Scroll down for jobs and fish pics. Including jobs and fish pics at Bellwether.

Also at BW: Here’s Ashley Mitchell with some reactions and takeaways from the new KIPP pre-k study. And here’s Sara Mead in USN on the 3-k gap.

Chad Aldeman and Kirsten Schmitz on the evolving teacher pension scene and changes to plan design.

Justin Trinidad has ideas on what teachers can do during the DACA uncertainty – and more generally.

Elsewhere:

Two things jump out from yesterday’s Marc Sternberg op-ed in The Times about the New York Absent Teacher Reserve pool. First, it’s really a horrendous policy and because these teachers won’t end up in schools with more affluent kids it shows just how grotesque the equity situation/conversation in education really is. Second, it’s 2017! It’s amazing we’re still talking about this and it’s not resolved. The best that New York Chancellor Farina could muster was to say of this pool of educators that, “some are actually okay.” That’s probably true, and some now how a scarlet letter on them, but the data Sternberg musters is stunning and, in any event, we can do better.

Speaking of equity – read this article and the analysis underlying it.

Mike Petrilli and Brandon Wright criticize Virginia’s ESSA plan – which is no great shakes. But they seem concerned Virginia will focus too much on helping underachieving students. That doesn’t seem like a big risk given educational outcomes in the Commonwealth and the persistent lack of attention to these students. Better safe than sorry, I guess?

Here’s another article about teacher shortages. Something we’ve talked about in the past is how these stories should come with a disclaimer about teacher credentialing today. Other than tossing warm bodies into the classroom – which you should not do – the rest of the credentialing strategies are more or less a wash in terms of impact on student learning. “Lowering the bar” rhetoric freaks out parents but the bar isn’t really meaningful now, so innovating with ways to get more teachers isn’t crazy against that backdrop.

Betsy DeVos is reopening Title IX campus sexual assault policy. Or more precisely opening it since she apparently intends to use the regulatory process rather than guidance letters to make policy about requirements for how schools handle this. It’s awkward, given that the President seems to be an admitted sexual abuser. DeVos is a lighting rod in general. And everyone is pretty edgy right now. Still, while almost everyone agrees campus sexual assault is a serious problem, the reactionary Trump context is obscuring some complicated questions about how the Obama policy is playing out. Emily Yoffe digs into that in Slate. And, as on several other high-profile social issues there are also court cases pending that may in the end have as much or more impact as anything the administration does.

Interesting interview with Lowell Milken and Vicki Phillips.

And an interesting teacher salary analysis from Brookings.

Paul Hill on David Osborne’s new book and some of the intellectual history around their ideas.

Complicated issues around teachers as product ambassadors and influencers. This is an old story but with clicks a new ed tech flavor to it.

People, teachers and others, tend to assume the legal protection provided by teachers unions for teachers is bulletproof. That’s not the case.

Here’s some food for thought about elite higher education and the rest of the country. And here’s more to chew over about land grant colleges and economic development.  Justin Fox says we’re getting too comfortable with America’s higher education reputation.

Buzzy Kalman says innovate less and execute better more in K-12 schools.

Here is your daily dose of adorable via Harlem Village Academies.

Have a wonderful weekend and if you’re in the southeast, stay safe.

Bellwether’s Jason Weeby spent time in Michigan this summer and got some fishing in. Like this:

And like this:

OK, it’s not Nick Adams but still great fun on the water.

We’ve seen Weeby, a Michigan native with a deep interest in education innovation, here before a few times. And if you want to see hundreds of pictures of education people with fish (and you know you do), then just click here.

Everyone likes a three-day weekend, but if you’re a little too excited then we’re hiring for two roles here at Bellwether:

Associate Partner and Analyst.

These are great ways to join our team and help us grow our evaluation work. Learn more via those links.

