Freedom College – Update on A Program to Address Chronically Low-Performing Schools

Two years ago this month, I published a proposal to develop a college that would offer a degree completion program for inner-city community college graduates to get certified to teach in their neighborhood schools. I have spent the last two-years developing a business plan, talking to many potential funders, and examining the regulatory hurdles. It turns out the first dollars will be hardest to raise. There are a wide variety of funders for endowment campaigns and new programs, but it is hard to find funding to start a new organization. I recently discovered the Echoing Green fellowship program, which provides seed funding for social entrepreneurs. Below is my application to the program. I will hear back in May whether I made it to the interview stage with final decisions made in June. If anyone has other ideas for seed funding, please let me know.

Section 1: Overview

·       Briefly describe the problem your organization will address. (250 characters)

Teacher turnover is the largest barrier to urban school reform. Schools staffed by former students have lower turnover. But, few urban students earn bachelor degrees required to become neighborhood teachers, thus churn from the outside perpetuates.

·       Briefly describe who or what your organization will help. (250 characters)

Increasing numbers of urban students are completing associate degrees, but face barriers in completing bachelor degrees. Those urban students who do complete a bachelor degree in teaching still face high failure rates on teacher certification exams.

·       Briefly describe how your organization will solve the problem described above. (250 characters)

Establish Freedom College to provide a 2-year, teaching degree completion program for community college graduates from high poverty neighborhoods. These graduates would return to their former neighborhoods and transform their former schools.

Section 2: The Problem

·       Describe the problem your organization will address in detail. (750 characters)

Teacher turnover impedes school reform. Teachers reach peak performance after 5-7 years and, in stable districts, operate at peak performance for another 10-20 years. This stability enables high quality school culture that can improve new teachers' practice and accelerate progress towards peak performance. This process of enculturation enables program coherence, which supports student learning. In contrast, extremely high turnover in low-income schools means few urban-school teachers last until peak performance; therefore, our neediest students mainly experience suboptimal teacher performance. Unstable schools also lack quality school culture, which breeds incoherence and confuses students who experience a plethora of teaching approaches.

·       Explain the causes of this problem and why the problem still exists. (500 characters)

Of all the professions in the United States, teachers are the most likely to work nearest to their high school alma mater.  Yet, most urban teachers went to school somewhere else. Programs like Teach for America provide an avenue for our most accomplished college graduates to fill vacant urban teaching slots. Yet, the siren call of home draws most away from urban schools. With few alumni teachers, urban schools must perpetually turn to the Band-Aid of outside teachers for hard-to-fill positions.

Section 3: The Solution

·       Describe the specific product(s) or program(s) your organization will implement to solve the problem. (1,000 characters)

I will establish Freedom College as a new college dedicated to certifying low-income, academically qualified Chicago students to return as teachers to their neighborhood schools. The 2-year, degree completion program will be built from the ground up to address the unique needs of low-income, community college graduates. Apprenticeship models from the field of the learning sciences will serve as the foundation for the program. Students will spend 40% of the program observing and student teaching as apprentices in neighborhood schools. Students' apprenticeship experiences will be supplemented with online coursework, which will reduce costs and increase convenience. Courses requiring face-to-face interaction will be conducted from a central campus located close to the neediest schools on the south side of Chicago. The program will initially recruit cohorts of 25 City Colleges of Chicago graduates who have completed their general education requirements and introductory content coursework.

·       How is your idea innovative compared to others addressing the problem? (1,000 characters)

Programs focused on certifying and retaining minority teachers rely extensively on partner universities for certification. These universities contribute little and marginally differentiate. The programs provide external tutoring services and finance tuition on behalf of universities. Costs are high and results are low. One IL program spent $20 million in 10 years. Over 650 candidates entered. Only 88 became teachers. Large introductory lecture courses, which model atrocious teaching and high failure, are a root cause of attrition. In contrast, Freedom College courses will model best teaching. Students will finance tuition through repayment of 5% of income over 10 years. Thus, we have shared stake in long-term success & will provide long-term mentoring and career support. Entrepreneurial practices keep costs & thus tuition low. No hidden fees tuition pricing includes cost of equipment, materials and services. One-time $3.2 million investment will result in 200 teachers over 10 cohorts.

