By Travis

The school of the future will not be housed on a cloud, or a floating pod. The school of the future will not have whole sides of buildings made out of windows, nor will students sit, discussing great works of literature through their hand-held discussion devices.

No, the school of the future is more real.

It IS attainable.

It IS possible.

The school if the future will have No Tardies, No Failing Students, and No Homework. The school of the future is only a few years away. 

By Travis

It's final’s week. Students have worked hard all semester and we are deep into final exams. There is a silence that has fallen over the school like late winter snow.

I hear the clickty clack, tippity tap of words being created, one letter at a time, as my students demonstrate their understanding of literature elements. It is a pleasant sound. Meditative.

Between exams, the sounds are less than peaceful. All I hear are swear words and derogatory remarks in the hall. Not PG-13 swearing, stuff that parents would laugh off. I’m talking the 7 Dirty Words, and then some. I am unsure why there has been a spike in swearing, but it is #!$*@ annoying.

Each spring the uncertainties of student enrollment, teacher transfers or retirement, and funding make budgetary predictions difficult.

To remain financially sound some districts send out pink slips to the newest teachers. In no way is this ideal. These teachers face uncertainty about their employment future. Some of the district’s best teachers, who happen to be new hires, may not have their contracts renewed.

New legislation, yet to be introduced, may change how districts respond to RIFs. Instead of RIFs base on level of experience they may be based on a teacher’s evaluation relative to other teachers.

This bill, I assume, is in response to schools being unable to retain effective teachers when they are forced to lay off staff.

In 2009-2010, 3% of Washington’s teachers were given RIF notices. 87% of those teachers were recalled. Evidence does not suggest that the best and brightest young teachers are losing out to ineffective veterans.

Still, this idea is compelling. Shouldn’t the best teachers be the last ones to be laid off? Yes. If only it were that simple.

Distinguishing between the best and the worst teacher in a school may not be that difficult. But it is much more difficult to distinguish between the second and the third worst (one may keep their job while the other may not).

New evaluation systems are expected to have different criteria for novice and experienced teachers. Is a good novice teacher more effective than an average experienced teacher? Who wins in this RIF race a teacher with five years of solid student growth and one recent year of poor growth or the second year teacher with two years of average growth?

What are the recall rights for a RIFed teacher?

When the art program is cut can somebody determine the relative effectiveness between a high school and elementary art teacher?

The idea, keeping the best, is elegant. Implementing this idea? Not so much. Since relatively few new teachers actually lose positions this law is unlikely to result in an improved teaching force.

I'd like to see lawmakers put their efforts elsewhere. If lawmakers want to address the problems related to RIFs they should fulfill their paramount duty and fully fund education. And they should allow local school districts the time and space to implement the new evaluation criteria. Many stakeholders came together to put this evaluation model in place. Rolling out this system will be challenging. Rolling out this system while simultaneously addressing the complexities of a new model for RIFs seems unwise. But I'm no lawmaker...

By Rob

Some time ago I was struggling to set up procedures during my literacy instruction.  I was attempting to meet with a guided reading group while the reminder of my class was engaged independently in a meaningful activity.  For some students the “independent” activity was a too challenging and they needed support.  For other students it was too easy and they were finishing early.  Other students had difficulty remaining on task and caused disruptions.  These are the challenges of a novice teacher.

All things considered I was doing pretty well but I knew it could be done better.  But I wasn’t sure how.  I was building the boat as I was crossing the ocean.

I spoke with some other teachers and we shared the same struggles.  After I confided in my principal I found this “struggle” reflected in my evaluation.  Prior to that evaluators found little to criticize.  I regretted opening up my practice.

 By Travis

The message is clear. Very clear.

On the surface, the message comes across as positive, saying there is an organization out there to help children. I am all for helping children.

However, there is hidden message. An agenda, perhaps? This subtle meaning sends its message to the community even if the community does not consciously read it that way.

By Travis

Principals are near useless. Near…I would not be so mean as to say totally. I know they serve a purpose. But, hey, let’s be honest. How often is your principal in your classroom? If you are lucky, it is twice a year for the district mandated formal observation. Principals do not teach classes so how could a principal possibly understand life in your classroom? They cannot relate. When seen in the big picture, principals do not do much to impact instruction, and as such, are near useless.

However, my principal is not. Lisa teaches.

By Mark

I sat at a table with two other teachers, two building administrators, and the top two admin from the district office. We'd spent the better part of an hour sorting through the assessment rubrics and frameworks associated with the new teacher evaluation system mandated through legislative action in Senate Bill 6696. 

Silence settled on us all at once. The weight of what we were examining suddenly became overwhelming. 

Like so many things in education, the ideas and philosophies behind this new evaluation system (in brief: a shift from the binary satisfactory/unsatisfactory on a menu of teacher behaviors to a four-point continuum of evaluation using as many as sixty individual descriptors of teacher practice) we could all agree were sound, necessary, and powerful both in terms of evaluation and potential professional development.

But as we began to picture how it all could transition from philosophy to action, the beast began to be revealed.

By Mark

For me, mentally, the coming December holiday break marks the "half-way" point in the school year. While this is not necessarily chronologically true, it is certainly emotionally true.

Back when I was a pre-service teacher, I remember seeing a chart like this one that graphs a first-year teacher's motivation and emotion over the calendar year--with November and December being the pit of disillusionment--but don't despair, rejuvenation and hope are just around the corner!

Ten years later, I feel like the chart still applies to me. It is always in November and December that I wander the web to see what other kinds of jobs my credentials and dispositions might match.

By Mark

Senate Bill 6696 has put into motion changes in the way teachers are evaluated.

First... the relevant language of the bill (from the link above):

Evaluations. Each school district must establish performance criteria and an evaluation process for all staff and establish a four-level rating system for evaluating classroom teachers and principals with revised evaluation criteria. Minimum criteria is specified. The new rating system must describe performance on a continuum that indicates the extent the criteria have been met or exceeded. When student growth data (showing a change in student achievement between two points in time) is available for principals and available and relevant to the teacher and subject matter it must be based on multiple measures if referenced in the evaluation.

