by Maren Johnson

When the state Supreme Court ruled on the McCleary case, we all cheered. The state has a constitutional duty to fully fund public education--all right! So how is this going actually going to happen?

One budgeting strategy that has been widely floated is to "Fund Education First." That means to actually go ahead and write a separate budget that would fund public education, see how much it costs, and then with whatever is left, fund the rest of the state's needs.

Sounds good, right?

But fund education without simultaneous consideration of the wrap-around social services? It won't work. Here's just one example why not:

I spent a day in Olympia this week with a school bus driver and a few other people, speaking with our legislators. The bus driver has had a long and varied career: special needs transportation, different routes, services all over his school district.

The bus driver told the story of driving homeless students to school through the McKinney–Vento program. The federal McKinney-Vento Act is designed to provide assistance to youth who are homeless or awaiting foster care. One of the provisions of this act is that students who are in a disrupted housing situation because of homelessness must be transported to their original school. Yes, any stability we can provide these students, who are among our most vulnerable, is of course needed, and those involved are glad to be able to provide it. However, when the student is originally from one school district, and then must be transported to another, it makes for some very expensive rides. The bus driver shared some specific numbers, and I was really surprised by the total costs. These costs vary quite a bit from district to district, but even though the extra transportation is mandated, no extra funding is provided. It is a huge unfunded mandate, and the money ends up coming out of classrooms.

Clearly this is a complex funding issue, with both Washington state and federal components. When neither the state nor the feds pick up the bill, local districts are left to make do. So what about the "Fund Education First" idea? Do we fund education but not fund services like those supporting homeless youth? Makes no sense--the two are deeply intertwined. Education is the state's "Paramount Duty," according to our constitution. It must be fully funded. However, education doesn't happen in a vacuum, and putting together a fully funded education budget demands consideration of other factors affecting students' lives.

 

By Kristin

That's a huge wave.  If you've ever carried a gallon of water you might have a better appreciation for what it feels like to have tens of thousands of gallons of water smashing into you.  

I have surfed, badly, and on waves that were maybe two feet high.  I grew up in San Diego and am a strong swimmer so I thought - before I ever tried surfing - that it would be easy.  It's not, and when you bury the nose of that board in a two foot wave and flip foot over head, it hurts.  When you add a child to a classroom, you're adding the whole range of needs that child brings.  It's like adding a foot to a wave - it's not just one foot of water, it's a foot of water that's 300 meters long.  That's a lot of weight added to that wave.

Some people - people who have never taught 32 children - think it's not a big deal to add a child or two to a classroom.  It is a big deal, and I would argue that just like surfing isn't about being a swimmer, teaching more children isn't a matter of being a teacher - it's an entirely different game, and not one that someone who wants what's best for children would support.

by Maren Johnson

We set out in a big red van with a fiery primary school teacher at the wheel. Watch out! This teacher sometimes uses her van to haul her miniature horse, but today, she hauled us, the local National Board cohort. Our destination? WEA Home Stretch, an opportunity for National Board candidates to give and receive feedback on an entry and prepare for the assessment center exercises. The intrepid candidates from our local cohort have only a short time left before their final deadline.

We picked up a math teacher hanging out alongside the highway and we were on our way. Oops, we're missing the band teacher, but not to worry, we finally found him on the ferry. We drove over hill and dale, canal and bridge, and then set sail on the 6:25 am boat across the Puget Sound.

I had a student walk into my 9th grade class five years ago, and after her first writing sample I knew that I was going to struggle.

What she wrote stymied me. It was fluid, articulate, focused, insightful...all of the things I wanted my students' writing to be. If my supervisor had walked in and glanced over her shoulder as she worked in my room, the level of quality he'd see there would be above-and-beyond--and probably make me look darn good at first blush.

Over the next four years, she was a student in my 9th, 10th, and 12th grade classrooms. By the time she graduated, I had shared with her many, many times how she had challenged me as a professional to find ways to push her to that "next level" as a writer and thinker. She had walked in my door from day one a high-achiever in that regard. Many times, I questioned whether I had been able to truly promote progress, but through the teacher-student relationship we developed, she helped me see the very small, subtle ways that I had in fact helped her progress as a writer--not so much in mechanics as in nuanced craft and internal disposition.

A couple of weeks ago it was finals week at my school. My English 9 semester final included both skills and content assessments which represented the culmination of the work we'd done for 18 weeks, and included assessments in reading comprehension, literary terms, writing skills, and speaking skills. Overall the class performed quite well.

One portion of the final asked students to use TPCASTT to annotate a poem that was unfamiliar to them, and then compose a one-page analysis of how the shifts (or juxtapositions) in tone or structure within the poem helped to illuminate a central theme or main idea of the poem. 

For that particular part, I had high standards. And sadly, low expectations.

In the weeks leading up to the final, we'd practiced those two skills (poetry annotation and evidence-based written analysis) and the results were underwhelming. In total, if students did what was asked, they wrote a total of eight paragraphs, each one receiving formative feedback from me, to get practice and demonstrate progress toward the final.

Too often, my feedback went unheeded and mistakes were repeated, nuances of the poems missed or written analysis underdeveloped. I fully expected this written portion of the final to drag everyone under.

Of course, as teenagers are wont to do, they surprised me.

by Maren Johnson

 

I'm excited about a new class I'm teaching next year. Yes, it's the honeymoon period--I haven't started teaching the class yet, so I'm still in the thinking, dreaming, imagining period--but hey, it's a good place to be--I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

The new class? It's a "college in the high school" biology class--a partnership between my high school and a state university to offer students dual credit. Students will be able to earn both high school and college credit while taking a class right here in their own school.

The class itself is fascinating. We are going to study the fundamentals of biology while looking through the lens of addiction, psychoactive drugs, and the human brain. We're going to do a series of cool labs, there's an online component, and even an interesting text. The biology of cells, organs, systems, and behavior--it's all there, we're just using a specific, high interest focus--the brain and addiction--to study it.