·       How will the lives of the target population be better because of your organization’s work? (1,000 characters)

The target Freedom College student is a City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) graduate who comes from a low-income neighborhood, where median household income is <$25k, poverty is high, and bachelor attainment is low. About one-third of low-income CPS graduates attend CCC, but less than 20% of those attain degrees. Degree completion at CCC requires persistence and grit, which are qualities for success at Freedom College despite low income and low prior test scores. Our graduates will earn a starting CPS salary of $50k and more than $75k by the 10th year. They can attain a middle class income and live near family and friends from their neighborhood. The neighborhood benefits through an influx of middle class income, teacher stability and program coherence at the schools, and closer connections between schools and community, all of which are tied to improved learning outcomes for all students. In addition, a vision of a clear path to a middle class job can also improve graduation rates at CCC.

·       How will you measure the success of your organization? (500 characters)

Program success will be measured in 4 ways: (A) % of each cohort employed in the 1st year and still teaching at least 10 years later (2X the expectation of other programs). (B) % of each cohort consistently rated at least proficient on CPS teacher evaluations. (C) Extent to which increased stability and sustained quality of cohorts increases student outcomes at partner schools. (D) Extent to which partnerships between schools and neighborhoods are strengthened as measured by 5 Essentials survey.

Section 4: Budget

·       Describe how you expect your organization to grow over the next two years. (1,000 characters)

Echoing Green investment provides startup funds to charter Freedom College as a nonprofit college with the IL Board for Higher Ed and initiate accreditation process. In the 1st year of the fellowship, I will establish the charter, raise funds for the first cohort, plan the curriculum, set up the infrastructure, and recruit the 1st cohort of students. In the 2nd year of the fellowship, I will hire staff and begin Phase 1 of Freedom College with the implementation of the 1st year of cohort 1. In 3rd year, we will complete Phase 1 by graduating the 1st cohort, recruiting the 2nd cohort and receiving interim accreditation, thus qualifying to offer government aid to students. In Phase 2, Freedom College will be fully operational by recruiting a new cohort each year. I will need to raise $1 million for the 3-year Phase 1 and $2.2 million for Phase 2. By the 10th cohort, income-based repayment will cover cash flow, even after accounting for avg attrition. No further investment will be needed.

Section 6: The Applicant

·       When and how did you come up with the idea for the organization? (500 characters)

The genesis was a report my colleague wrote in 2012. In Chicago, I was experiencing firsthand our inability to gain traction due to the revolving door of young suburban professionals. Her report that teachers work where they grew up hit me like a lightning bolt. After exploring many options through colleges, I resolved 2 yrs ago that a new college must be formed. I have met with many potential funders who have expressed interest in the program, but I first need funding to establish the college.

·       Explain why you are so passionate about the problem and the population you described above. (1,000 characters)

My passion is cultural, intellectual, and spiritual. My cultural heritage is a mix of Irish and Puerto Rican. As a child growing up in a mainly white, middle class neighborhood and occasionally visiting my mom's family in Puerto Rico, I felt oddly connected and disconnected from both communities. Living in two worlds provided me with great insight & set me up as a boundary crosser. My intellectual passion was awakened as an undergrad at NU. I had a vague dissatisfaction with my own K12 education that was crystalized as I read theories of what we have known for over a hundred years about high quality education, but have been unable to implement on a wide scale. This intellectual passion coupled with my cultural comfort of living in two worlds enabled me to become a boundary crosser between academics and practitioners. My Catholic faith has given me a heart for the poor & instilled a belief that all things are possible when you pour out your God-given background and talents for others.

