The Clipboards After Christmas

The clipboards came around again. One teacher was written up because there was no evidence of writing in her classroom. It was just after the Christmas break and the clipboard saw all these new unused, still wrapped, writing journals on the teacher’s desk. Why aren’t these journals in use, the clipboard demanded of the principal? The principal immediately and verbosely chastised the teacher.

As it turns out the journals were purchased by the teacher with her own money, to replace the ones that were all used up and inside the students’ desk, while their work was hanging in the hallway, on display for all to see, except the clipboard, who didn’t know which room the work in the hallway belonged to.

Two questions here: 1. why did the teacher have to purchase student journals with her own money?

2. Do clipboards know how to ask questions?

End result, the teacher is no longer purchasing her own student journals. The principal will have to supply them (which we know won’t happen). Now the burden is on the principal as to why there will be no evidence of student writing. Who really suffers though are the children, all in the name of school improvement.

My final question: When will we teach people skills and why aren’t we hiring administrators who have them?

School Reform Needs Reform

School Reform Needs Reform. President Obama promised us “Change We Can Believe in.” Instead his Race to the Top accentuates the worst of the No Child left Behind Act, with no plans in place to eliminate the Academic Achievement Gap. Schools are the solution to this gap which stratifies our society. At the mid- point of Mr. Obama’s first term, with no guarantee there will be a second term, teachers and schools are still being blamed for a poor educational system. This phenomenon which many do not feel is a reality in this country, especially when high poverty urban schools located in high crime neighborhoods are taken out of the mix must end. Teachers must become respected professionals if they are to be successful at practicing their craft.

As a lifelong Democrat and union member I would like to see Mr. Obama win his second term. But he has given me no reason to support him with my vote, my money, and my time, as I did previously.

Education requires a surgeon’s scalpel. Instead of lumping all schools: suburban, urban, rural into one lot, let’s x-ray and pinpoint where the problems are. Instead of proposing one solution, such as fire the teachers, which is what reconstitution and charterizing amounts to, let’s look at where the difficulties present themselves. We know the academic achievement gap arrives at school and is not created by schools.

We know what makes a child at risk but we haven’t reached out to anyone to reduce the risk. We know what to do, and one would think that with Mr. Obama’s community organizing experience he also would be in an informed position. Instead our educational policy is a road map to destroying unions, promoting charters in a way never intended by one of its primary developer and late AFT President Albert Shanker. Eventually Mr. Obama’s educational policy may well pave the way for vouchers where religion can dominate education. This in my opinion is the goal of the far right who engineered NCLB.

In short, Mr. Obama’s educational policy is a right wingers dream that Mr. Bush would not have been able to successfully implement. If Sarah Palin were to run for President promising to eliminate the Department of Education, something she clearly has no use for, I would have to believe that for all his eloquence, intelligence, and passion, Palin would be less harmful to the future of this nation than Mr. Obama.

What a way to vote, based on which leader does less harm. These are indeed sad times. But Mr. Obama can still win my active support for a second term. He will have to use his bully pulpit to engage support for educators, he will have to engage parents as partners in promoting the best interests of their children, and he will need to abandon the false panacea created by good marketers known as No Child Left Behind now called Race to the Top.

Reform Effort Du Jour

For a profession that is constantly bombarded by a continuous flow of reform initiatives like we are in education it’s amazing to me how slowly our wheel of improvement turns.  Maybe it’s because we’re constantly trying the next reform effort du jour and we never seem to stick to one effort long enough for it to show significant gains in student achievement.  Why are we so ADD about what we focus on?  How can we ever see significant and sustainable progress when we keep changing our minds about what we want to do and where we will put our collective and individual energies?

It’s easy to blame policy makers at state and local levels for this schitzo behavior patterns; but truth be told, I have seen this happen equally at the building level, by nervous school house administrators whose worries about student performance immobilize them from having a clear vision for what to do and how to do it.

It’s no wonder that teachers – particularly veteran teachers – who have weathered so many failed initiatives in their tenure become apathetic to the latest idea embraced by zealous administrators.

Then, when an initiative comes along that does have proven merit to really make differences for kids, like building authentic PLCs in school faculties; it is often met with cynicism, skepticism and resistance by otherwise caring faculties.  This notion is particularly dear to me; I’ve written an entire book on how to do PLCs well (Corwin press, forthcoming in early 2011).

It’s not that teachers don’t want to improve and be more effective.  In my work consulting in schools, I believe nothing could be further from the truth.  It’s that the history in many schools of constantly trying out the latest educational fad in half-hearted, short-lived and unsupported ways have created reasonable doubt that the next idea will work or be around long enough to bother personally investing in it.  The net results is a continuance of the status quo and a deceleration of the wheel of progress – all at the cost of our students’ education and their future opportunities. dven.

