As we come to the end of another frustrating year in education reform -- much ado about the adults and, still, too little about the children -- I found these observations from a Finnish education policy expert, Pasi Sahlberg, very much in line with our work at Learning Ovations.  In fairly typical type-A fashion, education reformers in the US have benchmarked Finland because of their world class success in education, and then they have either emphasized why Finland is not like the US or they have tried to short-circuit the lessons to be learned in a "ya but" exercise of blame and deckchair shifting that has only succeeded in preserving the status quo.   

I have excerpted parts of, and added comments to, Valerie Strauss' Washington Post blog wherein she has posted an article by Sahlberg, which argues persuasively that the American focus on teacher effectiveness is missing some key components. Without a shift in thinking about how to reform American education, Sahlberg, who admits some of the large differences between the United States and Finland, sees little room to believe that America’s educational system could reach the level of Finland’s. 

Here is a compilation of the misconceptions that Sahlberg believes many American education experts have, and his corresponding corrections as augmented and amplified by Learning Ovations research and outcomes. 

1)  Attracting more high-level teachers (whatever exactly that means) is a silver bullet for education reform. 

Sahlberg: Research on what explains students’ measured performance in school remains mixed. A commonly used conclusion is that 10% to 20% of the variance in measured student achievement belongs to the classroom, i.e., teachers and teaching, and a similar amount is attributable to schools, i.e., school climate, facilities and leadership. In other words, up to two-thirds of what explains student achievement is beyond the control of schools, i.e., family background and motivation to learn. 

At Learning Ovations: We have a reservation on this perception and we have some more contemporary and compelling research findings.  First, the reservation.  Yes, family background and motivation are important BUT that cannot be taken as a dispensation for schools or community.  This is the thinking (permission) that has gotten us to intergenerational poverty.  Once we believe something is out of our control, then our expectations and performance are circumscribed.  Rather, at our Working Differently communities we have cited this very research as to why a community and schools are, by necessity linked in their work of overcoming this "two-thirds" disadvantage.  See this community interconnection detailed.   In other words, we need to work differently to assure that these environmental deficits not be allowed to artificially constrain our children.

I say "artificially" because Learning Ovations has a large body of research that demonstrates how these very children -- high poverty, ethnic minority, single -parent homes -- can be ready for kindergarten and can be reading, on average at the fifth grade level at the end of third grade.  The central difference is that Learning Ovations helped teachers, schools and communities achieve control over the outcome!

2)  Effective teachers are made once they are in the profession, not beforehand. 

Sahlberg:  In the United States, for example, there are more than 1,500 different teacher-preparation programs. The range in quality is wide. In Singapore and Finland only one academically rigorous teacher education program is available for those who desire to become teachers. Likewise, neither Canada nor South Korea has fast-track options into teaching, such as Teach for America or Teach First in Europe. Teacher quality in high-performing countries is a result of careful quality control at entry into teaching rather than measuring teacher effectiveness in service. 

Learning Ovations:  We, too, think there is much to be desired in our present way of preparing teachers.  BUT, this is not insurmountable, it is simply the environment.  And waiting for post modernism to die out from our teacher colleges, seems like a uniquely disempowering strategy.  Instead of cursing the darkness or allowing it to give communities permission to accept the status quo or, worse, denigrate meaningful ways to infuse the profession with a diversity of energy and talent through programs like Teach for America, Learning Ovations asked a more fundamental question: how can we respect and empower all teachers to succeed with all children?  This shifts from passive to active; from blame to strategy; from confrontation to tools.  In the seven randomized control studies referred to above, Learning Ovation supported all existing teachers in achieving outcomes for their students -- which is the core definition of effectiveness. 

3)  Effective teachers can overcome all barriers of poverty and background. 

There are those who argue that poverty is only an excuse not to insist that all schools should reach higher standards. Solution: better teachers. Then there are those who claim that schools and teachers alone cannot overcome the negative impact that poverty causes in many children’s learning in school. Solution: Elevate children out of poverty by other public policies. 