·       What skills or experiences demonstrate that you will be able to attract money, people, and other resources to your organization? (1,000 characters)

For 30 years, I have been involved in education reform as a designer, practitioner, researcher, professor, & entrepreneur. As a designer, I have led teams of developers to create new technology-based curricula that bring the excitement of STEM and the humanities to the classroom. As a practitioner, I have implemented what I designed before deploying. As a researcher, I have studied how authentic inquiry can enable students to achieve proficiency on standardized assessments. As a professor, I developed a new masters degree program in teacher leadership to teach teacher leaders how to support implementation of authentic inquiry. In all of these capacities, I have been strictly grant-funded. Therefore as an entrepreneur, I have raised over $13 million for these endeavors as well as formed two successful businesses. In all of these capacities, I have learned how to sell an idea, attract talent, scale regulatory hurdles, and build efficient organizational structures that keep costs down.

·       Describe an example of your entrepreneurial spirit. (750 characters)

Entrepreneurs identify a need and create new ways to fill the need. There are huge racial and poverty gaps in science achievement. Low-income, minority students need access to science and scientists who connect with their cultural background. Shortly after finishing grad school 20 yrs ago, I saw an opportunity to fill that need while traveling with my family to the El Yunque rainforest in Puerto Rico. I discovered a unique scientific community investigating a phenomenon of interest to low-income, minority students. I sold my idea to the scientists, gathered a creative team, and have raised $1.6 million. Thus, the bilingual Journey to El Yunque curriculum was born, raises achievement for low-income minority students, and continues today.

·       Provide one or two examples of your ability to overcome adversity. (1,000 characters)

My attitude towards adversity comes from an ancient parable: a grain of wheat must fall to the Earth and die in order bear much fruit. I first experienced this parable 25 yrs ago as an ed tech designer at a textbook publisher. We created cutting edge multimedia hyperlinking that is now commonplace. Declining textbook revenue led to the shut down of all supplemental departments. Undeterred, I co-formed our department into a company. We developed 2 multimedia products and sold them to another publisher, which generated royalties for 2 decades. My 2nd experience with the parable came in 2011 as an NU professor. After years of planning, we received approval to offer a teacher leadership certificate. Shortly afterwards, the state changed the rules, which invalidated the program. My expertise garnered an invitation to advise the state on the new rules. I helped create high quality state policy and redesigned the certificate into a full masters program that was approved under the new rules.

·       Describe one past experience or accomplishment that demonstrates your leadership potential. (1,000 characters)

Leadership involves vision, aligning systems to that vision, and inspiring others to follow. In my initial vision, I worked with individual teachers to improve student achievement but progress dissipated due to teacher turnover. In 2006, the Gates foundation funded a new vision of working with whole schools to improve student achievement despite teacher turnover. With $4 million, I formed organizational structures and inspired a team of instructional coaches. We successfully supported 75 science teachers in 9 high schools to implement authentic inquiry, even though one-third of the teachers changed yearly. In 5 yrs, we improved achievement on a broad scale, but progress dissipated without ongoing support. Now I have expanded my vision of how to transform the system. I hope that Echoing Green will serve as a catalyst for enabling me to inspire others and align systems to my new vision of empowering teachers with a low-income background to transform their own schools and neighborhoods.

Crumbs From Your Table

Hancock Graduation Ceremony

Today I received an email from a wonderful colleague and teacher at Hancock High School in Chicago. I have worked with the science faculty at Hancock for the last six years on a variety of projects to improve student learning in science. During that time, the school has seen significant growth in student outcomes. Last year, all of the students were accepted to college, several of them to highly selective schools, despite the fact that over 95% of the students are low-income. To celebrate the accomplishment of the senior class, the graduation has traditionally be held in a "run-down school auditorium with torn seats, bad lighting, and A/C that is not dependable." I have contributed to their fund raising campaign to give the wonderful students of the class of 2015 a proper celebration of their accomplishments.

I find it ironic that the Chicago Public Schools has decided to convert Hancock into a selective high school at a time when the students and faculty have to raise funds for a proper graduation. Talk about throwing crumbs to your constituents. Despite the dilapidated conditions at the school, the faculty have developed a successful neighborhood school model. Now the neighborhood will suffer the double indignity of eliminating a successful neighborhood model and being thrown a mere bone for a selective program so that the city can say that there is a selective school on the Southwest side. If you have had the chance to visit some of the other selective school campuses in Chicago, like Walter Payton College Prep, you will see that those campuses rival many college campuses. In fact, CPS is providing $17 million to Walter Payton merely for an expansion of the already wonderful campus to accommodate more students. The $10 million crumbs that the city is providing to convert Hancock to a selective school campus may well be just sufficient to provide a proper graduation venue.