Classroom Teachers. The revised evaluation criteria must include: centering instruction on high expectations for student achievement; demonstrating effective teaching practices; recognizing individual student learning needs, and developing strategies to address those needs; providing clear and intentional focus on subject matter content and curriculum; fostering and managing a safe, positive learning environment; using multiple student data elements to modify instruction and improve student learning; communicating and collaborating with parents and the school community; and exhibiting collaborative and collegial practices focused on improving instructional practice and student learning. The locally bargained short-form may also be used for certificated support staff or for teachers who have received one of the top two ratings for four years. The short-form evaluations must be specifically linked to one or more of the evaluation criteria.

Here in southwest Washington, ESD 112 is leading a group of districts who are beginning the process of adapting and implementing the evaluation procedures described in this bill. Of course, the first step is a careful reading of relevant parts of SB 6696. 

There are two elements of the language above that I like in particular. To begin, there's this:

By Rob

My school is in the third round of No Child Left Behind sanctions.  Among other procedures these sanctions call for ‘corrective action’ to be taken. 

Arriving at this point wasn’t a surprise.  It’s taken many years to get here.  Our school has been labeled ‘failing’ for a while but only after seeing last year’s test results do I feel like we’ve failed.  No teacher at our school wanted to enter the third round of NCLB sanctions.  Round 2, Schools of Choice, was embarrassing enough. 

There was pressure to improve our school’s test results.  I sensed a change in the tone of my evaluations.  Many new teachers were not hired for year two.  A veteran teacher was removed.  It seemed to me that the pressure was high and morale was low.

Perhaps other teachers felt this pressure more acutely than I.  Last year many of them have transferred elsewhere.  Of 23 classroom teachers 11 are novice (in their first or second year).  In my tenth year teaching I’m the second most experienced teacher at our school.

I’ve wondered how we’ve arrived at this unfortunate point.  Each fall we receive our state’s standardized test scores.  Teachers, energized and committed, face the challenge.  We’ve created systems for tracking student progress, providing extra support, engaging families, growing professionally, and improving instruction.  I believe some of these systems have been of great benefit to students.

While I thought these systems were beneficial our data never really showed it.  Here’s what it shows: (click the picture for a clearer view) 

In 2011 our scores dropped 30% to under 40% of students passing the 4^th grade reading MSP.  The year before 71.4% of students passed the 3^rd grade reading MSP.  The test didn’t get harder.  The state average pass rate remained flat.  This isn’t isolated to one grade.  Our 3^rd grade reading pass rate fell 13.1% from the previous year.  Our 5^th grade reading pass rate fell 32.8% from the previous year.

This drop in performance is startling.  So what happened?  Who knows?  I wish I had more answers and fewer questions.

Did the students consistently miss a particular type of reading comprehension question?  That could be addressed with an adjustment to the curriculum.

With a 37% mobility rate could the students who left be the ones who passed in 2010.  Might they have been replaced with students who didn't pass?  How about the families who left because of school choice (a NCLB sanction for schools in step 2 of improvement)?  Did the student population change significantly?  Are we comparing the same students from year to year?

Did students who narrowly passed the MSP in 2010 narrowly miss passing in 2011?  Did a slight drop in performance signify a drastic drop in the percent of students meeting standard?

Did significant numbers of non passing students come from specific classrooms?

Could school community, teacher morale, and the shame & blame policies of NCLB account, at least in part, for a dramatic drop in student performance?

Answers to these questions are important as a school undergoes “corrective action.”  I don’t know if anybody is asking these questions.  I don’t know if answers are available.  But I’d like to know exactly what problem I’m correcting and we all deserve a clearer answer than ‘you didn’t meet adequate yearly progress again.’ 

By Travis

A few weeks ago, Tom had a post that spoke to me, We Can’t Do This Alone. In this post, he states how parent involvement is key to a student’s success, but somehow it seems that the focus becomes teacher quality. The idea of a shared responsibility for a student’s education, struck me as important since it has come up a few times at Stories for School. It came up again. Last week. During my parent conferences.

Each teacher had a table around the perimeter of the gym with two chairs in front for the parents and student. Parents visited any of the teachers with which they wish to have a conversation.

To my left was a senior math teacher. To my right, a sophomore technology teacher. Me … I am a freshman English teacher. I had a variety of conversations that night with parents about family responsibility. I was getting worn out having the same conversation with parents about what they can do to keep their student on track and I started to listen to the conversations on my left and right, it was clear my conversations were not unique. Many families are not ready for how school is done.

By Rob

Great investments have been made to collect and use data.  The role of assessments and use of student data has shifted and it has changed the nature of education.

The standardized test, Washington’s Measurement of Student Progress, is analyzed extensively to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind.  It is used to identify schools as “failing to meet adequate yearly progress.”  It is used to rank-order schools.  New metrics which control for the impact of poverty use this data to compare effectiveness among districts.  This assessment comes at a great cost- financial, time, lost instruction, grading, and tools for analyzing.  The information gained from it could be found with a smaller sample size and at a lower cost.

The Measurement of Academic Progress (MAP) tracks student growth across a school year.  This test is completed by students on a laptop in a separate classroom.  Our technology and curriculum coach devotes weeks to setting up the computers, scheduling, and proctoring each class.  The list of goals compiled for each student is exhausting and includes standards not covered for months or years or, depending on the curriculum, not taught at all.  I am pleased when the assessment result matchs my analysis of the student but often it doesn’t.

I get very little actionable intelligence from the results of my MSP or MAP scores.  But increasingly I have to answer for the results. 

The emphasis on testing extends far beyond MSP and MAP.  Over the course of the school year my students must complete 32 mandated “common assessments” with the score recorded into a database.  How the scores are used I have no idea.  Increasingly these assessments feel more like an audit of my teaching than a tool for improving student learning.

