Dangerously Irrelevant

I’ve been thinking a lot about my previous two posts regarding Drs. Willard Daggett and Ruby Payne. Both make a great deal of money and have built mini-empires out of their speaking engagements, writing, and/or consulting enterprises. Both have serious, serious concerns attached to their work. When phrases like ‘riddled with unverifiable assertions’ or ‘[as] full of crap as a Christmas turkey’ get used, that’s not good…

Daggett and Payne aren’t the only ones to experience some criticism. For example, I have tremendous respect for Dr. Rick DuFour and the work that he and his team have done on professional learning communities. I’ve learned a boatload from their books and use On Common Ground as a required reading for my data-driven decision-making class. But I’ve been hearing from some educators across the country that they feel that the presentations are starting to get stale, that there are only so many times the Faces of Hope video can be shown before it loses its impact, that after one institute there’s no need to go back for more. Miguel Guhlin also points us to some criticism of Marc Prensky (whose ideas have been useful to me).

A number of folks in the educational technology community serve as speakers and/or consultants. Will Richardson, David Warlick, and Angela Maiers, for example, do this as their primary vocation. Others such as myself, Doug Johnson, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Miguel Guhlin, Dean Shareski, Sylvia Martinez, and Wesley Fryer occasionally do this on the side in addition to our regular employment.

What obligations do we have as speakers / consultants?

For those of us who do some professional speaking or consulting, this excerpt from the National Speakers Association’s Code of Professional Ethics is probably a good place to start:

Article 1. The NSA member shall accurately represent qualifications and experience in both oral and written communications.

Article 2. The NSA member shall act and speak on a high professional level so as to neither offend nor bring discredit to the speaking profession.

Article 3. The NSA member shall exert diligence to understand the client’s organization, approaches and goals in advance of the presentation.

Article 4. The NSA member shall avoid using materials, titles and thematic creations originated by others, either orally or in writing.

Article 5. The NSA member shall share knowledge and experience with others.

Article 6. The NSA member shall treat other speakers with professional courtesy and dignity.

Article 7. The NSA member shall limit services to those areas in which the member is qualified to serve, taking into consideration available opportunities for the member to develop new materials or undertake new fields. When unable or unqualified to fulfill requests for presentations, the NSA member shall make every effort to recommend the services of other qualified speakers, agencies or bureaus.

Article 8. The NSA member shall maintain the trust of clients, and fidelity concerning the business or personal affairs of a client, agents and other speakers who may reveal confidential information.

Article 9. The NSA member shall protect the public against fraud or unfair practices and shall attempt to eliminate from the speaking profession all practices which bring discredit to the profession.

Article 10. The NSA member shall not be party to any agreement to unfairly limit or restrain access to the marketplace by any other speaker, client or to the public, based upon economic factors, race, creed, color, sex, age, physical handicap or country of national origin of another speaker.

But these may not be specific or comprehensive enough. For example, the primary criticism of Daggett is that he just makes up stuff. Does that come under Article 2? Article 9? Or not at all? The primary criticisms of Payne are that she is overly stereotypical and makes unproven assertions. Under which article(s) do those fall?

Here are some key things that I think we speakers/consultants owe the organizations with whom we work:

1. Accuracy. Our work should be truthful and accurate. If we make an assertion, it should be based on a source that’s reasonably trustworthy. If it’s an opinion, it should be clearly indicated as such. If we don’t know, we should admit it. Can we make an occasional unverifiable assertion? Sure, but that shouldn’t constitute the bulk of our work. Does everything need to be ‘research-based?’ No, absolutely not, particularly given the inconclusive nature of educational research on many topics.
2. Currency. Our work should be as up-to-date as possible. This is tough, both in terms of monitoring numerous channels of information and in terms of finding the time to update one’s materials. It’s also difficult sometimes to take new approaches to older work; I empathize greatly with DuFour’s challenge of continually needing to find new ways to present, expand, and build upon what’s been done before. I think we owe it to the groups we’re serving to continually update our material and make it as relevant as possible to each organization rather than repeatedly doing the same schtick regardless of audience.
3. Transparency. If we make mistakes, say so. Publicly. If we’re wrestling mentally with an issue or otherwise are not sure of something, admit it. Is there a major line of research contesting our assertions (as is the case with Payne) or do we have a particular ideological bent? Acknowledge it so that the organization can make informed decisions about our work. The more transparent we can be, the better.
4. Service. It’s about the organization, not us. Professional development time and money usually are quite scarce. We can charge whatever we think our time and expertise are worth (and the market will bear), but we should be providing something of value. Usually that means something practical that members of the organization can start using and acting upon tomorrow. Oral presentations, written materials, and other resources should be professional, engaging, and helpful. [Note: I confess I have trouble with the “I was buried by an avalanche in the Himalayas for 2 weeks with nothing to eat but my clothing” or the “I was down and out but now I’m successful and at peace” speeches. Sure, they’re inspiring (and often quite expensive) but they don’t really help me do my job any better…]

