Fortunate morphing is occurring in Pennsylvania, fortunate for high school students and teachers, in particular. The Commonwealth’s Department of Education proposed a year ago the creation of graduation tests in the major content areas to be taken in addition to the PSSA exams given in eleventh grade. In essence, the focus on and amount of testing would have increased noticeably. Critics, rightfully, cited the collateral damage that would occur to curricula, instruction, and learning.

Through intense influence efforts, major educational associations and concerned citizens caught the ear of the State Board of Education. The result is a proposal from the Board for Keystone Exams to be created in key content areas as “end of course” exams. While the full proposal is forthcoming in August and will undergo a year of review, several key features are known.

The exams would replace the PSSAs in math, reading, and writing. Use of the state created exams would be optional for districts, which would create their own exams instead. Students would need to pass the end of course exams, state or locally created, in order to graduate. Those struggling would have opportunities for additional learning and re-testing.

While much remains to be seen in how the state tests are created and how local districts would validate their versions, morphing into the current proposal is promising for several reasons. This is a movement toward assessment “for” learning, the type that helps learners and teachers alike maximize their educations. Creating end of course exams can become powerful professional development, as teams of teachers and administrators come to consensus on what learning is essential and how it will be measured. The potential exists for de-emphasizing teaching, in keeping with the continuing cry against the negative consequences of NCLB.

Ironically, what the State Board is proposing mirrors language in the Commonwealth’s “Chapter 4” regulations, wherein local districts are given the autonomy to create a system of student assessment that leads toward establishing whether a student is eligible for graduation. That PA is embracing its own forward thinking regulations somehow lost in the crush of NCLB is promising.

Writing an open letter to his daughters, Malia and Sasha, President-Elect Obama expresses a hope for what schools can be: “I want all our children to go to schools worthy of their potential – schools that challenge them, inspire them, and instill in them a sense of wonder about the world around them.” (Parade Magazine, January 18, 2009).   No one can dispute the intent of this hope in its aspirations for students, but the statement is more than a platitude. It can be seen as a platform for developing education policies that actualize the statement’s intent.

Educational policies are developed to address perceived needs of the national, state, and local constituents, economies, and circumstances.  Whether or not any policy in the era of modern American education has been developed and actualized with the intent of creating schools worthy of student potential is one we all should examine and debate.  What we have seen in recent decades are policies to address the range of perceived shortcomings of our public schools, the most recent, of course, being NCLB.  Sufficient, mounting evidence indicates that the policy and its sanctions have done much to shrink the ability of schools to inspire and to actualize student potential.

The moment of teaching is, perhaps, the single most powerful means for inspiring students and their learning, happening not just in the classroom but wherever students and teacher interact in the school.  Students are fortunate when they have teachers who see and nurture the potential within, and there are many teachers who do so.  Unfortunately, some policies of late have worked to counter learning cultures and circumstances that encourage inspired teaching.

Likewise, inspired, informed leadership within the school and district can make or break the circumstances for the magic of teaching and learning.  Leaders who know and cultivate their own potential as leaders and learners can be inspirational role models for staff, students, and policy makers.  We need informed policies to support them, as well.

Can educational policies embrace inspired teaching, leading, and learning?  The answer is “yes.”  Unfortunately, we have not seen policies that support such.   All of us as the body politic need to work with our policy makers to create and implement policies that do, indeed, generate schools worthy of student potential.

President Elect Obama continues his movement toward reform and enlightened policy-making with the nomination of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education.   With a track record of reform and a deep commitment to student success, Duncan brings the hope for moving American education onto the 21^st Century stage and for preparing students to perform masterfully on that stage.  In synch with Obama and Biden, he declares that no issue is more important that education for the future of America’s economy and global competitiveness.  Duncan sees education as the civil rights challenge of our era, for a first class education is the path toward full participation in society.

What remains ahead for Duncan are the challenges of reforming existing education policies and creating new, forward-thinking policies.   He believes that NCLB needs more flexibility, and his challenge is to move policy-makers to revamp the law to do so.   Educators will wait, anxiously, to see how Arne Duncan defines flexibility and whether policies that have been stifling education will be changed.  We also know that Duncan is deeply committed to creating schools from K-16 and curricula that enable students to attain a 21^st Century education.  Shaping policies and practices that create such is the challenge.  To do so Duncan will need to capture the momentum of public concern about America’s future that is arising from the current economic crisis, shunting some its energy into policy reform.

In the weeks ahead may Arne Duncan and the team he assembles begin sending the public, parents, and educators, particularly the policy weary educators, messages of what to expect and some glimmers of hope for all.  

When the Commonwealth legislature passed Act 26 in 1995, its intent was to create policies and procedures for protecting life and limb of all who attend, visit, or are employed in the state’s schools. Understandably, the goal was and continues to be provision of an environment free of the fear that inhibits learning. As leverage to reduce school violence, the act authorized the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) to identify schools deemed “dangerous” and to authorize the expenditure of funds to ameliorate conditions leading to persistent violence.

