Education-Related Predictions for 2012

I recently posted The Best (and Worst) Education News of 2011, and thought I'd take a stab at some prognostication for 2012.

I think I batted close to 50 percent in last year's predictions -- that can't be that much worse than those made by professional pundits.

Feel free to add your own predictions in the comments section -- and don't hesitate to include "wishful thinking!"

Here are my Education-Related Predictions For 2012:

1. Proponents of what is typically called "school reform" -- expansion of charter schools and teacher merit pay, primarily evaluating teachers by student test scores, erosion of seniority rights -- will emphasize expanding their agenda through three major avenues: Teach For America will use their new $50 million grant from the federal government to enter multiple new districts, KIPP Charter Schools will do the same with their new $25.5 million grant from The Walton Family Foundation, and, in California at least, charter operators will build on their recent push to have county Boards of Education's approve charter applications over school district objections.

2. Notwithstanding recent court decisions in New York City, efforts to publish teacher ratings by test scores in local newspapers will "peter out." Newspapers will shy away from publicizing this misleading data after seeing the backlash received by the Los Angeles Times after they pioneered this ethically questionable practice. In addition, since more districts are unfortunately including student test scores in teacher evaluations, the practice of making "job reviews" public will becoming increasingly questionable legally.

3. There will be a surge of interest in the concept of Social Emotional Learning (SEL), the idea of explicitly helping students learn about and develop character traits like self-control and perseverance. Unfortunately, that interest will be combined with a strong desire to test and grade, and much of its potential effectiveness will be lost.

4. Here in California, Governor Brown and his allies will be successful in convincing proponents of other tax initiatives to focus on supporting his ballot drive. His plan to increase taxes would result in billions more for schools, and will pass handily. That success will inspire similar efforts in other states during following years.

5. As the 2012 presidential election nears, and the polls show a Romney/Obama contest as a nail-biter, the Obama Administration will offer a "fall surprise" to teachers by offering states waivers to No Child Left Behind requirements that don't have the "poison pills" of rules and costs that their present waiver hold. The tactic will work, and larger numbers of educators will actively campaign for the president in the election's final months.

6. The awful and inaccurate teacher evaluations in New York, Tennessee and Florida will force states to go much more slowly in implementing ones that include student test scores as a sizable percentage of the ranking. Unfortunately, the momentum for these types of evaluations will only be slowed, not stopped.

7. At the same time the momentum for awful teacher evaluations is slowed, there will be a renewed interest in using Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) as an evaluation and professional development strategy. Districts that expand the use of this process, which treats educators as professionals, will find increasing success for students, their families, and educators alike.

8. Michelle Rhee will continue her decline in public credibility and relevance. Her work with some of the most conservative, and anti-teacher Republicans has made her a contagion among many Democrats. And, as her Republican allies falter in their own success and popularity across the country, she is incredibly trying to build a base here in California -- unsuccessfully.

9. Strategies to use technology as a transformative tool in education will take a backseat as for-profit online learning charlatans and the Khan Academy take up the tech money and the media space.

10. As I did last year, I'm borrowing this last one from Bill Ivey, a colleague in the Teacher Leaders Network. He predicts: "Each and every school day will bring tens of thousands of reasons to celebrate in schools across the country." That sure sounds good to me...

Please share your reactions, and your own predictions!

 

 

 

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Comments

[buzzardwhiskey]

02:54 PM on 01/03/2012

After 25 years of teaching, my wife is beginning the long and exciting road of starting an alternative school. Although she loves the students and is a teacher through and through to her soul, too much is broken. She can continue to be ground down year after year or look at what works and implement fearlessly (and thus outside the public school system).

What works is parental involvement – always has and always will. So we want to make a school where parents become as much a part of the classroom and the micro-community as the students themselves (everyone takes classes, everyone teaches, everyone gives, and everyone learns to celebrate the achievements of others because they helped).

[luapmi2]

07:19 AM on 12/31/2011

50% means you're equivalent to flipping a coin...but how could we expect a teacher to understand that?

[FunctionOfTheCrisp]

12:17 PM on 12/30/2011

I have 2:

1. If Obama is ousted, the new president will appoint another SECED who doesn't have a background in education - meaning his or her degrees will not be in education and he or she will not have ever been an actual K-12 educator.

2. The effort to "reform" preschool will continue and we will begin to see the implementation of standardized testing in preschool.

[J R M]

10:53 PM on 12/29/2011

While there are issues that have to be worked out, I have no doubt that on-line learning approaches will continue to spread, particularly above the elementary school level. The difference between attending a class with 500+ students in a lecture hall and an on-line class with access to the same teacher/teaching assistant is small. On-line classes are likely to be the only way that advanced and specialized classes can be offered in many schools. However you want to argue it, on-line classes are better than no classes.

My daughter is taking on-line AP Biology this year. She would have done better with an in-class teacher, but all the IB Biology seats were taken. She is doing well. She has done correspondence classes as well the past 2 summers.

So I would not call on-line classes a fraud or their proponents charlatans - they work very well for disciplined students.

[pctutor]

07:16 PM on 12/29/2011

As one who recently retired from an elementary school District, my observation is that the education-for-profit companies (and there are SO many) who do produce excellent products will find that the ordinary public schools cannot keep up with the prices of the increasingly needed infrastructure.. in other words.. we couldn't AFFORD to buy new computers, hard drive upgrades, etc. Therefore, the private and well financed schools will be able to give students a better education... and the gap widens between the haves and have nots. The idea of financing the lowest economic level schools is absolutely radical.. and long overdue.
Everyone wants a way of measuring teacher effectiveness and the ONLY way for it to be effective is some form of Peer Revue.. it's a beginning. Learning is not and has never been about student testing on one particular day and one particular set of questions.. but the "testing-for-profit" people will certainly never let it die.