This list is not meant to be conclusive but rather a starting place for conversation. What else should I have included?

As America becomes increasingly diverse, many school districts are experiencing changes in their traditional student populations. When districts have significant increases in the number of students of color and/or students in poverty, they often try to increase the cultural competence of their teaching and administrative staff. And that means that many of them turn to Dr. Ruby Payne. Dr. Payne’s seminal book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, has sold over a million copies and has resulted in many regarding her as an expert on poverty.

Many academics (and others) have expressed grave concerns about Payne’s work, however. For example, here is an excerpt from a 2006 article in Teachers College Record by Dr. Paul Gorski (now an Assistant Professor at George Mason University):

A casual flip-through of A Framework uncovers dozens of deficit-laden statements. According to Payne (2001), people in poverty are bad parents: “The typical pattern in poverty for discipline is to verbally chastise the child, or physically beat the child, then forgive and feed him/her” (p. 37). They are also criminals:  “Also, individuals in poverty are seldom going to call the police, for two reasons: First the police may be looking for them. . . . ” (pp. 37-38). They are disloyal: “Allegiances may change overnight; favoritism is a way of life” (p. 74). They are violent and “on the streets”: “If students in poverty don’t know how to fight physically, they are going to be in danger on the streets” (p. 100). And, according to Payne, people in poverty are unmotivated addicts: “And for some, alcoholism, laziness, lack of motivation, drug addition, etc., in effect make the choices for the individual” (p. 148). Although research indicates some differences in child discipline practices and levels of day-to-day physical violence between economically deprived communities and middle or upper class communities, the fact remains that most people in poverty are responsible, hard working, drug and alcohol free, and not “on the streets” (a phrase that may also cycle the stereotype that all poor people live in urban communities, when many live in rural communities). These people – the average, hard working, employed, drug free people in poverty – are largely invisible in A Framework and Payne’s other books.

And here’s an excerpt from another 2006 article in Teachers College Record, this one by Drs. Jennifer Ng, Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas, and John Rury, Professor at DePaul University:

[In Payne's] descriptive scenarios, the poor are generally depicted as having a weak work ethic, little sense of internal discipline or future orientation, and leading lives characterized to one extent or another by disorder and violence. In making these characterizations, Payne seems to be unaware of the many studies dating from the late 1960s that challenged the culture of poverty thesis, in many instances directly testing the extent to which traits such as these were more prevalent among the poor than other groups. By and large, these studies found that such characteristics were not more likely to be evident in poor individuals or households. Indeed, people in poverty valued work, saving money, behaving properly, maintaining stable families, and a number of other “middle-class” attributes as much as their counterparts in higher social and economic strata. These results, moreover, held across groups with experiences of differing duration in poverty and across racial and ethnic lines (Roach & Gursslin, 1967; Irelan, Moles, & O’Shea, 1969; Coward, Feagin, & Williams, 1974; Davidson & Gaitz, 1974; Abell & Lyon, 1979; Carmon, 1985; Jones & Luo, 1999). . . . Most educators . . . are unfamiliar with the extensive research literature on poverty and its effects on children, and if Payne’s citations seem to support their own views about the poor, they would hardly be in a position to challenge the interpretation of research that Payne offers. If they are predisposed to believing that the poor are lazy and impulsive as well as unreliable and temperamental, they are more likely to agree with Payne’s analysis than to question it. In short, Payne may be popular simply because she echoes commonplace assumptions about why some individuals appear to succeed in American society while others do not.

And here’s what may be the only criticism of a famous educational consultant by a 14–year-old:

Is this how schools should be spending their scarce professional development time and monies?

So, like my post yesterday about Dr. Willard Daggett, the information gathered for this post raises some important questions.

