonder Detroit teachers feel too sick to go to school.

Oh, Happy Teacher Appreciation Day!

Update [5/4/2016]: I was a bit off with my estimation of connivence, but it was close.

Update [5/5/2016]: Michigan House approves $500 million funding plan for Detroit Public Schools - but there are concerns.

Who deserves a seat at the table?

From ProCon.or

When it comes to discussions about issues in education, I would like to think I interact with an educated mind. It is important for me to try to understand different points of view without necessarily adopting them, and I hope that everyone engaged in the discussion will do the same. This was tested last week as I interacted with a Canadian mathematician involved in a group interested in influencing education policy in his country (some of the interaction can be seen here).

The exchange came about because one of his colleagues recently published a commentary focusing on improving math scores in Canada. What to Do about Canada's Declining Test Scores offers three recommendations but I was most interested in the first piece of "advice":

As a rule of thumb, teachers should be encouraged to follow an 80/20 rule, favouring direct instructional techniques over discovery-based instructional techniques. 

The rationale provided includes references to multiple studies that support the use of direct instruction. However, the commentary ignores any research that disagrees with the premise that direct instruction is the most effective method of teaching.

In trying to understand the perspective of this group of mathematicians, I got this regarding the use of qualitative research:

This stance reminds me of my brief time in debate during high school, where people disparaged the source rather than addressing the content. I don't like debates like this because they focus on producing winners and losers instead of solutions. Ignoring an entire branch of education research is limiting, especially if you want input into making decisions about education.

Which brings me back to the question, "Who deserves a seat at the table?" I would say everyone does (although, people who engage in antisocial behavior ought to have it pointed out, and if it continues be shown the door). Extending the metaphor a bit, this does not mean that cooks ought to feel obliged to try to meet every guests' suggestion about the meal or its preparation. While some guests may have more expertise than others in cooking, the cooks are the experts on their own kitchen and their own skills. The cooks need to decide what advice to take. Certainly, this might result in some unhappy guests, but it is likely impossible to satisfy everyone given that the table is open to all.

The same goes for teachers. Too many outside "experts" are telling teachers what ought to be going on in their classroom. Whether the experts are saying discovery-based or direct instruction, teachers ought to remember Hattie's (2012) overall findings:

The remarkable feature of the evidence is that the greatest effects on student learning occur when teachers become learners of their own teaching, and when students become their own teachers. (p. 14)

Therefore, I encourage teachers and students to think of themselves as researchers - experimenting to determine what is and isn't working to foster learning and why. It should be noted that numbers on a test do not provide enough data to answer these questions.

The Hattie quote comes early in the text. In regards to the remainder of the book, or any other advice related to classroom instruction, I would suggest teachers heed Aristotle - feel free to entertain the research/recommendations of others but do not accept them if they won't improve the teaching and learning in your classroom.

What are (and aren't) the CCSS?

There is some real confusion about the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics [CCSSM]. For example, check out the #CCSStime Twitter feed from last night. Maybe this will help.

This is NOT an example of a CCSSM:

from Liberty Unyielding

It is a curricular resource selected by a district, school, or teacher to support the development of some objective. That objective might be aligned with the CCSSM, but there is no evidence on the sheet that this is the case.

Here is a curricular resource that claims to be aligned with the CCSSM:

from Create * Teach * Share

The 3.NBT.3 notation in the upper-righthand corner indicates the standard this worksheet is meant to address. It is up to the district, school, or teacher to determine if this resource does indeed meet the standard. Still, this is NOT an example of a CCSSM.

This IS a CCSSM:

You can be sure of its authenticity because it comes from this document, Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Anything not found in this document (like the curricular resources provided above) are not a part of the CCSSM.

When it comes to development and selection of curricular resources, the CCSSM is quite explicit; it leaves these decisions to the teachers. It does not endorse any set of resources or even a sequence of topics. From the Introduction:

These Standards do not dictate curriculum or teaching methods. For example, just because topic A appears before topic B in the standards for a given grade, it does not necessarily mean that topic A must be taught before topic B. A teacher might prefer to teach topic B before topic A, or might choose to highlight connections by teaching topic A and topic B at the same time. Or, a teacher might prefer to teach a topic of his or her own choosing that leads, as a byproduct, to students reaching the standards for topics A and B.

I am not defending the CCSSM. We can, and should, have a debate about something as important as a national set of mathematics standards. But let us have an informed debate, which starts with actually reading the document.