Students also complete regular math and spelling quizzes.  This is an additional 85 assessments.  While these tests tie closely to the content they contribute to the culture of ‘no child left untested.’  My students are expected to demonstrate their proficiency 117 times throughout a 180 day school year.  They are second graders.  In third grade the assessment load will increase.

This certainly wasn’t my experience in elementary school.  It wasn’t even the experience of my students ten years ago.  And this emphasis on testing isn’t preparing my students for adulthood:  The last assessment I took was four years ago.

One form of assessment has been overlooked by policy makers and more attention should be paid.  It is the teacher’s ongoing examination of student progress and understanding.  Teachers use this information to inform their practice and to adjust lesson pacing.  It gives teachers an indication of what to re-teach or where to extend.  It allows teachers to identify struggling students while there is time to arrange extra support.  It requires acute observation and meaningful interactions with students.  This process is at the heart of teaching; it’s where the magic happens.  It happens every day... except when we're testing.

 

By Mark

One of the wheels I reinvent each August is this chart wherein I build the scope and sequence for my courses, identify the timelines as well as major formative and summative assessments, then list which EALRs/GLEs those assessments address so that I can be sure I've fulfilled my obligation. Sounds fun, eh? Yeah, I'm a fun guy.

As I posted recently, the State of Washington is shifting from the old standards for Language Arts (farewell EALRs and GLEs) to the new Common Core standards. Ultimately, I like the wording of these "new" standards better (and for some reason, I can just understand many of them better). There are changes, to be sure, but even within those changes I can easily see ways that "what I already do" could be tweaked a bit to fit that instructional goal.

This post, however, is my attempt to help illuminate the complexity within teaching that these standards illustrate. (I cannot even begin to imagine what this same post from an elementary teacher might look like!)

By Mark

At the end of July, Randy Dorn announced that the state of Washington has adopted and will begin transitioning to application of the Common Core standards for English Language Arts. I head back to my classroom next week to start unpacking and really getting down to work preparing for the school year, but I'm having a problem seeing how this shift in standards should affect my planning and implementation.

And, based on the emails that have filled my spam folder for my school email address, there are an awful lot of businesses looking to cash in on this standards changeover... so many emails in fact, that the persistent cynic in me wonders whether this change to CCSSO Common Core standards isn't more about supporting textbook and software manufacturers than it is about promoting learning. When I see on the changeover explanation that the "system will include...

• optional formative, or benchmark, exams; and
• a variety of tools, processes and practices that teachers may use in planning and implementing informal, ongoing assessment. This will assist teachers in understanding what students are and are not learning on a daily basis so they can adjust instruction accordingly.

...I hear the cha-ching of cash registers and start thinking about all those emails trying to sell me matierals "perfectly aligned with Common Core Standards to guarantee student success on major assessments."

It probably isn't all about lining the pockets of curriculum mills, but when I look at the standards and the timeline that OSPI posted (more on that below), I do wonder really what is going to change... and I don't mean that in a futile, cynical way. I mean it like this: don't these standards just communicate what we should have been doing anyway under the old standards?

By Mark

This video was emailed to me by a colleague...if you have a few minutes and are willing to maintain a sense of humor, it's worth a look:

 

Now, I wouldn't post this if I was just trying to be subversive or funny. In any satire or parody, there is always a kernel of truth (heck, sometimes a whole cob of truth). 

I truly enjoy authentic collaboration. In fact, I believe that my freedom to collaborate is actually what has kept me in education this long--if I were isolated in my own classroom all day with my only human contact being with 14-year-olds (who some contend are not quite yet human beings) I don't think I'd have lasted.

Because I get to collaborate and actually team-teach in my current assignment, I have grown as an educator and my satisfaction in my job has grown as well. There is something powerful about working closely with a like-minded educator or team of educators who share common philosophies, attitudes and dedication to increasing student learning. We challenge each other, support each other, and learn from each other. I am a better teacher because I have collaborated. My students perform better because I have collaborated.

Alas, like so many fads in education, Collaboration has become a four-letter-word to some, and I think it is in no small way due to the kinds of situations parodied in that YouTube video above.

By Mark

November is a notoriously tough time for educators. The honeymoon of the first quarter has faded. Holidays, late starts and homecoming interrupt our best laid plans and the hacks and sneezes of the masses make the classroom sound more like an infirmary.

By now, the first few rounds of big projects and essays have left their treadmarks on my backside, and I've survived the first few rounds of angry parent phone calls and meetings as six- and nine-week grade reports have gone home.

In those gray clouds and cold winds there has to be a silver lining. If there weren't why else would we be in this job? 

A while back on the InterACT blog, Kelly Kovacic offered ninety seconds that summed up her reason for teaching, and it got me thinking about the reasons I teach as well.

I know that the right answer for why I teach does include something about making a difference in the lives of children or having the joy of watching the lightbulbs come on when they finally get it. It's also about the kind words and notes like the profound message Kelly writes about. For me, though, there's yet another dimension to why I teach. I work in a profession where every single day, I get to not only practice my favorite hobby but also help engage others in it as well.

Simply put, I get to think.

I've always loved thinking. I cannot imagine a world without it (though reality television might be a fair representation of such a world), and it boggles my mind that there are people who can ever just sit in silence and not think. I am always doing it. In the car, walking down the hallway, during staff meetings. The wheels are always turning, and my mind is always wrestling with something--sometimes profound, sometimes profoundly mundane. 

To me, teaching is thinking. As I present that lesson, I'm watching their faces--are they getting it? How can I tell? As I circulate during work time, I'm eavesdropping on the group a few desks away--what are they saying when they suspect I'm not listening? What are they learning? How are they thinking?

