Just last week the state of Florida released their “school grades” for the 2007-08 school year. A summary of these grades was included in a press release (http://www.fldoe.org/news/2008/2008_07_08.asp). I am very excited . . .my school was an “A” again, which means we should receive bonus funds for the upcoming school year—pending budget issues, of course. If we get the money, I intend to buy a SmartBoard . . .but I digress from the true topic of interest for this blog.

I am interested in the press release linked above that suggests “Florida has more schools earning “A’s” and “B’s” than ever before according to the 2008 school grades results . . .”. I am interested in this statement because I am a math teacher. As such, I have the obligation to question data presentation in the media. I have certainly studied my fair share of statistics and data analysis. I also understand that in an election year, image is everything! So, does the higher number of “A” and “B” schools mean that our schools are doing a better job educating our students or that the state has done a better job skewing their data results?

Now, don’t get me wrong . . .the teachers and students in these schools have worked very hard to obtain their grades. However, the state prepares the tests. The state prepares the test scorers. And the state determines the criteria that must be met in order to obtain a school grade of “A”. All classroom teachers know that by shifting criteria in our grading (making tests worth 60% instead of 50%, for example), we can shift the overall grades in our class—to obtain more “A’s” and “B’s”, or to obtain more “D’s” and “F’s”. Likewise, when we are grading a test or assignment, we can change the weights of certain problems to obtain higher (or lower) overall scores. Is it any different on the FCAT?

I have sat through numerous training sessions on how the FCAT is scored. The scorers are given anchor papers with which to compare answers . . . so by adjusting the anchor papers, the overall scores could easily be adjusted. This would then carry over into the number of students performing on grade level or the number of students showing growth, and these are some of the categories used in determining school grades!

Next year will we see a dramatic decline in scores? Will the number of “A’s” and “B’s” decrease since the criteria to maintain those grades gets harder and harder! What ultimately happens when a school narrows in on its goal of 100% of students reading on grade level? How will the state grade the school’s growth? If 100% of the students are reading on grade level, how does the school grow?

So, are our schools doing a better job? Are our teachers, students and parents to be commended for a job well done . . .very well done . . .to have 55 % of our schools rated as “A” schools? Or are we just being set up for disappointment in future, non-election years? Is the state playing the role of the “nice” teacher who inflates grades for an underlying purpose?

Matthew Miller makes me sick. This National Public Radio host wrote in the Wall Street Journal  “Obama Doesn’t Have to Run as a Liberal.” Miller’s reasoning is that Obama should realize Science and Math teachers deserve more money that Grade Teachers, English Teachers, or Social Studies Teachers. This is just another case of those on the right displaying their ignorance. Those on the Right are wrong.

The hardest job in teaching is teaching the earliest grades. It’s also the most important job. Think of how long it took archeologists to decipher ancient Egyptian languages. Yet somehow Matthew Miller and those on the right think teaching reading is easy. It’s no easier and no harder than it was for the archeologists to decipher a foreign language because that’s what English is to young children, especially children whose first language is not English.

Why do those on the right think they know more than teachers do?

Early grade teachers make four –six lesson plans a day while specialists in Math and Science have 2-3 Lesson Plans for day. And if early grade teachers don’t have success, what chance do these specialists have of teaching their subject material? Early grade teachers work harder than subject specialists and they perform the most critical task: teaching reading. How dare we pay them less!?

Many on the right believe we should let the market dictate and pay Science and Math teachers more because of their scarcity. So what happens when the majority of new teachers want to teach Science or Math and then we have a shortage of English and Social Studies teachers? Do Social Studies and English Teachers then get raises above the Science and Math teachers because they are now in scarcity? Hey Matt can you spell Yo Yo? If so, thank an early grade teacher. 

P.S. I teach Science

In a July 8, 2008 editorial in USA Today, Patrick Welsh, an English teacher in Virginia, looks at our students’ lack of mastery in math and other subjects (http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/07/math-meltdown.html).

