Institutional Bias,
Power-Based Decisions, and Ineffective Practices?
Dear
Colleagues,
Is Institutional Bias Driving the U.S.
Department of Education?
Friday, July 10,
6:14 AM
I rolled over in bed this morning and began
to think about my 9:00 AM conference call with officials from the U.S.
Department of Education (USDoE).
Even though I had only slept about 5 hours,
my mind started racing with thoughts about the call, and I realized there was
no way I was going to fall back asleep.
My conference call is with Angela Arrington,
the Deputy Privacy Office at the USDoE who oversees Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) requests from the public. Also scheduled on the call are Gregory
Campbell who is an FOIA Coordinator in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education,
Nicole White, a Competition Manager in the Office of Safe and Supportive
Schools, and Kelly Patrick, who works in the same office as Nicole.
At its core, the essence of the call is the five-year
USDoE School Climate Transformation Grant that was awarded to 69 school
districts or collaboratives on October 1, 2019.
The specific purpose for the call is to
clarify an FOIA request that I submitted to the USDoE about four months ago to
get information that may validate the existence of a potential conflict of
interest within the Department. Indeed, I believe this conflict has existed within
the USDoE (and, especially, its Office of Special Education Programs— OSEP) for
at least 20 years. While it has shifted to the Office of Safe and Supportive Schools,
the conflict remains the same.
The conflict of interest concerns the
funding and singular advocacy and promotion by the USDoE, OSEP, and now Safe
and Supportive Schools of the National Technical Assistance Center for Positive
Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and its PBIS framework...
. . . and, through
that promotion and framework, the ineffective social, emotional, and behavioral
practices for students across the country for at least the past 20 years—especially,
students of color and with disabilities.
_ _ _ _ _
But as my mind was racing, before I got out
of bed this morning and ran to begin drafting this Blog message on my computer,
I began to integrate two previously-disparate thoughts.
First, I thought of a communiqué, 2020 Determination Letters on State
Implementation of IDEA, published on June 25, 2020 by OSEP that announced
that (a) fewer than half of the states in our country are in compliance
with federal special education law (the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act—IDEA), and (b) just 21 states “met” these requirements for the 2018-2019
school year.
Parenthetically, as a former Director of an
OSEP grant for 13 years with the Arkansas Department of Education, I can tell
you that one critical area where most states are out of compliance with IDEA involves
the disproportionate discipline referrals and suspensions of students of
color and with disabilities.
The second thing that I thought about was
the whole area of disproportionality, inequity, and the institutional racism
that has existed for 400 years in this country—racism that contributed to the recent
deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and too many others.
Here, I began to wonder whether there is implicit
racial bias within the USDoE, and if this bias is influencing some of its
policies, practices, and decisions. . . and actually contributing to the poor
special education (and other educational) results in our states and schools.
_ _ _ _ _
I have written
about issues of educational inequity and disproportionality in many previous
Blog messages. Rather than lose the main thesis of today’s discussion, please feel
free to read the most recent Blogs validating these important concerns in our schools
today.
[CLICK
HERE to see:
April 11, 2020. The Pandemic Unearths the Raw Reality of
Educational Inequity and Disparity: COVID-19 Forces Us to Realize We Need to Change the Village]
November 23, 2019. Maybe It’s the (Lack of)
Money that Explains the Relationship Between Black-White Achievement Gaps and
Disproportionate Disciplinary Suspensions?]
_ _ _ _ _
Both of the
thoughts above converged as I prepared for my USDoE conference call, and I also
wondered:
- Why has disproportionality, racism, equity, and student achievement (especially for students of color, English Second Language students, and students with disabilities) not significantly improved in education when. . .
- The National PBIS TA Center has especially focused on improving cultural competence, equitable practices, and school discipline and behavior management expertise in our nation’s schools since its funding by the USDoE (through OSEP) from 1997 to the present?
Knowing many of the
dominant OSEP and National PBIS TA Center “players” since 1997, I then wondered
(with all due respect to my colleagues):
- If their implicit biases, and their willingness to embrace a scientifically-flawed framework that has not produced consistent, widespread, and sustained results for students, staff, and schools (for over 20 years) are contributing to the lack of student, school, and state progress in their funded areas of focus.
Said a different
way:
- Maybe USDoE staff are as responsible (as the states and districts) for the poor results reflected in the 2020 Determination Letters on State Implementation of IDEA Report. . .
. . . because of the stubborn
promotion of their own flawed PBIS and other (e.g., MTSS) frameworks. . .
