Parent Trigger Laws: Is this the future?

Parent trigger laws are in the news again, thanks to a vote of approval from The U.S. Conference of Mayors held in Orlando, FL in June, 2012.

Although no locality has succeeded in passing such a law, some have tried, and this positive commitment from the nation’s mayors seems to weigh heavily toward it.

What are Parent Trigger Laws?

If a school is failing (and we assume this means test scores), this law would allow parents to take over the school and run it themselves or turn it over to private entities to run. Parents in two California cities, Compton and Adelanto, both low-income areas with real problems to face, have tried to implement this law. They had enough signatures to do it, too, but teacher’s unions have fought back and the whole process is stalled in court.

At first blush, at first glance, this whole movement may seem like a good thing. Maybe it is! For schools bombarded with budget cuts on the one hand and striking community problems on the other, it might be a good thing for parents to try to take on the problem.

On the other hand, I’ve seen firsthand the results of parent leadership in a nearby charter school. The school charter included a heavy amount of parent input. In reality, what happened was that few decisions could be made clearly and cleanly. Moreover, when there was a conflict between unfortunate student behavior and a teacher, the teacher always got the short end of the stick because the parents had the clout to weigh in and rescue the student.

Failing schools? Perhaps there are not as many as we think, although of course our hearts go out to those families in impoverished areas like Compton where it’s hard to know justwhat to do.

However, it’s sort of a mantra that our schools are failing and we need to call in the reinforcements (read the private sector, commercial entities) to save them. And of course, in many cases, this goes right to test scores, which I’ve long insisted are a dismal measurement of whether a school is good or not. Scamper back through my blogs this year to see why.

I imagine that these parent trigger laws won’t come into our schools without a fight, given teacher unions. I would hope that devoted parents in desperate areas would have enough of a voice to help their kids’ schools, but I would also bet that it would be an unusual group of parents that could really hold it together and create an educational institution better than the one that’s already failing in their neighborhood.

proof

He came five years ago, by reputation with the exact skills the school needed. Unfortunately, instead of exercising those disciplinary skills on students, creating an environment where educators could teach, he instead went of his way to create animosity amongst teachers, breaking up teams of teachers who had been together for years, who had created improvement in test scores, and who had won awards for their efforts.

Teachers were disciplined in front of students, yelled at publicly. The students soon caught on that teachers were the bad guys in school, and instead of student behavior improving in the school, the obedience to rules and regulations by students spun out of control.

The school became a place that teachers left, whereas before it had enjoyed a reputation as a good place to teach.

The end result is that test scores went down. They went from missing AYP by only one point in only one category, to not even coming close to making AYP.

The lesson administration should learn is that if you don’t support teachers, you can’t be supporting children.

The star principal will no longer be at that school.

Who you going to call? Call Andy

For the second time this week my path to school was interrupted by police tape. As I drove by I saw a bicycle laid flat on the sidewalk. Today it seemed to affect attendance as only 60% of my class arrived at school. One of my students arrived at school in tears and asked for my phone at 10:50 so she could check on her cousin who was shot last night. He was involved in a shooting 8 blocks from our school, not the one where the police tape caused my detour.

Despite the difference in socio-economics and the problems children at the low end of the socio-economic continuum face, my colleagues and I are expected to teach the same material, the same way, and at the same speed as teachers who teach in schools at the higher end of the socio-economic continuum. This is simply ignorance.

It is ignorance at the highest level of school district administration, it is ignorance at the highest level of political policy making, and it is ignorance among our population who listen to right wing nuts who publicly call teachers lazy on their talk shows.

What recourse do we have?

Call Andy.  He is the manager at the King of Prussia flagship store of Joseph A. Bank, a men’s clothing store chain. They advertise in support of Dom Giordano, a talk show host on radio station 1210, known as the big talker.  The phone number is (610) 337-2131

Call Andy. Tell him you cannot shop in a store that supports ignorant, uninformed talk show hosts. Tell him teachers aren’t lazy as Dom Giordano said we are, we are not overpaid as Dom Giordano said we are, and we don’t have to support merit pay in order to be a good teacher as Dom Giordano believes. Tell Andy that Dom was wrong, that we don’t get paid over the summer time for work we are not performing. Tell Dom Giordano he’s wrong by calling at Andy at (610) 337-2131 and telling him you won’t buy clothes at Joseph Bank until Dom apologizes for calling us lazy and overpaid. Let us not allow an uninformed mouthpiece to sway public opinion against us.

And send this to the teachers you know, and their husbands.