First, should districts be spending their monies on a consultant whose work has been accused of being riddled with hundreds of unproven assertions? Whose emphasis on students’ need to change is allegedly so reductionist that it basically ignores the school, neighborhood, societal, political, and other contextual factors that influence the life success of students in poverty? 

If the poor are poor simply because they do not know how to behave as if they were not poor, then the middle class and the wealthy should not be taxed to provide public assistance, public health, public schooling, or a public sphere in which the poor might participate. According to such a perspective, neither structural inequality, nor public policy, nor barriers to good jobs, nor lack of money cause the plight of the poor; they just don't have the right story structure, or tone of voice, or register, or cognitive strategies. (Bomer, Dworin, May, & Semingson, 2008)

Who self-describes her foundational work as “the findings of a 30-year longitudinal case study of one neighborhood of poverty” when that actually means that “her expertise on poverty resulted primarily from being married for over 30 years to her husband, Frank, who grew up in ‘situational’ (or temporary) poverty, but lived for several years with others who were in ‘generational’ (or long-term) poverty” (Gorski, 2006; Payne, 1995)? Whose seminal book was admittedly inspired by financial "spirit guides" and written in a single week so that she might “fulfill her dream of ‘a life without financial constraints?’" (Bohn, 2007; Tough, 2007).

Second, are most districts that hire Dr. Payne aware of the criticisms that have been leveled against her work? And, third, even if so, should districts’ professional development work involve a consultant/speaker that’s this controversial, no matter how famous or widespread her message is?

This is important, not trivial, stuff. As Bomer et al. (2008) note:

It is well-established . . . that teacher beliefs have an impact on the ways they teach and on their students’ learning (National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 1996; Nespor, 1987). Since teachers do make decisions and plans on the basis of their beliefs or conceptualizations of their students, students' daily lives are strongly affected by the influences on their teachers' thinking. We have demonstrated through our analysis that teachers may be misinformed by Payne's claims. Poverty in Payne's work is marked only as a negative, only as a divergence from a middle-class norm, and students who are "of poverty" need to be fixed. This way of regarding the children of poor parents has predictable and undesirable consequences in US education (Brophy & Good, 1974; Rist, 1970; Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). As a consequence of low teacher expectations, poor students are more likely to be in lower tracks or lower ability groups (Ansalone, 2001, 2003; Connor & Boskin, 2001; Gamoran & Berends, 1987; Oakes, 1985), and their educational experience is more often dominated by rote drill and practice (Anyon, 1980, 1997; Dudley-Marling & Paugh, 2005; Moll, 1988; Moll & Ruiz, 2002; Valenzuela, 1999).

How accountable should we be holding outside consultants (and the people who hire them)?

The work of Willard Daggett is HUGE here in Iowa. Dr. Daggett heads the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE). His emphasis on ‘rigor, relevance, and relationships’ is so prevalent in the state that those three buzzwords come up in almost every conversation pertaining to school success and student achievement.

I’ve never had a chance to intersect personally with Dr. Daggett, although I did get to hear ICLE’s Senior Vice President, Dr. Ray McNulty, speak at the Vermont Principals Association Leadership Academy this summer (and he did a nice job). I confess that the center’s rigor/relevance framework has at least some intuitive appeal to me.

So I was surprised today when I ran across a scathing May 2008 blog post by Gerald Bracey that raised some pretty serious concerns about Daggett’s veracity (if you don’t know Dr. Bracey, he’s a longtime education scholar and a passionate defender of American schools). Back in 1995 he originally voiced his doubts about Daggett. Thirteen years later he is still concerned about Daggett’s accuracy and/or truthfulness. Here’s the video that accompanies Bracey’s post: 

Here are additional links (some by Bracey) that raise concerns about Daggett:

• Oct 1999 – Investor’s Business Daily
• Oct 1999 – Ninth Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education
• Nov 1999 – John Locke Foundation
• Apr 2000 – The Tower, the South High student newspaper (reprint; Grosse Point, Michigan))
• Dec 2002 – The Times-Examiner (South Carolina)
• Aug 2006 – Sherman Dorn
• Sep 2007 – Greater Orange News Service (California)
• Jan 2008 – Rotten Apple Awards
• Apr 2008 – WCF Courier (Iowa)

Should Iowa be basing much of its school reform work on this guy?

