(When I have insomnia, I blog. And this seemed like as good a time as any to, as Christian suggests, put my philosophical cards on the table.)

This list could easily have ten times as long. I believe a lot of things about education, it seems. The ones that are here tonight are foremost in my mind these days. With that…

This I believe:

1. I believe that, in the end, if we were serious about reforming education in this country, we would start with three simple (but expensive) premises:
   1. No classes over 20 in K-8. No classes over 25 in 9-12.
   2. No schools over 600.
   3. Pay teachers a living wage.
2. I believe that we have the ability to make this happen in this country, but not the political will, and I believe .
3. I believe that if other professionals had to be "on" as much as we expect high school teachers to be, they’d all riot and demand a lot more money.
4. I believe that progressive education works for any number of reasons, but primarily because it dares all stakeholders to care about the work that they do every day. Teachers, students and administrators all can take ownership in the work they do. And I believe that when they do, really powerful stuff happens.
5. I believe that the average urban teaching contract makes this kind of teaching far harder than it has to be. And I believe that class size and teaching load are the two biggest impediments — even bigger than salaries.
6. I believe that, in spite of that, we must find a way to build more progressive institutions in our cities. And I believe we can. But I also believe that we will need reforms beyond the school-based level if we want the movement to be sustainable in the long term.
7. I believe that teaching is a calling, but I believe our system too often takes advantage of those who believe that.
8. I believe that for us to be able to change our students’ lives, we have to allow them to change our lives as well.
9. I believe that the first and most powerful rule in teaching is: Care. Care. Care. Care. Care. And when you don’t know what else to do, care more.
10. I believe in my students. I believe in their ability. I believe in their creativity. I believe in their intelligence. I believe in their dedication to the things they believe in. I believe in their energy. I believe in their innocence, even when they try to act more worldly than they are. I believe in their insight. I believe in their ability to overcome obstacles in their lives that would make many of us want to give up. I believe in them.

20. The author most closely associated with the theory of clinical supervision is
A Fielder
B Cogan
C Flanders
D Berliner
E Getzels

22. A trend that will probably affect public education is that
A parents will place a greater emphasis on literacy due to multinational competition
B a larger percentage of the school-age population will be made up of minority children
C education is becoming a federal responsibility
D there will be greater choice between public and private schools.
E economic restructuring will force more women back into education

These are two sample questions out of the Arco Preparation for the Praxis II Exam. Why do I know that? Because I have to take the test in a week and a half, and this 140 question multiple choice test means more — according to the state of Pennsylvania — than my experience, my ideas or my graduate coursework — and it also means more than the opinions of the people in the School District of Philadelphia who saw fit to hire me to run SLA.

And these are the kinds of questions I’ll face. I sat there doing the sample questions, and every reason I hate these tests for our students came flooding to the forefront of my mind. To the first question, I read a fair amount of education theory, and yet those names didn’t ring any bells. Does this matter? Is it more important to know an author’s name or is it more important that I understand the concept of clinical supervision as one tool for working with teachers? Apparently, it’s about regurgitating the name. (The answer is, apparently, B. Knowing that, of course, did nothing to make me a better administrator.)

To the second question, I’d argue that NCLB and the federalization of the standards movement will "probably" affect public education pretty profoundly, and yet, according to the book, B is the better answer. To those of us teaching in the cities with our majority minority populations, that doesn’t really affect us nearly as much as NCLB does, and had they asked me to write about one of those topics, I would have happily taken it on… but no, filling in the bubble sheet by reading the mind of a test-writer is a much better way to certify our administrators.

And why is all this important? Because in today’s New York Times, Michael Winerip writes that FairTest, the test industry watchdog organization, is in serious financial distress.

This is bad news for all of us who worry about the increasing corporate influence in education, who worry about the test-makers becoming the curriculum writers, who worry about the damage that high-stakes tests are doing to our schools and our students.

The article is a must-read, and anyone who questions the need to have a watchdog organization to make sure that the test-makers don’t overstate their influence need only read the comments of the testmakers:

Kurt Landgraf, the president of the testing service, which administers the SAT, wrote in an e-mail message: "Perhaps if they had been more attuned to the public’s support for using tests to help teachers teach and students learn, then they might have had wider support."

To that I make this pledge: I pledge my support to FairTest with a donation that matches the amount of money I have spent on the Praxis Exam and all the test-prep books I have bought to figure out how to pass this crazy test.

If ETS gave away as much information as FairTest does, do you think they’d have the money to pay their CEO over $1,000,000 a year?

Support FairTest today — fight for our rights as citizens to still have a say in the way we educate our children. (And our adults too…)

Shirley Grover, principal of the School of the Future, refers to herself as the "Chief Learner" of the school, and as I progress through this year in my own development and as I talk to prospective teachers for SLA, I’m realizing what a powerful notion that is. Much of blogging, for me, is reflective practice of thinking out loud about what I’m learning. And of course, since blogging tends to go hand-in-hand with reading blogs, I learn a ton from the people I read.

I just took the on-line test that goes with Now Discover Your Strengths and three of my top five strengths all dealt with learning. (My five, for the record, were "Strategic, Input, Learning, Ideation and Woo.") And it’s funny, because I don’t really think of myself as a student — really more of an activist than an academic — but it’s true that I love ideas. And I love figuring out what I can learn from other people. I think it was what made me an effective teacher — the kids really did feel that I enjoyed learning from them, and sharing the stuff I was constantly learning.

And as I talk to teachers who are applying for these founding positions, I find myself really being drawn into the conversations that center around how these professionals learn. Who do they read… what is their process… and how does they think that process will affect their students… their colleagues… the school?

I think if we have a building full of people, students and teachers, who can’t wait to share what they are learning, we’ll be well on the way to success.