[If you are interested, go to corwin.com in January of 2011 to preorder your copy of Daniel Venables’ book, The Practice of Authentic PLCs:  A Guide to Effective Teacher Teams]

The Weakest Link

Many believe we can reform schools by paying teachers teachers based on certification and the subject they teach, that science and math teachers should be paid more than grade teachers. What this accomplishes is simply shifting the weakest link in education.

The most important and perhaps hardest working teachers are the K-3 teachers. They lay the foundation for successful reading. Imagine trying to teach science or math to a child who can’t read. It can’t be done. In building you can hire the best electrician, the finest carpenter, but if the foundation crumbles then the money was not well spent.

In education there is consensus based on research that the early grades are the most important. Paying other teachers more will only weaken our foundation.

Education remains Philadelphia’s weakest link to attracting residents and business. But it is not because we don’t pay specialist teachers more than early grade teachers. It’s because the achievement gap has started before children reach school and the city and school district have yet to come with a plan to address this. Successful models are out there such as: Visiting Nurses Program, Perry Pre School Program, Chicago Parenting Center and the Harlem Children’s Zone. We know times are tough, but each of these programs is cost effective returning more money to society that what it costs taxpayers.

Tough times are followed by good times. It is time to plan and implement what we know works and eliminate the weakest link. If you’re are in favor of improving educational outcomes then the choice is not which teachers get paid more money, the decision is how do we best prepare our children for the opportunities they will wish to pursue. There can be no weak link in those preparations, and those preparations should start before another child at risk is born.

Forty Years in the Courts

For forty years the courts in Philadelphia have been tied up diagnosing what can be done to insure all children receive the same opportunity for a quality education. The court has spoken. By decree the district will be able to move teachers from high performing schools to low performing schools. Somehow teachers have been blamed for students in racially isolated schools not receiving an equal opportunity for education.

Race was largely behind this movement 40 years ago as it should have been, but our district is not the same as it was then. Neither are the causes of poor performance. Research clearly indicates low performance today is more of a socio-economic issue than a race one.

The population of the city is 48% White and roughly the same population Black, yet Black students in our public schools outnumber White ones by considerably more than three to one. Court ordered bussing created white flight, perhaps proof that courts can’t manage schools.

I have been in the same school for eleven years. The families and the neighborhood know me. It helps me be a more effective teacher. Do you think the courts know that? Forty years ago their decision created racially isolated schools and cities we see today. Now they have issued a decision which in my opinion, makes the teaching profession much less attractive.

Is it any wonder a city which had its school district taken over by the state is having its policies dictated by the courts? The real question is: Is there room for common sense, is there room to implement policies which work for the children in the School District of Philadelphia, or will we have to wait forty years for another out of date resolution?

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/education/20090709_Phila__schools_agree_to_settle_1970_desgregation_suit.html

http://www.thenotebook.org/blog/091534/desegregation-case-over-or-has-hard-part-just-begun

Naturally Curious

In the past month, several people in my life have referenced the Sudbury Valley School, and after encountering another reference to the school in a comment on homework-as-control-mechanism, I decided to check it out.

For those of you who are as unaware as I was of this private school in Massachusetts, Sudbury is a PreK-12th grade program that has no formal teachers, no formal classes, and no specific curriculum.  Adult staff are decided on by students year by year according to how kids perceive their contributions to their learning.  Parents, staff, and students set the rules and administer the consequences in a New England style meeting.

The belief is that we are born curious and that we pursue knowledge and understanding as a matter of living.  The vehicle by which kids learn to read may vary, but it is always through a need to know within a larger context and decided upon by each individual child.  The same goes for mathematics.  So, on a visit to the campus, one might see kids cooking, climbing trees, having conversations, studying and creating art, playing music, or reading in a corner.  The staff is there as a resource when a student wants to explore more deeply in a given area.

In short, nature–and children–are trusted, and the resources are there when the time arrives.

Now, I am a recovering control freak, so as intrigued as I am by the idea, my controlling side screams, “But…but…but!”  However, I remember how desolate and horrible school was for me, even back when testing didn’t control the day to day classroom.  I remember, clearly, how I could listen to the teacher in each of my literature classes in high school and ace tests without ever reading the books assigned.  I also remember reading voraciously on my own, of testing at the college level in comprehension in seventh grade, and of trips to the library where my parents set no limits on what I read other than being open to talking about whatever choices I made.  I remember learning about measurement from cooking my mom’s scrumptious macaroni and cheese and about Spanish from traveling extensively in Central and South America.  More than that, I am absolutely certain that my strength in teaching writing comes from writing daily and pursuing my passion, not from *gasp* my college courses about teaching writing.