Sure, I am proud when my students make progress because of something I did or shared. Sure, it is nice to hear through the grapevine nice things that older students tell their younger sibs about how much they learned from me. But those ego strokes aren't enough to keep me coming back. Every day my mind is exercised, stretched, and challenged. I guess that's also called learning, since that exercising, stretching and challenging is exactly what I strive to get my students' minds to do as well.

No, I don't teach because I'm trying to save the world. That's just a happy by-product. I teach because I can imagine no more challenging mental avocation (for my tastes, at least). I teach because every minute of every day it makes me think.

In the pit of November, we all ought to take a moment to remind ourselves why we teach. And it's okay if, like mine, your reasons are as much about you as they are about your students.

No, I'm not kidding. It isn't real. Those people auditioned, were hired, relocated into that gaudy house, and then filmed. The episodes aren't real, either... No, I'm not kidding. Those episodes are edited together based on a storyline the writers create by putting The Situation and his crew into situations where the writers know how they will react. It isn't "real."

It is amazing how much convincing it has taken to prove to my freshmen that the Jersey Shore is not real. These are the same kids who have no problem suspending disbelief long enough to just accept that Peter Parker can climb walls when he wears the right spandex suit but who cannot just accept that the animals on Animal Farm speak English and build a windmill.

These conversations help to illustrate a critical shift which ought to be happening in literacy instruction in American schools: rather than studying literary works, we need to be studying literary processes.

• We need to study the process by which 360 hours of Jersey Shore footage gets edited down to 44 minutes for a one-hour weekly episode.
• More importantly, we need to understand the process of acculturation and normalization which occurs in a viewer when they watch entertainment labeled as reality.
• We need to study the process by which lighting, angle, score and juxtaposition are used by news organizations to communicate a message beyond the news.
• More importantly, we need to study the subtle and not-so-subtle biases which shape the decision-making about what makes air and what doesn't.
• We need to help young readers learn to discern which sources on the internet are valid and which are not, and even what we mean by "valid."

Are these lessons more or less important than Shakespeare or great novels and poetry?

As with the television news, whose producers must pare hours upon hours of worthy news into 20-22 minutes of air time (including sports and weather), when we must choose what literacy lessons to keep and what to cull for our limited amount of instructional time, on what should we base that decision?

 

By Mark

A colleague of mine posed an interesting proposition lately. Like many school districts, mine is apparently toying with the idea of a hybrid virtual/brick-and-mortar kind of school-within-a-school. The idea is that the curriculum would be administered face-to-face when necessary and via web interface when necessary, so this colleague of mine was casting out a few lines to see if any of us would bite.

I've voiced interest in participating, but have concerns and questions. 

A few years ago, I was part of starting a small learning community "school-within-a-school" of sorts in my high school, and it is still operating, but that endeavor was small by comparison with what my colleague has in mind. I am wondering what models of this kind of hybrid exist, what are the benefits or shortcomings, and what the best course would be.

I'm definitely in the learning stages here. Sure, I can Google it or read some journal articles, but that only gives part of the story.

So, SFS readers and contributors: what do you know, or what advice do you have about building this kind of educational opportunity? If you are a brick-and-mortar teacher, what concerns would you have for a hybrid or virtual school? What hopes would you have?

By Mark

Every grading period, I engage in an odd ritual. I look over all of my classes and tally how many of each letter grade I've posted on the progress reports. This year got me nervous, as there were an awful lot of A's and only about seven F's out of my five classes of freshmen. 

I think this habit of mine emerged a few years ago when I was accused of "inflating" grades when too many of my students were successful (earning B's and A's) and not enough were failing. Ironically, that accusation of inflation occurred immediately after I had begun implementing classroom intervention strategies aimed at reducing the number of students failing my class (which had been the complaint the year before: too many D's and Fs).

This is one of the debates-that-never-end in education: what is the function of the grade? Is it to demonstrate accomplishment of a learning target? Is it to demonstrate compliance with deadlines and classroom expectations? What about the kid who bombs every chapter quiz when we read Animal Farm, but who spends every afternoon for two weeks with me after school preparing for the final test--which he aces? Should he still be penalized for ten abyssmal chapters of poor performance even though he was able to demonstrate his knowledge and understanding in the end? What about the student who bombs the homework assignments in Algebra, but comes in for extra help and ends up flying high on the unit test? 

In a meeting recently, my building principal asked that we teachers consider whether our grades were measuring behavior or achievement. 

Later that same day, a good friend and colleague of mine shared a revelation he discovered from a guest speaker who came to visit with his department. That guest speaker, Dr. Frank Wang, shared many worthwhile ideas, but the one which seemed to resonate with my colleague was the very example I mention above: what if a kid struggles during the unit, logs a few F's in the gradebook, but ends up showing mastery by the time the summative assessment rolls around? Dr. Wang suggested that the constant ongoing entering-of-grades in effect de-values the learning that is the ultimate goal of education but instead rewards kids who "get it" quickly and penalizes kids who "get it" a little later than others--even though they still eventually "get it."

I'm wondering: are the letters A, B, C, D, and F part of the problem in education today? 

By Mark

It is one of my favorite times of year... Banned Books Week is September 25th through October 2nd. The American Library Association (click on the photo to go to their site) promotes the freedom of choice by encouraging libraries across the nation to celebrate every American's right to choose not to read controversial books.

Notice that I didn't emphasize "every American's right to choose what they read." When I consider the titles which have been challenged or banned over the years, what I see is not just the loss of a choice to read a book but the loss of the choice to not read. There is a reason I haven't read Mein Kampf and haven't watched Natural Born Killers. These are not the same reasons I choose not to read Twilight or watch, well, Twilight, but the fact is that I have the right to choose not to consume these texts. That decision was not made for me. Sure, I agree that every student's parents have the right to say that a text is not appropriate for their kid and ask for an alternative if a text is assigned in a class. 

But, there are only two parents who have the right to say what text is not appropriate for my kid.

