U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Thursday used Little Rock’s Central High as the starting point for his eight-state “Courage in the Classroom” bus tour to honor the nation’s teachers.
Earlier Thursday, the former Chicago superintendent sat with more than a dozen Central High teachers to talk about their successes and concerns about high-stakes student testing and teachermerit pay.
He also answered questions from reporters aboutfederal grants and charter schools before boarding a decorated blue coach that headed south, making a noon stop in the Hamburg School District.
There, the secretary visited the district’s prekindergarten and high school vocational-education programs. He also checked on stimulusfunded construction projects before reboarding the bus and crossing into Louisiana.
In front of Central High and flanked by Gov. Mike Beebe, U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., Arkansas EducationCommissioner Tom Kimbrell and some Central High faculty, Duncan praised the high school and Arkansas for its hunger to improve education.
He also paid tribute to Minnijean Brown Trickey, who was in the audience Thursday, and her eight black classmates who desegregated Central High in 1957.
“Our hardest decisions become easy when you think about that kind of courage,” Duncan said about the Little Rock Nine, adding later that Central High and Arkansas “inspire me at lots of levels.”
He called Central one of the nation’s outstanding schools and praised its “college-going culture,” including its use of a national program that targets middle-level performing students and supports them to prepare for college.
He also lauded the state’s requirement that every high school teach at least four college-level Advanced Placement courses.
“Students here are expected to take Advanced Placement courses,” he said. “It’s not just for the elite students, and it’s not just the wealthy students. That puts in the young person’s mind the idea that ‘I can really be successful in college ... even if no one in my family ever went to college and I’ve never been on a college campus.’”
Duncan acknowledged that despite Arkansas’ efforts to raise student achievement, the state didn’t receive a federal Race to the Top education improvement grant.Eleven states and the District of Columbia will share $3.4 billion awarded in two rounds of competition.
“There will be more Race to the Top money,” he said. “But that is just one funding source.
“We have school-improvement grants that every state is receiving, including Arkansas, which is for the tough,tough work of turning around chronically underperforming schools and doing it with real courage,” he added.
“I’ve seen the progress, and I know what is possible,” he continued. “I think if Arkansas stays the course and continues to work with real courage, then Arkansas in many ways can shape the national conversation and be a national leader.”
Duncan and President Barack Obama have encouraged states to allow the establishment of independently run public charter schools. The Little Rock School District is legally challenging Arkansas’ practice of approving charter schools in Pulaski County without regard to their effect on desegregation in the traditional schools.
“I’m not a fan of charter schools. I’m a fan of good charter schools,” Duncan said. “We need more good schools in this country of every form and fashion.”
Earlier, in the Central library, faculty members urged Duncan to work to change the federal No Child Left Behind Act, another name for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that dates back to the mid-1960s.
Chris Dorer, a social studies teacher, said he was disappointed that changes have not been made more quickly in the law’s reliance on student testing.
Dorer also objected to the idea of assessing teacher effectiveness based only on students’ standardized test scores. He pressed Duncan to say what other factors would go into such an evaluation system.
“In my classroom there are multiple forms of assessment for my students. To hold teachers to one form is irresponsible,” Dorer said, and added later, “Testing is not the way, Mr. Secretary.”
Duncan responded that testing is one piece and added that local school districts and states will have to identify other measures.
Duncan has been complimentary of work by the Los Angeles Times to analyze and rank teacher effectiveness in the Los Angeles public schools based on several years of student scores on standardized tests.
LeQuieta Grayson, a school counselor, also suggested that student progress should be measured in multiple ways and that, in turn, would create multiple measures of teacher effectiveness.
In response to a question, Duncan said he does favor merit pay that rewards teachers for gains in student achievement and graduation rates. He also suggested increasing salaries for teachers in fields in which there are a scarcity of teachers, such as math and science.
Central High Principal Nancy Rousseau said she can’t find teachers in those fields. But Marilyn Bostic, a social studies teacher, objected, saying that she went to college just as the science teacher did.
Xerlotta Sanders, a career and technology education teacher, called for the teaching profession to be elevated in status.
“We are all professionals. We have your child’s life in our hands just like a doctor does,” Sanders said. “We are working with their brain every day. So why am I paid as if I am the lowest of the low when I have your child’s mind in my hand more than you do?”
Loretta Davenport, a special education teacher, saidthere is too much testing and it takes away from instructional time.
Leslie Kearney, a counselor, told Duncan that the No. 1 complaint she hears from colleagues is that preparing students for standardized tests keeps teachers from doing anything creative that might generate student excitement about learning.
“To make us look good on tests, we lose what we do best,” she said.
Duncan agreed with many of the concerns expressed by the Central High teachers about the federal No Child Left Behind Act and said he believes the law will be revised by next year.
The current law prescribes “50 ways to fail,” he said, and he told the teachers that as a superintendent he almost sued the U.S. Department of Education so that his district could provide tutoring to its students without relying on outside companies.
“I agree that we have too much testing. We’ve had a narrowing of the curriculum, and we have had a dumbingdown of standards. We can fix all those things,” he said.
In an interview, Duncan said measuring student achievement is more important than an actual test score.
“That’s part of the problem with No Child Left Behind,” he said. “A student comes to you three grade levels behind and leaves you only one grade level behind. Under NCLB you are labeled a failure, but I actually think you are a superstar. Two years’ growth in one year’s instruction is extraordinary.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 08/27/2010