What's Needed to Make Sure Innovation Is Working?

Originally posted at the National Journal's Education Experts blog, responding to the questions: What are the essential components of an effective innovation, research, development, and dissemination infrastructure in education? How can we tap into the collective expertise of practitioners when designing and refining new school programs?

This is such a big topic. I'll offer a few thoughts related to what I think the Federal Government should do in relation to this issue.

Who is responsible for what?
Jim Shelton and John Eston ask: "What are the capabilities that need to exist at the local, state, and national levels and how should organizations that provide them fit together into a coherent whole?"

I think there is danger that the current flurry of activity at the Federal level could lead people to (mistakenly) believe that the Federal government and states are responsible for education success in America, not parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, and (gasp!) local school boards.

I suggest that the Federal government clarify its intended relationship to K-12 education. People need to hear: "Hey everyone, we know it is you folks out there who make education successful. Our goal is to support you. You know better than us exactly what will work for your child/classroom/school/community. We’re here to help but you're not off the hook!"

In this way, we can counter a trend that I see cropping up in the trenches: a sense of resignation that all of us out here beyond the beltway are just pawns in a grand scheme being run from Washington. I don't think that's what the folks in Washington have in mind; we need to nip this in the bud.

Education system design
Second, I think the Federal government needs to use its leverage to remove local system barriers that prevent innovation from taking hold.

I give it an 'A' for this so far this year!

Upping the ante in research & development
The "Kress-Ravitch Principle" makes sense to me. More good research conducted by people with direct experience of the problems. Three fertile areas:

• Defining effective teaching: I spent a fascinating day at the New Schools Venture Fund Community of Practice last week learning about recent R&D in this area conducted by the New Teacher Project, DC Public Schools, Teach for America and PUC Schools, among others. There is growing R&D activity in this area. The Federal government could lead.
• English language learners: Educators need lots of help here.
• Assessments: If "what gets measured gets done," then let’s get better at measuring what’s most important. (Great to see positive movement on this front at the Federal level.)

And there are many other areas.

The purposes of education in 21st century America
Finally, I’d suggest that there is a Big Topic that the Secretary and President need to weigh in on.

Chad Wick at KnowledgeWorks makes an interesting point. There is no 'shared vision' for education in America "...until we answer the deeper question about the core purpose of public education and establish a vision that aligns our efforts, innovation will never be 'organized, prioritized, or leveraged for maximum impact.'"

Well, I think that this is a good thing to a certain extent. If we’re going to invest "locals" with a lot of control, then we can expect them to make different choices about what they want. That’s good.

But I think we have a bit of a crisis of confidence at the national level that is being brought on by economic tough times and global shifts in the balance of power. Thomas Friedman is crying out that the World is Flat. China is standing up. Even college-educated kids are having a tough time getting jobs these days.

Given that the world is changing, exactly what kind of education do we need our children to get? To what level do they need to demonstrate competence on a multiple choice test? At what point should parents/ teachers/ principals/ school boards stop worrying primarily about driving those scores higher and start worrying about how to develop children’s minds and character in ways that will manifest results in other ways?

In other words, given that our kids are headed into a different world, how do we prepare them for it? And how do we know if we’re succeeding?

In my experience, the discussions on this topic beyond the beltway often get reduced to "more testing in English and math" vs "a more expansive view of education." I think that is a false choice and we need leaders in all sectors, including the Federal government, who can help parents answer this question in more sophisticated and compelling ways.

Bringing Parents Onto the Team: What the Research Shows

Note: this entry is part of a series called "The Making of College Bound". Click here to read the series-to-date.

November 19, 2009, is National Parent Involvement Day, so what better time to talk about what it means to be an involved parent. Everyone agrees that parents influence children’s learning, but what is it, exactly, that they do that matters so much for their children’s education? Back in September I wrote about the four key roles of parents:

1. Cultivate character traits that underlie success,
2. Support learning at home and at school,
3. Set high expectations, and
4. Guide children in planning for college.

Why did we choose these four roles? We chose them because — along with common sense — a wealth of research points to them as mattering most.

