Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Our School 20140615

New exhibition space, there was a deliberate decision by the curators not to do that again. And what we wanted was that the flag becomes a metaphor for the country. Its tattered, its torn, but it still survives, and the message is really the survival of both the country and the flag, and were not trying to make it look pretty, were trying to make it look like it endured its history, and it still can celebrate its history. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the British Naval bombardment of fort mchenry during the war of 1812. Learn more about the flag fran be sis scott key wrote about while we tour the smithsonians starspangled banner exhibit tonight at 6 and 10 p. M. Eastern, part of American History the this weekend on cspan3. Part of what makes this a special place as we seek to bring the outside and into the inside out and it is in that spirit i would like to introduce my friend who has come in this evening to read from and talk about his new book. Sam is and always has been a good guy who in at least one case helps me get a troop to life much in the same way that he brings truth to light in his writing on education. He helps me find a way to tell my story to the history teacher and helped me set the record straight. You probably dont remember. But mr. Olson handed back an exam and on the exam there was a short answer question where we had to explain exactly how the bombing worked on the fire attacks. And the thing is i dont remember a lot about that class. But i remember this. Sam was in it and we sat next to each other in the second row in front of the green chalkboard and i knew that i nailed a question about the dress in bombing. And so i got m my paper back frm mr. Olson and was marked wrong. You all know how it looks when the teacher just is through an exam and is incorrect maybe with a oneword comment. But i had it right and they showed it to sam and he said that it was right and that i should tell mr. Olson and so i did and it was hard and i remember my voice was shaking because he was a nice guy but i was essentially telling him that he had gotten something wrong, but i did it and it helped me because telling my stories started a conversation that revealed my understanding and in an even deeper way than i had written on the test and that is what learning can be like sometimes, complicated, clouded by this perception or maybe he was just really tired of grading papers and decided to blast right through i that with connection and conversation, clarity can be reached in his work is all about publishing those important facet of the educational experience in america. Since the work on schools and education to greatest strength is helping folks to see where theres something wrong with the power to make it right. Hes also particularly excellent at heralding what is already right in american schools. More than anything else he believes in the power of schools to shape the lives of the teachers and students, the parents that interested their kids to them and he believes in the power of schools to help shape our very democracy itself and in his new book he beautifully tells the story of two schools in washington, d. C. Where he lives and he raises important questions about the power and peril of School Choice. Our school is an important work for those of us that care about students because he writes about the inside of the schools in ways that reveal a sensual truths about teaching, learning and choice. What our schools show our passion and precision is that education is about real people leading real lives and real places. If school doesnt engage them it doesnt work no matter what the policymakers may say. Thats what this book is about and why its important for anyone who generally cares about schools, communities and their children. In sams own words his project in this book is compelling. I had within our school because i believed before we could answer these questions we must put a human face on the modern landscape of teaching and learning. We must experience modern american schooling is todays teachers, students and families do and we must pay close attention to the notions of community cant democracy and choice. Nothing could get closer to the market seems to be willfully missing in many conversations about schools have a thesis and the experiences of the teachers and students who spend their days in the classrooms and the hallways. Sams book helps him in his present study across the schools and he is of course here to read. So without further ado please welcome to the podium my friend, classmate and colleague. [applause] hello everybody. Thats definitely the first time ive been introduced by a former high school classmate. So not surprisingly, i think it is safe to say that its the nicest and most interesting introduction that i have ever had. Thank you so much for setting the stage and to all of you for coming. You know i went to high school here in the class of 88. Im not from here. I grew up in new hampshire, so it isnt fully coming home but it is a home to me so it is especially exciting as the book goes and im visiting different parts of the country to be in the room where i can be introduced by a former classmate where a former student of mine from brooklyn is now here teaching in chicago where theres friends and family and folks on the front line doing work where there are young people in the room and folks are still in school and starting to think about the work they will be giving in their own lives. So thanks to everybody for coming. Our school is a story about a year in the life of two schools and in an a man of the people we lives intersect. But because those schools happen to be a Charter School opening its doors for the first time in a Neighborhood Schools that first opened its doors in 1924 in the Nations Capital its about a lot more than that. In fact most of the issues that touches on our the most pressing issues of the day both nationally and with the local context in places like dc and chicago and lots of other places so its also about School Choice and School Reform and testing and teacher evaluation and or changing notions of community. So needless to say it is especially a lot to try to talk about in one hour but we are going to try sushi is what im thinking. What i want to do is share three short readings from the book as a way to give you a feel for the story and maybe provide some specific context to these other issues and give you a little bit of a sense of what i think about those things and then let your questions determine how we spend the rest of the time together. So the first thing i should say is a little bit of context about dc. I wrote this book to try to have an appeal to folks all over the country because this issue this is like the brave new world of modern american School Reform in just about every major American City bears some level of experimentation with this idea. So i first started