If the city wants to provide a selective option on the Southwest side in deed and not just in name, they should leave the neighborhood model alone, give Hancock the $10 million to fix up the school, and then build a real selective school campus on the Southwest side. In the meantime, consider giving money to the class of 2015 so they can have a proper celebration.

Faith and Reason in Educational Reform

This month, I attended the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). It is a gathering of around 15,000 educational researchers, who present and discuss the latest research findings from all areas of education. The theme of the conference this year was “The Power of Education Research for Innovation in Practice and Policy.” A significant driver of innovation in any field is faith - a belief that is not based on proof. Steve Jobs, one of the foremost innovators of our time, talked often about the importance of intuition in leadership. Good intuition allows you to see solutions that others cannot see. Just ask the makers of a smattering of the other products I used on my trip, Bill Gates (Microsoft), Herb Kelleher (Southwest Airlines), Howard Schulz (Starbucks), and Larry Page/Sergey Brin (Google). In every one of those cases, a strong leader saw an opportunity that ran counter to current trends. With the exception of Southwest, all of those companies struggled without the intuition of their founders. 

However, faith alone is insufficient for innovations to succeed. Faith is backed by reason - the mental powers concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences. Faith directs reasoning and creates a focus on what data is important to collect. The decision about what data to collect can enable or thwart innovation by focusing attention on new ways of seeing the world or reinforcing existing approaches. It is possible to infer an individual’s faith based on the data that person values.

Nowhere was the idea of data as instantiation of faith more prevalent than in one of the AERA presentations I attended about the Gates Foundation-funded Measures of Effective Teaching Study (or MET) by Harvard’s Dr. Thomas Kane. The measures used by MET are student feedback surveys, principal observations, and student test score growth (controlling for background characteristics). Midway through his presentation, Dr. Kane discussed an example of using MET data to make a decision about tenure for a third year teacher. He felt that the rational decision for a principle to make is whether the teacher’s test score growth measures are better than other hypothetical teachers that the principal could hire to replace the third year teacher. In other words, the principal should reason through the opportunity cost of awarding tenure to the teacher. Consistent with much of “reform” these days, Dr. Kane expects principals to value test score data above all else.  Never mind that just a few minutes earlier in the same session, Harvard’s Dr. Ronald Ferguson presented results indicating that teaching behaviors that promote test score growth can also hamper student persistence and happiness in school. A myopic focus on test score growth could exacerbate depression and dropouts. 

Aside from the impact of focusing on student test score growth, the valuing of student test scores as a measure of teaching also reveals the faith that drives today’s “reformers.” The Gates Foundation, Teach for America, the Broad Foundation, and others are doubling down, tripling down (or in the case of Bill Gates whatever the term is for 100 fold down) on their faith that we need more heroes in education. Their intuition is that if we could only do a better job of recruiting, measuring and rewarding heroes while at the same time punishing and eliminating cowards, we would eliminate race and SES performance gaps and increase economic mobility. Therefore, this faith focuses what data to collect for data-driven decision making. After two decades of faith in test driven reform, we have not seen innovation in teaching, but rather reinforcement of traditional teaching practices. 

Another drawback for reform by heroes is that heroes leave. In particular, heroes are most likely to leave precisely the schools that need them the most. Alternatively, systems that are designed to engender heroism in ordinary people are much more sustainable and productive. Southwest Airlines is the only major carrier that has never gone into bankruptcy. For 41 years in a row, Southwest has generated a profit. The original faith in an alternative mode of running an airline has been supported by a system that values its employees. That system has engendered continuity on the front lines as well as in the corporate office.

Likewise, we know in education that it is the school structures and level of trust that are huge factors in retaining teachers in urban settings. It is time that we shift our faith away from pioneering heroes towards systems that bring out the best in ordinary people. Attracting and retaining the best teachers relies on systems that have faith that you do have the best teachers and building data systems that support them.