Appropriately, this year's theme for Banned Books Week is "Think for yourself and let others do the same."

It's particularly fun this year that Banned Books Week corresponds with my teaching of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Down on the farm, literacy is wielded like a weapon. Those who are literate easily overpower those who are illiterate, essentially enslaving them by controlling information (hello FoxNews). A great Orwellian theme, and one to which we ought always pay close attention.

As a side note: There's a very intriguing interactive map at the ALA press-kit site which uses Googlemaps to tag exemplars of challenged or banned books. Some of the titles and reasons are rather surprising.

By Mark

I have a three-year-old son at home who is that child whose behavior is my karmic payback for the times I mouthed off to my parents. He's a boundary-tester and an eye-lash-batting innocent cherub for whom consequences like time out and taking away of toys have no influence on behavior. Though I regret it, there have been times when the worst of me has come out, and this 32-year-old ends up shouting at that 3-year-old.

And then he cries and cries and I feel horribly guilty.

But usually it changes his behavior, at least for a while. The same results cannot be said for a stint in time-out.

I was venting my frustrations to my dad this last fourth of July when he mentioned that behavior changes only result from one of two things: fear or understanding. I don't know if he discovered this on his own or if he learned this from some workshop, but it rings very true. My dad is a well-respected educator who taught for over three decades, served in the military, and has even volunteered in prisons to teach math to inmates. He made me realize that if I want to influence my toddler's behavior, I should aim for understanding. My son needs to understand why it's not okay to punch his brother or jump off the dining room table. Sometimes a lesson is learned the hard way (he hasn't leapt off the back of the couch even once since that trip to the ER with bashed-in teeth) but there are many other lessons I'm having a hard time teaching him simply because there are a lot of things a three-year-old just isn't capable of understanding yet.

There are obvious analogies to teaching. 

By Kristin

Buy this car.  I'm serious.  Come on.  This car has been around a long time.  It has proven its worth.  It deserves to be on the road and anyway, the rules are that you can't buy another car until this one is purchased.

I wouldn't buy the car in the photo.  I don't have the time and money to make it queen of the road, and I don't need test results to know that.  Unfortunately, because we can't seem to design a better system of teacher evaluations than seniority, this "you have to take it" policy is what many buildings face when they have a position to fill. 

The system is faulty, and districts and their communities are trying to fix it by placing more weight on student test scores.  We don't need test scores to identify ineffective teachers, we just need to make it easy for administrators to evaluate their staff.  I think it can be easy, and measurable, because you can kick a teacher's tires, so to speak.

I'm gearing up. I know some of you are already back in the classroom, but I'm still two weeks from first period English 9. This will be year nine for me, and past summers about this time I'd be shopping for school supplies and focusing on what kinds of posters to put up and how to organize my classrooms. However, all that external preparation is no where near as important as the internal preparation.

Now is the time for reflection: examination of what has worked in the past, what to reframe, and what to roundfile. 

In much of the reading I've done about effective teaching and impacting student learning, again and again I see reference to one of the trait of an effective educator: the thoughtful and purposeful examination of one's own practice in order to develop oneself as a practitioner. Again and again, I hear about this internally driven introspection as "the most valuable professional development." I'll keep that in mind as I sit in staff meetings and trainings all next week.

For me, my one thing to do is the writing goal activity I did last year with my kids' short writing samples. Instead of becoming a teacher-turned-proofreading-service, with my feedback on each short writing sample I gave the kids two or three specific individualized writing goals. Then, in the next sample, they had to explain how they addressed those specific goals and improved their own writing. It made for quick turnaround, very meaningful feedback and very rapid progress in their writing.

As for what I vow to never do again: I tried this twist on creative writing and writing workshop. I don't want to say it went down in flames, but let's just say that there's not enough wreckage to piece it back together and if I do creative writing workshop again I'll be starting with factory-fresh parts and expert advice.

Think back to last year. What one thing did you do last year that you feel is most important to do again in order to teach effectively? Or, conversely, what one thing did you do last year that you vow to never do again?

I'm going to lay all the cards on the table: summer was about 95% of the reason I decided to pursue a job in teaching. The other 5% was that I was earning a BA degree in English literature and that's not a particularly high-demand field in 2001. I can go on and on about how I care about kids and love seeing them learn and grow. Yes, that's true, and while that's the reason I stay in the job it has less to do with my choice to become a teacher than most other young teachers will admit.

To steal from Tom's post a few days ago, I too wonder "How I did" this school year. Since my evaluation was likewise "satisfactory," I thought I'd consider the question how a state government might: through test scores.

Colorado has joined with a few other states (Florida and New York are among those with plans in motion) to tie a teacher's continued employment directly to test scores. It appears that student test scores must comprise "at least fifty percent" of the evaluative criteria for teacher tenure and retention. If improvement is not sustained, a teacher can lose tenure and risks being fired. That would certainly align with an "unsatisfactory" review...potentially sparked by poor test scores. 

As I read the article, it stated clearly the bill calls for teachers to demonstrate student growth. I'm not familiar with the Colorado assessment system, and a half hour of wading through the web didn't net me many answers. I'm a skeptic of that word growth, however. Something tells me we're not talking about a preassessment in September and a postassessment in June, which is the only kind of assessment of growth I'd feel comfortable tying to teacher pay and continued employment. The old argument of comparing apples to apples is key. If we're comparing apples to oranges, then ready the court for appeals.*

In a once-a-year test situation, how can growth be assessed? Let's trace it out and play the how I did game by considering my students' performance on the recent High School Proficiency Exams (HSPE) in reading and writing and previous years' Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) tests.

 By Mark

I've inadvertently, and inexplicably, become a guru of sorts. I sometimes feel like I barely have myself figured out--but nonetheless, my willingness to experiment with technology and use it in my instruction has led other to seek me out for advice. The dirty little secret? Most the time those confident answers I offer are simply my willingness to offer conjecture and speak it with authority--I have no special training to back it up other than the time I spend on my own just playing with these "cool toys." 