I had never heard about any of this. After reading through all of these links, however, I can see why afterward it would be pretty difficult for educators to have much faith in Daggett’s work. Regardless of the underlying appeal of his messages, at what point do the multiple accusations about Daggett’s ongoing disregard for facts impact his credibility and worthiness as a consultant and/or speaker? I wonder if the Iowa Department of Education, state educational leadership associations, and school districts even know about all of this. If so, should they disregard his rigor/relevance framework and exhortations about teaching kids 21st century skills?

Spotted in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania:

Christmas 2008 is right around the corner and that means it’s time to play…

SPOT THAT HOLIDAY VIOLATION!

Here are the rules:

1. Only American public schools are eligible. [sorry, international readers]
2. Identify a possible violation of the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution in your local school system. The Establishment Clause requires that schools not favor a) one religion (e.g., Christianity) over another religion, or b) religion over no religion. Government-sponsored religious displays or activities are pretty much always unconstitutional.
3. Leave your description of the possible violation in the comments section of this post. If you’re not sure if it’s a violation or not, leave it anyway and we’ll chime in as needed. Possible violations may include teacher- or school-sponsored activities, displays, or other actions.
4. The most egregious violation [as judged by myself, Justin Bathon (at CASTLE’s brother blog, EdJurist), and Jon Becker (of Educational Insanity)] wins a yet-to-be-determined prize!
5. Deadline for entries is December 23, 2008.

Good luck!

This is Minnie, our Dell Inspiron 910 Mini “netbook” that’s the newest addition to our computer family. As the pictures show, she’s a lot smaller than my ThinkPad X61 Tablet. She shipped with 1 GB of RAM and a 16 GB Flash hard drive. She’s running Windows XP Home, Microsoft Office 2007, Skype, a number of media players, and a few other programs. She’s got a built-in webcam and a bunch of ports and jacks around the edges.

Like any family member, she’s not perfect. Her small keyboard’s not the greatest. The function keys are the same keys as ASDFGHJKL; and the apostrophe’s way down in the bottom row. Her speakers are a little anemic. Occasionally she’s a little pokey, which is to be expected with a netbook.

All in all, however, my kids and I like her a lot. She weighs just over 2 pounds, measures about 9 in (23 cm) by 6.75 in (17 cm), and has at least a 3–hour battery life. She’s light, extremely portable, and boots up very quickly. I’ve remapped the keyboard slightly and also did a BIOS upgrade that added F11 and F12 functionality. I upgraded her RAM to 2 GB, which was extremely easy to do and boosted her performance a bit. She’s a sleek little machine, particularly for Internet browsing and cloud computing.

Many people are touting netbooks as possibilities for 1:1 laptop initiatives in K-12 schools. Having now used Minnie for a few weeks, I think netbooks might work pretty well in that role, particularly as their functionality improves a bit over the next year or so.

Gloria, our GPS unit, is happy to have a friend in the house…

[Download this file: png ppt pptx]

[from Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Letter to My Colleagues]

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[from Clarence Fisher, Literacy as Battleground (and Miguel Guhlin!)]

Alfie Kohn’s new article in The Nation comes out in print next week. You can read it early online and get his perspectives on the next U.S. Secretary of Education. Here’s a quote:

Almost never questioned … are the core elements of traditional schooling, such as lectures, worksheets, quizzes, grades, homework, punitive discipline and competition. That would require real reform, which of course is off the table.

I’m sure that many of you are unsurprised that Kohn is one of my favorite education writers. My all-time favorite education book is Beyond Discipline. I like how Kohn speaks truth to power and is willing to hold topics up to the light that are given little thought by most educators because they’re so deeply ingrained in the system.

Update: if the link at The Nation doesn't work for you, this one should.

Michael Petrilli’s article on the education blogosphere is now available at Education Next:

• Press release
• Article (you can get a PDF version too)

Here’s a quick quote from the article:

[I]f I asked what Diane Ravitch, Jack Jennings, and Kati Haycock have in common, you would say they are all contributors to K–12 education policy debates, oft quoted in the nation’s leading newspapers. But what about Will Richardson, Joanne Jacobs, and Eduwonkette? If these names are unfamiliar to you, it’s time to visit the education blogosphere.

Petrilli’s stats are from August, so things have changed quite a bit since then. Not his fault, of course, but yet another example of the lack of timeliness of print publication…

I’m a fan of Education Next. The articles typically are well-written and on interesting topics (see, e.g., the forum article on virtual schools or the article on turnaround leadership) and I invariably have my thinking challenged. If you haven’t checked it out, maybe it’s time you do!