Many parents would agree that developing character is crucial to helping children grow into kind and productive adults. Research shows, however, that character is also at the heart of supporting academic success. In fact, character traits such as willpower, self-discipline, and the ability to delay gratification have all been shown to be more closely related to academic achievement and other measures of success than IQ. (Nisbett, 2009) One of the most important things parents can do is cultivate a belief in the importance of hard work. It turns out that emphasizing native talent actually de-motivates kids. When children are praised for effort, they’re more likely to try harder when faced with challenges, choose more difficult work and stay focused longer than children praised for intelligence (Muller & Dweck, 1998).

Other parental roles are more obviously linked to academics. Early exposure to literacy, both through complex language in conversation and reading together, can produce dramatically different IQ scores in children as young as three years old (Hart and Risley, 1995). Once a child is school-age, they’re more likely to complete homework and have a positive attitude toward its value when parents provide a structured routine and a quiet and organized workspace (Cooper et. al, 2001). Parents are the key to promoting learning either afterschool or over that long stretch of summer vacation which some studies have shown is largely responsible for the achievement gap (Alexander, 2001; Burkham, et. al., 2004).

At school, student achievement goes up when parents signal that school matters by getting involved, attending teacher conferences and school programs (Steinberg, 1996). Parents who communicate with teachers and get informed about school resources are also more likely to get necessary support for their children (Lareau, 2000 & 2003).

Some research has shown that parents’ expectations matter more than anything else. High expectations — and students’ perceptions of these expectations — substantially influence students’ academic decisions such as their choice of courses, as well as overall student performance (Steinberg, 1996).

Last — but not least — when parents discuss and encourage attending college starting from an early, pre-high school age and help investigate and apply for postsecondary options, their children are much more likely to attain a college degree (McCarron & Inkelas 2006; Catsambis, 1998).

It's the practical application of this research that is at the heart of College Bound — our new program for involved parents. Stay tuned for our next installment, when we delve into the practice of cultivating character traits in children.

What's in the Kindergarten Beta?

Note: this entry is part of a series called "The Making of College Bound". Click here to read the series-to-date.

Recently we shared a sample tip from College Bound — our new online program designed to help parents raise college-ready high school graduates. Since the start of the school year we've been testing a beta version of College Bound with parents of kindergartners, and this week we'd like to tell you a little bit more about what’s in the kindergarten beta. Research shows that when parents support their children's education, teach them to aim high, and help them develop success-oriented character traits, they boost their kids' chances of success. We’ve built six topics with that goal in mind:

Aim High
In The ABCs of kindergarten learning, we ask first-graders to demonstrate the skills they learned in kindergarten so parents can identify how well their children are progressing through the school year.

Build Character
A positive attitude toward school will support a kindergartner all year long. In Nurture a love of learning, we show parents three simple, but effective ways to talk to their children and help them want to learn.

Recently more and more has been written about self-discipline, self-control, and self-regulation — and how they are related to success in school. But did you know that self-control can be taught? And it can begin in early childhood. Learning self-control shows parents an easy, and perhaps surprising, way to foster self-control in their children.

Support Learning
A parent's most important ally at school is her child’s instructor. By completing Partnering with your child's teacher, our moms and dads will be better prepared to establish this relationship for their children's school success.

In The road to reading, we break down the five fundamental building blocks of reading and provide specific activities that parents can do with their children to incorporate them into every day play.

To teach parents the five building blocks of early math, Math every day outlines the key skills and standards that children should learn in kindergarten. Then we show parents some playful ways to teach these skills.

As you can see, parenting for education success doesn't have to be a chore! College Bound inspires and guides parents to turn normal, everyday activities into opportunities for their children to learn and grow. As one of our parents enrolled in our beta put it, "College Bound gives me things for me and my daughter to do together. And at the same time, I'm teaching her. Now I know how to do it, I do it more!"

Building Consensus Behind ESEA Reauthorization

Originally posted at the National Journal's Education Experts blog, in response to the provocation: How can the Obama administration and Congress put together a winning majority for reauthorization of Elementary and Secondary Education Act? What should change, what should remain more or less the same, and why?