thinking about writing this book three years ago when not coincidentally my wife and i were our oldest son was just near school age so most kids in dc start at three and most of our friends were at a similar point and one of the things i noticed is lots of these really smart, motivated parents had absolutely no idea how to choose a school for their kids. And i thought thats interesting and thats kind of a major problem if what youre trying to unleash is a more educated consumer patrolling the marketplace and ultimately making a decision thats in the best interest of their kid into based on the decision that they are making is there for driving decisions. If people dont even understand why they are choosing to schooll and what they should be looking for car than the house of cards comes tumbling down. But what i also realized is that so, dc its really kind of the tip of the sphere in this National Movement towards School Choice. Theres actually only two cities in the country that have more kids enrolled in Charter Schools and the new orleans and detroit so i think you can understand why that might be happening. So, in dc, 44 of the kids are enrolled in Charter Schools, but what i realized is even in traditional Neighborhood Schools only 25 of the kids that are enrolled at hand their Neighborhood School. So what was happening in dc at the time i set out to write this book and what is continuing to happen today is a great intercity migration of all of these families, kind of ignorantly coming up with a great anxiety and hope in the search of a community for themselves and for their families and for their kids. And i thought this is something we really need to understand more. So the First Reading i want to do is pick from the first chapter this is Teacher Appreciation week. I want to do short descriptions of two of the educators that i write about. So i said its a story about two schools and its about even more so it is a story about the teachers and principals and a lesser extent some parents on the outside trying to search and without giving it any more context i want to introduce you to two of the people i follow over the course of the year and see what you think about it so the first is one of the teachers at the Neighborhood School. And the title of the first chapter is the first day and you can imagine what happens in the first chapter. When the alarm clock went off the morning of the first day, 6 50 a. M. As always and always the annoying beeping sound because nothing else would rouse her from her deep sleep rebecca hopped out into the 17 minute routine that she had honed over her previous two years of being a teacher. Bathroom, teeth, face, makeup, seven minutes. Then six minutes to get dressed and four minutes to find her keys, grab her lunch and head out the door to the park or as it has become locally as a site for demonstrations in the 1960s, malcolm x. Park. Four years earlier rebecca was a senior student at brown and michelle was the freshman chancellor of the Public Schools. When liebowitz saw the tiein cover holding the grilled, singing to clean house, she decided the Nations Capital is where she would start her care career. They believed they had a chance to show the rest of the country with was possible when an urban School System decided to judge the teachers by their merits to set High Expectations for everyone to up the classrooms and to help the kids that had been most poorly served in the past by refusing to keep doing things the way theyve been done before. She got placed in an Elementary School in mt. Pleasant named after the founder of the u. S. Naval academy george bancroft. It was a bumpy beginning. Six weeks into the first year she was switched from first to third grade to replace a teacher that had a nervous breakdown in front of the children. Since then she had two stable years to hone her craft and she felt like she was starting to border and prays that she often received yet as she turned onto the sidewalk that stretched in front of the doors of the only place that she had ever worked, she felt increasingly certain that this year would be her last. She entered the gymnasium to search for the teacher Rebecca Schmidt and together they were known as the two rebecca is and they would soon escort up the stairs past the main office and the colorful mural depicting the arrival in the new world to room 121. Children as young as three and 11 stood or sat in the clubs across the gym floor waiting to be escorted to their homeroom. Payments received information forms while interpreters moved back and forth between the groups to make sure each family understood what was required. Near the gym door ms. Liebowitz approached the boy. How are you doing she said putting an arm around his shoulder. Did you have a great summer . He remained silent with his head down. Each Still Holding with one hand to the leg of her father and each performing her own distinct right. And this is the principle of the Charter School. In an apartment she moved into after the separation that was a long time coming, she closed the bathroom door and quietly got herself ready so her son could grab a few more minutes of sleep. She looked across the street at the buildings at the walter reed medical hospital, selected the outfit for her first day as a principal and thought back to the apartment in Corpus Christi that she lived in as a child, the one on sixth street with the roaches and the gunfire. That is where the wanting had begun. It started the first time she visited a friends house on ocean drive. Why dont we have that, she remembered thinking. How can i get that. Her dad so the change in the following weeks and saw the building anger and resentment. Theres a difference betweenthen being schooled and being smart, he said. Education is a bridge or a border. Choose. As a child, she often fished with her father. The data there that would tell her. Wait it out. Wait until its time to. Learn to distinguish between the tide and the fish pulling on the bluer. She tried to pull back within a force. I cant do this. Dont ever say that. The rod gets lower and lower interest over got behind her and added his hands to the pole and a screened reel it in the child as strained as far as she could until the stingray and urged. The father grabbed it before it could strike and pinned it on the floor of the tipping craft and he reached in for a pair of pliers and a load of his daughter to pull the hook out. In seconds it was out of the boat and struggling back down into the gulf waters and they laid their exhausted and breathing hard. She felt like crying and laughing then and now. He was always getting her into situations like that for situations that were bigger than she could handle. And then pushing her through them. Thats what kept him alive as she rustled her son from colorful 4yearold dreams. He was making sure that i had some of that in me. So it wouldnt surprise me if some of you are like that. It may be immediately selfevident, but part of what