He points out that seventh grade students are urged to take Algebra I, even though most of them are not ready for it. Researchers in brain development point out that such abstract thinking is possible only after a certain level of maturation, usually after age 12, but often later, especially in boys. Seventh graders are only 12. In today’s world, many of these students are immature indeed because they have spent childhoods in front of televisions and video games. If students whose brains have not matured enough to handle abstraction are forced to study math at this level, they simply cannot master it.

Welsh points out that “math gurus” set the curriculum and standards our students must meet. He took a look at the state standards and just had to laugh. Students graduating from high school must take certain upper-level math courses, although many of them cannot even do basic computation and even lack basic skills such as multiplication. A majority of them cannot read a simple story problem–which is everyday math, the kind most people face throughout their lives–and understand it well enough to tackle it.

Welsh also points out that most student emerge from their high school curricula without knowledge of history, without knowing the dates when things happened, and without enough grammar skills to write correct sentences.

I see the same kinds of things in my little rural district here, although district literacy specialists are working mightily to improve comprehension and writing skills, and there are endless interventions happening in math. The proof comes when students go to college–if they go to college–and there evidence their lack of reading, writing and math skills.

What to do? If we reexamine state standards and rewrite course sequences to fit the realities, surely we will be accused of watering down our students’ educations. We just know that the proponents of the status quo will argue powerfully for keeping “high standards,” but what is the point of these standards, these course requirements, this standard curriculum, if students really don’t get it? They really do not know the math, the grammar, the history.

Why not reexamine course sequences and provide legitimate lower-level courses in math, for credit? Why not revamp the English curriculum to provide more writing, editing, and grammar practice, along with constant immersion in the classics? Why not hit the important concepts in science and the important dates in history just a little harder, just a little more often?

Sure, we can argue that this is lower-level work. But this would be a pointless argument, because it’s the only work that many of our students can do.

As the summer heats up and election issues take shape, what is happening in regards to education reflects an absence of knowledge by both candidates.

          Senator McCain proposes School Choice and Vouchers. Conceptually this is an American tradition and if it is good for business why not for schools? But we’ve had vouchers in Milwaukee for an entire generation without the results those in favor of school choice expected. These diminished results were replicated in Cleveland and in Florida. Florida’s failed state interventions shoud serve as a warning to those who favor a national education policy. Even in Philadelphia with our “Diverse Provider Model” the results have proven to be murky. Clearly vouchers and school choice are not concepts we should at this point advance to a national level.

          Senator Obama’s plan of “Merit Pay” has equally ambiguous results. In Denver, the hot bed of Merit Pay activity the results are not yet in. In other locations such as Little Rock Merit Pay demonstrates short term gains while other researchers state the effect or Merit Pay dissipates as it is spread amongst greater numbers of teachers. At best what can be said about Merit Pay is the results are too limited for definite conclusions to be drawn.

          I would hope that in the “Science of Education” we have come too far to implement national strategies on limited studies and inconclusive results.

My daughter, young and newly-married, is trying to figure out what to do with a property she owns with her husband. Like many starry-eyed young people, she thinks that she can make the big score, score the big buck . . . .idioms that kids her age toss around.

I tell her she should not even consider razing the house, building in its place a mansion, hoping to walk away with millions in her pocket, especially on today’s market.

“No,” I say, “Just clean it, renovate it nicely and cheaply, and sell it for a decent profit, if you can. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

“Huh?”

My daughter doesn’t know this idiomatic phrase, along with about a zillion others. My secondary students usually know few of them either.

Part of this is the shift in literacy that I’ve been writing about recently. Students know many movie scripts almost by heart. Cult classics may result in  people spending whole hilarious evenings passing around quotes from Young Frankenstein, such as, “Walk this way.”

However, modern kids who don’t know the classics and who don’t participate in everyday discourse with literate adults often don’t know what to make of references to a doubting Thomas, to crying wolf, or to sour grapes. It’s fun to look at websites and books that detail these idiomatic expressions and see how many you know, especially if you can recall mythology or Bible stories behind them. It is also fun to note how many of these expressions are very gritty, harking back to the day when chickens really did run around the yard with their heads cut off.