It was great having Michael Goldstein and Celine Coggins here to guest blog, scroll down if you haven’t read their stuff – or subscribe to the daily newsletter via the link at the right and get Eduwonk in your email box each day. Blogging has been slow, start of fall. More soon. For now, also scroll down though for job postings (and fish pictures!).

From Bellwether:

Bonnie O’Keefe and I point out in The 74 that the data policymakers need is different than what parents do – we have to address both.

In USN I took a look at Trump’s greatness paradox. He talks about making America great but actually seems to have little interest in or understanding of American greatness.

An important analysis showing that today’s approach to pensions can increase the inequities we already see for minority students. Structural inequality is not only stuff conservatives support…More here.

Sara Mead notes that schools really can improve and make a difference.

Bellwether did advance reviews of the draft state ESSA plans California and New York are working on – those two states are important and large enough that we believed the extra step would be valuable. EdSource here and LAT here.

This is a huge problem for LAUSD. Tomorrow’s crisis today courtesy of Chad Aldeman.

Elsewhere:

Interactive tool for Washington, DC school performance.

New data on charter funding inequities. One aspect of this report that is worth noting is that it’s the top quartile or so of charters that get a lot of philanthropic support, most get none. That’s important and usually overlooked context when people talk about charters and their funding.

Jay Greene says that RCT’s are the gold standard for evaluation of charter performance, not the CREDO method of evaluating charter schools. Few would disagree, I think? But CREDO has a lot of value and I’d argue this debate misses the point. The debate here is not really between different rigorous and serious methods of evaluating charter performance. Rather, it’s between people who want to engage with the evidence and those who don’t. To put it in Game of Thrones terminology, it’s the living against the dead, not the living against others who are the living. As a policymaker or policy advisor you’re looking for any angle you can find to understand what’s going on and while the RCTs show a clear charter effect for schools that are oversubscribed and on lotteries, CREDO currently offers a lot more geographic coverage (something that matters given the different policy environments for chartering around the country) and some evidence around different types of schools. That’s all important to know, and I’m not sure why we need to choose when the larger problem is that chaos is a ladder and too many people in the education world see a clown show article by Valerie Strauss in The Washington Post and an RCT or CREDO analysis as all having equal weight.

Speaking of evaluations on charters, here’s one now on Success using the lottery natural experiment. It’s a good reminder that years ago when Eva Moskowitz was a city councilwoman in New York City the teachers union basically told her that if she thought she had things figured out then she should prove it. The current mayor of New York felt the same way. Well, Eva can be bombastic, she’s pals with Ivanka Trump, Dan Loeb said a stupid thing the other day, but none of that changes that on the substance Eva’s won the argument. That probably explains why her critics want to talk about all the other stuff instead.

The “teacher shortage” hustle is one of the all-time great policy scams, and it still works.

If you’re a school public relations official you make sure that honor roll names and sports scores get in the paper. You interact a bit with local media. It’s all good and not unimportant at all in many communities where schools are a focal point. And then one day one of your principals goes and announces that young women who are not size 0 or 2 shouldn’t wear leggings to school. And this happens. Also, related, don’t do this.

There is a Trump effect hurting charter support but voucher support moving the other way. Paul Peterson points out a nugget you might have missed in all the pro-PDK press releases…

It’s surprisingly rare that you read a story about a teacher who abused or behaved inappropriately with students and it’s a one-off thing. It’s almost always part of a pattern. Something to think about the next time someone tells you nothing can be done and these things just happen.

Chipolte’s education initiative is working (and growing).

Screaming Hairy Armadillos are not fiction.

Kevin Kosar lives the ‘take a kid fishing‘ lifestyle. He’s a frequent fish pic contributor around here, sometime guestblogger, and has locked horns, or rather antlers, with Ali Fuller about who runs the show.

In any event, here’s his daughter, Anna, who is something of an accomplished angler already at 7, with a catfish at Diamond Teague last month.

If you want more pictures of education types with fish (and really, who doesn’t?) you can find hundreds here.