became clear to me over the course of the time that i spent in the schools when i knew i wanted to write a book but i wasnt sure what form it would take is that first of all, people are interested in other people. They are not interested in programs. And so a book that explains the specifics of the readers and writers workshops can be found somewhere else in the bookshelf even though thats something that this talks about. But also what became clear to me watching the culture of the schools unfold and this is something the educators in the room now and folks that are not in education but have had experience working in successful organizations is that always the main currency that defines a successful culture whether its via mobile metrics for the company is language and relationships. And always the most effective schools and environments are the places where people know one another dont know what the tendencies are like in the classroom. Its to understand the relationship that she had with her father and what he taught her about life that directly impacts the kind of principle that she is. I think the reason i bring this up and then we will go into reading number two is because kind of k12 School Reform its so contentious in the twodimensional it is the landscape of the righteous and the damned, and to be clear there are some lowlevel and folks out there, and there are some people who are doing thorough a quirk that is unrecognized. But for the rest of us, it is more complicated than determining for example that because rebecca moved to washington, d. C. Because she admired michele reads that we should either love or hate her based on that fact alone because she left her long career to become the inaugural principle of the Charter School we should either celebrate her as a reforming hero or come them her as a part of the effort to privatize Public Education. Its more complicated than that and part of my larger group for this project is that in almost every city including but not limited to this one we need to begin having a different and more poignant conversation about the ways in which scratch race began to unleash very unresolved issues around race and class and place and democracy and of the ways in which School Reform if it works is supposed to unleash better approaches to teaching and learning. The first conversation that we have to have is what is it that our schools should be more effective at doing tax and in what ways might we be able to release the cycle that creates a rising tide lifts all. And from my perspective that is not a conversation that we are yet having sufficiently broadly enough to really impact of the work that we desperately need to do on behalf of kids and our community. Number two speaks to the things happening in dc. Youll get a preview what is coming into this knowing this is a title chapter building a house. How are we giving everybody . Are we doing good . This is the very beginning of this chapter. When she was still a girl growing up on a farm her family owned since 1725 she fantasized about becoming an outdoors ecologist. Most of her youth was spent outside in the woods with the cows are visiting the tenant families that live elsewhere on the farms growing acreage. So when she imagined herself working in a large office with a dark wood and desk for 8yearod rome he added an extra twist. A secret trap door behind the desk through which she and the children would be scape to a beautiful woodland environment free from adult supervision. That is what would heal them, she decided to the parents would never even need to know. Years later they fashioned an adult life that honored the spirit of her childhood fantasy. As a College Student she designed her own nature. She callemajor. She called its Socio Cultural development and education. By the way those of you in high school it is possible to sign your own major and a study the ways different children and different cultures could expect different experiences in school. And as a professional, she spent different stretches working with troubled boys and girls chasing against the structures of teaching at a Traditional High School and eventually founding her own. Her efforts to build something lasting always fell slightly short. What she learned was that the challenge of a great education is almost all motivation that every school she ever worked in even the one she built herself ended up stealing too much of their students capacities for autonomy and meaning. She had designed her own school as a counterweight to the heavily structured environment in which he first taught that what she realized was the opposite extreme was just as problematic. In fact all that happens if you replace the pure structure with freedom is the same result in mediocre place for learning. The art of building a great school came in striking the right balance between planning and improvisation just like the art of building a great house. The first house but sh house tht another one that burned to the ground of the night she and her husband moved in to point and three years to complete. She was 22 and knew next to nothing about construction. The only thing she ever built was a homemade dulcimer she had been sketching designs her own life and she had a healthy dose of fearlessness, so she brought a 14inch chainsaw and ignored everything she didnt know it does and. Many months later she stood before the most triumphant accomplishment for lisak testament to the power of motivation, collaboration and learning by doing. She cut down the trees and peeled them by hand and she welcomed friends from all corners who stayed for stretches and added their own personal touches and on the night she and her husband through a moving and party to celebrate, she felt like she was sharing her personal masterpiece. What she discovere discovered to health is that she had overlooked in the central piece of the puzzle. A single component of the critical briefing in the chimney. No one was hurt, but the weather from the choir to the fire spread to the cabin and into light and heat all they worked for over those years and every single they had acquired over the course of their lives was gone. She was devastated. And then faster than she had anticipated, she decided to start again. She used to bales of straw this time for insulation. On the outside i of the walls could breathe and on the inside made of local clay, sand and horse manure. It was completely unique and this time 11 months later she and her husband and for good. With the second house i really liked the balance be struck that a lot of the forethought and planning but also a lot of innovation in a moment she explained one winter afternoon. When you build something from scratch, you must have the right balance. At the same is true for schools. Everything you do have a school designer is self created based on the need. Thats where the expertise comes in leaving enough room for spontaneitthespontaneity to hapd recognizing that you cant do everything