And why do I have time to think, dream, imagine about a new class? It's because I have a student teacher.

By Tom

If there was any doubt about what education funding in Washington will look like when the legislature finally gets around to complying with the McCleary Decision, that matter has been put to rest.

Steve Litzow, the new chair of the Senate Education Committee, published an op-ed in the Seattle Times this week outlining the ever-popular opinion that education funding should be tied to results. The background for his piece appears to be a study by the Center for American Progress which examined data from school districts all over the country, looking at the correlation between money spent on education and student achievement.

The apparent goal is to be a low-spending, high-achieving school district. An efficient, results-based district. Obviously, this is a goal borrowed from the business world. People who spend money want to see results from that expenditure. People who spend even more money want to see even more results. And while that sort of thinking certainly stands to reason, I think we need to think it through before assuming that this fundamental economic principal is applicable to education.

Last year was my first foray into tromping the halls of Olympia as a novice education advocate. I'm still far from an expert--which was one of my reasons for being so reticent to have a political voice.

I think many of us feel that way. The first step, as always, is just to pay attention...read, watch, listen, make up your mind (and remember, it's okay to disagree with your colleagues, your school, and your union, as long as your disagreement is informed).

WEA keeps an active site that is a good place for your radar to first ping: OurVoice. A few bills of note (and I think they're all still live as I type this...but things can change quickly!)

• S5588: Restricts use of half-days for professional development, marketed as "changing the definition of 'school day.'" (WEA's take, here.)
• HB1293: Requires districts to disclose the real costs of testing, which has led parents to ask legislators a question they cannot seem to answer.
• HB1673: Gradually reduces student-to-teacher class size ratios for calculating state allocations, including provisions for even smaller class sizes in high-poverty schools. According to this document, Washington would need to hire over 12,000 teachers to bring our class size to the national average (we're presently the 4th most crowded). 

While there are other bills (and troubling ideas) out there and various stages of their life cycles, ranging from misguided attempts to businessify the teacher evaluation model that hasn't even been given the chance to get off the ground to others that affect collective bargaining, the class size bill, HB1673, is the one I'm thinking about at the moment. 

Should I be evaluated on the growth my students make during their time with me?

Sure. That's my job, after all: make them leave with stronger skills and deeper knowledge than they had walking in.

The conversation about how student growth will be a part of our evaluations under TPEP continues to evolve and we need to keep paying attention. I personally think that OSPI has actually made some smart decisions (no offense, but how often do you hear people say that kind of thing?) particularly with emphasizing that student growth data must come from the right kind of assessment. As the debate continues to swirl, we need to think about what will and won't work in terms of student growth data that is an accurate reflection of teacher performance.

Here's what will not work for measuring the growth I guide my students to achieve:

By Kristin

The Washington State Board of Education is asking for citizen input on how they should "measure the performance of Washington K-12 schools."  They want to improve the Washington Acheivement Index, which provides a snapshot of how schools perform on state tests.

By Kristin

A new bill is going before the legislature this week.  Called the "Third Grade Reading Accountability" bill, it requires that schools implement pretty serious remediation interventions for K-3 students who are not reading at standard.  If they still aren't reading at standard in third grade, they can't go to fourth grade.

Part of me is really excited about this. For a long time I've argued against social promotion. As a high school teacher I often taught children who were still reading at the third grade level and I'd think, "How did they get to tenth grade?"  I think we do a big disservice to children to put them in fourth grade- where explicit decoding instruction isn't typically part of the curriculum- when they can't read. 

But another part of me has learned that holding a child back can be pretty traumatic for the child, and doesn't solve the problem. 

I found a great article that helped me clarify my thoughts.  By the National Association of School Psychologists, it outlines a common sense approach to supporting students who are below standard.  It suggests that neither automatic social promotion or automatic retention make sense.  Instead, "When faced with a recommendation to retain a child, the real task is not to decide to retain or not to retain but, rather, to identify specific intervention strategies to enhance the cognitive and social development of the child and promote his or her learning and success at school."

The article goes on to look at the research.  Basically, while retention shows academic gains the following (repeated) year, after 2-3 years the child does worse, and is eventually 5-11 times more likely to drop out of school.  Probably because without intervention strategies tailored to that child's needs, all the same obstacles are still there that prevented him from reading at standard in third grade.

So I've had to shift my position.  I used to dream of the day our legislature would insist a child couldn't leave third grade without reading at the third grade level.  Now, I think I want that decision, and all the other decisions made to help that child, to be up to the family and the teachers.  I don't want it to be mandated.  Maybe the solution is to do a better job of teaching explicit reading skills after third grade.

What do you think?

By Tom

When we were in college, learning how to be teachers, we were told that there were two types of assessments: summative and formative. Summative assessments come at the end of the unit or year. Their purpose is to “summarize” the learning that did or didn’t happen. You may remember these as “final tests.”

Formative assessments, on the other hand, come during the course of the unit or school year. Their purpose is to inform students, teachers and parents on the progress made by each student in regards to the learning. Ideally, these tests are used by teachers to adjust the pace or content of instruction; and by students and their parents to adjust the amount or intensity of effort.

The Seattle School District has recently found itself embroiled in a controversy over its assessment system. The district uses the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) as a formative assessment of math and reading comprehension skills. Their students take the computer-based tests twice a year and teachers, students and parents are supposed to use the results as I’ve described above.

This year, however, the teachers at Garfield High voted unanimously to boycott the MAP. Other teachers around the district followed suit, or at least sent words of support. Their basic beef with the test is that it isn’t aligned with their curriculum, rendering it completely useless as a formative assessment, and therefore a waste of precious instructional time.

I don’t teach in Seattle, and I don’t administer the MAP (my district uses something similar) so I don’t know exactly how things turned out this way, but I strongly suspect it has something to do with the fact that secondary English teachers don’t spend much time on direct instruction of reading comprehension, compared to their colleagues at the elementary level. The reading MAP, therefore, wouldn’t give them much feedback on the actual teaching and learning in their classrooms. Math teachers would find themselves equally frustrated, since their classes focus on specific math strands.