It doesn’t matter where you live or work, or whether you are union or not. We must act united and end teacher bashing, especially by right wing nut jobs like Dom Giordano.

Newman Vs. Duncan (Ackerman)

Keith Newman’s five point plan to fix schools now!

1. Introduce a character education curriculum.
   

   a.  Character Education curricula raise test scores,

   b. Character Education curricula improve school climate,

   c.  Character Education curricula have been shown to reduce crime in the neighborhood.

2. Research Reports by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia concludes many children in Philadelphia suffer from post traumatic stress syndrome.(The same holds true in many large cities)
   

   a.  Identify (it’s not hard) and  treat students for emotional disabilities.

   b.  Joseph Marshall, the author of Street Soldiers believes the emotions must get out before the academics can get in.

3. Work with parents.
   

   a. Teach and train parents in the neighborhood as to what skills and abilities their child should arrive at school

   b.  Follow up with how these skills evolve each year.

   c.  These parents then train other parents in the neighborhood

   d.  These activities take place in the neighborhood, not at some downtown facility.

4. Create professional learning communities (PLCs).
   

   a. National and international research conclusively demonstrate the most effective  way to improve schools is to create PLCs, not through school reconstitution  as Philadelphia is currently doing.

5. If you think these suggestions are better than what our government is doing then please help elect me. Visit my web site at http://www.electkeithnewman.com/ and make just a $10 donation. Please spread the word. Thank You

Go Ahead: Make me a politician

We, the People…

Deserve a government that responds to our needs.  We deserve a government that cares about the issues facing our neighborhoods – facing our children – facing our future.  We deserve a government that knows its job is serving the people.  And how do we get the government we deserve?  We get it by electing people who also know what should be done to make our lives and the lives of our children better.  We need a government made up of competent and dedicated professionals; people that know how to fix problems, not just point them out and use them to make others look bad.

The challenges facing our schools…

Are real.  They did not just appear, but developed over time; despite the efforts of innovative teachers and dedicated professionals.  These problems – the enduring and worsening gap in classroom achievement between urban and suburban students and between students from different economic classes; government mandates that squelch creativity and innovation in the classroom; an education system that coldly equates students with numbers and education with test scores – continue to get worse, despite the efforts of our elected politicians.  Why?  Because politicians are in the politics business.  They do not understand how to solve these very real challenges.

It’s time to take back our government…

From the career politicians.  Our schools are our most important means to shape our society’s future.  Our schools should provide safe, creative, dynamic learning environments that challenge our young people to think and to grow, and to understand their world.  We need to stop relying on the career politicians to fix these problems and turn instead to the career educators.  We need someone who has been successful in the classroom to reform our education policies.  We need someone who has been on the front lines of education to bring a sense of realism and a real urgency to this debate.  We need Keith Newman.

Keith Newman knows our schools.

As an award-winning educator, Keith has real experience with what works and what doesn’t work in the classroom.  He has real experience with proven educational strategies like innovative learning communities, creative assessment tools, and “whole student” approaches to education.  Keith has been forced to accept the unfunded and underfunded mandates imposed on our education system by career politicians whose goal is only re-election.  Our schools don’t need any more politicians trying to help; instead, we need competent and dedicated professionals who know what needs to be done.  Our schools need Keith Newman.

We need your help…

Keith is running for the vacant seat representing the 194^th District in Pennsylvania.  He needs your help to win this seat and to bring to the government the perspective of the teacher.  It’s time we stopped hoping that career politicians will somehow figure out how to fix our schools.  It’s time we elected a teacher leader who knows the problems, has dealt with the problems, and who has practical and proven ideas of how to fix the problems.  We ask for your support in electing Keith Newman representative of the 194^th District. Please visit his website at http://www.electkeithnewman.com and consider making a small donation so we can educate our politicians and our children.

Pit Bulls and Clockers

Pit Bulls and ClockersLast year I went to visit a child’s house during the first week of school. I was greeted by two pit bulls. One was happy to see me, and one was not. I was content to stay on the other side of the door. When a first grader invited me in, I asked for an adult who removed the dogs from the scene before I entered the house. During the course of the year I ran into those pit bulls on several occasions. Perhaps the biggest pit bull was the child’s father, who died a violent death this past summer, a victim of the combative life he allegedly led.

The clockers incident occurred this past week in a new neighborhood, at a new school. They ignored me when I drove by, but immediately eyed me as I parked my car. The car caused confusion because it was clearly not a cop car. It was evident though, I was in a neighborhood in which I did not belong. My Black friends have told me when canvassing neighborhoods for political campaigns, I can appear very cop like, meaning; folks don’t answer their door when I knock.