For Sahlberg, the latter is right. In the United States today, 23 percent of children live in poor homes. In Finland, the same way to calculate child poverty would show that figure to be almost five times smaller. The United States ranked in the bottom four in the recent United Nations review on child well-being. Among 29 wealthy countries, the United States landed second from the last in child poverty and held a similarly poor position in “child life satisfaction.” 

For Learning Ovations, this is very similar to the slippery slope we discussed in #1 above.  Clearly, the US must address child poverty.  We simply believe the way to address child poverty is to get all children successful readers by the time they finish grade three.  The evidence for this is profound.  If it is a chicken and egg, go with what you can act on today!  

4) School culture and leadership matter little compared to teachers. 

Sahlberg: Over thirty years of systematic research on school effectiveness and school improvement reveals a number of characteristics that are typical of more effective schools. Most scholars agree that effective leadership is among the most important characteristics of effective schools, equally important to effective teaching. Effective leadership includes leader qualities, such as being firm and purposeful, having shared vision and goals, promoting teamwork and collegiality and frequent personal monitoring and feedback. Several other characteristics of effective schools include features that are also linked to the culture of the school and leadership: Maintaining focus on learning, producing a positive school climate, setting high expectations for all, developing staff skills, and involving parents. In other words, school leadership matters as much as teacher quality. 

Learning Ovations: Here too, we are not going to argue against the importance of leadership.  But rather, we are very comfortable in pointing out that leadership is delineated by expectations.  Why not move forward on a strategy which empowers teachers, significantly enhances student outcomes and transforms what is possible?  This, rather than investing significant dollars in leadership retreats and letting more cohorts pass through our schools underachieving while we "wait for the godot" of a chairasmatic leader, seems to be a more compelling action.

In the distinctions Pasi Sahlberg makes between Finland and the US approach to education reform, I feel he has misread a key difference.  US educational reform will continue to be a random walk of failed bromides until we take for granted what Sahlberg fails to emphasize, but what is at the heart of Finlands success -- the adults expectations for childrens' success have immensely more impact than any environmental limitation the students might have.  Whereas, at Learning Ovations, and in our working differently communities, our mission starts where Finland is: all children succeed.    

Education and Business have always been dependent systems, but until now they have seemed to occupy completely separate orbits. Today they are on a collision course.   The very way we have historically structured our educational system in North America, was in service of the growing need of businesses in the industrial revolution to have trained workers.  The fixed method of teaching the same thing to every student was modeled on the assembly line.  Even the school year, with its long summer break, was in service of a dominant business of an even earlier century: our predominantly agrarian economy.  Ironically, at the dawn of the 21st Century, when the growth of jobs and businesses in highly technical fields, requires ever-stronger ties between these two systems, we have seen retreat, recrimination and resignation.  When the essence of our financial future rests on it, the central question of our times is how to weave these systems together. Could there be a gear in a potential collective system that we could turn that would have a foundational and lasting effect on both education and our economy? At Learning Ovations, through research and practice, we found that improving 3rd grade reading is that gear in the system, the keystone result that drives education reform and future business growth.

The importance of 3rd grade reading cannot be overstated. From kindergarten through 3rd grade, children are learning how to read. However, in the 4th grade, there is a shift to reading to learn. Children who enter 4th grade and are proficient at reading only have a 9% chance of dropping out of high school. Conversely, the dropout rate for students who are below basic reading levels in the 4th grade increases to 23%. Dropouts are 63% more likely to go be incarcerated (Annie E. Casey Foundation) and 75% of all crimes are committed by high school dropouts (Education Week). In fact, some states project requirements for prison beds based on 3rd Grade reading rates.  Undereducated students who do graduate often grapple with long-term unemployment/under-employment and can be viewed as unemployable. This creates long-term personal and societal repercussions due to reduced income throughout their life, continuing inability for business to complete globally in the growing technologically based markets and accelerating the cost of pervasive poverty.  McKinsey and Co. has shown that the education gap between workers’ potential had they been better educated and where they are today, represents $2.3 trillion per annum-economic losses. This is equivalent to an ongoing, perpetual Great Recession.