At this point things have reached a standoff: the teachers are refusing to administer the tests and the administration has insisted they do so, reluctantly threatening a ten-day, unpaid suspension for non-compliance.

I have to think that the teachers involved in the conflict must be asking themselves an important question: “Is this really the hill I want to die on?” And if it were me, my answer would be “no.”

By Kristin

My students, struggling readers all, are reading a chapter from Junius Edwards' novel, If We Must Die.  We've studied Claude McKay's poem of the same name so my students felt pretty comfortable with what they would encounter thematically, but when Edwards revealed the story's setting by telling us Will had been wounded in Korea and had been fired for trying to register to vote, my students had a hard time inferring the time or the place. 

We talked about it, figured it out and moved on, but it's more evidence to me that knowing history helps a student's reading as much as the ability to read helps a student learn history.  I'm increasingly concerned at the way history, social studies and civics get pushed to the side to make more time for math and reading.  Eliminating history to give students an extra dose of reading was brought up as a possibility at a recent department meeting.  This is being done for struggling readers at some Seattle schools in an effort to raise reading scores on standardized tests. My colleagues refuse to go this route and as a teacher, historian and parent, I am glad.  Standardized tests are one kind of reading, and not one that lasts for long.  Being able to read and appreciate literature and being an equipped citizen are lifelong skills, and two that I prioritize in my instruction.

By Tom

I am a reasonably effective fourth grade teacher. I know how to plan lessons, deliver instruction and grade papers. I can manage a classroom and hold the attention of students. I can scold.

I have other talents. I can fly-fish, sail a J 24 single-handed and ski through moguls. I can grill a steak, fry a burger and toast a cheese sandwich. I can make meat lasagna, chicken curry and turkey enchiladas. I can blend a daiquiri, shoot tequila and mix a martini. I have made beer.

I can ride a bike from Seattle to Portland in one day. I have run a marathon. I have climbed Mount Si, Mount Pilchuk and most of Mount Baker. I have swum laps.

I can write a five-paragraph essay. About anything. I can write a business letter, a friendly letter and a resume. I can write a personal narrative, a trickster tale or a fable. I can write a haiku.

I can paint a house. I can clean a roof, fix a pipe and unclog a toilet. I can replace rain gutters, start a lawn from seed and build a fence. I have replaced a garbage disposal.

I can do all of these things and more; yet I cannot, for the life of me, support, sustain or even fathom the triple-girl friendship.

Like wet snow on a steep slope or a six-point lead at halftime, the triple-girl friendship is inherently unstable. It’s asking for trouble, like a fish tank on a golf course or an old man on ice skates. It is caesium. It is your first bike ride.

The triple-girl friendship has no memory of its own failure. It ruined last week’s literature circle, yet honestly believes it can collaborate on a five-slide Oregon Trail PowerPoint. It cannot. It drove last month’s chaperone crazy, yet pleads to be together on next month’s field trip. It will not. The triple girl friendship goes out to recess with three smiles and a long jump rope. It comes back crying.

The triple-girl friendship defies counseling. It can write in eloquent cursive exactly what it did wrong and what it will do differently next time, and then do exactly what it did wrong again. It can recite the anti-bullying pledge with no sense of irony.

It is late January. There are just about 100 more days of school. Lord help me.

by Maren Johnson

You've never seen science standards like these before. There's a big change coming to science education in Washington state and in much of the rest of the country, and if you want to have a say in it, the time is now. The final public draft of the Next Generation Science Standards is now open for review and will close on January 29, so give those standards a glance! Read as much or as little of it as you want--all feedback welcome. With a strong integration of science and engineering practices with traditional science content, these new standards are challenging and thought provoking. Washington state is very likely to adopt these later this spring, possibly in March, so now's your chance to weigh in.

I've had a few different opportunities to discuss this draft of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS): once in a charming rural cafe with a group composed mainly of local science teachers; once in an urban conference room with science education professionals who were primarily not teachers; and on Twitter at #NGSS and #NGSSchat--check out those hashtags!

So what did people have to say about these standards which are radically different from what we have now in both form and content?

I teach 9th grade English so one of my Common Core State Standards reads like this: 

Informational Texts: Delineate and evaluate argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.

I usually focus most on this standard when examining logical fallacies portrayed in advertising as part of my propaganda unit during the teaching of Animal Farm. The kids quickly see the illogical and unsupported claims about toothpastes, beauty products, diet pills and any number of other too-good-to-be-true product pitches. When the validity of the reasoning only takes a moment of critical thought to deconstruct, they get good at it. When claims are presented that "seem" valid on first blush, though, the kids have a hard time decoding the nuance of falsehood behind the presumptive truth.

The route information takes nowadays is more like the game of telephone than ever before, with information being stripped, twisted and de-contextualized until it emerges at the end of the line as a statement whose meaning is a completely different message than the original referent. Thus, our challenge is not to help students spot the obviously fallacious reasoning, but to have their radar on for the subtle (and I believe, often intentionally manipulative) misinformation, misguidance, incompleteness, or writerly interpretation that portrays itself as truth and fact.

This was already in my mind when I read this seemingly innocuous passage in an article about teachers:

By Maren Johnson

Way back, when I signed up to be a teacher, and a science teacher at that, I never imagined the amount of writing I was going to be doing. Yes, I expected to write some curriculum, student assessments, and the like, but I never really contemplated writing about teaching.

By Tom

A few months ago I was visiting a friend of mine who teaches high school English. We were in his classroom and he showed me his grade book. I noticed that in some of his classes, most of the students were missing most of their assignments. I asked him about this.

“There’s really not much I can do about it. I assign work, collect it, grade it and post the scores on-line. Some kids just don’t turn in their work. Other than giving them an F, there’s not much else I can do, since some kids simply couldn’t care less about their grades.”