At the risk of over-simplification, here is how I see the landscape now:

Who likes NCLB:

• Business and education entrepreneurs like it because it puts the focus on results.
• Civil rights groups like it because it focuses attention on disparities in educational results (the achievement gap).
• Some parents like it because they associate it with greater performance transparency – they can see how their children’s schools are doing.

Who dislikes NCLB:

• Many parents are concerned because they are told by their teachers and principals that it reduces schools to test prep.
• Many affluent parents especially dislike it because they believe there is nothing in it for their children.
• Some conservatives dislike it because it represents an inappropriate Federal intrusion into matters that the Constitution reserved for the states.
• Some liberals (and liberal-minded) people dislike it because it seems to reduce public education to a focus on a relatively narrow set of basic skills.

(There are of course many more reasons that people like or dislike NCLB, I’m focusing on the big ones that might provide a clue as to how to build a new coalition.)

Based on these observations, here is my formula for renewing NCLB:

• Focus on making major leaps in the quality of standards and assessments. These new standards and assessments must be very carefully crafted to measure the skills that are the most important to the success of young people. This is primarily a technical challenge.
• Simultaneously focus on the potential of innovation in education and re-position NCLB as partly an ongoing “Innovation Fund” for LEAs and others who are prepared to demonstrate results. (And, as Sandy Kress suggested, focus more on secondary schools than the original NCLB did.)
• Then explain to parents and the public why these standards (and assessments) are valid measure of their children’s progress and their school’s quality. Explain why we need innovation to accelerate progress. It needs to be very clear how these news standards and assessments are strong measures of the skills that their children will need to succeed. This is primarily a communications challenge.
• Then, build the winning coalition from the bottom up by getting parents and the public to demand that their children get an education that provides them with these skills. Parents and others on the fence will also be attracted to the focus on innovation.

Finally, I agree with Tom Vander Ark that it may be wise to wait a little while to give time for Race to the Top and the Innovation Fund to begin to have impact and make the ground more fertile for this approach.

College Bound: How it Works

Note: this entry is part of a series called “The Making of College Bound”. Click here to read the series-to-date.

Last month, we introduced you to College Bound and the Four Key Roles of Parents, the framework around which College Bound is designed. Today, we’ll explain how College Bound actually works.

College Bound inspires and guides parents — regardless of their own educational backgrounds — to do what it takes to raise a college-ready high school graduate. It is an innovative web-based program that uses short video and animation to show parents, step-by-step, in an engaging, easy-to-understand manner, how to support their children’s success.

How it works:

1. Parents take free online courses and learn simple ways to help their children do well in school.
2. Parents put the lessons to work and try out the new tips they learned with their children.
3. Parents benefit from other parents’ experiences and share their stories with other parents online.

The lessons consist of short, simple videos that require only a few minutes a week to watch.

For example, the Kindergarten lessons fall into six topic areas:

• The ABCs of Kindergarten learning
• Nurture a love of learning
• Learning self-control
• Partnering with your child’s teacher
• The road to reading
• Math every day

Designed for busy parents, College Bound lessons include bite-sized, practical advice that parents can immediately incorporate into their everyday lives. Watch a sample tip here:


Parents are invited into College Bound in groups and experience the program together. For example, a classroom of kindergarten parents may be enrolled together or parents affiliated with a nonprofit organization, labor union or company may enroll as a group. Dedicated coaches guide and motivate each group through the program. Parents share comments and post questions about the lessons with one another and receive encouragement from their coaches. Weekly emails and printable activities engage parents to stay on track throughout the 12-week course.

We are currently testing a beta version of College Bound for parents of Kindergarten students. Soon College Bound will expand to serve parents of children across many more grade levels.

Stay tuned! College Bound Spanish BETA is coming in early 2010.

What’s It About: Race or Parents?

In last Sunday’s Washington Post, English teacher Patrick Welsch argues that we’re missing the mark in the way we talk about the 'achievement gap.' Yes, he says, schools need to better serve low-income children and students of color — but parents need to step up, too.

As he describes it, one day his virtually all-black class of 12th-graders at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, performed terribly on yet another test. So he asked them, “Why don't you guys study like the kids from Africa?"

One of the students replied, "It's because they have fathers who kick their butts and make them study."

Challenging Welsh, another student shouted, "You ask the class, just ask how many of us have our fathers living with us." So he did, and not one hand was raised.

