Education Director explains reform approach

IOWA CITY - A philosophy of comparing Iowa's education system to other systems both at home and abroad is at the heart of Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass's approach to reforming Iowa schools.

Glass offered some insights into his how he helped develop Governor Terry Branstad's "One Unshakable Vision" blueprint for changing Iowa's schools during a keynote speech at the University of Iowa College of Education on Friday.

Glass said he felt there were both benefits and dangers in looking to internationally high-performing school systems for inspiration to create "world-class" schools.

"A caveat to the comparative process is that the place you're comparing with may not have the same structure as you, but I argue it makes sense to look at both systems and compare structures," he said.

He repeated several times during the speech that education reform should not be seen as a political view, and described himself as an "extreme moderate."

Much of the keynote was spent reviewing a study by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company as to what international school systems do to move between the categories of poor, fair, good, great and excellent.

He pointed out conditions in Brazilian schools as an example of a country that moved from poor to fair by focusing on literacy and math and scripting instruction for teachers. He added that these would not be good things to adopt in Iowa, as he felt Iowa schools ranked somewhere in between good and great.

Glass referenced the difficult poverty conditions in Brazil, which he witnessed first-hand during a recent trip to the South American country sponsored by the Pearson Foundation, an arm of education company Pearson. Glass took note of the controversy surrounding that trip, calling it "highly publicized."

Following the keynote speech, a panel of University of Iowa education professors weighed in on the reform blueprint and answered questions from the audience.

Several professors spoke of the need for additional education research to back reforms, while Nick Colangelo, director of the Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, criticized the 3rd grade reading retention exam included in the blueprint.

"I think it's important that you can identify kids in 3rd grade who need extra help," said Colangelo. "But we should also learn something from No Child Left Behind and that is you cannot build a program on punishment."

The only aspect of the blueprint that is truly transformational was the call to explore competency-based learning, said Ron Fielder, a clinical professor and former director of the Grant Wood Area Education Agency. Competency-based learning describes learning systems that allow students to advance to new subjects and grades after demonstrating competency in a subject, as opposed to when they finish a semester.

"In the 20th century, student achievement was the variable and time was the constant," said Fielder. "Time should be variable and achievement the constant."