I explained how things work in my classroom. I assign work and then collect it. If a student doesn’t have it, they do it during recess. Period. No questions, no yelling, no discussion. Their names go up on the whiteboard and they come back to the room after lunch to get it done. I’m in the room anyway, taking care of paperwork, and I don’t mind the company.

And if someone misbehaves or wastes time during the day, I put a tally next to their name on my clipboard. Each tally mark equals one minute of lost recess during our second recess, which we have toward the end of the day.

I use first recess to take care of missing assignments and I use second recess to take care of misbehavior. And it works beautifully. I have the best-behaved class in the school with literally no missing assignments.

But then I came across this article in USA Today. Basically, a bunch of pediatricians want us to leave recess sacred; don’t make kids do schoolwork when they should be out playing and don’t withhold recess as a form of punishment.

In other words, don’t do what I do.

I can see their point. Recess is an important time for kids to blow off steam, get some exercise, mingle, and just “be kids.” For most children, it’s their favorite time of the day. It certainly was for me, when I was young.

But pediatricians aren’t teachers. They deal with one kid at a time, for ten or fifteen minutes, with their parents in the room. They’re not trying make 25 to 30 kids work quietly at something most of them would rather not do for seven hours a day.

At a certain level, teachers need leverage. For those of us at the elementary level, recess gives us that. 

What do you think? 

By Maren Johnson

A press release, an op-ed, and a television interview—what’s up with all the media on Washington state assessment? Our Superintendent of Public Instruction just released a new proposal: reduce the number of exit exams required for high school graduation from five to three. This proposal shows concern for mitigating some of the negative effects of large amounts of testing on the Class of 2015, sophomores I currently have as students. Specifically, the number of math exams would be reduced from two to one, and reading and writing would be combined into a single exam. In science, however, the proposal would still move forward with a brand new graduation requirement this year focusing on biology. This means that not only will our state’s sole high school science exam be in biology, but the emphasis on biology will also be increased by making that exam high stakes.

Randy Dorn cited some excellent reasons for the overall reduction in assessments, saying “too much classroom time is devoted to preparing for tests, taking tests and preparing to retake tests.” He also noted the high cost of Washington’s assessment system.

However, there is another factor besides cost and time that comes into play here: assessment drives instruction. When there is a single high stakes science assessment, and that assessment is in biology, then chemistry, physics, and earth science will be neglected. An alternate idea: we could keep administering our existing biology EOC, which would satisfy federal requirements, but delink the biology EOC from graduation. Eliminating the graduation requirement would relieve the current pressure on schools, which, in many cases, is distorting high school science education to emphasize biology. Delinking the biology exam from graduation would also save a considerable amount of money in remediation, retakes, and rescoring. Most expenditures in education hold out some promise of benefit: this expenditure is actually detrimental to science education in our state by marginalizing chemistry, physics, earth science, and STEM.

By Kristin    

Goodbye, 2012.  I don't have much luck keeping challenging resolutions, particularly if they involve physical activity. Instead, I've settled into the routine of simply attempting to master the art of seeing the positive.

Last March, my fellow bloggers wrote a series of posts in response to a MetLife Survey that found teacher job satisfaction is down 15% since 2009.  The survey hit me at a funny time, because in my new school - the biggest middle school in Washington State, a place where buckets are in the hallway to catch leaks and my overhead projector was held together with duct tape - I was surrounded by teachers who were positive, who made choices that put kids first, and who were willing to quickly adapt their schedule and their approaches to try new things instead of saying, "What's the point?  We've been here before."  

What was their secret?  How were they so resilient?

By Kristin

We're all trying to come to terms with the fact a young man shot his way through locked doors and used tiny bodies for target practice.  My mind goes so far, and then stops.

And I try, like any person, to think of possible ways to prevent this from happening.  I think of ways we can improve mental health care, ways we can entertain young people without letting them think killing is thrilling, and ways we can keep weapons whose only purpose is killing large numbers of human beings out of the hands of the untrained, the unfeeling, and the disconnected.  I try to think of ways to protect my own 6-year old first grader, whose body, when I look at it, doesn't seem to have enough real estate to sustain eleven bullets from an assault rifle.

But the solution proposed by the NRA, to put armed guards at schools, is the absolute worst solution I've heard of.

The McCleary ruling, which established that the Washington legislature was not adequately funding public education, is popping up in the news again. When the ruling was first issued at the Washington State Supreme Court ordered the legislature to remedy the ed funding debacle, I worried that it was just lip service with no teeth. 

Recent news makes me optimistic that people are paying attention, though my worries still persist. The 2018 deadline is now a year closer than it was when first established, and it is hard to really point at "progress." The court has now said that it wants "yearly reports that 'demonstrate steady progress.'" (Sound familiar?) See the latter part of this article for a "clarification" about what this expectation from the courts might mean, and here's the link to the actual Supreme Court Order dated 20 December 2012. I particularly like this paragraph from page three of the court order:

In education, student progress is measured by yearly benchmarks according to essential academic goals and requirements. The State should expect no less of itself than of its students. Requiring the legislature to meet periodic benchmarks does not interfere with its prerogative to enact the reforms it believes best serve Washington's education system. To the contrary, legislative benchmarks help guide judicial review. We cannot wait until "graduation" in 2018 to determine if the State has met minimum constitutional standards. 

I've learned to not read the comments under any online news report about teachers, education or policy--there's no dialogue there, and too often the perpetuation of incorrect information. I used to whack-a-mole the trolls, but it was futile. Perhaps StoriesfromSchool can be a place for reasoned and thoughtful discourse about this issue.

By Tom White

There’s a family at our school from the Ukraine. Each morning, the mom walks her five kids to our school, drops off the two oldest children at the flagpole and then walks back home with the three youngest. But before she leaves, she swings past my classroom to check on Alex. She looks through the window, catches his eye, and smiles. Then she waves to me and repeats the same procedure outside her other son’s room. She wants to make sure they made it safely into their classrooms. Later, when school’s over, she waits for her two oldest kids at the flagpole, and she smiles at me when she sees Alex. And I smile back.