on the fly. I was particularly struck by the insight. She was a person who was working with the Charter School. She worked for the National Network of all kinds of schools called expeditionary learning which is a really remarkable network of schools. Its actually formed in a partnership with the Harvard Graduate School of education which gives you a sense of what they are about. So her work has always been advising schools like this to help them kind of ending the principles of expeditionary learning that one of the things that she witnesse witnessed an s over the course of his first year which ended while i should say was the insanity of starting the school from scratch. Its exciting. It leads to some pretty remarkable stuff and its insane and the reason is because you have to build everything on the fly, not just the norms and cultural ways of being and recruiting families, the things you take for granted like report cards for professional development calendars. Its one of the things that was interesting in this idea of building a house and i should say the flipside in the time i spent in a Neighborhood School, professional development was like a game of telephone. The principle of the Neighborhood School was sent a set of powerpoint slides from the District Office and the professional development was her presenting the slider to her faculty. Its hard for something to maintain its meaning when its been passed down from other people who arent even deciding what to use. So what i witnessed was in a way which sector post needs is the other strength. So Charter Schools have this amazing space for innovation and autonomy and because they have to reinvent everything, you shouldnt have to reinvent everything right clicks surely there is wisdom that we can apply. Surely there is a better way to allocate funds time. Surely there is a way to create a more sustainable path in the profession for thinking outside the box. So with the Charter Schools thes desperately need are the advantages of scale and the districts have the advantages of the scale in space. They dont need to wait until the seventh year when they reach full capacity and they can finally hire an art teacher. They have report cards and at the same time that scale is precisely what makes the district schools get a little stall to five because theyve been swimming in the same stuff for a while. So, to me this notion of building a house is almost exactly what we need to be thinking about when we think about the challenge in cities like chicago because for me it is both hands. I do think that there is figuring out ways to build new models, new schools and it doesnt work if we are not also concentrating on renovating the other schools that we have. Its almost like there are folks that are only interested in raising and rebuilding. We see a lot of that in chicago. Chicago has the declining enrollment and you are making new schools all over the place. There is only one possible ending point. 100 schools in five years and 50 schools closing and barack obama high school, you know the only way that you continue to populate the schools is if you continue to close other schools. There is no other way to do the math in a city like chicago. Part of what i wonder is what extent is there a proactive conversation about both about yes its importance to create space to build new things and yes we need to double down on renovating what we have and by renovating we dont just mean renovating the space but figuring out how people will go there, how it will not be stultified in the district environment and how we can actually both benefit from the other strength. This isnt happening in dc either, but its interesting to see how much its changed, and i think how much more open relatively speaking. Im going to be in new york tomorrow, new york city. I think new york cut the climate oaround choice in new york is closer to chicago then dc is to chicago. And so, there is a lot of work that needs to be done about this and i think the insight has a little bit of wisdom. I will share one more reading and then i want the rest of the time to be determined by your questions. The last thing i want to share to get to some of the questions of choice it is a bit later in the book and the only thing that we need to know if this is an in excerpt that features one of the two parents i followed so both of them were outside of either system so they have threeyearolds, they were looking at the schools and Charter Schools. One of them who you wont be hearing about was like on a Flight Attendant 30 openparen as, had an excel spreadsheet on a new exactly what she was looking for and got it and this woman wasnt so sure so this bit that you are about to hear is when she attends an enrollment open house after she actually got been somewhere. By the time she received a postcard in the mail saying her daughter had won a seat at one of the newest Charter Schools, she had just about given up hope. Every other school had drawn her name so far after the cutoff as to become comic. She hadnt even attended an open house for the school whose offer of admissions she held in her hand but as she went through the folder of handouts from the Charter School expo she started to remember being impressed by the school of creative mind international and by the charismatic founding principle. She found the school of the handouts alongside the color images of the two childrens faces. Newcomb international Charter Schools of arts, Foreign Languages and handson project learning Pretty International public Charter School is a new tuition free for washington, d. C. Creative mind offers a diverse and International Curriculum of project ar archpriest activities that foster creativity, self motivation, social and Emotional Development as well as academic excellence. How can a school say it offers something if it doesnt even exist . Then she read more about the school and an emphasis on the arts and the founding principle with a phd i and a deep understanding of how children learn and in spite of herself she started to feel the fortune of her winning number. She also had no other options that tempered her enthusiasm when they intended a special open house for the families the following week. This is the actual reality of School Choice. They pick up the enrollment packets school chance. The most established Charter Schools stopped being anything other than a true Lottery Ticket for families. They sound great on paper. It doesnt exist in any real form. You are buying low and hoping it will jump. A Charter High School was about to move cross the town. One set of parents brought their fun with them. I dont like it, he said moments after entering at which point his father helps down beside him. Its as if the school yet. They stared back. What is it then blacks nearby and other pair handed over her daughters material and gave the young female teacher on the other side of the table a bear hug. If you need help getting ready for the full just let me know. That