I read with interest your recent article on Why NYC Needs a Virtual Public School. With the impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on education, with schools and teachers reeling from a variety of issues associated with connecting with students virtually, and with families facing some of their biggest challenges ever, the time is right to raise this issue.

A reimagining of public education is not a task for the faint of heart. Everyone across our country knows how education has always worked. We’ve been through it. We know the sights, sounds, smells, and emotions that being in a traditional school evoke. So, determining how to set up an effective remote learning platform that would replace or supplant the traditional “brick and mortar” school experience that we know so well will be a huge task.

Yes, the virtual school you write about would absolutely require many dedicated remote teachers. Online teaching and learning is very different than having face-to-face interactions as any teacher or parent sitting next to their child during online learning will tell you. Not only will the teachers need professional training initially, they will need much more.

It will be of utmost importance to include support for the teachers in any virtual public school plan. Even though many educators confidently use online resources in schools on a daily basis, presenting lessons and engaging students strictly in a virtual environment is a challenge. Intensive training on both the actual use of technology and teaching effectively with it will be needed.

Professional development must play a key role, both in the development of this virtual school and as teachers implement the plan. Observing educators and students as they work together online will give much-needed data when shaping further lessons.

• How will we best engage these young learners?
• What strategies are being used successfully?
• How can we share our knowledge with each other as we find out what works and what doesn’t?

Raw, honest realities have already been exposed in the past few months in our attempts to use virtual learning. Young children- and even not so young- have a difficult time engaging with online lessons. Parents often need to sit beside their children to help them understand directions, open links to websites, and even just to stay focused. Many parents also work from home and need the computers and time to continue with their jobs. Some families do not have access to the internet, while others choose not to participate or may have a language barrier preventing them from participating fully.

As this virtual school is designed and then eventually implemented, all of these barriers to learning will need to be addressed. Strong conversations and loads of listening to those who have been in the trenches will be absolutely needed and necessary. A virtual school cannot be based on a cookie-cutter education plan; instead, it has to be shaped by the needs of our children and teachers as they learn and grow.

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BES has grown to drive the success of more than 27,000 students in over 100 schools across the nation. Consistently high-performing schools are selected to join The Network for support in strategizing and sharing valuable practices for sustained student achievement. The Network Leaders Meeting brings together school leaders from 21 schools in 17 cities that are part of the BES system. Courtney is excited to join, visit with old friends and connect with new leaders. A lot of the leaders are likely to be familiar with TALENT since nearly 1/3 of The Network schools are currently utilizing the platform. All in all, there are currently more than 750 BES teachers and leaders using TALENT but we expect that number to significantly grow this next year. Together with BES, we have built out new features to facilitate collaboration across The Network. 

The purpose of the project is to create a space where leaders can coach, communicate, and collaborate in the common pursuit of excellence. The schools within this network can have their own individual systems for their teacher professional development – but can also share exemplar videos across the entire BES network. They can create peer groups enabling 4th-grade teachers at Purpose Prep in Nashville to connect with Valor Academy teachers in California, further refining their practice through collaborative reflection and ongoing coaching.

Teaming up with the BES leaders to complete this framework has provided an invigorating experience for our team, and new opportunities for educator learning. The Torsh TALENT platform is chosen by educational institutions nationwide to supplement their professional development, and we are happy that it is also a tool of choice for one of the leaders in high-achieving, college-preparatory charter schools. We look forward to the continued growth of our relationship with Building Excellent Schools, and their continued progress in developing schools that are “truly excellent, founded by talented leaders and grounded from the start in proven strategies and design elements”.

For more information about BES and the amazing work they do, you can visit their website here.

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This is a timely topic because Louisiana, the state in which our office resides, will soon include students’ growth as a weighted measure of school performance, a breakthrough development in light of a longstanding debate in the education community. It’s been recommended to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education that academic progress account for up to 25% of a school’s performance score. However, continuing coverage of the proposal highlights the contention surrounding how much student growth should influence school performance.

A major concern of opponents to the proposal is that “overemphasizing” academic growth misleads parents and stakeholders about the quality of education provided by the institution. This concern calls attention to a fear that struggling students, and the schools that fail but advance their learning, will be misrepresented in performance data. 