The Ukrainian mom does not sign permission slips for her sons to go on field trips. She’s not comfortable with the idea of letting them leave the school, so she usually keeps them home on those days.

Last week, while I was collecting permission slips for an upcoming field trip, Alex asked to spend the day in his older brother’s classroom so that he wouldn’t have to stay home. I spoke with the other teacher to make the arrangements and we talked briefly about the family. We agreed that the Ukrainian mom was “over-protective.”

That’s right. We derisively called this wonderful mom “over-protective.”

This one got to me more than the others. Maybe it was the proximity to Christmas. Or maybe it was the age of the victims.

Or maybe this time we have to face the fact that we’re entirely unable to protect our most innocent and our most vulnerable from our most evil. And their weapons.

Like you, I’m supposed to go back to school tomorrow and talk to my students. I’m supposed to make them feel safe. I’m sure I’ll think of something. And we’ll get through the day, and then the week and then the year.

But I’ll tell you this: I have no idea what to say to the over-protective Ukrainian mom when I see her at the flagpole.

I’m not even sure I’ll be able to look her in the eye.

 

by Maren Johnson

In my district, we adopted a new framework for teacher evaluation, UW CEL, and I learned a new phrase: Teaching point.  What's that, you ask?  Learning target, learning goal, performance expectation, lesson objective, power standard: while they each have an important nuance of meaning, they all refer to what students should understand or be able to do by the end of a certain period of time.

Posting those learning targets every day so they are visible to all?  Yeah, I've never done that, for a variety of reasons.  However, I have repeatedly heard that all three frameworks in our state are based on research, and hey, I want my students to learn, so when I read in our district’s framework rubric about daily posting as one possible way of communicating learning targets, I figured--I'm game, I'll give it a try—and I have been posting these in class for the last two weeks.

I shared what I was doing with a fellow teacher—and we had a very animated discussion (raised voices in the copy room!) about the pros and cons of posting learning targets and how this might or might not fit into teacher evaluation.  I will say I put some thought into how and when during my lessons I was going to post these targets and discuss them with the students.  I knew that for many lessons, about the last thing that would be helpful would be to have a posted learning target at the beginning of a lesson. 

By Tom White

The American Federation of Teachers (the other teachers’ union) recently came out with a proposal to have the National Board develop a pre-service evaluation for teachers. They believe that by testing prospective teachers before they enter the classroom, we can elevate the level of our nation’s teachers and thus improve student learning. For obvious reasons, the National Board (and by proxy, Pearson, Inc.) would be more than happy to develop – and sell – another pre-service evaluation. And they would probably do a pretty good job of it. For their part, the AFT wants this new test to “raise the bar,” giving induction into education the same status and complexity as induction into law. I disagree.

As a writing teacher, one of my greatest struggles involves getting kids to understand the writing process. Writing can be frustrating, arduous work. Understandably, then, when a kid puts the last period on the last sentence in the last paragraph, the impulse then is to put down the pen or click "print" and pass that piece on to the teacher.

As adults, we know that the last period is not the finish line, and that often the toughest work begins when the writing is "finished." The act of meaningful revision--the analysis of effectiveness, the cutting and splicing of sentences, the refining of vivid vocabulary--that formidable work often makes the first stages of writing seem simple. We know, though, that the difference between mediocre and exceptional comes with the time invested in revising, polishing, and refining. It is hard work. It is the right work to do, and it takes time. If that work is skimped upon or shirked, the end product will not have achieved its full potential.

When I had the opportunity to present to the Gates Foundation last week, the other presenters and I never met ahead of time to coordinate our message--yet the same point resonated loud and clear: the new evaluation system is the right work to do to improve teaching, schools, and student learning. 

And the corollary to that point: doing this work will take time.

As some of you might have seen on Facebook, this past Thursday, December 6th, I had the privilege and opportunity to offer a short presentation and serve on a discussion panel for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Education Pathways meeting.

In the audience were names attached to some of most important and influential groups in public education in the state of Washington--and beyond, since also present were Ron Thorpe, President and CEO of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and Washington's own Andy Coons, who serves as the Chief Operating Officer of NBTPS. Walking into a room with leadership from OSPI, the Gates Foundation, the Association of Washington School Principals, CSTP, and numerous other organizations, I was quick to feel intimidated. After all, my main thought during my drive to Seattle was about whether my ninth graders were behaving for the sub--nothing quite so heady as the future of statewide policy.

My comfort zone is much more intimate with much clearer roles: When I walk into my own classroom, I am the expert, I am the authority. It's not that I wield power like a tyrant over my domain, but to those fourteen- and fifteen-year olds, I am the voice they are to listen to, heed, seek for advice, and learn from. I am the teacher: what I have to say matters.

In my eleven years of teaching, as I've ventured little by little into the world of education policy, there are many times when I find myself in a room filled with nicely pressed suits (and me wearing my one pair of decent slacks) feeling just the opposite way as I do in front of my classroom. I think to myself: I am just a teacher. Will what I say matter?

By Travis Wittwer

I typically do not post on other posts. However, a post from Education Week caught my attention and shares a great deal of what I hope for Washington when I think of its future as an education state. 

The AFT (American Federation of Teachers) has an ambitious plan and I can get behind much of it.

I found myself nodding my head to was the call for rigorous, and consistent standards in teacher training programs. It is good for students and Washington because everyone gets a stronger teacher. It is also good for the teaching profession because it raises the quality of teachers which will raise the respect the profession gets.

By Kristin

Seattle has rolled out "Student Growth Ratings." Some teachers are devastated, some confused, and the vast majority are unaffected.  Next year all 4-8 reading / math teachers and all 9th grade algebra teachers will receive SGRs. These teachers are called, "Teachers of Tested Subjects."  Despite the HSPE being THE big test students need to pass before graduation, 10th grade LA/Math teachers are not considered "Teachers of Tested Subjects." Last week some teachers were told they had "low," "typical," or "high" student growth. Watch this overview video if you are curious.