In U.S. News & World Report I take a look at something that has struck me the past few months: President Trump talks a lot about making America great but not much about American greatness:

Here’s something curious and hidden in plain sight: For all his talk about “making America great again,” President Donald Trump spends precious little time actually talking about American greatness. From the campaign to his dark nomination acceptance, a dystopian inaugural address, right up to the present, when is the last time you heard the president talking about the strengths and beauty of America with the frequency or fervor he talks about perceived ills or his critics? A city upon a hill this is not…

…Perhaps the president simply doesn’t know any better, and, under his coarse instincts, there is no intellectual foundation. He seems to have made it through college without encountering a fact. This is a man who didn’t realize the Japanese might be touchy about nuclear weapons and can’t distinguish between the legacies of George Washington and Robert E. Lee. (This is also worth remembering the next time someone fetishizes fancy higher education degrees – the president has one – or when someone tells you that minorities get all the breaks in higher education)…

You can read all of it here at the USN site.

Looking for impact in a really interesting state? Here’s an exciting edujob in Tennessee at SCORE:

SCORE’s Director of Policy and Research (DPR) plays a critical role in advancing the organization’s work and Tennessee’s efforts to improve student achievement. The Director leads a team of individuals in assessing where, how, and why statewide reforms are – or are not – meeting the ambitious goals that Tennessee has set for student growth and achievement, and by proactively identifying and assessing ways to overcome barriers to reform through state policy and practice. Specifically, the DPR will 1) take a leadership role in developing SCORE’s annual policy agenda, 2) serve as a leader, partner, and trusted voice in statewide education policy discussions with stakeholders, 3) design, develop, and manage policy and research projects, reports, and initiatives to advance SCORE’s policy agenda and theory of change, and 4) manage and lead the organization’s talented Policy and Research team to execute these projects.

Learn more and learn how to be considered here.

Kerri Briggs is a former Assistant Secretary of Education, former state education chief, and now works on education issues for Exxon Mobile. She’s also getting into fly fishing and has a nice brown trout here caught in Colorado, near Vail.

Want to see more education figures with fish? Hundreds right here.

The post below is by guest blogger Celine Coggins.

Today is the first day of my career post-Teach Plus. I am welcoming students for “course preview” day at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. For a decade, my identity has been: founder, teacher advocate, entrepreneur, CEO. Now I’m trying “teacher” back on for size and I couldn’t be more excited and nervous.

The process and timing of leaving a founder role mirrors the start-up process in reverse.  It takes a long time to plan properly and get right. Lots of the things that matter are out of your control. There are many moments when you think: Is this really happening?! The decision involves as much the totality of your identity as the start-up process does. Leaving your professional baby is never a single-issue decision.

For me, the same reflection question that led me to take the risk and jump on the founder express led me to determine it was time to get off the train. Given who I am at this very moment, what is the best contribution I can make to the ed reform movement today? A decade ago, my teaching days were fresh in my brain and the field was disproportionately focused on teacher quality issues. My vision fit the zeitgeist. Today, our issue emphasis has shifted with a new President who has created renewed urgency around protecting our most vulnerable students and standing up for social justice in schools and beyond. I agree with this shift in emphasis, but find myself taking the stance of learner more and expert less these days.

I watched with discomfort last fall when the hot topic among talking heads in education became which White leaders should step down to make space for a new generation of leaders of color. It’s a fun topic for Twitter or cocktail parties, less so when you’re pondering it IRL. It felt like the wrong version of identity politics. And yet, being a middle-aged White woman committed to greater diversity among education leaders factored heavily into my decision to give up my role.

I think, if we’re going to get anywhere on addressing race in leadership, we can’t lead with a deficit model of who past or present leaders are not. Leaving— taking a next step in one’s career— is never who you aren’t, its about who you are at your best and what you want to become as a whole person in the future.