Frameworks that many researchers
and practitioners have expressed concerns about for many years?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Why People Stick to their Beliefs, No Matter What
Critically, two of
the psychological processes that best explain the hypothesized phenomenon above
are: Cognitive Immunization and Confirmation Bias.
A March 28, 2016 Psychology
Today article, “5 Reasons Why People Stick to their Beliefs, No Matter
What,” stated that Cognitive Immunization “helps to explain why some
beliefs become even stronger when challenged. They also help to explain how we
cannot let go of some beliefs in the face of overwhelming contradictory
evidence.”
The article
continues, “In fact, one characteristic of strong and resilient beliefs is
their internal logic and structure, even when they defy logical verification as
a whole. As a result, believers come to arguments well-prepared, having become
adept at using their Confirmation—the natural
inclination to avoid any information that contradicts a strongly held belief,
while seeking out information that strengthens it.
The article goes on
to describe five research-based, psychologically-driven ways that people
maintain and defend their beliefs even in the face of objective data.
_ _ _ _ _
Back to the FOIA Conference Call
One of the reasons
why I filed the FOIA request with the USDoE was because of its continuing
practice of requiring districts awarded specific federal grants (funded by your
tax dollars) to use the personnel from or affiliated with the National PBIS TA
Center.
This has most
recently occurred with the last two five-year School Climate Transformation
Grants (first from 2014 to 2019, and now with the second set of awardees starting
this past October, 2019).
The USDoE’s website describes the School
Climate Transformation Grant as follows:
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The School Climate Transformation Grant—Local
Educational Agency Program provides competitive grants to local educational
agencies (LEAs) to develop, enhance, or expand systems of support for, and
technical assistance to, schools implementing an evidence-based multi-tiered
behavioral framework for improving behavioral outcomes and learning conditions
for all students.
TYPES OF PROJECTS
Projects should: (1) build capacity for implementing a
sustained, school-wide multi-tiered behavioral framework; (2) enhance capacity
by providing training and technical assistance to schools; and (3) include an
assurance that the applicant will work with a technical assistance provider, such
as the PBIS Technical Assistance Center funded by the Department, to ensure
that technical assistance related to implementing program activities is
provided.
While the USDoE emphasize that the words
“such as” in the bolded sentence above “prove” that any viable PBIS-savvy
technical assistance provider can be used by any grantee, their actual actions
speak louder than their politically-correct assurances.
Indeed:
- For the entirety of the first 2014 School Climate Transformation Grant, districts/SEAs awarded the grant were required to send representatives every year to the National PBIS TA Center’s October national conference.
For five years at this conference, not a single presenter who did not
support and reflect the TA Center’s PBIS framework were invited to present at
this Conference.
- At the first Grant Directors’ Conference for the newly awarded 2019 School Climate Transformation Grants—held in Washington, DC earlier this year on January 27-28, 2020—grantees were made to listen to an entire day of USDoE-funded National PBIS TA Center and National SEL TA Center directors or affiliates who discussed only their Centers’ PBIS and SEL frameworks and the specific consultants (with e-mails included) who were available to provide (“free”) technical assistance services.
Significantly, a number of grantees complained about the wasted time
devoted to these “info-mercials,” and some felt pressured to change the
directions of their already-approved and funded School Climate Grants to (a) conform
to the TA Centers’ frameworks, and (b) use their consultants.
For a comprehensive past and present
description of the USDoE’s singular advocacy and promotion of its National TA
Center’s PBIS framework, read the February 15, 2020 Blog article:
“Did a Misguided U.S. Department of Education E-mail “Confirm” Its Improper
Favoritism of the PBIS Behavioral Framework? Using the School Climate
Transformation Grant to Misrepresent, Re-Brand, and Strong-Arm Educators toward
Only “Department-Approved” PBIS Consultants.”
_ _ _ _ _
Briefly connecting the dots
between the USDoE’s actions and the Psychology Today article (both above),
I would like to suggest that USDoE staff may be psychologically “sticking to
their PBIS beliefs” (no matter what) by:
· Isolating themselves from people who hold outside
beliefs in order to shield their ideas from even the possibility of contrary
voices and arguments.
· Trying to reduce direct exposure to other beliefs and
ideas that might challenge our own.
· Connecting their beliefs to powerful emotions. For
example, deliberately scaring grantees with losing their funds (see the
February 15th Blog) in order to shape their behaviors and steer them away from alternative
PBIS approaches.
· Associating with (creating) like-minded groups that
work together to undermine rival beliefs and the groups proposing them. Remember
the article’s point that: Academics have made this into a fine art under the
rubric of the scientific method by highlighting the weaknesses in theoretical
adversaries’ arguments while ignoring their strengths.