Pressing for Reform: What Ecology Can Teach Us About School Reform

On September 21, 1998, Hurricane George struck the island of Puerto Rico as a Category 3 hurricane. It caused $2 billion in property damage. It also caused immense devastation to the El Yunque rainforest, which is one Puerto Rico’s most popular attractions and has been designated as a United Nations Biosphere Reserve. The picture on the left below shows the devastation that remained to one section of the public trail 6 weeks after the hurricane. The picture on the right shows the rapid growth along the same stretch of trail 9 months later. The forest floor was teeming with plant life under the bright sunlight. By three years after the hurricane, the trees had reestablished the canopy and within ten years, it became hard to discern the differences between the forest before and after Hurricane Georges. Nature is quite resilient even in the face of a devastating disturbance like a hurricane. Once the disturbance is over, nature has a way of returning very close to its pre-disturbance state. 

Likewise, I think schools are very resilient. Last month, I discussed a variety of school reform efforts that seemed to have changed very little about the core of teaching and learning as well as done very little to close the achievement gap between high and low income students. One of the models that was discussed was school turnaround in which the principal and all of the teachers are terminated and a new principal and teaching corps are hired (some of whom are rehired from the incumbent teaching corps). Now think about school turnaround like Hurricane Georges. The disturbance is abrupt and complete. The school looks like a blank canvas with a few hearty stems remaining. Yet, upon return 5-10 years later, it looks awfully similar to what the school was like before the turnaround (if it hasn’t been closed).  

Ecologists call this kind of disturbance a “pulse” disturbance. The disturbance comes from outside of the ecosystem, is intensely destructive, but short-lived. Once the disturbance is over, a robust ecosystem returns very close to its pre-disturbance state. This sounds very consistent with the 4 to 8-year election cycle reform model. It also gives insight into teachers’ feelings of “This too shall pass,” whenever administrators or reformers introduce new ideas in schools. 

Other types of disturbances do lead to drastic permanent changes to ecosystems. For example, coral reefs are disappearing all over the world. Ecologists are not sure why some reefs are resilient while others are not. Some of the factors that have been linked to coral reef destruction include, warmer ocean temperatures, sedimentation, invasive species, and over fishing. All of these factors are also outside of the ecosystem, but they are mulit-faceted, gradual and long-term. Ecologists refer to these kinds of disturbances as "press" disturbances.  They are unrelated, gradual changes that occur over a long period of time and eventually converge to create a tipping point that dramatically changes the ecosystem. 

Here are two examples of press disturbances in education. Thirty years ago, U.S. News and World Report published it’s first rankings of colleges. One-fourth of the ranking score is based on the selectivity of the admissions process and the quality of the student body as measured by test scores and class rank. Many universities actively manage their position within the rankings and some publicly state rankings targets. Over these past three decades, the importance of test scores in the admissions process has increased as the importance of the rankings has increased. Over this same time period, the college admissions gap between high income and low income students has increased. The codification of test scores that privilege the privilege has entrenched the advantage that the wealthy have in gaining access to the “best” universities. Many believe that the K12 test craze began with the enactment of No Child Left Behind. I contend that No Child Left Behind represents the tipping point for the press disturbance brought about by U.S. News. The No Child Left Behind legislation was possible only because the idea that SAT and ACT scores define college readiness was codified by U.S. News. 

The Race to the Top program at the U.S. Department of Education represents another tipping point in a long-term press disturbance. In 1988, the most typical teacher was a 15-year veteran. Twenty years later, the most typical teacher was a 1st year teacher. Around one-fourth of America’s teachers have less than 5 years of experience. In 1990, Teach for America began it’s mission to support urban districts that found it difficult to staff low performing schools. The vast majority of Teach for America teachers fulfill their two-year teaching commitment and then move on. Over the last 25 years, it has become hip to teach for a couple of years and then move on to one’s real career whether leading reform efforts or going on to grad school or the world of finance. While Teach for America represents a very small percentage of first year teachers, it has been the most vocal vanguard in this movement away from teaching as career. With the majority of new teachers not being career minded, it is no wonder that the strength of teacher unions is crumbling and the emergence of Race to the Top accountability efforts have strengthened. Teachers who see teaching as a stepping stone do not care about long-term pensions or tenure protections. In addition, the depleting corps of experienced teachers have greater control over their own destiny as schools must vie for fewer numbers of veterans. The more attractive and wealthier school settings will successfully recruit the experienced teachers. The least attractive and neediest schools will continue to struggle with recruiting and retaining teachers. Every effort to increase accountability on teachers and to provide band-aids through temporary teachers continues the downward spiral of our neediest schools.

