#1:  We aren't accomplishing nearly as much with kids as we should be.

#2:  We can only change that result when we change the expectations of teachers, administrators, parents, and students (in that order!).

#3:  Once we change the expectations, middle and high school students are going to have to work harder.

Question: How, in a system like Nashville, can we raise the expectations of 4000 teachers, maybe 125,000 parents (plus tens of thousands of grandparents, student sport coaches, scout leaders, etc.), 70,000 students and assorted principals, curriculum planners, coordinators, etc?

Core Knowledge: The Core Knowledge Curriculum may help, but its fate hangs is in the hands of teachers. If, through their own study and thinking, and their joint planning sessions, they come to believe that a content rich curriculum provides the best base for meeting the educational needs of all students, and that they can teach it in effective, compelling ways, then it will happen. If not, it will be watered down and ultimately abandoned. If we can make it work, CKC will provide a solid foundation for increased student achievement.

Small Schools and Choice:  The combination of small schools and parental choice seems to encourage higher expectations and achievement.  The East Harlem School District in New York has pursued an aggressive program of creating small magnet schools for two decades.  Often, to use resources wisely, these have been truly stand-alone schools sharing a building with another school or several schools.   Debbie Meier has written  about the advantages of "small" and what "small" is (certainly no more than about 500 students.)

External Feedback and Cooperative Efforts: We must work to develop a process of continuous improvement. We have to have many different external forms of feedback to teachers about how their students achievement "stacks up", both against other students and against external standards.  (Click here for comments and a link on "social promotion.")  Then we have to help teachers get out of the close-my-door-and-teach approach and start to work together to increase achievement.

• Value-Added Assessment -- We should move away from the view of accountability as a stick to be held over the heads of educators, and make it an oar for them to row with. No one would run a large, diverse business with nothing but a combined set of financial statements. You get the information broken down to the operating unit level so you know where to direct your efforts. In schools, that operating unit is the individual teacher. We need to view TCAP/TVAAS as an information system. The richer and more discrete the data, the better.  

Without information -- reliable, consistent, believed information -- all discussions become anecdotal. And everyone has a story to tell to back up his or her view. For this reason I think, and teachers and administrators I've talked to have often agreed, that the most powerful information getting to our schools today are the individual value-added teacher reports and the grade and subject level breakdowns on value-added by pre-achievement groups. We can use this information to help all of us see what is possible, and then to strive to make the best that is being accomplished today the standard for tomorrow.  Since this information is available at the middle school grades, it could be very useful in what is widely coming to be viewed as one of our greatest problem areas:  middle schools.

• Joint Grading of Common Assignments Against Pre-set Standards: See, Chancellor's Conference on School Excellence and Accountability at Vanderbilt. The speaker was the director of the New American Standards Project. He told of that project's work getting teachers in an elementary school together before the school year to develop three or four common projects they would assign during the year. Then the teachers developed standards of what they thought would be excellent, adequate and insufficient performance on those projects. During the year, they assigned the projects and jointly graded the work of their students. He said teachers found bringing the work of their students before other teachers to compare to standards they had developed together both intimidating and enlightening. He argued that without such forms of external feedback on student achievement, teachers cannot be expected to improve their performance.

• Advanced Placement Courses and Tennessee's Subject Matter High School Tests: At the high school level, the AP tests, which can earn students college credit and which are rigorously graded against demanding standards by The College Board, are an excellent tool. The inclusion of these courses in Metro's Accountability Standards, a step I suggested, is a significant plus for those standards. (Click here for information on how one teacher's focus on AP tests helped generate stunning results in a school.) If the state continues to develop the high school subject matter tests, these tests may serve the same function for 9^th and 10^th grades. In Class Struggles, Jay Matthews tells a story of how similar tests in New York served as a tool for increased expectations in a high-achieving New York high school.   

• Community "Graders" -- Professionals, business persons, and other community members can help grade some types of student performances (presentations, papers, etc.). This is one of the techniques of the Coalition of Essential Schools that has been used effectively at some schools.

• Real World Activities -- Again, these have been used successfully in many schools. But, they require intense commitment from the teachers and principal of a school, and they will not improve overall achievement if they are reserved for the elite students. These activities can range from in-class projects such as research and advocacy on a public issue, to in-school activities such as newspapers and annuals, to internships and other involvement in the world outside the school (especially at the high school level). Because of the commitment required, this type of improvement must come from the school, it cannot be mandated from above.

• Community "Critics" -- These folks would play a different role than "graders." In some instances they can be parents, but in many they would need to be recruited. "Critics", as friends and not enemies of the school, would be drawn from those whose own accomplishments make them aware of the importance of education. They could be engineers or researchers that use math daily, or writers, or scientists or musicians or skilled mechanics, technical maintenance workers, etc. They would provide feedback on how well they saw the school's teachers and curriculum preparing students for their work worlds. As an example of the power of such folks, note that many of the top high schools in the state are located in areas where math and engineering professionals are congregated. Tullahoma is an example. These folks demand a lot for their own children and, in so doing, create a situation where a lot is expected of many other children also.

• Telementoring -- "Telementoring" involves allowing community members with special skills (such as engineers in math or journalists in writing) to work with students by e-mail.  Such offers have been made in other cities.   Telementoring can bring many more community members into the process of educating our children than could afford to do so if they had to drive to a school at an appointed time.   It also offers the possibility of expanding the school day without increasing teacher hours.  This concept might be most useful at the high school level.  It would require that students have ready access to computers.