Of great, courageous principals

When I wrote about the three schools that left program improvement a couple of weeks ago, I didn't realize Mr. Esteban Hernandez had performed an act of courage when deciding to abandon textbook-prescribed answers, veered off the script, and instructed his teachers to adhere to standards. Mark O'Shea, professor of education at CSUMB, brought it to my attention, and decided to expound on the issue with a guest commentary.

Here it is:

Perhaps readers of the Herald were pleasantly surprised to see impressive gains in student learning at Bardin Elementary School of the Alisal District. From 2009 to 2011, the school’s academic index rose from 652 to 753. Was this due to some kind of miracle? Another instance of teachers cheating the system? Evidently not. According to the Herald article, Bardin teachers started teaching the content that was tested. Principal Esteban Hernandez claimed that the big improvement came from placing “emphasis on standards rather than the curriculum.” He stated simply, “Its fidelity to standards, not fidelity to state textbooks.” Readers may have concluded, “well, duh.. nice to see that the principal realized teachers should focus on the standards that are tested, why wasn’t this done before?” Unfortunately, Mr. Hernandez had to exercise nearly heroic courage and determination just to bring common sense practices to his school.

From the State Board of Education perspective, standards are to be used to select state-approved textbooks, not planning lessons. Millions of dollars were spent training teachers to use textbook and monitor classroom use of materials. The Board insisted that textbooks and publisher’s supplements are both necessary and fully sufficient to meet all expectations of the standards. Former State Superintendent of Public instruction Jack O’Connell wrote in his Fact Sheet:

“ Adding lessons, deleting lessons, and changing the delivery method of a program … can lead to no results, fewer results, and even negative results. Unless a program is implemented as it was designed and evaluated, there is no guarantee that it will have its intended effect of changing students’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Implementing a program without fidelity misuses precious school resources and the time of students, teachers/providers, and staff . Implementing a program with fidelity is the only way to ensure program effectiveness (italics from the source) .

Teachers were specifically admonished not to choose materials they believe will guide students to meet the standards. This policy was so strongly enforced under the Reading First program of No Child Left Behind that county office of education staffers and hired contractors visited classrooms to make sure teachers were using the approved program materials by rote, and that no other curriculum resources apart from the approved programs were visible in the classroom for teachers and students to use. Which raises the question, how could the State Board develop what it proudly boasted to be among the most rigorous of state standards and then insist that teachers not use them for setting learning expectations? Two reasons seem evident: the victory of phonics-based reading instruction over less structured “whole language” approaches and the tantalizing power of state controlled textbook adoption.

California was an eager applicant for federal dollars to purchase phonics-based reading programs and the fidelity requirements that came with the money. Unfortunately, the programs did not lead to sustained achievement gains on the state standards tests, largely because they were designed for success with nationally administered tests. Nevertheless, the State Board extended the fidelity requirement to the use of state-adopted textbooks because it saw its curriculum authority as the perfect hammer for standards, which it perceived to be a nail. As a result of this policy disaster, teachers are expected to rely on textbooks that 1) include lots of extraneous material not in the standards, 2) do not develop key concepts or skills of the standards as evaluated on state tests, or, 3) teach skills and content for a grade level when the state tests the content at a different grade level. Teachers have not been using the standards to set expectations for student learning. The result: principals have been fired, schools and teachers shamed, and California students left behind due to this State Board of Education policy disaster. Hopefully, we can get it right the second time as common core standards role out across the country.

-- Mark O'Shea