While the impact of these numbers can be alarming, there is a tremendous opportunity for change.  The potential for growth and advancement in North America is profound. With Learning Ovations’ technology and research, (see http://www.workingdifferently.org/learning-ovations.html) we can teach EVERY child to read by the 3rd grade, turning this crisis into an economic opportunity on a massive scale.  Further, with STEM occupations pegged to grow by 17% between 2008 to 2018 (nearly twice the rate of other non-STEM jobs) it is incumbent for all of us to take up the gauntlet – our livelihoods depend on it!  (See our separate “Call to Action” for details).  Scientific American (September 2013) reports that 60% of students lose interest in science and mathematics in elementary school, with a precipitous drop in 5th Grade – right when, for nearly an equivalent number, their inability to read becomes manifest!  Learning Ovations has its hand squarely on driving that gear of change -- we improve the outcomes of ALL children.  Yes, struggling readers and students living in poverty improve to grade level or above, but perhaps even more profoundly, our classrooms show dramatic improvement in children reading at proficiency levels or above: 75% in Learning Ovations classrooms versus only 32% nationally.  In other words, we increase the potential pool of STEM achievers by significantly more than double the national average. 

            Finally, the key for all businesses and economic development policy makers to remember: Re-think of how you view third graders: in just over ten years they will be your employees, customers and core to your region’s business attractiveness.  Don’t value them lightly.

Why, despite all the experimentation in education, have statistics on third-grade reading proficiency shown so little improvement?  And how has Learning Ovations, Inc. succeeded where no one has before?

Learning to read is the most complex task we expect children to master – more complex than learning to play the piano. And the stakes are much higher. Children who do not read well are more likely to drop out of high school, become teen parents, or enter the criminal justice system. You might think learning to talk is more difficult but in fact, we are essentially hard-wired to learn how to talk. We are not wired to learn to read. Reading is a human invention that coopts parts of the brain originally designed for other tasks, like language, hearing, and perception.  That means that in order to learn how to read, children need careful and highly technical instruction. First they must master the alphabetic principle – that letters stand for sounds and that these letters combine to create words that have meaning. Then they have to learn how to make sense of what they have decoded, which is even more difficult. Unfortunately, because it is a polyglot, English is among the most difficult languages to read: the spelling is irregular and the vocabulary is vast. And we expect children to accomplish this by the end of third grade!

That said, virtually all children CAN learn to read by fourth grade if they are provided optimal amounts and types of reading instruction. For example, in a recent longitudinal study, we randomly assigned students to receive individualized instruction from first through third grade based on their unique constellation of reading and vocabulary skills. The results revealed that 94% of students who received the individualized instruction in all three grades were reading at or above a fourth grade level by the end of third grade and many were reading above grade level – a fifth grade level on average. Compare this to 78% of students in the control group; and this is still better than the national average of about 66% based on recent NAEP scores (58% in Arizona).

So what was different for these students compared to students from across our nation? About 50% of them qualified for the free and reduced lunch program so it was not that the students came from well-to-do families. Nor were these charter schools. But there were some differences. First, the study brought research into the classroom. Second, the study was conducted in Florida where pre-kindergarten is state-funded and available to all children. Thus virtually all of the students attended high quality preschools. Third, teachers used valid and reliable assessments to guide their instruction and planning using Assessment-to-instruction software – technology helps. Fourth, teachers received training and professional development, including a literacy coach, to support their efforts. Finally, school leaders and teachers welcomed the opportunity to participate in rigorous research as partners while researchers made their findings relevant and accessible to them. With increased funding for rigorous research through the US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, and other funders, such school-research partnerships can flourish and continue to improve outcomes for our students.

At Learning Ovations, we are dedicated to transforming children literacy outcomes.   Assessment to Instruction, or A2i, is a technology platform and professional development regime designed to improve educational leaders’ and teachers’ ability to provide more effective individualized literacy instruction from kindergarten through third grade. A2i achieves this by linking language and literacy assessment results to recommendations for specific amounts and types of reading instruction thru evidence-based algorithms.

