Thursday, August 5, 2010

The most successful gurus you never heard of.

Ruby Payne. Robert Marzano. Richard duFour. Douglas ReevesHarry and Rosemary Wong. If you haven’t heard these names, you are not a teacher or a principal. You probably aren’t a school board member. But you might be an education journalist.

School districts spend millions on consultants like these, who specialize in everything from formative assessment to understanding poor kids to how to greet your students on the first day of class. Some educators find their speeches and books and numerous other products inspiring and helpful; some think they are wastes of time and money. So much journalistic focus right now is on funds the U.S. Department of Education is giving out, but if you want to follow dollars, you should look, too, at the money your school districts pour into educational consultants and related professional development, and how—if!—officials determine whether it’s worth it.

8 comments:

  1. curious as to your reaction to Ruby Payne. What I have read is that she does a very good job of selling herself but really does not having anything of real value to offer.

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  2. Linda's right about this - great point. If anyone's a non-believer, or doesn't recognize the scope and scale of the high-priced ed consultant game, subscribe to ed newsletters. ASCD, District Administration, etc. - you'll see worship-features on them all. Today's ASCD newsletter had a section on Marzano, for example.

    Some do great work (duFour's contributions are valuable, IMO) - and others don't (I won't point a finger here). Either way, there's a great deal of money, as Linda reminds us, both in front of and behind ed consultants, and it's worth following.

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  3. Our school experience with the Ruby Payne philosophy is VERY RELAVANT!! It most definitely applies to our students' SES. I'm more than a firm believer, my school is FULL of FIRM EXPERIENCERS!

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  4. This suggestion is dead on. Like Matthew Tabor, I think school districts waste an enormous amount of money on some charlatans (including at least one on the list above), and this is an area where reporters can do enormous service to the public.

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  5. Here in San Francisco, while our district was deep in financial crisis (as are all public school districts in California), our Board of Ed two years ago approved a $3 million contract with a professional development consultant called the National Urban Alliance. (The good news is that the money was only paid if individual schools chose to use them, and very few did.) NUA had no track record of note, expect a track record of impressing one high-level SFUSD administrator who pushed hard for the contract. (We need more school board members who are willing to be viewed as tough rather than nice.)

    It's hard to imagine that reporters elsewhere are LOOKING for stories. Our education press here is spread too thin to do more than glancing coverage, quite often -- and with the news holes very thin as well, there's no room for much anyway. Our local education reporters have to pick and choose what they can cover, but they're certainly not in need of stories!

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  6. There is so much TAX-PAYER money wasted in government education it is ridulous!! If government schools had to earn every dime of revenue today they are given I believe the end result would be much better and those who run it much more qualified to do so...this is other people's money educators!! Spend it like it were your own!

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  7. Another component to the story is where the money is coming from and why the districts are bringing trainers in. Districts not making AYP must spend 10% of their Title $ on professional development. That is north of a million in our district. Other sources also require PD expenditures, which avoid the funding cliff. This results in districts that are training $ rich and operational funding poor.

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  8. Another place to look is America's Choice/ACT. These folks are incredible marketers and have sold their services and products to superintendents across the country. have a range of products that promise all kind of results that are very enticing. What isn't written about is that these are multimillion dollar contracts with places like Oklahoma City spending $3 million and more just for America's Choice.

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