The dirtier little secret? When it comes to incorporating technology into the classroom, I may be computer savvy and a digital native, but more than that I'm a technology skeptic.

Too often, when I see technology for the classroom, I only see ways to go the long way about accomplishing a goal which could have reasonably been accomplished "the old-fashioned way." (Full disclosure: I'm a 31-year-old education blogger who came of age with the internet...so I may be entering my curmudgeonly years a little early.)  

 By Mark

So let's face reality. Something's got to give. 'Tis the season of budget cuts.

We can rail all we want against the flawed system of funding for public education--we can complain about cutting this and that and those as well--but there comes a point that tough decisions must be made.

I recall last year Washington Governor Christine Gregoire posted a website with the bold challenge "You Balance the Budget," where she openly shared the state's budget and the state's needs and challenged the taxpayers to find a solution. I don't have that audacious a charge, but I do have a question:

Since we have to cut somewhere, let's be solution-oriented: What can schools afford to cut?

Go ahead and say "nothing," and then rejoin us in the real world. Since sacrifices must be made, let's line up the lambs. What do you suggest should be first to go when it is time for schools to cut spending? How do you suggest that schools prioritize what stays, what goes, what is sustained and what is starved?

 By Mark

I'm lucky that my 5-year-old son comes to work with me each day. His preschool is housed in the high school where I teach 9th and 10th grade. In fact, his classroom is literally across the hall from my 6th period and just around the corner from the room where I teach the rest of the day.

Not long ago, I went in to visit him and his peers during my plan period. He and his little buddies were sitting around a table doing a math worksheet. Two frogs on lily pads plus five frogs on lily pads makes a total of seven. Three frogs jump off and you're left with four. Good stuff for pre-K. Sure, an occasional finger was employed in these basic mathematical operations, but for the most part this computation was quick, confident, and alarmingly accurate for a bunch of pre-K-ers. 

I listened as the little folks' conversations about math escalated until those little five-year-olds were adding and subtracting frogs accurately up in to double digits, and I kid you not, I heard one boy talk to another about the "pattern" he saw that the numbers repeated, and yes, he used the word "pattern." He pointed out that if he added three to nine it made 12, and if he added three to NINEteen, it made 22, and if he added three to twenty-NINE if made 32. Good stuff...not every 5-year-old will get that, but it doesn't seem unreasonable that every 15-year-old should.

I know that the banner across the top of our blog reads teacher leaders tell stories about how policy decisions impact learning and teaching in their classrooms. I freely admit that this post strays from our purpose more than a little and I hope my fellow bloggers will get us back on track with their next posts. So I digress:

My second year teaching, I somehow earned the reputation that I could handle the "tougher" kids. Perhaps I was (still am) naive to interpret this as a compliment of my classroom management, strategies, and dedication to respecting every student--nonetheless, I've had a number of my most favorite students enter my classroom "on conditions." Sometimes they've bounced through other teachers with whom they butted heads, sometimes they've failed other classes and it was time to try my teaching style on for fit.

By no means do I claim to work magic--but sometimes things just work well. This was the case with the young man who I am thinking about tonight. His freshman year, he was placed in my class part way through the school year, because the counselors had a feeling that we might get along. And he is one of those kids who I knew, from the time I met him, that I'd always remember.

First of all, the kid never stopped smiling. He'd spot me through the crowded halls or locker bays and wave up high, shouting hello with his huge smile, bright enough to outshine everything else. And you only needed to be around him a minute or two to know how passionate he was about riding dirtbikes. 

 By Mark

I came of age with the internet. I'm fond of telling my students that when I had to do my senior project I had to use these things called a card catalog and the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. I had to actually touch materials to use them in research. I had to learn keyboarding on a manual typewriter with ribbon and correction tape...and I'm only in my early 30s.

But by my first year at university, the internet had exploded. Since then, I have learned that I am what is known as a "digital native," perhaps because my father brought home a PC Jr. when I was about six.

I'm all for utilizing the "Web 2.0" as a resource for education, even though I find the moniker kind of obnoxious. I'm on my computer essentially every minute that I'm not with a student or caring for my family. I know that the wired universe (or better stated, the wireless universe) demands new skills sets of our students and "multiple literacies" unheard of twenty years ago. 

I begin to grow uncomfortable, though, when people start to talk about classrooms which exist wholly on the internet--especially on-line schools for teenagers.

By Mark

I look with envy at my peers in the math department.

Sure, I know they have the same issues I have as an English teacher: kids who don't turn work in; hours of planning, prep, and grading to do; a state standardized test looming over our heads.

But, there's one thing they have that I really want.

You probably won't find many Algebra II students who cannot do basic work with monomials and reverse order of operations. In Geometry, the kids are all likely equally confounded at first by the mysteries of Pythagorus. In Algebra I, more often than not I think the kids at least have basic number sense.

Or, perhaps it is better put this way...

In that Algebra I class, there's probably not a kid sitting there running advanced differential equations through his head while everyone else solves for x. If that kid were spotted, you better believe that his teacher would bump him up to somewhere that he could be both more challenged and better served.

But in an English 9 class, just because their birthdays fell within a given year, a kid who can immediately spot the nuances in Scout's narration in To Kill a Mockingbird and by the end articulate how the novel is a coming-of-age tale about the collapse of childhood illusions is sitting next to a kid who still thinks Scout is a boy and Atticus is African-American.

By Mark

In the last two weeks, a few things have me thinking about the age old debate over how schools "grade" students. First, in Nevada, there was this discussion about the merits of allowing students in public high schools take exams to earn state-required graduation credit (as opposed to putting in the seat time). 

Second, there were the 28 letters I sent home to students' parents this past Monday updating them that their students were earning a D or F in my English class.