By Tom White

According to a recent report by the Strategic Data Project out of Harvard University, National Board Certified Teachers make an enormous impact on their students. To wit: “On average, NBCTs outperform other teachers with the same levels of experience by 0.07 standard deviations in elementary math.” While that might mean something to you, I was not the “numbers guy” in my family. That would be my brother Steve. Fortunately, the Strategic Data Project saw me coming and offered this translation: “These effects are roughly equivalent to two months of additional math instruction.”

If that’s true – and I have no reason to doubt Harvard University – that means that the State of Washington is getting an enormous bargain. Let me try to explain:

First we have to accept elementary math data as a proxy for general teaching effectiveness. We also have to assume that the data can be generalized from Los Angeles, where the study was conducted, to Washington, which is where I live. I see no reason why we can’t accept either premise. So we can presume that NBCTs in Washington are having a positive effect equivalent to two additional months of instruction. Two months of instruction is roughly 20 percent of the school year, which means that NBCTs are 20 percent more effective than their non-NBCT colleagues.

The average teacher’s salary in Washington is about $50,000. Let’s assume for now that compensation is provided as an exchange for the effect teachers have on their students. If NBCTs have a twenty percent greater effect on students than non-NBCTs, it stands to reason that NBCTs are worth twenty percent more. If I’m not mistaken, twenty percent of $50,000 is $10,000. Therefore, in a perfect world, NBCTs should be earning $10,000 more.

They aren’t. In Washington State, NBCTs receive an annual stipend of $5,090. There are currently 6,173 NBCTs in our state. Paying them each a bonus costs us a little over $31 million. Obviously, that’s not nothing, but apparently it’s only half of what they’re worth. Washington State is getting more than its money’s worth. Twice as much.

That’s what I call a bargain. And it’s something worth remembering as the legislative season heats up and lawmakers are looking for stuff to cut.

by Maren Johnson

Teachers.  Great teachers.  Lots of them.  Thousands of them, literally, all across Washington state.  What do I think of when I think of National Board Certification?  I think of all those effective teachers, in all those classrooms, teaching all those students in our state.  This week on Stories from School, we are celebrating National Board Certified teachers and candidates with a series of blog posts.  So what does National Board Certification mean to me?

1. Deprivatized practice:  As a candidate it was a new experience for me to share my classroom videos and writing very publicly with a group of teachers I did not know particularly well (or at least I didn’t know them very well at first), and I became a better teacher because of it!

2. Teachers supporting other teachers: Teacher support is the heart and soul of the National Board process.  In my district, one candidate said to another as our cohort meeting started last week: "I came to this meeting today because I wanted to watch your video!"  In another district, a retake candidate wrote after finding out her scores, “I’ll tell you what was a big motivating factor when I was feeling terrible after learning my results. The response of NBCTs.  I wasn’t entirely convinced before, but now I know this is a community I very much want to be a part of.  Every single person I know who is National Board certified has offered to help me redo my portfolio. Every single one.”  While the response this candidate received was extraordinary, without a doubt NBCTs are as a group generally very helpful to other teachers.  

By Kristin

Just googling the image of this box gave me kind of an ill feeling.  The terror, the feeling like I was taking a shot in the dark, the waiting, the exposure.  Teachers who take on the challenge of measuring their practice by gathering evidence and writing a massive thesis on top of their daily teaching load are the kind of teachers I want to work with and have teach my daughters.  Why?  Because they're tough, they take risks, and they're not afraid to try and fail.

    Two years ago my neighbor and friend climbed Rainier.  There's a great picture of him standing on top, wearing his three-year old daughter's tutu because of course, even on top of Rainier she was on his mind.  He thought he could do it, he thought it was worth doing, and he did it.

    Earning your National Boards is like that.  You've got the day in and day out evidence that you're doing a pretty good job.  You're trying to do a good job.  And then you decide you might successfully measure your teaching up against a rigorous set of national standards.  You think you can get certified, you think it's worth doing, and you do it.  

    And, like climbing Rainier, it's not easy.  You might not even summit your first time.  And if you summit someone might shoot down your accomplishment, saying that research shows NB Certification doesn't necessarily increase test scores, saying anyone can climb Rainier if you pay the right guide.

    But if you've loaded that box up with your best shot, and if you've put on your crampons and tutu and climbed Rainier, you've done something not everyone will or can do, just because you thought it was worth the pain and the effort to try.  Just because you had the guts to see if you could.

             Well done.  

 

By Travis

Across America, teachers at various levels and subjects went online to read the results of their National Board certification process.

Congratulations! Washington has always done well as a state and this is because Washington is on course to making excellence in education a state-wide goal. 

By Tom

In recognition of "Score Release Day" the writers here at Stories from School are focusing this week on National Board Certification. We're recognizing and connecting with the new NBCTs, offering our congratulations and welcoming them into the community of accomplished teachers.

Achieving National Board Certification is incredibly difficult. At least it was for me. So to all the new NBCTs out there, congratulations! You’ve done something amazing, not only for yourselves, but for your students. Celebrate. Live it up.

But I want to focus on a certain subset of National Board Certified Teachers: the retakers. (Or as the National Board calls them, the “Advanced Candidates”) As you probably know, the National Board essentially gives candidates three years in which to certify. Those who don’t certify the first year can bank their higher scores and redo the parts in which they fell short. And if they need to, they can do it again the next year.

I am in awe of those teachers.

Not because I’m one of them, but precisely because I’m not. When I went through the process, twelve years ago, I certified – not by much – but by enough. Had I fallen short, I’m pretty sure I would have turned the page on the whole sorry episode, chalked it up to unfounded hubris, and moved on. Sort of like my failed attempt to climb Mt. Baker. (See figure A)

Since certifying, I’ve had the opportunity to work with dozens of candidates. Some of them certify and some don’t. And of those who don’t, some try again and some don’t. Those who try again - who go through the anger and grief of not certifying; yet ultimately dust themselves off and go through it again; those candidates are my favorites. I admire their grit; their persistence, their perseverance and their endurance. And thier humility

Obviously, everyone wants to certify the first time around. That’s the goal. Not only is it more efficient, but it’s cheaper. NB certification, however, is an assessment. And like all assessments, it doesn’t always accurately measure what it’s supposed to measure. In my experience, the biggest barrier for most candidates is their ability to clearly communicate, in written form, how their teaching measures up to the standards. Being a good teacher is one thing; being able to write about it is something else altogether, and it’s that “something else” that frequently prevents good teachers from certifying.