Seven Randomized Control Trials with over 2000 Students Demonstrates Rigor.

Dr. Carol Connor, recently recruited to ASU, envisioned and led all phases of research validating A2i’s significant efficacy as an innovative way to improve teachers’ implementation of effective differentiated reading instruction from kindergarten (K) through 3rd grade.  This is borne out in seven randomized control field trials, with more than 2000 students in over 100 classrooms, funded by NIH and the US Department of Education.  The results are described in 23 peer review journal articles and featured in Science magazine. From K through 3rd grade, students in the A2i classrooms showed significantly greater reading gains compared to students in control classrooms.  Additionally, effects accumulated from 1st through 3rd grade: 94% of children in A2i classrooms all three years were reading at or above grade level compared to only 78% of children in control classrooms all three years and compared to the national average of 66% (in Arizona, an even more economically tragic, 58%) of 4th graders reading at basic or above levels according to the 2011 NAEP.  Thus, in Arizona, for example, a fully deployed A2i would represent a 62% improvement over current state performance.

Of additional significance is that as a classroom-level intervention, A2i improved the outcomes for all children.  In those same A2i classrooms cited above, the percentage of students achieving advanced or proficient level performance on NAEP was 75% of the whole compared to only 34% of the average US classroom. The average in A2i classrooms was reading at a fifth grade level.  And these A2i classrooms had, on average, 50% of their students receiving free or reduced lunch, a marker for poverty.

The historical failure to achieve the literacy results being targeted by A2i is associated with increased referral to special education, grade retention, increased high school dropout rates, and juvenile delinquency. Each of these suboptimal results carries their own attendant costs of failure. As part of A2i’s innovative marketing plan, we collect base-line data from customer school districts on costs of remediation and track how they are affected as outcomes improve. Since A2i can deliver significantly higher student outcomes, we are able to reduce the cost of intervention and remediation as well as improve a community’s overall economic strength.

Entrepreneurial Team:  Joseph A. Connor, JD/MBA, Founder/CEO Learning Ovations, Inc. Mr. Connor has held senior management, sales, marketing and operations position is two Fortune 100 companies. He has both started and strategically re-launched successful ventures in all three sectors - generating over a $billion dollars in incremental revenue. Steve H. Burchett, BS Finance, Chief Operating Officer, Learning Ovations, Inc. Mr. Burchett has 30+ years of Information Services experience. His specific roles have included in depth experience in business strategy and operations for venture capital start-up organizations. Carol McDonald Connor, Ph.D., Chief Research Officer, Learning Ovations, Inc.  Arizona State University, Professor, Developmental Psychology and Senior Learning Scientist in the Learning Sciences Institute. Dr. Connor led the development of A2i software. She brings expertise in the areas of complex modeling including dynamic forecasting intervention models, quantitative and qualitative research methods, and statistics, including hierarchical linear modeling. She also brings expertise to developing and testing instruction, intervention and curriculum development, software development, professional development, and assessment.  Elliot Amiel, MBA, Chief Financial Officer, Learning Ovations, Inc.  Elizabeth Coyne Crowe, PhD Elementary Education, Director of Professional Development, Learning Ovations, Inc. Florida State University.  Associate Florida Center for Reading Research. Dr. Crowe is a former elementary school teacher.  She was an A2i research interventionist, working in classrooms alongside teachers using A2i software, providing training as well as technical assistance. She also led the team designing modules for on-line professional development.

Selected References (all references available upon request): 

Al Otaiba, S., Carol M. Connor, Jessica S. Folsom, L. Greulich, J. Meadows and Z. Li (2011). "Assessment Data–Informed Guidance to Individualize Kindergarten Reading Instruction: Findings from a Cluster-Randomized Control Field Trial." The Elementary School Journal 111(4): 535-560.