However, that worry may be unfounded (and possibly unfair). The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a leading education policy think tank, has asserted that systemized “growth measures are truer indicators of school quality” which can “identify a considerable number of chronically underperforming schools.” At the same time, according to data analyses published by Urban Institute researchers, “Judging schools based on their average test scores will tend to penalize schools that serve large numbers of lower-income and racial minority students.” Furthermore, emphasizing growth will support higher achieving students as well, a group that has demonstrated “comparatively slower growth in reading during the school year” according to a study published by The Journal of Educational Research.

Starting in June of 2016, the Louisiana Department of Education met with educators and representatives from across the state to discuss the changes to school accountability systems afforded by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The resulting ESSA Listening Tour Report includes themes of aligning expectations, raising standards, and serving struggling students. Likewise, widespread support for strengthening the teaching profession through consistent classroom observation was mirrored by a focus on the continuous improvement of students of all abilities. Weighting student growth by 25% (or more!) of a school’s performance score is reinforced in the report by the idea that, “Schools should be motivated to focus on the improvement of all students to achieve at their full potential.”

Growth as a performance measure acknowledges that school educators are serving students in consideration of a critical factor: their needs. Rather than misleading parents, growth indicators show that students’ progress and achievement is focal; and that on the path of education, each step forward is as important as where your journey began, and where your journey ends.

What are your thoughts on proficiency and growth? We would love to hear from you. Leave a comment below.

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In his article, which can be read in its entirety here, Dr. Perry urges us to “create a system rooted in the people who need change the most. Let’s adopt a philosophy centered on black and brown people.” Dr. Perry’s assertion that we need a new type of system is grounded in his belief that the “bedrock of our education system is white supremacy and patriarchy.”  While certainly provocative and thought provoking as a concept, I think it misses the real issue: the operative motivation behind the creation of our education system was largely an economic one. 

Years of scholarship have accurately identified that our education system was designed to support and reinforce capitalism. Those who owned the capital (wealthy people) wanted to ensure a steady stream of appropriately educated labor (poor people), whom they could employ to earn the maximum return on their capital.  Put more bluntly, our education system was designed to facilitate the exploitation of poor people by wealthy owners of capital. 

Non-whites and women weren’t even part of the original equation. They were excluded from the system, and as such, the “system” wasn’t about them. Years later when they were added to the system, they were subject to the same constraints and challenges as the poor, white males who were the intended recipients of this education.

This isn’t to say that non-whites and women have benefited under the current system; in fact, they have not. However, the reason has less to do with the system being created to support and promote white supremacy and patriarchy and more to do with the fact that unless you are wealthy, the way our education system has evolved means it will fail you.  “White supremacy and patriarchy” are highly charged words and steer the conversation towards race and gender, when the conversation should be about economic empowerment…which, if done right, solves many of the issues around race and gender.

The article does not put forth a real alternative to our current education system, which is frustrating. Dr. Perry simply says that if you can build a system for white males you should be able to build a system for black people based on Afrocentric philosophies – an alternative that black people can define. What does this mean? Who builds this system? What IS this system? How is it different from the current system? What are Afrocentric philosophies, and how do they differ from Eurocentric philosophies? Do we have any examples of such a system? As with many critiques of the education system, no viable alternative is outlined or proposed. 

Dr. Perry also referenced a well known quote by Audre Lorde: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” While true in one sense, an alternative construct could be: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house, but they can be used to build a different house.” 

This is the root of my perspective on the world. I am not so much interested in burning down the master’s house as I am interested in learning how he acquired his wealth, and building a house of my own.  Much easier said than done of course, but inherently optimistic. It’s my opinion that the master’s knowledge can be learned, replicated, and put to my own use.

I believe in choice. I believe in public education. I also believe that the most unjust aspect of our current education system is in how it is funded – locally, by the tax dollars of the people who live in the community in which the school exists, which means that poor people will always have inferior schools. This is a constitutional mandate, and much like the 2nd amendment, I don’t think it is going to change anytime soon. Until it does, I believe we need to continually tweak the system that we have, to make it better, to make it more equitable and to make it more likely that brown and black people get an opportunity to sit at the economic table and earn a decent living. 

I am not interested in dismantling capitalism. I believe in capitalism. I am okay with an education system that explicitly supports and perpetuates capitalism. I am primarily interested in ensuring that women and brown and black people get their fair share of the spoils. 

That is why I do what I do. I believe that if we reform teacher preparation and training, along with a host of other things (teacher pay, school funding, hiring, testing/standards) we can prepare more young girls, and black and brown students, to graduate from high school, prepared to go to college or directly enter a 21st century workforce. 

If we can do this in my lifetime, I will consider our system to be vastly improved.

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