“Learning Leadership” column, January 2012 edition of eSchool News—Defending public education in America is a daunting task. The fact that we have to defend public education in the first place is puzzling. Here we sit as the most powerful country in the world, with the largest economy, and the system responsible now and in the past for the education of close to 90 percent of our children is under attack. It makes you wonder how we ever became so prosperous.
Last year, I developed a PowerPoint presentation I named “The 95/5 Dilemma.” It is available on the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) web site at http://www.aasa.org/AASAblog-95-5-dilemma.aspx. In it, I provide benchmark statistic after benchmark statistic that prove conclusively: America’s public school system today is the best it has ever been. Graduation rates are the highest. Dropout rates are the lowest. Reading and math performances on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are the highest. College attendance rates are the highest. The rigor of the high school curriculum is the strongest ever.
These results support America’s economic and political leadership in the world. Those of us who are fortunate to travel around the world are not surprised when our overseas colleagues refer to our school system as the gold standard and when parents in every corner of the world want to send their children to American schools.
Read more by Dan Domenech:
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Last November, I was pleased to lead a group of educators and school board members to Vietnam and Cambodia as part of AASA’s annual international seminar. We were surprised to see that even a Communist country like Vietnam acknowledges the quality of an American education and that their students aspire to come to our high schools and colleges. Today, there are thousands of Vietnamese students getting their education here. The same can be said for thousands of other students from throughout the world.
One of the reasons we engage in these international excursions is to learn from what other countries are doing and to see if ideas can be imported to make our system better. It is interesting to note that, when the performances of our students on international exams are compared to the performances of students from other countries, we often simply look at the test scores but never bother to delve deeper into why the results might be higher for students in other countries. On our trips, we visit schools and talk to students, teachers, parents, and education officials. This is what we have learned.
It might surprise many Americans to learn that in many of the European countries we have visited, the majority of students engage in vocational studies. In Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and tiny Malta, less than 40 percent of the student population pursues what we refer to here in America as a college-prep program. After eighth grade, students are sorted into either an academic or a vocational track. Those pursuing the vocational track enter into apprenticeship programs with private-sector companies, spending half of their time in school and the other half working with the sponsoring company. In many cases, the students are paid for the work they perform. Upon high school graduation, the student has the option of going to work or going on for additional studies at a “technical” university.
Americans will never buy into a system that would track the majority of our students into vocational programs. On the other hand, the European apprenticeship system has kept their youth unemployment rate to single digits—while it’s in the double digits here in America. We are also ignoring an excellent strategy for keeping in school the one-third of our high school students who are now dropping out: teaching them a skill that will help them get a job and paying them while they learn. Our current goal is to graduate students from high school who will be college and career ready, but I am not sure that I fully understand what “career ready” means. If it means getting some of our students ready for work after high school graduation, then the European apprenticeship model is worth looking into.
Read more by Dan Domenech:
The key to doing more with less: Collaboration
Improving public education isn’t a mystery
New teacher evaluation framework promises to serve students, and educators, fairly
In Vietnam, we learned that the best schools are private schools attended by the children of government officials and the well-to-do. You would think that a Communist country would focus on providing its citizenry with the best public education possible, but Vietnam’s government schools suffer by comparison to its private schools. But this is what we learned there: The private schools are bound by the same curriculum, rules, and regulations as the government schools. Here in America, private schools and charter schools get a bye and are not bound by the same accountability system as the public schools. Also, in Vietnam the private schools receive no government support. Here, private and charter schools are entitled to various levels of government support.
Much is written about the poor performance of our students on international tests when compared to the performance of students from countries like Finland and Singapore. I do not believe that those are fair comparisons. Nevertheless, what can be learned from those countries? Aside from cultures that greatly value education and educators, those countries place a great deal of emphasis on the ongoing development of their teachers. They understand that teacher education and development is an ongoing process, not something that ends the minute a teacher graduates and gets a job. Teacher evaluation in America is more of a “gotcha” than a process for developing our teachers to be the best they can be. We can all agree that teacher quality is the most important variable in getting children to learn, but we do not spend either the time or the money to fully develop our teachers.
Recently, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have engaged in discussions with AASA to advocate for teacher evaluation systems that focus on teacher development. The process emphasizes teacher observation and monitoring, leading to the formulation of a development plan that would strengthen the teacher’s ability to teach. In the event that, after reasonable efforts to develop skills, the teacher proves incompetent in the classroom, then an expedited due process leading to the dismissal of that teacher goes into effect.
Our travels reinforce our belief that we have the best system of education in the world, but at the same time we have observed many practices that would strengthen our programs. We seem to have given up on vocational education, but it should be a viable option for many of our students who do not want to pursue a college degree. Diverting public dollars from our public schools to give to private schools and charters will further reduce our ability to transform the five percent of our schools that are failing. We would do well to emulate Finland and devote more time and resources to the on-the-job development of our teachers. We’ve also learned to appreciate cultures that have a high regard for education and for the educators who provide it. In all cases, however, our travels make us proud to be educators in America.
Daniel A. Domenech is executive director of the American Association of School Administrators.
Read more by Dan Domenech:
The key to doing more with less: Collaboration
Improving public education isn’t a mystery
New teacher evaluation framework promises to serve students, and educators, fairly
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