gives me goosebumps she responded. I think i might cry. She moved through the entryway into the room where the principal was addressing prospective families. I wonder how much balance youll be able to maintain tha when the school year actually starts, she said. He has 17 plus years of schooling leftparen i dont want her to get pushed back too quickly to an academic focus. I know exactly what you mean, the principal responded. I started this in the same frustration i felt when i was searching for a school for myself several years ago. Thats why we want to make sure that our kids are just as focused on addressing the social and emotional needs of your children as they are on the academics. She watched to the other parents around her nodding and affirmation that what they heard. Are these future friends . Will she be spending time at thesthese peoples homes . Should ideally for this principle was telling me . We left shortly thereafter. She went through the enrollment package outside of the schools front doors. I get excited every time i learn more about the school. But at the same time did you see how young they were . I worry that what is happening is the rising expectation of the parents and the increased understanding of the research has outstretched outstrips the capacity of the teachers to actually deliver the goods. Some of what i heard sounded like an election speech. It sounds good in theory but what will it look like in practice . And do i want her to be part of the experiment . The more that i think about it, she continued as the arrivals brushed past her i am not as concerned that they are a new school. Its preschool. By the time she gets to first grade they will have worked out the kinks. I go back and forth on where my priorities are. On the one level i say lets try this and im okay with her switching schools a few times but i also cant help but think about the pummeled on the line. Its a leap of faith but i suppose that is true anywhere. She unlocked the car to drive back home 2 miles to the east. I think we will still move out of the city just not right away. So the piece of the very beginning of the book and that is a word i learned it is a beginning of the book. Now you know, too. The piece at the beginning of the book is a bit from the republic and i had never read the republic like i imagine most of you. In class and in school may be the case cant but come on. A show of hands. But while i was doing this research, there was an oped in the Washington Post and the author quoted a bit of it piqued my interest because i never before thought as somebody that spends way too much time about schools like my 4yearold daddy why you always talk about school, so this quote made me realize that platos republic talks about this and ive got to read this. So i did, so for those of you that havent read it, basically hes imagining that socrates by his mentor is visiting athens which is the highest model of a Democratic Society in Human History and which only lasted 250 years trade by the way we are about 250 years in and nobody has figured out how to sustain an experiment in democracy in Human History beyond the point that we are at right now. So he happens to be visiting during the period is declining and basically hes hanging out with a bunch of other dudes on the stoop and they start riffing about what the ideal city should be like. So as you might imagine a major question that they think about is command of the quote at the beginning is basically like how are they to be educated by us and how is it the way that we answer that question going to relate to Everything Else that is that we do and consider in what way justice and injustice come into being in the city . And the last part seemed so perfect in what way justice and injustice come into being in the city. Thats the question. Thats the question that we are wrestling with. With. In what way can our ongoing experiment in School Choice bring justice into the city whether its chicago or dc. But heres the crazy thing. Stomach is socrates answer was the way you bring justice into the city when it comes to education is that you have to raise children in a common pattern where nobody knows whose kid is whos because unless you do that, parents will disproportionately lobby for their child potentially at the expense of everybody else. In dc because theres lots of conversations about the dc i share this observation on a Radio Program and someone thought that i was presenting it as a policy proposal. I was not. But it does to me, it captures exactly the attention when it comes to schools and talkers these just the tension between the and we. We are nothing to be raising our kids and a common pen so how is it possible to honor the desire of parents to forcefully advocate for their kids . We have a Charter School movement is one of the central prize as my child by choice. Sounds pretty good. Rightclick the were primarily responsible for ensuring that we participate in some sort of shared order and in fact i would say that a lot of communities across the country including right here in chicago the Elementary School might be the only spot that actually brings diverse groups of folks together. There arent a lot of public squares anymore and not even there may be. It depends. So, to me, the bigger question and the one that i will end with and then we will decide together what we choose to talk about Going Forward is we have to figure out some sort of a way democracy does not require that all of us live in equality. But it does require that we share pretty substantially in a common life. So to me the question that this book does not result that we will not result in the qanda part of tonights program is in what way can our ongoing efforts to build more healthy ish in Public Education systems are both be and we come in what ways can we continue our country is always in a sense of a dual havl allegiance to these founding principles of liberty and equality. The reality is weve always valued liberty more than we value the quality. And to me whatever shape School Choice takes come it will be a huge catastrophic failure that leads to our own demise unless we very intentionally and courageously and consistently come front core issues in our communities that are manifested in our schools around race and class and place and access and the ongoing tension between democracy and capitalism, between how close we really want to be to one another and account the fact that schools cant do everything and really healthy high functioning schools that foster different notions of community and bring different people together to live with their deepest differences in the interest of our Diversity Institute at the expense, to me that is something worth exploring and in my mind we are not even having that conversation. So i wrote this book with the hope that if we can begin to have those conversations in more places across the country and im looking forward to continuing that conversation with you all in a