My most important role at Teach Plus was empowering others. As a non-(current) teacher running a teacher leadership organization, I learned how to be a servant leader and give others had the spotlight. I like to think of myself as the person who dives in front of the elevator door before it closes to bring a new person up to the top floor with me. I like that role, It always reminded me of my teacher role and eventually led me back to teaching.

And I know my leaving will empower a new generation of more diverse leaders to step up at Teach Plus and that matters to me as well.

Race matters in education leadership. We have a long way to go to reflecting the population of students we seek to serve. But race is not a variable to consider in isolation. I hope our conversations about the future leadership of our field can be strengths-based— and include diversity as a strength— rather than myopically race-based. After all, there are an awful lot of us experienced White folks who are willing to step aside to learn from and follow a new generation of my diverse leaders. I humbly offer myself as one of them.

Celine Coggins is the founder of Teach Plus, a teacher leadership organization that operates in ten states across the US. This month she is transitioning from Teach Plus to become a Lecturer and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

The post below is by guest blogger Celine Coggins.

I have a chapter in my new book called: Equity is Everything (And Nothing).  When I talk with groups of teachers who haven’t yet read the book, they are universally puzzled by the And Nothing part of the headline. Of course, they are immediately onboard with Equity is Everything. Yes, the goal of public education is to serve all kids. The Everything part is easy. Then how could it also be nothing? I’ve had more than a few teachers tell me I’m just wrong about the Nothing part. Equity is Everything in education. Kumbaya. Everyone from teachers to policy makers should agree.

When President Trump made his vile comments about the incidents in Charlottesville having “many sides” he did untold damage to race relations in this country, but he also created a powerful teachable moment. In his use of “many sides”, he was invoking his own personal definition of fairness and equal treatment.  He was co-opting equity to mean the opposite of equity.  Equity is nothing because we have no shared agreement on what it is. “Many sides” is the most stark example I’ve ever seen of my chapter title. It is possible to say (and believe) something that is the very definition of unjust, but do so in the name of fairness and pursuing equitable treatment for different groups of people.

What does that mean for those of us who may be advocates in the education space? When I coach teachers on preparing to meet with leaders who make decisions about their classrooms, I suggest three questions to ensure a productive start as an advocate:

1. Are you too biased toward finding agreement? Most educators’ natural instinct is to keep the peace. Your average local politician won’t be as impolitic as the President. They’ll say they care about equity, meaning a great education for all kids. You need to get beneath the hood on that. Do they see equity as equality of inputs or on doing what it takes to ensure that students from different starting points have equitable opportunities for success? Your goal for that meeting as an advocate should be to emerge with some understanding of how that person sees you issue. Are they an ally, adversary are somewhere in the middle? Don’t make it too easy for them to give lip service to equity.

2. What specifics can you probe? Many aspects of leaders’ beliefs about equity are codified for public viewing in budgets, laws, contracts. Use those to ask concrete questions. One of my favorite things is seeing teachers on Facebook who have been through our Policy Fellowship post the link when the first draft of their district budget becomes public, tag other teachers, and draw their attention to certain issues to raise at the next school committee meeting. That’s the way to go deeper on how those in power define equity.

3. Which are the policy problems and which are the relationship problems? The battle for greater equity for disadvantaged students is a war on two fronts. Some parts of the problem are best solved at the individual-level through relationships (i.e. influencing a leader’s thinking, getting invited to the decision-making table). Some parts of the problem are best solved at the system-level through formal policies (i.e. who has access to certain support services and programming; how funding gets allocated across schools). Separating the two types of problems, will help you get clear on the issues you can tackle next on each front.

The President opened our eyes to how far we have to go to make equity a meaningful word in our society.  There are “many sides” to how we organize and fund schools, but viewing the problem that way is a sure-fire path to preserving the achievement gaps and racial segregation of today far into the future.

Celine Coggins is the founder of Teach Plus, a teacher leadership organization that operates in ten states across the US. This month she is transitioning from Teach Plus to become a Lecturer and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.