            Many say and I agree, a school takes on the personality of its principal. Yet when one principal finds something that works, schools all across the country begin imitating it. Children however are not cows, and schools cannot be run like a McDonald franchise.

            That’s why I was overjoyed when Dr. Ackerman, the new Superintendent in Philadelphia (Pa) eliminated the position of “School Growth Coach.” Now I know some School Growth Coaches do a heck of a job and work with teachers to improve their practice, but the overwhelming word in the school is most become puppets of their principal and find ways to busy themselves so they don’t have to work with children. Sadly, a few are burned out from being in the classroom and are just collecting a check.

The funny thing is I was perusing such a position because a Regional Superintendent told me it was the new “career track” to becoming a principal.

Congratulations to Dr. Ackerman for not laying these people off, but instead finding meaningful positions for over 200 of them, such as teaching and lowering class size.  Dr. Ackerman is an educator, and perhaps she recognizes the business model is not the correct one for education. I am told she has given herself the title “Superintendent” and retired the phrase Chief Executive Officer. She is also her own CAO, Chief Academic Officer, eliminating a position paying over $200K. In a previous post I pointed out in a she received a 25% raise above that of Mr. Vallas, our previous CEO who left us in financial ruin and political turmoil. Simply put, educators are worth more than businessmen!

As a high school teacher for the past 11 years, I have had the opportunity to become friends with many of my students after they graduate. I think that is one of the benefits to teaching high school . . .my students are adults before they graduate and upon graduation, my relationship with them is no longer one of teacher-student, but adult-adult! At graduation they reach their day of independence. I know all teachers enjoy hearing from their previous students in quick updates about their career and life choices, but I prefer to actually become friends with many of my students. I don’t just want to hear about their choices, I want to be a part of those choices—whether as an invited guest to their wedding, another opinion in which job offer to accept, or the friend they call for parenting advice.

The reason I mention that is because the past 3 weeks have been overwhelming to me, in regard to my relationship with my students. I feel it is worth sharing here for new teachers not knowing how much is too much, and for the veterans who feel like they just haven’t yet connected with their students. The first experience I will share is coming to an end today . . .my first trip to New York! My husband, who I have been with since high school, has been a New York Yankees fan for as long as he has known the sport of baseball. He has spoken many times of wanting to watch a Yankees game at Yankee stadium. Well, for those of you who aren’t sports fans, New York is building a new stadium for next season so it was now or never. In addition, I have taught a student for the past 3 years (he was in my Geometry, Algebra II, and Trigonometry classes) who is also a huge Yankees fan. So when we decided to go to New York this summer, the only logical thing to do was ask this student if he wanted to go also . . . and he did!

So last Saturday, we loaded up (my husband, my daughter, my recent student and myself) and drove for 2 days to New York. On Monday and Tuesday evening, after long days of sightseeing in Manhattan, my husband and this student realized their dream of watching the Yankees play at Yankee stadium. And, what a great experience for me! I sat there watching the two of them side by side discussing coaching decisions, players from the past, and cheering on their favorite team. Even my daughter enjoyed the company in the backseat for the long road trip from Florida to New York and back! How exciting to share such wonderful experiences and memories with a new friend! But what if I had put up the boundaries that so many teachers feel are essential? Would this student have had this experience, and more so, would I have had this experience?

My next experience is much harder for me to discuss. I found out in early May that my husband and I were expecting our second child (after 8 years of trying). After our first doctor visit I shared the news with my students (remember I teach Juniors and Seniors, split pretty evenly). They were all very excited for me, and my seniors assured me they would come visit me after the baby was born.

Well, God’s will was that I not have a baby at this time and on June 17th I miscarried. As if that wasn’t hard enough, I had to have emergency surgery, a blood transfusion, and spend 2 days in the hospital. My students found out through my church what was occurring and surrounded me with calls, prayers and cards. As I have seen them in the grocery store and restaurants in the past few weeks, they have offered their condolences, hugs, and offers of assistance to my family. Such adult behavior for such young adults! Again, what if I put up the boundaries that so many teachers feel are essential? Would I have received the extra support that I needed to get me through this experience?