At the heart of the procedures is district completion of an annual “school safety” report. Upon review of the reports, PDE must require that schools identified as persistently dangerous write a plan for corrective action. Presumably, funds would flow to the schools, enabling the plans to be put in action and the violence reduced.

Just released on December 3, 2008 is a report by Pennsylvania’s Auditor General on PDE’s implementation of the safe schools law, on how successfully policies and procedures have been created and implemented to address the problem. In essence, the Auditor General found that the intent of the law has not been carried out. Of special focus are the policy gap consequences for students in the School District of Philadelphia.

As such reports go, there is an equal measure of response from PDE to the findings. Over two dozen recommendations are given for creating policies and procedures to enact the intent of the law. Rather than debate here the pros and cons of the Auditor General’s findings and PDE’s responses, readers are encouraged to visit this website for further reading and thinking: http://www.auditorgen.state.pa.us/

What is evident in the safe schools law controversy is a clear disconnect, to whatever level we wish to state it, between law, policies, and procedures.

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With the advent of a new administration in Washington and the pressing matters of the global community, it is a fitting time to explore potential new educational policies and to revisit those on the books. The goal of this blog is to surface ideas on what is and could be the center of an American education platform, one that benefits students from Pre-K through higher education and on to lifelong learning. Our intent is to create a vibrant dialogue that explores policy agendas and policy making, a dialogue that moves us to action on behalf of all those concerned about the state of our education system, democracy, and American competitiveness in the 21st century. While much of the discussion will be around the federal agenda, bringing into focus state and even local policies and issues of note will be encouraged.

Key topic areas:

• Policies on the Books
• Evolving Policies
• New and Emerging Policy Agendas
• Policies and America’s Competitiveness
• Policies and Educational Philosophy
• Leadership for Progressive Policies
• The Role of Lifelong and Workforce Learning

Any opinions expressed here, except as specifically noted, are those of the individual authors or commenters and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of Drexel University.

Comments Policy
Because we value your thoughtful opinions, we encourage you to add a comment to this discussion. However, please don’t be offended if we edit your comments for clarity or to keep out questionable matters and we may even delete off-topic comments.

W. Edward Bureau, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
The School of Education at The New Goodwin College
Drexel University

Dr. Ed Bureau has served in a variety of teaching and leadership capacities in school districts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. His career of nearly four decades includes service as a: teacher, assistant superintendent, director of instruction, supervisor of professional development and school reform, supervisor of language arts and reading. Dr. Bureau has taught at Widener University and Penn State University.

As a leader Dr. Bureau has facilitated the work of professional and non-professional staff in numerous areas, including: curricula, technology integration, data informed decision making, school reform, English as a Second Language, special education, supervision and evaluation, governance of school entities, strategic planning. In addition to leadership in these areas, Dr. Bureau has presented numerous workshops at professional conferences, state level colloquia, and district staff training days.

At the state level, Dr. Bureau has served as president of the Pennsylvania Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development. Dr. Bureau continued his leadership of PASCD’s Influence Committee, which has developed the capacity to effectively exert influence on educational policy making by Pennsylvania’s legislature and by the State Board of Education. Previously, he chaired the state committee on Teacher Supervision, and the committee on Equity and Access, which seeks to create equity for all students in access to the full curricula. ASCD, the parent organization of PASCD, has drawn upon Dr. Bureau’s leadership through service on its governing bodies.

Dr. Bureau holds a B.A. in English from Dickinson College, a M.Ed. in Curriculum from Temple University, and a Ph.D. in Language and Literacy from the University of Pennsylvania.

Director, Business Strategy and Development
The New Goodwin College, Drexel University, including the School of Education and The Math Forum @ Drexel

Mr. Levine has had a career of more than 25 years in the fields of law, management consulting, education, corporate administration, and economic and workforce development.  He has worked with some of the leading firms and organizations in their respective fields: SkaddenArps in law; Deloitte and Touche and Booz Allen in management consulting; Fantus in economic development consulting and site selection; and The George Washington University and Drexel University in higher education.

With a long-held interest in K-12, higher education and lifelong learning, Mr. Levine has spent the last several years focusing on growing the unique programming at Drexel and as a consultant with the Council on Competitiveness, a leading Washington DC based think tank that addresses issues, including the state of US education, that impact the future competitiveness of the US economy.  He has taught the School Law course in the Drexel School of Education.  In his spare time, he is a volunteer board member of the Career Transition Center, Inc. of Montgomery County, MD, which is the not-for-profit workforce development arm of the County.  He also worked with LERN, perhaps the leading association for lifelong learning in the U.S.

Mr. Levine holds a B.A in American Studies magna cum laude from Hamilton College, a Masters of Government Administration from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government, and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.