When I look at those 28 letters, there are really only probably seven kids getting the low grades who I think genuinely have not yet exhibited the minimum language arts expectations which I have at this point in the semester and thus "deserve" the F. The other 21? Missing assignments. I'd bet dollars to donuts that those 21 would pass an on-demand-test of minimum language arts skills and content, and I have few concerns about next spring's state tests for those kids, even though they are presently earning Ds and Fs in my class. They've been able to show me that they have the skills through classroom work and other assessments, some of them far exceeding the standards from the very first assessment--yet their grade is an F.

I know that this discussion is almost as old as the model of education present in most public schools today, but how do you as a teacher reconcile the necessity of "grades" and the reality that grades do not necessarily reflect actual skill in a content area? 

Are these kids earning failing grades due to a lack of content knowledge and skill or due to a lack of ability to submit complete work on time...which incidentally is not one of my content area standards? Is the idea of a mastery test (in lieu of seat time) really out of line? We put so much stock in those one-time snapshot tests to assess school and teacher effectiveness, so why not a one-time snapshot test for a kid who has the skills but doesn't want to spend 90 hours this semester in a class which will penalize him for poor organization, not a lack of skill?

By Mark

He's a middle-of-the-bell-curve kind of kid, affable and hard working, but his strongest efforts tend to net him Cs at the very best. 

He's not into sports, and is always telling me about his truck that he's working on at home. He's got a good mind for literature (my content area) and when he really puts effort into it is a better-than-average writer. 

But, he's not the most organized. The only thing keeping him from a higher grade in his English class is that he's missing a few assignments here and there, bombed a few vocabulary quizzes for lack of studying, and didn't take well to the recent unit on poetry.

And he's probably not going to graduate from high school on time. He's a few credits short already, as a junior. He knows his problem: he can do the work, but when he leaves school, it just doesn't get done. Chores on his family's small farm and tinkering under the hood of his or any number of other local vehicles...the joys that make his face glow when he talks about them...take up all his precious homework time when he should be doing his geometry or poetry or history homework.

We've already had some lively discussion here about the importance of vocational ed and trade skills in our public schools, so that's not my angle here. This young man could conceivably graduate from high school with the required math, science, English and history. He's not averse to the requirements for PE and art and CTE. He's capable, and there are ways to make up those credits. In our building, in addition to all the named requirements, a student must also take a total of 6.0 credits of general electives in order to graduate.  Many use these for foreign language, higher level math and science, extra arts and music, or other specialized courses that interest them. We do have two periods of woodshop and vehicle design, but that's about all we can fund and house.

With all due respect with my colleagues in arts, CTE and upper division maths and sciences, what this young man needs isn't more of those in his schedule.  

He needs study hall.

By Mark

It's a question I and my teammates get often: "Why don't they do this for all freshmen?"

About seven years ago, some administrators with a clear vision saw a need in our building: far too many tenth graders weren't actually tenth graders. By credits, they were still ninth graders.  Far too many kids were not on track for on-time graduation...or even graduation at all. These administrators had an idea of what they thought would help solve this problem. So, they attended conferences and did some initial research.

Then, those administrators with a clear vision did something that I fear is unfortunately rare, but has made all the difference. 

They identified the problem.

And then they trusted teachers to figure out how to best solve it.

By Mark

It was at a intervention meeting, where her child's teachers (including me) and the grade-level counselor had gathered to strategize how better serve her child, that she said to me from across the table:

"You didn't do your job. You were supposed to fix my child. Why didn't you fix him?"

She said it with steel in her eyes and barbs in her voice. She was simmering near her boiling point and I started wondering if anyone else in the room knew the extension to reach the school resource officer.

Everyone was flabbergasted. She went on about how at the summer orientation I talked about all the things I do in class to help struggling students: extra support to break down complex tasks, face-to-face writing conferences, online resources, peer support, modified texts...the list went on. In truth, I had done all those things for her son. I had offered these to her child, yet her child still was failing.

Isn't it always the case that we think of the right thing to say well after the moment has passed? That moment passed six years ago, but here goes:

"Ma'am, I'd be more than happy to share with you the reason I didn't fix your child...

By Mark

The press was briefly abuzz recently when President Obama mentioned his ideas for extending the school year. While this seems to be far from a concrete policy decision, it reopens a discussion to which we seem to return every so often. 

Is Obama out of line? Aside from the cute arguments of fifth graders who want their summer break, why do people resist this concept so vehemently? If we can't change this, how can we change anything else about our faltering education system?

I love my "three months paid vacation and a month off at Christmas" (as if), but am for extending the school year. What are your thoughts?

By Mark

Let me be clear from the outset: I'm not here to argue about whether Obama's speech is good, bad, ugly; propaganda, motivation, or mind control. There are too many unproductive shouting matches going on about that elsewhere on the web. Missing from those shouting matches is reasoned discussion of what I think is a more important question with a much larger impact on what I do as a teacher.

The controversy about the broadcast of Obama's "work hard" speech has precipitated some interesting responses from school districts across the country, ranging from the superintendent of schools in Tempe saying all teachers shall show the address and parents are "not allowed" to opt out, to districts like mine who instructed teachers to get parent permission before showing the speech. These policies have an impact on classroom instruction--much more of an impact than the speech itself--because it brings up the question about how schools should handle politically charged and divisive content, and what the school's role is in mediating that content for students.

Many an educator who attempts to make content relevant will want to connect to current events. Whether its genetic engineering, military endeavors, alternative energies or health care, it is easy for a curriculum to turn into a volatile tinderbox, because these topics and others have clear political implications.

How should schools handle hot political topics?

I read an article a couple of weeks ago that really caught my attention. Unfortunately, when I went back to it - or at least TRIED to go back to it, I couldn't for the life of me remember where I had read it. Darn. It was about the use of technology in the classroom and how, if we aren't careful about how we use it, we might actually be doing more harm than good to our students' ability to think critically.