moment. So thank you very much. [applause] in the time that we have left, with questions or comments or ideas do you have . And would you like to talk about . This all makes me very depressed. Is this the beginning of your book tour and have you seen any bright spots . There are tons of bright spots. Heres the thing. Everything that i said is true and what the author i am lucky enough m in that my job ii get to visit and work with and in what ciscos. Youve probably heard most schools are failing but almost every parent loves their school but most schools are pretty go good. Very few schools i would say are very great whether they are public, private or charter and very few schools i would say are truly horrible, though both extremes exist. Most schools are pretty good and they are falling somewhere along the pretty good continuing. They are either pretty good or not so good. So, i can give you lots of examples of schools and lots of differenin lots ofdifferent pary where people are doing really powerful things that i will tell you theres a couple things that i think the core Design Principles are to all of those places. Actually let me take a step back further and tell you what all of those schools need to be wrestling with and need to be more cognizant of. And i talk about this in the book. We are in the next right now. Lots of people talk about this generally people even say its a paradigm shift and what does that mean, heres what i think it means. We are in the biggest redefinition of what it means to be a teacher and a student in the last 100 years. Heres why. With the exception and maybe even including the young people in the room i can almost guarantee that everybody in this room because we are all the general age meaning we are alive has experienced schooling very similarly. And i can sum it up this way. Everybody in this room just about went to school during the period where the assumption was at the enthat the end goal of sg was confident knowledge and that the job of the students was to adjust to the school. So in a class of 88 there are other people in the class of 88 and 87 in the house and i can guarantee you that it never would have occurred to any of us and im sure this is true for everybody else that evanston was supposed to adjust to our needs. Our job was to fit in, to not get in trouble, to get good enough grades to go to college and have a lot of fun. Thats pretty typical. What we are now in the midst of his to shift. This has changed everything. We are in the midst of the change where the content is no longer where we are going. Its no longer the end goal. It is the means by which we reach the end goal that is now understood in all of the schools that are great this is one of the Design Principles they understand that what matters most are a specific set of dispositions that they need to try to instill because those are the dispositions that will guide those people through life. Not just getting into college and getting a job through life with only ten good parents, spouses, neighbors, partners, democratic citizens. Thats a big shift. And then the second thing is also we are shifting t to wear almost everywhere the assumption is that it is the job of the school to adjust to the needs of each student. Those are massive shifts and i think those are right and it is a lot harder to do that. So the reason that we should be discouraged is because there is still we have a system that is aligned to the old way. We still pretend content knowledge is the end goal of schooling. We evaluate whether they are successful or unsuccessful based on the reading and math scores. This is me saying from now on im only going to recruit those that have doubles. Perhaps that was a bad analogy. So, so anyway, to me part of it is we have to pay more attention to policies that are actually incentivizing teachers to shift to the world that content is the means by which we reached the end goal and our expectation is not just the teachers are personalized instruction to every kid that the teachers are actually equipped to do that well and are evaluated based on their ability to do that. And if youre going to personalize your instruction to meet the needs of each kid that doesnt just mean cognitive and emotional, ethical, physical, linguistic, class of school. Those are big shifts and the good news to me to take it. Fullsto. Fullstop zero and l shut up is the learning revolution is already underway. So, i will share my Contact Information afterwards. Email me and i can point you to tons of examples of schools across the country where folks are already doing that. They are identifying specific habits that they are a value rating themselves against whether they reached those habits or kids are learning in and out of the classroom where teachers are in power to build high trust parents he democratic cultures and the notions of community are being strengthened in some cases expanded. The problem is that a larger level we have been focused as clearly as some of those in the Digital Schools have, but the opportunity is to try to increase our collective attention on those goals. [inaudible] this individual schools and is the top down and doesnt require her to be the catalyst for this . I agree. There are some folks in the room from the School District which is an interesting example. Dont worry i know its very much a work in progress but i will point it out because it is a School District that was founded to fulfill the philosophy. Its a lot harder in and in districts like the Chicago Public schools were dc Public Schools and private reason its a lot harder is because there is so much beyond the control of schools despite the expectation is that the School District can singlehandedly overcome all of these other issues. As to the aspect of hardcore topdown, i dont think its possible to build an environment that is designed to personalize instruction around the aspirations into the needs of each student and not do that antidemocratic environment. I dont see how you can possibly in power young people if adult stem cells dont feel empowered. So it is one example i helped produce a video series about a school in boston and that is a remarkable school and the idea was very few of us have attended a grade school which means we dont really know what greatness looks like and requires candidates chinese to answer all those questions its just trying to let you be a fly on the wall and see for a little bit what it is they do and hopefully begin to develop a sense of what it is they are doing that might be exported and tried elsewhere. What role do you think the subject breakdown is in cementing education in this model that is hopefully now changing, do you think the compartmentalization is a hindrance to developing the life skills across the different arenas like academic, do you think the way the curriculum is often broken down prohibits that from coming from developing further . I would say yes and no and mostly yes somebody explain why. If what we are