How compelling was that single study?

Dear Editor,

Ever since Chancellor Fariña began advocating for using aspects of balanced literacy in New York City Public Schools (New York Times, 6/26/14), she has come under fire.  While her only action thus far has been to ask Lucy Calkins, a proponent of a balanced literacy approach, to do a seminar in August, the critics have cried foul. They argue that Chancellor Fariña is ignoring the results from a 2012 study of a pilot program called Core Knowledge Language Arts [CKLA] (New York Times, 3/11/12). Given the information provided about the study, however, these critics are seemingly misrepresenting the results.

Here are some of their arguments.

Daniel Willingham (on the Board of Trustees of the Core Knowledge Foundation) on 6/30/14

Three years later in 2012, the results were in: the kids in the Core Knowledge schools were reading better. The advantage was indisputable. 

Fariña was reminded of these results last week: how could she justify calling for a return to balanced literacy when another program had shown superior? 

Robert Pondiscio (worked for Core Knowledge) on 7/3/14

Yet the Education Department’s own three-year study comparing Core Knowledge with balanced literacy in demographically matched New York City schools showed the former “had significantly stronger gains than comparison school students on nearly all measures.”

E. D. Hirsch, Jr. (founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation), on 7/3/14

The New York City Department of Education recently did a three-year study comparing 20 schools. Ten used the Core Knowledge approach. Ten used balanced literacy. After analysis, the Core Knowledge results were deemed to be far better, to a high level of statistical significance. 

Alexander Nazaryan on 7/6/14

Ms. Calkins’s approach was tried by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, but abandoned when studies showed that students learned better with more instruction.

New York Daily News on 7/6/14

A 2012 a study found that a small group of balanced literacy schools lagged behind schools that used what’s known as Core Knowledge, ...

Michelle Gininger on 7/9/14 (at 9:51 into the podcast)

[The Bloomberg Administration] tested things out and saw, at least in that limited study, that Core Knowledge was working better for low-income kids ...

Whenever someone states, "the study shows," related to something as important as educating our children, please be wary. Our immediate response ought to be, "Where is the research? I would like to examine it for myself." In this case, many of the critics provide only a link to a New York Times article on the study from 3/11/12. It describes the study thusly:

For three years, a pilot program tracked the reading ability of approximately 1,000 students at 20 New York City schools, following them from kindergarten through second grade. Half of the schools adopted a curriculum designed by the education theorist E. D. Hirsch Jr.’s Core Knowledge Foundation. The other 10 used a variety of methods, but most fell under the definition of “balanced literacy,” an approach that was spread citywide by former Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, beginning in 2003.

Based on this description, it seems unlikely that the study did a direct comparison between balanced literacy and CKLA. After an unproductive search for the actual study, I only found a PowerPoint on Core Knowledge Foundation's own website sharing the results from the CKLA Pilot. This is how the Core Knowledge Foundation described the study:

There is nothing about balanced literacy in this description. In fact, there is nothing about balanced literacy or Lucy Calkins in the entire PowerPoint.

If there is more to the study that supports the critics’ claim that a direct comparison was done between balanced literacy and CKLA, then it is up to them to provide that information. It is not enough to simply say, “a study shows.” Without the actual study to anchor the discussion, arguments can drift far from the actual results.

For example, given the history of balanced literacy in New York City Public Schools, perhaps the critics jumped to the conclusion that the comparison schools were using balanced literacy. Therefore, in their minds, CKLA was compared directly to balanced literacy. While this history might be enough to support their opinion in casual conversation, research conclusions require confirmation. And no evidence was provided that confirms that the comparison schools were using the instructional approach described by several of the authors under the banner of balanced literacy.


Every study, and anyone who wants to appropriately cite that study, is limited by the study’s design. The design of the CKLA Pilot Study limits how we can use the results. If the critics are serious that they want Chancellor Fariña to use data to inform education policy, then a new study ought to be conducted. That is what the International Reading Association suggests:

With greater care in the design, analysis, and reporting, these shortcomings could have been resolved. If we could have confidence that the gains that students in the Core Knowledge schools showed on assessments of reading comprehension, as well as assessments of science and social studies knowledge, could be attributed to the resources that were introduced, then there is cause for celebration. The Core Knowledge program could, in fact, be an important element in a truly “balanced” literacy curriculum. 