What technology and the use of the internet can give us is instant access to amounts of information so vast that our ancestors couldn't even have dreamt of it. Yes, I am a Google fanatic, and even as an English teacher who refuses to spell "relief" any other way, I have been known to use "google" as a verb. However, when I recently assigned my students a research project, I was reminded of how dismaying it is to see how they confuse "finding information" with "thinking" and "learning." They are great at cutting and pasting information into beautiful PowerPoint presentations or blogs or webpages. What this lost article pointed out and what I have fought against in my classroom is the ease with which technology negates the need to actually think. I require that for every sentence of fact, students are required to present two sentences of their own analysis, but often students are willing to settle for a lower grade in order to avoid the "pain" involved in activating their brain.

It reminds me of a conversation I once had with one of my daughter's elementary school teachers who felt it was unnecessary to require kids to memorize the multiplication tables or spelling lists because they would always have access to calculators and spell check programs. I tried to explain how understanding the concepts underlying the equations and word structure was just as important as being able to solve the equations or spell the words correctly, but she was in complete disagreement, stating that there are plenty of other areas where the kids can be asked to "think," and that if we skip some of the rote memorization, we can move on to more and better concepts. I understand the point she was trying to make, but recognizing patterns in equations or word formation is basic to analysis of any kind.

While we're touting the use of technology as "best practice," we have to be conscientious that we are not substituting flashy presentations and clever sound bites (or bytes) for true critical thinking, which is fundamental to the success of civilization.

P.S. If anyone read that article and could lead me back to it, I would greatly appreciate it!

In my tenth-grade core English classes, we’ve been working on writing skills with regard to literary analysis with the triple goal of learning how to find relevant citations, how to use MLA formatting, and how to answer WASL-type analysis questions. One young man in my class has really been struggling with the concepts and doing poorly on the quizzes, even though he understands the literature. I told him after he struggled with one quiz that I would sit down and do the next one with him. He was absolutely horrified at the thought and said, “Then everyone else will know that I’m in special ed! I wish I could just go back to a special ed classroom where it doesn’t matter that I’m stupid.” That broke my heart. He is far from being “stupid,” but that is his academic self image. He didn't care that I had sat down and worked on the quiz with two other struggling students (who happen to NOT have IEPs).

This brought me back to a subject I have contemplated much over the last decade. When I started teaching in this district, our SE kids were mainstreamed. Then the trend changed to separate SE classes. Now the pendulum is swinging back to inclusion models as being the "least restrictive environment" (LRE).

 

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I am again looking forward to the classroom. I feel like it was long ago when I was there. I miss the interactions between students, watching young people make meaning of the world around them. I miss the opportunities to improve compassion and skill and purpose. I miss working with teachers who, by default, are amazing people with amazing talents to impact the learning of children.

On Fridays, I pick my sons up from school at 12:45 pm. It is a partial day. What is done with the rest of the day connects back to Thursday's post.

Thursday is library day for my sons at MLC. I remember the trips I would take with my class to the library. There was a shelf of science books that I checked out; I started with the first book on the shelf and worked my way through the stack. My sons enjoy the library and I am glad of how it is integrated into the classroom curriculum.

Doing more with less. This is often the statement that is handed to you from above...do what you have always been doing, in fact do a little more, and do it all with less. But what if doing more with less was a personal choice for a school?

The parking lot at MLC amazes me; my sons attend this school. In many ways the parking lot inspires me to believe again in the desire of people to do good for the greater good. The parking lot at MLC is not much larger than a typical gym (two basket ball courts), but somehow, every day, the cars come in, park, and go out without any hassle. What gets me is that there are no painted parking spots.

It was a rainy Monday morning, not too unlike other mornings in the northwest, as I took my sons to school. Today was Monday and so with it came the "All School Gathering". My sons attend Metropolitan Learning Center. This is a K-12 school with about 425 students. MLC is unique and has shown that it can be successful by being unique and placing first what matters most--students. For this week, I will briefly describe one salient point from the day. Hopefully we can take some of these successes and use them in our own schools.

COME ONE, COME ALL! Share your "you can't teach that" story. Share what caused a curriculum complaint. Perhaps it was a book, a unit, a topic, or a method of teaching.

Teachers can teach anyone, anything. Last week I taught my neighbor's son how to ride a bike. Being a highly trained teacher, I used widely accepted educational practices, current trends in education, and data based analysis. Read about our week through my daily notes . . . .

Fall is a beautiful time...the colorful leaves, the crisp air, and the grueling grading period. Many of you will be sending grades out soon. Have you ever reflected on how you grade? Every year, I find myself closer to the ideal grading situation. There is nothing inherently wrong with grades. However, grades have always been a hot topic in education. What are your thoughts?

Join in the discussion on grades. This post is unique. I have not written a 400 word post, carefully crafted with my opinion. I do have a bias and it is relatively transparent...I suppose the photo for this post is a bit revealing. However, I want to hear what you think; I came to my current philosophy on grades by talking with parents and teachers and adjusting my practices. If we each take from the discussion a new way to impact our teaching, the students will benefit.

If you're like me, you will never forget that wild year. The first year of teaching. The days when you came home on top of the world. The world that you were changing. You had the kids in the palm of your hand. They loved you, you loved them, and everything was apple trees and sunshine.

Then there were the other days. The days when nothing worked. Not even the pencil sharpener. You ran off the wrong set of copies and the principal stopped by to watch. You marked the wrong kid absent and her mom freaked out. In your room. In front of your class.

Ah yes, the first year of teaching. The ups, the downs, the loneliness, the stress. It's no wonder that many of our young teachers leave the classroom within their first five years, given the fact that we're the only profession in which first year practitioners have essentially the same responsibilities as thirty-year veterans. Fortunately, this problem has been recognized and smart people have started to address it. Studies have shown that effective teacher induction programs can dramatically reduce new teacher attrition.

But I want to do something a little different here. Something that I hope will raise the awareness of what brand-new teachers experience as they begin their careers.