trying to shift away from is the notion that content knowledge is what will ultimately define the work as teachers used only to subject expertise to the question of what you teach, those that have already made the shift may be folks that have a particular expertise in math and english and there always should be but what they are teaching primarily is creativity, critical thinking, empathy, problem solving through mass, poetry, social studies. Its a subtle but a significant distinction. So, the fact that we still have kind of hardcore academic departments and the fact a lot of kids still go to school in 45 minute installments, how are you ever going to begin to develop a more integrated sense of self and of the learning process if the learning process is artificially demarcated into english and math and science . Expeditionary learning that is working with the Charter School that i wrote about, its not a radical philosophy, but theres a lot of Research Behind it. We learn best by doing. One of the founders and expeditionary learning bb is what matters most in determining the health of the School Culture is quality student work. He said he wanted transform the culture, start helping kids reduce the quality work. But in order to do that, you have to you cant be wasting through a curriculum. So in his mind hes like if we are serious about learning there should only be two grades. A and not yet finished. So the expeditionary learning schools are all project based and so youre combining math and science and english in real time. You are in the school and outside of the school and ultimately, you have to present what it is that youve learned to a community committed to members of the community that will evaluate your work. To me back to your question that is a model that lots of schools are already doing and you can look across the network im sure theres a bunch of them in chicago and you can go and visit one and start their. But to your point its harder to do that in more schools if we continue to stay caught in our english or history teacher box. Thanks for the narrative of how you bring up the humanity of people of all different sides. The part that was concerning me and i would like some clarity on is why does it have to be a choice between autonomy and a system run outside by the privatized versus the strict control within the democratically run schools . Democratic structures . And so at least if you are poor. And just the last thing my one experience where we built these amazing democratic programs to the students that were teaching and then the round of talks in the previous administrations come down and shut down the programs because the competition for the local Turnaround School or Charter School. The first thing that i would say is these issues of School Choice and how School Choice plays out is so different depending upon where i am in the country. And so if i just answered that question specifically through the lens of chicago, which im not as knowledgeable about as you are, the thing that seems to stand up t out to me the most it chicago seems like it has perhaps the loveliest level of trust and transparency of just about any other major city thats participating in this process. So, from an outside perspective, the budgetary issues in chicago seemed pretty real. So, in theory i could see why perhaps some schools have to be closed. That says everything to me about the extent to which theres going to be a real kind of civic Energy Around School Improvement which to your point School Improvement if the goal is to build better schools than heres where i do get agnostic. In dc most of the people like these folks that started this Charter Schools its like mom and pop stores its not charter change. Michigan four out of five are run by the forprofit entities. So that is a very different environment. In a city like this where there is such a mess trust between the mayor and the educators, yes i mean i would be thinking any time hes trying to close the school and get in the charter hes trying to bring the chain and this is the different deal to privatize. From the outside, it doesnt snow right. So, so much of this is localized but the one thing that does seem to be uniform is the idea that look if we are going to create more space for the public Charter Schools and public Charter Schools are going to be Public Schools with autonomy, then they should be held to the same transparency standards as regular schools. Schools. That to the greatest extent possible in a city that is built in space for a district to be every bit needs to create the most level Playing Field possible and it needs to be as transparent as they can possibly be about every decision. And to me thats the biggest tragedy of what is happening in chicago. I wrote a piece about this in chicago when the teachers strike was happening and the title of the article is a part of us is dying in chicago and thats how i felt about what was happening. Because when things like that happen in cities like this, our ongoing ability to maintain tenuously the hold of a Democratic Society commits to ae larger engine of the capitalist society becomes greatly threatened and it is something that we should take very seriously and confront with eyes wide open. And i think to the extent possible we shouldnt throw too many babies out with the bathwater and for those of us that are most passionate about this, we have to be the folks that help People Better understand what the monde negotiables are and where the positive next steps can begin. So i have a question about private security [inaudible] does has different implications for the Choice Movement in the charters do as far as their relationship with traditional public and so im curious about your thoughts on the choice with respect to the private schools thats a huge question i know and some just for disclosure by a random nonprofit for couple of years and i kind of fell into that role looking for a job and i wound up doing that because i was the recipient of the scholarship that got me into the academy which is where i work and i think through that experience of understanding this private voucher and looking at the idea of the vouchers with the public funds i thought it was appealing and i had a very social justice than that led me to pursue that, but i had a lot of the malevolent kind of rightwing people on the board who i could talk with but i think that there are some misguided and all teary or motives as far as what is the aim and the gold. So i just wanted to give you that background and pose that question as far as what you think the promises and the perils are with respect to the private school. And thank you for moving with the microphone. Cspan is here which means that this will continue for an insomniacs and Hotel Dwellers for weeks and months to come. So, i said this to some of the other folks in the room that work and private schools, and i talk in private and Public Schools in new york city when i was still in the classroom. To