·
Immunizing their
beliefs through repetition—in fact, over 20 years of repetition.
But in executing
these belief-defending actions, the USDoE staff involved are also denying
millions of students and staff, and thousands of schools the information that
may improve their science-to-practice approaches, and their school discipline,
classroom management, and student self-management outcomes.
Critically, this
especially involves millions of students of color, ELL students, students
living in poverty, and students with disabilities.
And if the thesis
of this Blog is accurate—even in small part—the USDoE’s “implicit bias toward
practice” may inadvertently be exacerbating the implicit bias of racism in our
schools.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The Misuse of
Political Power in Education
Back to the FOIA Conference Call
Another reason for
my FOIA request to the USDoE was to hopefully get to the bottom of a situation
that I described in the February 15th Blog (please read that Blog for the
entire description—including quotes from relevant e-mails between me and USDoE
staff).
Here is a brief
summary of the situation:
After I heard about the presentations at the
January School Climate Transformation Grant Directors’ meeting in Washington,
DC (note that I am the Outside PBIS Consultant on three of the 69 grants
awarded), I decided to get clarification on what actually occurred.
Hence, I e-mailed Carlette KyserPegram, the
U.S. Department of Education’s Program Manager for the School Climate
Transformation Grant in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education’s
Office of Safe and Supportive Schools. I
also copied Ms. KyserPegram’s supervisors in her office, as well as Frank
Brogan, the Assistant Secretary in charge of the Office of Elementary and
Secondary Education.
After a series of e-mails, the last one (on
February 13, 2020) from Ms. KyserPegram stated:
Good Afternoon Dr. Knoff:
Attached please find the slides that you
requested.
As indicated in the attached slides, the PBIS TA
center is a U.S. Department of Education grantee whose purpose is, among other
things, to assist SEAs and LEAs that received or will receive School Climate
Transformation Grants (SCTGs) with developing and implementing PBIS frameworks
that are designed to keep students engaged in instruction and improve academic
outcomes.
The PBIS TA center does not advocate for, fund or
support the implementation of any singular approach to PBIS, and the
Department does not endorse any particular product or model of PBIS. As
the Department funds the PBIS TA Center to provide no-cost technical assistance
to SCTG grantees, the presentation (at the January Directors’ meeting) gave
SCTG participants information about the Center’s resources and services
available to them. However, SCTG grantees are free to use consultants of their
choosing in addition to, or instead of, the services of the PBIS TA
Center, and this is what we communicate to grantees. As I said in my
earlier email, at no time during the meeting were grantees told they could not
use consultants outside of those affiliated with the PBIS TA Center.
C. KyserPegram
[ NOTE: This
is Ms. KyserPegram’s entire, unedited response. ]
_ _ _ _ _
While the last
statement in this e-mail was not the perception of many of the grant
awardees at the meeting, with this sanitized, politically-correct, “we-follow-all-of-the-rules”
response, I figured my communications with Ms. KyserPegram were done.
BUT. . . what
happened next completely shocked me !!!
_ _ _ _ _
At 3:43 PM on the
same day—less than two hours after receiving Ms. KyserPegram’s response,
I received the following unexpected and incorrectly routed e-mail from Rita
Foy-Moss who is a Program Officer in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office
of Safe and Healthy Schools.
Sending the e-mail
to Carlette KyserPegram, and copying it to Nicole White, Ms. Foy-Moss’ e-mail
simply said:
“Good show!
Thank you.
Rita”
Seven minutes
later, at 3:50 PM, Ms. Foy-Moss e-mailed me again, saying:
“Foy Moss, Rita
would like to recall the message “SCTG and the U.S. DoE’s Singular Promotion of
the PBIS TA Center and Staff”—the title of the first-sent e-mail.
_ _ _ _ _
Analysis
Clearly, Ms.
Foy-Moss mistakenly included me on the first e-mail above.
Just as clearly,
she was positively reinforcing her colleague, Ms. KyserPegram for the e-mail
that she sent to me earlier that day (quoted above).
But what exactly
was she reinforcing???
To be fair, I have
generated some hypotheses that might explain Ms. Foy-Moss’ cryptic message
reinforcing Ms. KyserPegram’s original e-mail to me . . .
Ultimately,
whatever Ms. Foy-Moss intended, she must have been concerned (horrified???)
enough about her e-mail “getting into the wrong hands” to have sent me a
retraction within seven minutes.