The article is a great read if you're interested in how parents and culture impact education — and what the response is like among educators. Don’t miss it.

The takeaway for me is not that we should let schools off-the-hook to better serve poor kids. Rather, it's that we need to open up a new front in our national campaign to improve student achievement. We need to inspire, demand, and support parents to be there for their kids. We need to be specific about what makes a good school and a great teacher, and we need to encourage parents to challenge their schools and teachers, and step up to strengthen their roles.

It’s not just about the schools. It’s also about the parents.

The Four Key Roles of Parents

A few weeks ago, we introduced you to College Bound, our new online program designed to help parents raise college-ready high school graduates. This week, we’ll introduce you to our ideas about how parents make such a difference in their children’s education. We’ve boiled it down into four key roles and we’ve designed College Bound to help parents play these four roles more effectively.

1. Set high expectations
2. Cultivate character traits that underlie school success
3. Support learning at home and at school
4. Guide children in planning for college

1. Set high expectations
Parental expectations can be the most influential element driving student performance. Expectations get communicated all the time; parents don’t have to be elaborate or formal about it, just consistent and frequent. Expectations influence children’s behavior and decisions and affect a range of outcomes from the rigor of selected courses to grades earned. One study of more than 20,000 high school students found that not only can students clearly articulate the grades they need to bring home to stay out of trouble — their “trouble threshold” — they frequently earn that threshold grade. In other words, when parents expect Cs, students earn them. The same goes for As. Parents also play a crucial role in having high expectations of schools. When parents advocate for college-prep curriculum, content, experiences, resources and supports, they improve both their own child’s educational experience and the schools they attend.

2. Cultivate character traits that underlie school success
Recent research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that about half of an individual’s intellect and ability is inherited or genetic, and the other half is nurture or a product of environmental and societal factors. In fact, teachable character traits such as willpower, self-discipline, and the ability to delay gratification are more highly correlated with high achievement and goal attainment than IQ. Parents support achievement when they cultivate a belief in the importance of effort instead of emphasizing native talent; children who develop this outlook are more likely to try harder when faced with challenges.

3. Support learning at home and at school
Literacy development starts early; the frequency and complexity of parental language, as well as the degree of encouragement, make a big difference in children’s development. As children grow, parents don’t have to become experts in algebra to help with homework — children are more likely to complete homework and view it as valuable when parents simply provide a structured routine and a quiet and organized workspace. How children spend their time out of school has a tremendous impact on their intellectual development, and a large portion of the achievement gap has been attributed to the absence of summer learning.

At school, student achievement goes up when parents attend teacher conferences and school programs. Parents who communicate with teachers and stay informed about school resources are more likely to secure necessary supports for their children. Informed parents are better able to make quality choices about the schools their children attend, the programs in which they participate and, in some cases, the teachers who can best serve their children.

4. Guide children in planning for college
When parents discuss college — starting from an early age — and help their children to investigate and apply for postsecondary options, children are much more likely to attain a college degree.

There’s no magic formula to parenting for education success, just a lot of little things every day. College Bound inspires and guides parents to do these things, beginning when their children are young.

In Appreciation of Don Fisher

GreatSchools lost a generous friend and supporter yesterday. Don Fisher, co-founder of the Gap and philanthropist extraordinaire died at his home in San Francisco at the age of 81.

Don and his wife Doris provided the funds that allowed GreatSchools to expand from its California roots and become a national resource beginning nine years ago. We would not be able to provide our services to millions of American parents each year if it were not for Don and Doris Fisher’s generosity.

In addition to providing major funding, Don made us better by asking tough questions. He had a general sense that providing school performance information to parents was a good idea, but he always wanted to know what we were learning and what evidence we had that GreatSchools was making a difference. He asked question after question to find the weaknesses in our case; preparing to answer his questions forced us to clarify our thinking.

He was also an incredibly generous supporter of charter schools. In city after city, KIPP schools are among those that have the highest GreatSchools ratings. He gave tens of millions to the KIPP Foundation to make these schools possible.

We are deeply thankful for his generosity for education causes and will miss him greatly.