Bos, C., N. Mather, R. F. Narr and N. Babur (1999). "Interactive, collaborative professional development in early literacy instruction: Supporting the balancing act." Learning Disabilities Research and Practice 14(4): 227-238.

Chall, J. S. (1967). Learning to read: The great debate. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co.

Connor, C. M. (2011). Child by Instruction interactions: Language and literacy connections. Handbook on early literacy. S. B. Neuman and D. K. Dickinson. New York, Guilford: 256-275.

Connor, C. M. (2012). Intervening to support reading comprehension development with diverse learners. Unraveling the Behavioral, Neurobiological and  Genetic Components of Reading Comprehension: The Dyslexia Foundation and NICHD. B. Miller and L. E. Cutting. Estonia: in press.

Connor, C. M., B. Fishman, E. Crowe, P. Underwood, C. Schatschneider and F. J. Morrison (in press). Third grade teachers' use of Assessment to Instruction (A2i) software and students' reading comprehension gains. In press, Technology for literacy achievements for children at risk. O. Korat and A. Shamir. NY, Springer.

Connor, C. M., S. R. Goldman and B. Fishman (in press). Reading and writing technology. Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology. M. Spector, D. Merrill and M. J. Bishop, Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

Connor, C. M. and F. J. Morrison (2012). Knowledge Acquisition in the Classroom: Literacy and Content Area Knowledge Knowledge Development in Early Childhood: How Young Children Build Knowledge and Why It Matters. A. M. Pinkham, T. Kaefer and S. B. Neuman. New York, Guilford Press in press: 220-241.

Connor, C. M., F. J. Morrison, B. Fishman, E. C. Crowe, S. Al Otaiba and C. Schatschneider (in press). "A Longitudinal Cluster-Randomized Control Study on the Accumulating Effects of Individualized Literacy Instruction on Students’ Reading from 1st through 3rd Grade." Psychological Science.

Connor, C. M., F. J. Morrison, B. Fishman, S. Giuliani, M. Luck, P. Underwood, A. Bayraktar, E. C. Crowe and C. Schatschneider (2011). "Classroom instruction, child X instruction interactions and the impact of differentiating student instruction on third graders' reading comprehension." Reading Research Quarterly 46(3): 189-221.

Connor, C. M., F. J. Morrison, B. Fishman, C. C. Ponitz, S. Glasney, P. Underwood, S. Piasta, E. Crowe and C. Schatschneider (2009). "The ISI classroom observation system: Examining the literacy instruction provided to individual students." Educational Researcher 38(2): 85-99.

Connor, C. M., F. J. Morrison, B. Fishman and C. Schatschneider (in press). Assessment and instruction connections: The implications of child X instruction Interactions effects on student learning. Assessing Reading in the 21st Century: Aligning and Applying Advances in the Reading and Measurement Sciences. J. Sabatini and E. R. Albro. Lanham, MD, R& L Education.

Connor, C. M., F. J. Morrison, B. J. Fishman, C. Schatschneider and P. Underwood (2007). "THE EARLY YEARS: Algorithm-guided individualized reading instruction." Science 315(5811): 464-465.

Connor, C. M., F. J. Morrison and E. L. Katch (2004). "Beyond the reading wars: The effect of classroom instruction by child interactions on early reading." Scientific Studies of Reading 8(4): 305-336.

Connor, C. M., F. J. Morrison, C. Schatschneider, J. Toste, E. G. Lundblom, E. Crowe and B. Fishman (2011). "Effective classroom instruction: Implications of child characteristic by instruction interactions on first graders' word reading achievement." Journal for Research on Educational Effectiveness 4(3): 173-207.

Connor, C. M., S. B. Piasta, B. Fishman, S. Glasney, C. Schatschneider, E. Crowe, P. Underwood and F. J. Morrison (2009). "Individualizing student instruction precisely: Effects of child by instruction interactions on first graders’ literacy development." Child Development 80(1): 77-100.

Connor, J. A. and S. Kadel-Taras (2002). Community visions, community solutions: A systems approach to problem-solving. St. Paul, MN, Wilder.