I applaud the motivation of reformers like U.S. News and Teach for America that saw a need in education and created a long-term plan to address that particular need. However, a myopic focus on one aspect of education can have devastating effects on the system as a whole. We are in need of new visionaries who can look beyond the 4-year election cycle and can look beyond single issues. We need visionaries with a holistic, long-term view of our systems of education. Arthur Roy Clapham revolutionized the field of biology in the 1930s when he introduced the term “ecosystem” to focus attention on the long-term and large spatial scales that affect the health of particular biological locations. We need a similar revolution in education to shift away from short-term, localized pulse disturbances towards long-term and systemic press reform. Only with a focus on education as an ecosystem can we open up opportunities for all youth.

It’s Only Weird If It Doesn’t Work

As the NFL season came to a close this past Sunday, the annual armchair analysis of SuperBowl ads has begun. As an avid NFL fan, I like to salute those ad campaigns that have stood the test of time for the whole season. My top honors for advertising campaigns goes to Budweiser beer. (Disclosure: I am only a fan of their advertising. I am not a fan of their beer.) Through a variety of hilarious commercials Budweiser salutes all of the superstitious things that fans do to help their teams win. My favorite spot features “Ramsay.” The narrator begins the commercial by describing Ramsay as the most obnoxious person you would hate to watch a game with. He yells at the TV, throws food in the air after a bad play, and does goofy touchdown dances after good plays. Yet the narrator says that every time Ramsay comes over, their team wins. “I love you Ramsay,” concludes the narrator.

I have also been reminded of this ad campaign throughout this school year every time I hear the next cockamamy plan for improving our schools. In case you have not been paying attention for the last 13 years, 2014 is the year in which 100% of the students in America will meet basic standards in reading, math, and science so that there is No Child Left Behind.  Recognizing that we were not going to meet that goal, the Obama administration has been handing out No Child Left Behind waivers like cotton candy. The brilliance of the Bush administration was to set the timeline for the ridiculous goal for after he is long out of office. The Clinton administration was a little short-sighted in their benchmarking. They had the audacity to think that they could move the United States from the middle of the pack on international assessments in 1994 to be the top scoring country by the end of his presidency in the year 2000.  (On the 2000 PISA, we were still average in 14th place in science and 19th place in math.) The Reagan administration did not set benchmarks per se, but he did set off the hailstorm of standards-based education by declaring that our education system was so mediocre that we would declare it an act of war if another country had imposed the system on us. (By the way, the products of that mediocre system fueled the largest economic expansion in U.S. history.) In every discussion of raising standards, I am always reminded of a quote from Gerald Bracey saying that just because you make someone’s shirt sleeves longer, doesn’t mean their arms will grow longer.

Although the Obama administration is pragmatic enough not to set specific benchmarks for judging his education policies, they still rest their hopes on a bedrock of educational competition. Those teachers, principals, and schools that are above average will be rewarded and those teachers, principals, and schools that are below average will be punished. Obama has introduced what many have hailed as a “new” approach to school reform, piloted tested by Arne Duncan in Chicago, called school turnaround, in which all of the staff at a failing school are let go and a whole new staff is hired. What modern, ahistorical policy makers do not realize is that this same approach was called “reconstitution” in the 1990s, with little success. In fact, “turnaround” has a long history in business, with a very small success rate.

Just as the narrator in the Budweiser commercial tells Ramsay that the players can’t hear him when he is yelling at the TV, we need strong voices to tell policy makers that the essence of lunacy is superstitiously doing the same things over and over again and hoping to get different results the next time. Since none of these ideas are working at scale, it’s just weird how we keep trying them over and over again.