But National Board Certification is more than an assessment. It’s also a very powerful process of professional development. By mandating self-analysis and reflection, it makes teachers better, whether they certify or not. It stands to reason that those teachers who spend two or three years immersed in this process get more out of it than the rest of us. Not that they’d want it that way, of course, but still.

So here’s to you guys. The retakers. The advanced candidates. You tried to climb that mountain, but failed. Then you tried again and made it. Some of you had to try three times. You’ve shown persistence, perseverance and endurance. You’re role models for the rest of us who worry about trying something difficult; something we might not accomplish.

You’re exactly the kind of people who should be teaching.

Yesterday, Saturday November 17th was "score release day" for NBPTS certification candidates-in-waiting.

Some teachers will open their NBPTS profile to a message of congratulations, others will have to dust themselves off and think about whether to bank scores and attempt to give it another go.

Either way, in my opinion, any teacher who participates in the process should come out the other side having grown. There are always naysayers and exceptions both good and bad, of course, but going through the kind of self-assessment and close examination of practice that is demanded of the NBPTS certification process no doubt pays dividends.

To those of you who now can post those four letters after your name, congratulations and welcome. For those who read and post here--what has pursuing or earning National Board Certification meant to you, your practice, your students and your school?

by Maren Johnson

I attended an amazing conference in Seattle this week, Excellence in Education: Washington State and Finland. We learned about some great things going on in Finland, we learned about some great things going on in Washington, and I experienced some culture shock.  Was it the differences between Finland and the United States that struck me?  Well yes, there was that, and that is what got me started thinking about culture.  However, instead of international differences, I was thinking about some of the cultural as well as philosophical differences between education groups in our own Washington state: differences between people who are in the classroom and those making policy decisions guiding classroom work; differences between policy makers and those doing education research. How to overcome those differences and build on them?  Keynote speaker Pasi Sahlberg, Director General of Finland’s Education Ministry, said, “So much of what we do in Finland, we have learned from American researchers and educators.”  He then very provocatively said the difference is that in Finland, they actually implement that research!  Here in Washington, we need to get those research<—>policy<—> implementation links tightened up, and yes, those are double-headed arrows: information needs to flow each way!

There are some vast historical and social differences between Finland and Washington—an education system cannot just be transplanted.  However, Finland has not always been an education high performer—it languished in the mid twentieth century—but over the past several decades, as Pasi Sahlberg said, “Finland has improved a lot, while the rest of the world has improved a little bit.”  This improvement can be traced to policy decisions.  What are a few of the Finnish Lessons we might learn?

We are in transition.

As a "Marzano" district piloting forward toward implementation of the new teacher evaluation system, I am coming face to face with the kinds of expectations that are going to rattle my paradigm. The instructional frameworks OSPI allowed us to choose from do not represent dramatically different approaches to teaching or schools of thought about how teaching and learning should take place. What the frameworks do establish, though, are specific "research-based" teaching strategies that emerge as valued and therefore expected, since they are named in the evaluation scales against which I will be measured. In Marzano, a few stand out to me: learning targets, performance scales (rubrics), and students tracking their own growth against those scales.

I agree that these are solid instructional strategies: they just haven't always been a consistent and practiced part of my repertoire. 

Now they are going to be--or else.

At some point in nearly every writing assignment I submitted in high school, those three letters were scrawled in the margins: "awk." To clarify for those who have clearer syntax and diction than I do, "awk." stands for "awkward."

What that means, and how specifically to remedy it, is kind of hard to pin down.

By Kristin    

This article is just fabulous.  Written by an ex-police officer and Marine who now teaches physics, it outlines why teachers deserve more credit than they're getting.

The reason it fits in this post is that Matthew Swope mentions things teachers do that blur the professional boundary between student and teacher.  It's risky to cross that line, but teachers do it every day in order to let a kid know someone cares about him enough to stand by his side even if there's no learning target involved.  Even if it could be seen as inappropriate.

By Maren Johnson

When I miss school for a professional reason, I like to briefly explain to my students why I will be gone—I want my students to know I do not take being absent from their class lightly.  Before attending a recent training on our new teacher evaluation system, I told my chemistry students a bit about what I was going to be doing.  I even showed them our colorful UW CEL instructional framework “Smart Card”—hey, it’s a little like the Periodic Table of Teaching! 

Just before this, one of my senior students had asked me for a letter of recommendation.  I have had this student in class for several years and would be happy to write one. Before I was going to be absent, I explained to the class the new teacher evaluation system as involving observations as well as teachers gathering and submitting evidence.  Clearly, the student who had just asked me for a letter of recommendation was listening.  He leaned back, raised his hand, and said with a big grin, “Ms. Johnson, do you need a recommendation letter for your evaluation too?  Let’s talk about this—maybe we can work something out!”

On my 18^th birthday, I practically sprinted to the school library to register to vote. I don’t think I was really as excited about the democratic process as I was about the right of passage it marked. It happened to be just a few months before a presidential election, and all of a sudden I started to notice the ads and the news stories and quickly became aware of how complex voting could be.

By Tom White

It’s often said that receiving unsolicited advice always sounds like criticism. That’s unfortunate, since giving unsolicited advice isn’t usually intended as criticism; it’s usually just one person looking at another person and articulating where there’s room for improvement. Which, now that I think about it, is a pretty good definition of criticism.