So, on this Independence Day, I am thankful for the independence my students receive upon graduation that allows us to continue a relationship as friends! Obviously, there are certain behaviors that would overstep the line of professionalism for teachers. However, we have a lot to offer our students, and they have a lot to offer us once they are no longer our students. Remember that even though you are hired to teach a specific subject matter, your students are always learning more from you and that is the education that will remain with them through life.

            My summer vacation has started today, June 28, 2008. Even though school was out for a week, I was kept busy with all those activities one can’t get to during the school year; but today, ahhh!

            After a 13 hour car ride my wife and I gleefully arrived like newlyweds at my father-in-laws home where we spend our summers. Fortunately, he is my best friend.

            After taking a nap and unloading the car, and taking another nap, and putting the wine away, and taking another nap, I finally got to it. The package from Amazon.Com had been waiting for us and now I opened it like a child at Christmas, and began to read! To read a book which was not school district mandated! (Psst, don’t tell them I can read, I swear, the way they treat us it would come as a shock to them that we think and read books which aren’t assigned).

            But hence my dilemma. For all you IRS agents I’m telling you right now, I’m declaring these books as expenses. You see I teach Social Studies, and these books are all on current events, the kind of current events I fall behind on from September to June. Now how can I teach Social Studies if I don’t know what’s going on or why it happened?

            Oh that’s true; they don’t have standardized tests in Social Studies. That’s right our nations history is not important. Who cares an African American is running for President? What’s the big deal about that?

            Your right, I don’t have to read. I can look out the window and just relax.

My son-in-law’s university philosophy professor said last week, “A big difference between you students today and my generation is that you guys don’t read. You don’t respond to text. You and I don’t share common references and allusions.”

This seems to support the latest news from No Child Left Behind, that student reading fluency has gone up in this year’s testing across the nation, but not their comprehension. This supports Dr. Philosophy’s idea that today’s students don’t have a love affair with text, but instead, with media: video, audio, image.

Well, we teachers can moan and bemoan this reality. Just realize that today’s kids are watching baby videos from the time they’re in their cradles. They deeply respond to image and sound, not that they can’t read, but that reading doesn’t reach into their hearts, for the most part, as it has done for earlier generations. Rather than complaining, we teachers need to accept this reality, somehow, and imagine better strategies for reaching kids than the old read-the-chapter, answer-the-questions routine. The kids can’t read the chapter very well, and the bludgeon-’em-to-death writing style of many textbooks just compounds the problem.

Don’t think for a minute that we can just turn on an educational video and pour knowledge into kids’ heads. The first and obvious problem with that is that most school districts’ videos harken from the fifties and just the opening strains of music are enough to put anyone to sleep. Even good videos lack that important component: the teacher, who interprets, enlivens, explains, and connects with kids.

By writing about these problems, I am not suggesting that I have plenty of wonderful answers. I think that there are certain things that can only be known through books, especially literature. The movie versions usually just do not give us the books’ experience.

I have watched our local junior high English teacher tackle the problem. She does readers’ theater, scene enactments (replete with sound effects and costumes), and reading circles. I think she is reaching the kids in many ways. I have watched our young social studies teacher address the problem, too, with art activities and small-group work. Yet both of these young teachers have confided the same problem: the kids can’t understand the texts. At some point, the song-and-dance, as lively and lovely as it is, must give way to students mastering concepts from. . . .shall we say it?. . . .books.

In my classes in juvenile detention, I must teach biology as well as writing and art. I have this great National Geographic high school biology book. The text is hard. However, my captive audience has to do what I say. . . so I often will say, “Read this paragraph, and define this term in your own words. Don’t read to me. Figure out what this really says, and say it in plain language.”

This approach baffles most of the students, who are used to spouting incomprehensible phrases into the air and onto test papers. Those who spout the best get A’s. For the first time, they have to figure out what the text is really saying. This lead to a very funny experience, for me. I was shopping in WalMart, and there was one of my girls from detention.

“Look, Mom!” she said. “It’s my science teacher!” She rushed up to me. “I’m doing just great in science now! You helped me really understand it!”