The clockers stood as I approached the house. I spoke first, “Relax fellas, I’m just a teacher, looking for Joanne Doe’s house.” It calmed them right down. They cheerfully directed me to a house just on the other side of their domain. Here there were no pit bulls, and at first there was no answer. It was obvious though, that I was clocker approved, and shortly the door opened. The aged woman answering the door was reluctant to invite me in. I persisted, and got my conversation resulting in a conference the next day at school.

In the long run, despite my best efforts, the willingness to face up to Pit Bulls and Clockers, I doubt my labors and good intentions had any effect on the outcome these children will face. They have bigger obstacles in life than getting bad grades and poor behavior reports in school.

The fact is people who live in Spain learn Spanish, and people who are born to English speaking parents in America learn English. What we all learn, is how to survive in our environment. For these two children, one raised in violent environment, one raised in a drug environment, they have learned what their parents taught them. My job is to undo that. It should be easy. The people who taught them first, whom despite their shortcomings were loved by their children, are both dead.

Education: When Less is More

Many non educators believe the school day for teachers and students should be longer, but ignorance is no excuse for bad policy. Let us first examine an educators’ day, since so many underestimate the hours a teacher puts in.

By contract an elementary school teacher in Philadelphia arrives by 8:20 and must stay until 3:09. Rational people will allow that the majority of teachers arrive by 8:00 and stay until a minimum of 3:30. It takes that long just to store and collect the tools of the trade. It makes for a 7½ hour day. But teachers give assignments and assignments must be reviewed. It requires a minimum of 45 minutes to assess an assignment. If a teacher gives two assignments per day, which is unlikely as most teachers see at least four classes a day, that turns a 7½ day into a 9 hour day. But still there is more. Assignments must be planned and prepared, copied, cut out, drawn, whatever, but each preparation takes another 45 minutes beyond what the school day accommodates. Thus a school teacher in Philadelphia already puts in a minimum of 10 hours per day. This writer generally put in a minimum of 4 hours over the weekend, usually 6-8. So the average teacher in Philadelphia puts in a minimum 50-60 hours per week as it is.

To make the school day longer means teachers will have less time to review student work and give feedback on it. Does anyone really want an educational system where children are unable to get feedback on their work?

To lengthen the day will only result in putting the law of diminishing returns into effect. Appropriate school behavior and the ability to focus deteriorate significantly after lunch and continue to worsen until the school day ends.  It would perhaps be more effective to have the recreation department in conjunction with the schools step in to provide health and nutrition classes as well as exercise, before our children succumb to the corner store mentality and become junk food addicts.

There are valid educational reasons why the school day should not be lengthened, while the overall time children spend in the safety of the school building can actually be increased. Let us hope administrators have the wisdom to enact good policy based on knowledge, instead of bad policy based on ignorance.

Relationships: The Heart of Teaching

I sat in an I.E.P. meeting today where the itinerant hearing specialist running the meeting made the comment over and over about how welcoming, safe, positive, and passionate our school is.  As a charter school, we contract our special education services from San Diego Unified, so she only has her brief experiences with a couple of our kids to inform her about the type of school we are.

Truth be told, people from outside our school make the same types of comments after time with us.  Though we certainly have our issues, I cannot imagine teaching in a more supportive environment for teachers, students, and their families.

Ultimately, I think it’s about our emphasis on relationships–among staff, with families, with students.  We cap class sizes at 20 K-5 and 25 in the middle school.  Each grade only has two teachers, and we all own all of our kids.  As an eighth grade teacher, I know most of the middle schoolers by name and a large number of our elementary kids.  My 8th graders are writing buddies with the 1-2 multiage kids, and you can see the little guys high-fiving my big guys on the playground in the morning.

Right now, I only have 47 eighth graders to teach English and history.  I probably have another 20-ish sixth and seventh graders in the two electives I teach:  Writing & Art and Book Club.  I know these kids:  their strengths and weaknesses; their home lives; their interests; who is on Myspace at twelve in the morning instead of in bed.  I have the time, space, and support to know them.  They trust me, they respect me, and they know ME as well.

I couldn’t do this as effectively back when I had 100-students I was responsible for, a number I realize is still a luxury for many teachers.  How could I possibly be an effective teacher with 200 or more students on my caseload?  How could I possibly know each one as a unique learner?  How could I adjust my instruction to their individual needs?  And how could I expect 200 kids to turn in four published writing pieces each quarter–800 papers to read and give feedback on, let alone feedback that the individual is most ready to apply?