Photo credit: Marcus Hanschen

What Is the Solution To the High School Dropout Crisis?

Originally posted at the National Journal's Education Experts blog, in response to the provocation: President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan often talk about the serious problem of high school "dropout factories" that graduate 60 percent or fewer of their students. But there is no broad consensus on how to address the issue. One solution, proposed by a Texas education official, is for states to voluntarily ban the hiring of high school dropouts as a way of keeping kids in school. What do you think is the best way to solve the high school dropout crisis?

Trying to reduce the rate of high school dropouts without directly and actively engaging parents is like trying to fix a leaky roof without plugging up the holes. You can put out lots of buckets, nail up some plastic, but every time it rains the water is going to gush right through. No matter how much we reform curriculum or improve teacher training, if parents aren’t voraciously leading the charge against dropping out, kids are going to continue to view leaving high school as a rational and easy option.

I say kids because we are talking about kids — the path to dropping out of high school starts in early elementary school. And as Pedro Noguera noted so well, much of the problems and the solutions lie beyond school walls. Parents are at the heart of students’ formation of goals, expectations, motivation and sense of accountability.

A recent study, led by Civic Enterprises and funded by the Gates Foundation, conducted focus groups and surveyed hundreds of dropouts across the country. What did they have to say? For almost half of respondents, parents or guardians had not been involved in their schooling; most of those that were involved only became so toward the end of their child’s high school career for disciplinary reasons. The majority of parents were not aware of their child’s chronic truancy; less than half said that their parents were contacted by the school if they were absent. One of the top five reasons dropouts gave for leaving was that they had “too much freedom and not enough rules;” another top reason was that they’d missed too many days. Over two thirds of respondents said that they didn’t “feel motivated or inspired to work hard.”

What should be done? Ask the dropouts, themselves. Seven in ten said that more parental involvement would have made a difference.

We need outreach and education such that all parents — poor parents, working parents, parents who don’t speak English — are empowered to guide their children’s education. Parents need easy access to good information, enabling them to answer basic questions: Is my child on-track with academic requirements? If not, where is he/she struggling and what resources are available to get up to grade-level? What does my child have for homework? Is my child frequently late to or missing school? Beyond this, parents need support in cultivating the high expectations, goals and college/career planning that can sustain their children through the high school years.

Many policymakers and funders shy away from the realm of parenting, perhaps because it seems too difficult to influence. But we shouldn’t give up. Even a modest increase in effective parent involvement could have as much impact as major school reforms.

Introducing College Bound

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Welcome to a new series on the GreatSchools blog called The Making of College Bound.

College Bound is our new program at GreatSchools, launching in beta this month, and we’d like to invite you to come with us for a behind-the-scenes look. Let's start by answering the question, Why College Bound?

As many readers know, GreatSchools is primarily known for its school information. One in three families turns to GreatSchools to search for the right school, track the performance of their children’s school, or get general information about K-12 education. Over the past decade, GreatSchools has emerged as the leading source of transparency about the performance of American K-12 schools. We’re very proud of this accomplishment, and we will continue to improve the quality and accessibility of our school information.

But we also know that much more needs to be done to inspire and guide the nation's parents to be effective champions of their children’s education at home and in their communities.

Several years ago, we began asking some key questions: Who is using GreatSchools? What impact are we having? For whom? What else can we do to help close the achievement gap — beyond helping families make informed choices about where to send their kids?

During that exploration, we learned that we have less impact on low-income families than we’d like and so have an opportunity — indeed an obligation — to reach further and inspire and guide those most in need of help.

So we allowed ourselves to dream: What could and should we do to make a more significant impact on low-income families? We wanted to continue to leverage our strength in online technology and media, but we recognized that we’d have to get closer to the customer to learn what we needed to learn. So we began to work in selected cities, including Dayton, Ohio, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to understand deeply the ways that low-income parents are involved in their children’s education. We held focus groups, we did ethnographic research, and we created prototypes. We learned so much!

College Bound, an innovative online-offline parent-training program and support group, is what emerged from this process. And we’re really excited to bring it to the world beginning this month. Stay tuned. In the coming months, we’ll be sharing lots more about what College Bound is, how it works, and what we’re learning.