This would all be well and good, except that I imagine myself to be the writing and art teacher, roped into science by exigency.

Perhaps what really worked for this girl was my insistent demand on getting into the text and really understanding it. I know my approach won’t work for everyone, but perhaps it can open the door for a conversation about how to help our media kids learn to get into books.

            Public Citizens Children and Youth (PCCY) recently reported for the period 2002 -2006, 78.4% of all juvenile arrests in Philadelphia were African American. It seems to have caught no ones attention.

            In 2008 in Philadelphia, we can’t blame racism. We have elected three African American Mayors, we have had three African American Police Chiefs, and both Chairs of the School Reform Commission have been/are African American. Although most teachers are white, they overwhelmingly elected an African American as their Union President. We have come a long way from the time when an African American could not legally teach a white child. In Philadelphia Blacks have obtained equality and quite frankly, I believe our elected leaders are as angry about immoral activity as those fostering this ridiculous level of crime and ignorance upon our citizenry.

            For this city to survive we must effectively educate all children, but special emphasis must be placed on African American children because the data suggests this is where the academic achievement gap is greatest, and this where the criminal disparities are greatest

            We must start young. It is no longer a secret, it is no longer controversial, it is now widely accepted high quality early learning care is essential to helping those at risk avoid lives of crime and /or poverty.

            Mayor Nutter is correct to take action fighting problems which are unique to Philadelphia such as the gun laws. In the spirit of Frederick Douglass who said “those who would be free must strike the blow,” we must take action to educate our youth. It’s not just the cities responsibility to do so, it is parents’ responsibility: But in our city, plagued by children having children, where one in every 39 young Black males are gunshot victims; we must take the lead in educating our young people on how to be good parents.     

            To fight this fight schools are not enough. Yes we can integrate child rearing practices into the curriculum if we choose to ignore NCLB. We can also increase funding so we can assure our young children of high quality early learning experiences, but our school district is broke and financially this is unlikely to happen soon.

            Civil rights policies of the 60’s with financial incentives designed sustain single parent families in poverty have failed. In actuality they led to expansion of the single parent household so prevalent today, and that in turn has led to educational and societal difficulties we are now experiencing.

            We can reverse those policies. As a teacher I know every parent loves their children and has high hopes for them. I’ve not dealt with a parent who did not want the best for their child. Many don’t have the education themselves and are unaware of how to help. So let’s start young. At my school last year, Morrison Elementary, 88% of first graders were in need of intervention to read at grade level. Schools do not have resources to effectively educate this 88%, yet at the same time with the emphasis on NCLB; the needs of the proficient 12% are ignored. Is it any wonder with this type of start, our drop out rates are so high, and our levels of proficiency in high school are so low?

            To educate effectively, to reduce crime we must offer incentives to families to have their children arrive at school reading ready.

           (While I have written about Individual College Accounts before, the section below explains how they pay for themselves).

            Individual College Accounts is a plan creating incentives for reading readiness when a child arrives at school. When a child is born, $5000 is placed one time into an Individual College Account (ICA) in the child’s name. The ICA matures as a Roth IRA would. When the child enters first grade, assuming the child is reading ready, the parents receive $2000. If the child is not reading ready, the $2000 goes right to the district the child is enrolled in to help pay for the extra costs associated with enabling this child to be at grade level reading by grade 3.
            The remaining money in the account continues to mature until the child enters college or technical school. At that time, a percentage of the matured funds based on grades, behavior, and parent involvement, ($14,000 - $18,000) are sent to the college or trade school the child will be attending.
            Children who read at grade level are much more likely to finish high school and avoid prison. Assuming a 40 year working career at a conservative 20% income tax rate, the high school graduate will pay more than $320,000 in taxes to the federal government than a non high school graduate. The difference in earnings between a college graduate and a non-college graduate nationwide is approximately $1.1 million. Assuming the same conservative tax rate a college grad pays more than $80,000 in taxes over the course of a career than a high school graduate. This program pays for itself with out even taking into consideration the drop in crime and increased spending higher incomes generate.