Kids are not widgets.  Learning does not happen by assembly line.  Telling isn’t teaching.  Relationships are at the heart of teaching; without that, you have kids like one of last year’s 8th graders coming back to express her hatred of high school stating, “My teacher doesn’t even know my name.”  This after a semester in someone’s class.

Yes, it costs more, but it’s doable and quite worth it.  If we can do this at my school, we can do it anywhere.  It’s about districts putting their money where their proverbial mouths are.

Mcain, Obama: Neither is Good for Educators

Barack Obama lost my vote this week when he said that one of his first priorities in office will be to fund charter schools and school vouchers. He lost my vote: doesn’t he do the research, or doesn’t his research team do its job? If we stick to the (debatable) measure of test scores as the touchstone of a good education, then charter schools have, over the long term,  proven to be inferior, as have vouchers. (Please note: I think charter schools can be a good thing despite lower test scores, as for example great arts charter schools.)

However, vouchers are proven losers –and people in my state, Utah, agree, as they shot down voucher legislation last year with over 131,000 signatures on a petition calling for a public vote on the measure, which was then soundly defeated.

McCain lost my vote when, in his acceptance speech, he vowed to remove bad teachers and fix a failing system. As Virginia Riley pointed out in her excellent editorial in Sunday’s Salt Lake Tribune (http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_10456190), who are these bad teachers? You’ve got to read her whole editorial, but here’s a brilliant clip:

“Have we really failed? Public schools are doing everything McCain asks of us with inadequate funding, facilities, textbooks and technology. Sitting in public school classrooms are students with autism, Down syndrome, ADHD, dyslexia and a host of physical and mental challenges. There are abused children, drug addicts, pregnant girls, clinically depressed adolescents, gang members and students with myriad social and emotional issues.  . .    There are students from families facing economic hardships, students who are putting in 40-hour workweeks and then falling asleep in high school classrooms, students who are trying to raise younger siblings, students who are undocumented immigrants, students living out of cars and students who don’t speak English and don’t understand what we are saying to them. . .     We teach them all.”

It is such a cheap and easy shot to say that schools are failing, that teachers are bad, that students are falling behind. It’s so easy to compare test results from American schools, especially inner-city schools or schools with transient, low-income, non-English speaking populations, with schools in places like Japan, smaller countries with homogenous cultures and small families. It’s an impossible comparison.

So now. . . I’ve got no one to vote for.  Obama suggests that he would reform No Child Left Behind. I don’t see any suggestion of how he would do that except for his commitment to charter schools and vouchers. . . back to square one.

Seems to me, that when you get right down to it, that the politicos are all about soundbites and not solid research, when it comes to education.

Failing Schools, blah, blah, blah

A recent letter to the editor in a major Utah newspaper continued the typical whining of the misinformed who insist that our schools are failing. It’s almost a chorus, like the knee-jerk chirping of summer evening crickets: one sings a tune, and every one joins in.

By what measure are our schools failing? By national standards? Most of our Utah schools have made Adequate Yearly Progress, and I assume that schools throughout the nation are mostly measuring up. What that means in practical terms is that teachers are qualified to teach what they teach, and students are passing tests.

By state standards? These fall in line with the national standards, as do district standards. When in doubt, follow the funding, and money flows from the top down.

By parents’ standards? I hardly think so, attending parent meetings where you hear, “We done the best we could,” and that sort of speech.

I have taught in the public system over ten years, at the college level for six years, and in homeschools and neighborhood schools in between. All of these educational ventures share common traits: they have good things about them, and they have bad things about them. There are inspired administrators and deadly ones. There are splendid teachers and weary, woeful ones. There are delighted students and there are miserable ones. No one system is going to educate everyone beautifully all the time. Statistics reveal that states with vouchers for private education produce no better results than the public schools, and the charter schools are showing up pretty much the same, if not worse.

It’s a cheap and easy shot to say that the schools are failing. I suggest that the whiners take a seat in the back of a fifth-grade class, a junior high math class, a high school science class, for a week or so, and see how things really go. They will find, I am sure, that there are many illuminated moments, many kindnesses between teachers and students, and between the students themselves. They will see people working hard, teachers and kids alike. They will realize, for sure, that maybe they don’t know as darn much as they think they know.

For serving the majority of the millions of kids in our wide, wonderful and various country, the public school system works the best. Sure, it’s often frustrating, and it often moves slowly. But failing? Not the way I see it, and I see it every day.