me every private school must have a Public Mission, and the Public Mission is not, you know, visiting a Senior Center and collecting canned goods. Its if Charter Schools have a little bit more freedom than Public Schools to think about what they do, you all can do whatever you want. So, to me the mission is to become the ultimate laboratory for how to deal with teaching and learning in the best possible way and in doing it in an environment like Francis Parker to be very explicitly thinking about the ways in which your wisdom might be exported. If you create an amazing place that can only exist here, well that iwhilethat is great for the that go here and it stops here. In fairness it doesnt stop here because all of the young people that graduate from a place like this are able to radiate out and do amazing work. But you see my plaintiff would have been here not only impacts those young people, but also starts to help other folks that dont have the freedom to begin doing their work effectively that is the way to me the private schools start to more proactively contribute to the virtuous cycle. They have to be the ultimate front of my mother traced to help us figure out how to do this because for all of the reasons i said, we need more innovative thinking now more than ever before that a schools that are children and grandchildren will be attending are going to look really different because the world is going to be really different in speeding up into that is the ideal role for them to play. I know that we are almost out of time and i want to be 81 or two more questions and then we will wrap it up because i dont want to go for that. We have embarked on the madness of the high school in chicago and it is a sheer map is. We have a handful of schools that are screaming the best students if we have 105 Graduation Rate in the handful of schools. And then we have a majority of the schools that are either at a 55 Graduation Rate and some of the most struggling neighborhoods, 45 Graduation Rate you mentioned the context and the need to discuss race and class and some of these deeper issues that are challenging. How do we begin to attack those things that have been s so in tt it and have gone on for so many years and are so ingrained in the segregated city like chicago and all of these areas that percolate from that, how do we even begin to change that . Do you want to begin to try to answer it and then i will . While i think that we need a lot of support from not just the schools that i work with the ymca beneath nonprofit in a lot of people to pitch in and change the paradigm. But its a very difficult task because there is a lot of pain and emotion and anger and frustration and people that are struggling in the communities that are really struggling. We all know that if we all live here. I dont have a good answer. Do you want to weigh in . In the beginning of an idea that i cannot put it starts to be tackled in preschool because in preschool is the time when kids have these fewest ideas coming into it and the conceptions about the world and at the impressment from everyone around them so its the ideal time to try to encourage empathy through the structure of preschool and my hope would be as soon as we go through preschool and become more empathetic individuals in that kind of very Rapid Development they are going to go into the Elementary School. That will leave them much more in tune to the issues that you brought up which i think is the first step in point in addressing them as people recognizing their presence and being willing to talk about them. Anybody else want to weigh in on that . It seems like there are some folks that wanted to offer their own wisdom. Ive recently been exposed to a text that points out threeyearolds are capable of acting, performing racist acts basically. So, thats not that i have a solution to that i think that you are exactly right that we have to start the conversation and i think that the majority populations have to really be the leaders of other people are suppressed and set up and its time to get a go on this. The first with regard to preschool, dc is an interesting case study if you talk about universal preschool as one policy solution that can begin to help. So it was a preparation of 800,000 before the rights of 68 and then it went down to 500,000 it stayed at 500,000 for 40 years and i moved to dc in 2001 and that happened to be right around when things started to change. As of the population in dc is now over 600,000. So, rising tax base which means six years ago we passed the universal preschool law and because we were only 600,000, things are possible in dc that become a lot harder in a city like chicago. So after just six years for 75 of eligible three euros and 95 of eligible foryearolds were enrolled and that is a start. I also know that actually if your question speaks to something larger and systemic but if we are just talking about kids there are organizations that are doing work from zero to three and working with families and parents just hoping folks think about how to better support the needs of their kids. One of my heroes is a professor at yale named james colbert. He was on his path to becoming a medical dr. An africanamerican, grew up in a poor lower bow clasp community can neither of his parents were college graduates, but he and his siblings all had like 12 degrees. And as he was about to become a doctor he looked back at some of the kids he grew up with and they not only had multiple degreedegrees but they were in r they have just gone a totally different direction. They were just as smart as we were. So why did we succeed and they failed to . And what he concluded is that in a word they were underdeveloped. The parents were doing the best that they could because of all of these other pressures that the adults were facing and the fact that it limited their ability to meet the needs of their kids, they didnt have the Developmental Foundation that would allow them to be successful, whereas even though he was coming from a poor family he did and therefore he succeeded and thrive. Anybody see the wire on hbo . Great show. Maybe the best show ever. Truly. Its not just me saying that. Lots of people have said. But the reason i love that show is although there are a lot of compelling characters, the primary characters are the systems that are interacting in the city of baltimore and ultimately holding everybody prisoner. The drug trade, the Public Schools, the media, the municipal government and the police. And so, what youre primarily seeing is the way in which you cannot ever hope to address education without also paying attention to these other things. So to the extent that people start to actually start to demand and hold our elected officials more accountable to assist the systemic policy approach we are going to be struggling for a while and i realize that its lik is like tt and the most quick thing to say as a final point, but in that sense there really are no shortcuts