So it’s in that spirit that I’m about to give advice to the National Board. Advice that is entirely unsolicited. Keep in mind that I love the National Board. I love what it stands for and I love what it’s done for the teaching profession. In fact, other than marriage and fatherhood, National Board Certification is perhaps the best thing that’s ever happened to me. But just like marriage and fatherhood, National Board Certification is not quite perfect.

And they apparently know this. In fact, under their new leadership, they’ve signaled that big changes are in the works; changes that will hopefully make the National Board more relevant to the current educational landscape, while making the certification process more accessible to today’s teachers, and without compromising the high standards that are at their core. So here goes:

by Maren Johnson

This month on Stories from School, we are trying to expose some of the "invisible" work that teachers do--the things in teaching that may go unseen by others.  Unfortunately, what I have to write about is not at all invisible--rather, it is all too often in our way!  Science teachers, Career and Tech Ed teachers, and other teachers of project and lab based classes spend much of our time functioning as equipment managers--not the most glamorous duty, but a duty, indeed, it is.  You can see a few of us in the photo off to the left, and yes, we are hamming it up for a Homecoming spirit day dressed as Industrial Hazards, but you get the idea--our equipment is large and can be hard to handle.

What are some of the “invisibles” that come with all this equipment?

By Kristin

Here's an old fashioned Polar Bear exhibit.  Some effort has been made, but even if you haven't spent much of your life glued to Frozen Planet on the Discovery Channel you instinctively know that this isn't the kind of home a polar bear would choose.  The tire swings and poolette are intended to give the bear some mental and physical stimulation, but I doubt this cage provides a quality of life worthy of such a magnificent creature.  Zoos are getting better, but they still face the challenge of being ambassadors of wild creatures even as they keep the creatures in exhibits that, at best, mimic small parts of an animal's habitat - kind of like trying to design a school that serves the needs of all its students.

By Tom White

It was a beautiful spring day in the great Pacific Northwest; my third graders had just spent the morning meeting their pen pals for the first time. After corresponding with them for eight months, we were at Edmonds Beach during a really low tide, looking at all sorts of marine creatures and getting pleasantly muddy. Now we were on the ferry, having lunch on the sun deck with our new friends as the boat sailed across Puget Sound. We got to the other side, disembarked and milled around on the dock, planning to catch the same boat back so we could enjoy some more time at the beach before returning to school.

That’s where the ferry worker found me. “Are you in charge of this field trip?” He looked concerned.

“Theoretically,” I said. “Why, is there a problem?”

“Yes. It seems the Edmonds dock has been damaged. They need a new part to fix it. It’ll take about five hours before we can send another boat back across. I just thought you should know.”

No conversation about the invisible realities that affect teachers’ lives would be complete without bringing up field trips. There’s nothing I hate – and love – more than taking my students out into the world for some hands-on learning.

They take an incredible amount of time.

When I was an undergraduate, I loved having the opportunity to choose whichever courses interested me. Outside of my major, I took everything from calculus to photography to sociology. I also took advantage of another benefit offered: the option to take courses "pass/fail." I engaged this option whenever there was the chance that I would earn less than an "A."

At the time, I justified it from a financial standpoint. I had tuition and housing scholarships which required a certain GPA: a "C" would harm my GPA, but a "P" had no effect on it and I'd still earn the credit. However, in hindsight, I see that this behavior was a sign of something I'm only now starting to understand: my transcript was my identity.

Recently at an after-school meeting, one of our building associate principals shared an article summarizing the work done by Carol Dweck of the Stanford University School of Psychology. The gist: while it is not absolute, there are generally two "mindsets" into which people can be classified--the "fixed" mindset and the "growth" mindset. 

A person whose disposition is in the "growth" mindset will relish challenge, recover from failure having learned and applied critical lessons, and "end up" in a different and usually better place from where they "start out."

In college, I was clearly of the "fixed" mindset.

By Travis A. Wittwer 

Paper. A school is dependent on paper. This thin, white, innocuous object has value beyond what is initially seen. Paper marks the flow of ideas and learning throughout the school. It is hard to imagine a school without paper. Yet, each year imagining a school without paper becomes easier to imagine.

Paper is an indicator species for resources in the school. Paper represents the health and strength of the school. Paper is symbolic of other resources within the school such as writing utensils, novels, additional support in the library, or clubs to create school culture. 

Paper, and that for which it represents, is another item I will include on my list of Invisibles. 

By Kristin

One night at 11:30 the phone rang, waking me up.  It was one of my all-time favorite students and she was sobbing.  At midnight her online application for a desperately needed scholarship was due and the librarian, who had promised to write a letter of recommendation, hadn't done so.  If she sent me the link and password, would I write one?  She wouldn't ask except the librarian wasn't answering her phone.

Another invisible: the budget. I spend a lot of time on amazon.com as part of my job. As chair of the English department, I have keep up the inventory of our resources--a key resource, of course, is our store of books. Every student at my school is required to take an English class, and my department budget works out to be about $1.80 per student per year. Granted, once you buy a book you can use it multiple times--but books also wear out, and our department budget also has to cover, among other things, basic supplies like paper, staples, dry erase markers, and the other necessities that my 18 full- or part-time English teachers usually end up buying out of their own pocket when the department supply runs out around mid-November.

When I get an email that we are a class-set short of copies of an anchor novel in the curriculum, I have to find a way to cover that gap. In a dream world, I'd buy library-bound hardcover copies of each novel, which start at about $20 per copy. Scratch that: in a dream world, I'd supply all of my students with e-readers wherein they can interact with, annotate, and easily carry their texts. 

To plan a complete and well-designed lesson takes time. Most of us have 30-40 minutes of prep time per day, yet teach 6-10 lessons per day (at the primary level). Since that in-school prep time is also the only chance we have to go to the bathroom, organize manipulatives, or gather materials, not much lesson planning happens during the school day. Which means that either we do most of our planning on our own time, or we don't do it and end up winging it.

We need community members, administrators, and policy makers to carefully consider where they want us to focus our efforts. How much time do you want me to spend preparing lessons for your child?