To his credit, even E. D. Hirsch, Jr. supports this idea. At the end of his opinion piece, he writes:

But I agree with the schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña. The study was too small. We need a bigger one – and one that gauges long-term as well as short-term effects.

In order to conduct the study the critics want, a direct comparison of balanced literacy and CKLA, some New York City Public Schools are going to have to adopt Lucy Calkins’s instructional approach. Simply adopting some aspects, as Chancellor Fariña suggests, will not be enough. Dr. Calkins will probably even have to conduct professional development workshops for New York City educators. Ah, the irony.

Let me end on a serious note. If we are committed to doing what is best for students and using education research to inform these decisions, then we need to start having serious discussions around the data we collect. Using a single education study to push an agenda or bash a potential competitor is irresponsible, as it often ignores other important results. Intentionally misrepresenting the study in an effort to suggest that our children are at risk is nothing short of propaganda and has no place in the discussion. Let’s make “the study shows” the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it.





Sincerely,
David Coffey
Professor of Mathematics Education
Grand Valley State University
Allendale, Michigan

Which of these things is not like the other?

Finally, something from this US Department of Education (US DOE) infographic that I can agree with. [In prior posts, I: (1) pointed out that it was unclear what "unprepared" meant to new teachers; (2) wondered how the ease of an exam could be determined simply by the pass rate; and (3) explained that it is impossible to completely prepare new teacher for every school-specific situation.] We do need to increase the diversity of the U.S. teaching force. Unfortunately, a recent Supreme Court ruling makes it difficult for colleges in Michigan to take intentional actions to address this issue. 

And the US DOE is not helping. Instead, Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, is focusing on "accountability" for education schools.

The goal: To ensure that every state evaluates its teacher education programs by several key metrics, such as how many graduates land teaching jobs, how long they stay in the profession and whether they boost their students’ scores on standardized tests. (Politico, 4/25/14)

A possible consequence will be that education schools will be more selective in their admissions, thereby reducing the number of teachers they train.

How does this help to address the lack of diversity in our teaching force? It doesn't. Perhaps, this panel of the infographic was never meant to be included in the US DOE's latest policy push. They simply needed something to balance out the picture. The result is a warped game of "One of These Things is Not Like the Others."

Sadly, in this case, the "thing that doesn't belong" is the thing that is most important.

Am I ready for this?

I leave for Africa tomorrow to support our study abroad program in Tanzania.

We have been meeting since the beginning of the year to get ready for this trip. However, it has been stated many times by those who have gone before that nothing can completely prepare us for what we will encounter during our time there. This seems reasonable to me; how does one prepare for an adventure of a lifetime?

That is why I find the infographic recently shared by the U.S. Department of Education so strange. Teaching is also a lifelong adventure and nothing will completely prepare the new teacher for what they will encounter in their first classroom. Even the author, Arthur Levine, of the paper used for the top two panels states: 

One plausible explanation is that no professional school can possibly teach its graduates everything they need to know before taking a job. Some things can only be learned on the job. (p. 33)

Prof. Levine goes on to refute this statement using results from a survey completed by deans of education schools, but I believe this ignores the point that all jobs require some on-the-job training.

In Part I and II of this series, I addressed the panels on the left. For the remainder of this post (briefly since I still have packing to do), I wish to share my thoughts about the statistics provided in the upper right.

Our teacher preparation program tries to address all three of these skills either through study or experience. We have two entire courses that focus on diversity and classroom management. As for the first skill, one of the expectations of student teaching is that our teacher-candidates will participate in parent-teacher conferences and make phone contact with parents during the semester.

Could we improve? Certainly! I have been begging for a lab school for years. That way preservice teachers would have more direct experience and support needed to learn the important skills and knowledge necessary for success in the classroom.

Still, I am not sure a lab school would change the principals' responses to the original survey questions. Especially if they are thinking solely about new teachers in their schools. You see, we are trying to provide teacher-candidates with a firm foundation in all these areas, but we cannot prepare them for ever possible situation they might encounter. Even in a lab school, the experiences would be specific to that setting. For example, if it were an urban school, then it might not adequately prepare them for a suburban setting.

If teachers are expected to be ready for every possible situation before being certified, then they will never be certified. That is the nature of an adventure - encountering the unexpected. Perhaps that is what the best education programs do; they prepare teachers to expect the unexpected and to handle it with grace. I believe that is what our work in Tanzania does for preservice teachers. Which is why I am excited, though not completely prepared, to begin this adventure.

Kwa heri!