_ _ _ _ _
Back to the FOIA Conference Call
Ms. Foy-Moss’
e-mail is what prompted my FOIA request.
In essence, I
wondered if her e-mail represented a “smoking gun” that would uncover other USDoE
memos or e-mails (acquired through the FOIA request) that would prove that the
USDoE was not engaged in just Cognitive Immunization, Confirmation Bias, or
Implicit Bias, but pure power politics.
And if you
believe that something like this would never occur in a federal agency like the
USDoE, please know that the USDoE’s Office of the Inspector General proved (in
2006) that (from 2002 through 2006) USDoE staff planned, manipulated, and
changed multiple state department of education Reading First grants to
ensure that the nationally-proven Success for All Reading Program (and
others) would never receive federal funding.
The Reading
First program involved over $6 billion dollars that went primarily
to high-poverty Title I schools to improve elementary students’ reading skills.
And the USDoE staff involved were the actual federal grant program directors
overseeing the program.
In fact, because of
the identified USDoE staffs’ malfeasance, thousands of students nationwide were
denied one of the most effective reading programs in our country’s arsenal.
Moreover, Congress eventually
de-funded the Program (for Fiscal Year 2009), in essence, to punish the USDoE,
and because the integrity of the USDoE’s continued oversight of the program
could not be assured.
Critically, the Inspector
General’s investigation started when Dr. Robert Slavin, the Program’s creator,
filed an FOIA request with the USDoE that uncovered incriminating staff e-mails
that demonstrated the bias against his Success for All Program.
[CLICK
HERE to see the U.S. Department of Education’s Inspector General’s
September 2006 Report on the Reading First debacle]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary: Effective
and Ineffective Practice
Friday, July 10,
11:11 AM
The FOIA conference call is over, but I have
no news to report.
It was a cordial, respectful, and
professional call, and I believe that all of the USDoE staff on the call are
dedicated to our nation’s students and schools, and to the mission of
maximizing their academic and social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes.
But we will need to wait and see if the call
was truly productive.
On the call, I provided much of the same
history that I have shared (above) with you. But at the beginning of the call,
I suggested a resolution that would encourage me to withdraw the FOIA request,
and the precious staff time needed to complete it.
The
core of my proposal was that the USDoE would agree to actively involve me in
the relevant planning and evaluation sessions that would guide the functional
implementation of the School Climate Transformation Grant for the next
four-plus years.
This would ensure that multiple “PBIS expert
voices” would “be at the planning table” so that the districts and schools
involved in the Grant Program would have the benefit of different, proven ways
to positively impact school climate and student behavior.
Included in this proposal also would be a USDoE agreement to involve me
and other PBIS national experts—not affiliated with the National PBIS TA
Center—as presenters and mentors at the required School Climate
Transformation Grant Directors’ Annual Conferences.
The USDoE leaders on the call agreed that
they would bring my proposals to the Department’s Leadership Group.
We will see what happens. . .
_ _ _ _ _
My friends, please understand that my FOIA
request and the proposals above are all about initiating, maintaining, and
sustaining a systemic change of a social, organizational, and institutionalized
culture within the USDoE (and across many state departments of education in
this country) that has allowed a flawed framework to be promoted for too long.
This culture has not occurred because of who
is in power (i.e., the political party of the current President), but
because of who is implementing the power (i.e., USDoE staff, some of
whom have worked in the Department for up to four different Presidents—two
Republican and two Democrat).
While the change may begin with confrontation,
it will ultimately succeed with collaboration.
And the process toward success will not
be pretty or linear, perfect or universal. Moreover, it will involve
hard work and courage, compromise and dedication.
While this PBIS and SEL School Climate Grant
issue pales against the depth and breadth of the implicit, explicit, and
historical issues of bias, prejudice, and racism embedded in the Black Lives
Matter movement, I believe that the two overlap.
Simplistically, they overlap because we need
to systemically change the social, organizational, and institutionalized
culture of racism that has occurred over the past 400 years. And part of this
change must occur with changes in how we fund, successfully educate, and
support Black and other students of color, ELL students, students with
disabilities, and students from poverty.
The PBIS framework has had over 20 years and
millions of dollars of federal and state funds to demonstrate its ability to be
part of this change process. It is now time to listen to some “new” voices.
It also is time for some to (a) look in the
mirror, (b) confront the reasons why—motivated by psychology, politics, or
power—they are “sticking to their beliefs” (no matter what), (c) admit and
apologize for their past behavior and decisions, and (d) re-focus and
re-dedicate themselves to the children and adolescents in our schools and
communities nationwide.
Best,
Howie