I am wondering if, by squeezing out student choice and personal meaning making, we are actually disabling our students’ natural desire and predilection to learn.  I am wondering if we are handicapping them, teaching them to rely on us, spoon feeding them and then becoming angry when they spit what we have to offer out.

I refuse to do that in my classroom.  My kids have the space to explore writing in whatever way makes sense to them.  My only requirement is that they are pushing forward, taking risks, and writing for real.  And now I’m wondering how to give them even more breathing room to max out their learning in reading and writing with me on the side, there when they need me, out of their way when they don’t.

Modeling: The Forgotten Strategy

Mahatma Gandhi once wisely stated, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” I often see this quote on bumper stickers and other inspirational items, but I wonder how often we pause to contemplate what Gandhi meant and what his wisdom looks like in action.

Enter most teacher lounges or staff meetings and you’ll witness the pointing of fingers 95% of the time at some point in the conversation. Society and the government blame teachers for a whole list of ills, and teachers turn around and point at kids, parents, administration and society. To be certain, all parties bear some responsibility for the challenges present in the education of young people. Teachers are increasingly handicapped by prescriptive curriculums and, even when their collective hands are tied to make good decisions for the kids in front of them by that same curriculum and mandates from above, handed the responsibility for the downfall of civilization. And yet…

Back to Gandhi. I cannot change anyone but me, and no one can change me but me. I left a big city district because of the shackles put upon me by central office and my principal in response to the high stakes testing environment in favor of a charter school that shares the belief that we can educate children well through other means. I could have spent the remainder of my career pointing my finger at the district that wouldn’t let me teach well, and I would have been miserable. Not only that, the pointing of my finger would not have altered the district’s path in any manner.

Even at my pretty dynamic, very liberal school, I am a bit of a kook. There was a real reaction by some of my peers by the way I teach English in my first couple of years there, and I was kind of lonely at first. However, I am committed to doing what I see works well with kids, and so I’ve stayed the course, even in the face of criticism. I also learned to let go of pointing my finger at anyone else and to simply teach the best way I know how. The result? There has been a shift in writing instruction at my school, slow at first but definitely growing. I have had a few teachers observe my class, and others have asked me questions. When I stopped pointing my finger and started simply living my practice, I had an impact, and the change I wanted desperately to see began to happen.

I think about how all of us minding our own business and really focusing on improving our own practice and learning might spawn a real reform movement in our schools. What if, when principals wanted us to engage kids in more metacognitive thinking strategies they modeled those same strategies with their staffs during professional development sessions and meetings and their own metacognitive thinking in their jobs? What if, in order to teach teachers how to use conceptual mathematics with kids, staff developers stopped using direct instruction and instead taught math and conceptual math instruction in the way they wanted us to teach the kids? How could things be different if we stopped telling each other, “You need to…” and simply modeled what we wanted instead?

Good teaching is good teaching, whether it’s with students or with adults. Live your practice, no matter where you are or who you’re working with. After all, actions do speak louder than words.

MICHELLE RHEE and School Reform in D.C.

It looks like a dream come true, the story of Michelle Rhee: a clear-thinking upper-level adminstrator in Washington DC schools who makes unannounced visits to school offices and classrooms, evaluating as she goes. With the backing of her mayor, Adrian Fenty, Rhee determines what’s working and what’s not, gets rid of the bad and generously rewards the good.

Well, isn’t that what we have all have secretly wished for? Cut out adminstrative privilege, identify and get rid of waste , utilize resources better,  and (hardest of all and most incisive) remove bad teachers.

Question is: how does Rhee know what a bad teacher is? Rhee equates good teaching with data, which leads us to the whole wearisome discussion about testing.  As an art teacher, I don’t test and I don’t do formal pre-assessment (though plenty of casual, observational pre-assessment). The good work I do is not particularly measurable with data. Does this mean that good teachers who don’t show up with good data would be excluded from the aggressive, attractive plan of merit pay that Rhee proposes? or worse, that they could lose their jobs?

It is easy to understand that many inner-city children grow up short-changed. Although our challenges in rural schools may look a little different, problems with low budgets, overcrowding, and cultural difficulties seem to be universal. Still, no matter where you teach, it’s easy to make a snap judgment about who is teaching well and who isn’t. Not everyone will agree, though, and firing a teacher (not to mention closing a school!) is a mighty act, a final act, a hugely influential act. And Rhee is the first to acknowledge that she may make a mistake. Quoted in The Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/michelle-rhee/3), Rhee says,  “Does that mean every decision is going to be right? No,” she said . . . in a measured pace that sounded well-practiced. “Have I made some wrong decisions? Yeah. But the bottom line is, the reason I can sleep at night, really soundly every night, is because I know that even if I didn’t make the right call, I made it because I believed at that moment that it was the best thing for kids.” In our state, we are experiencing a shortage of teachers. What would it mean to get rid of some of the teachers we have, even if they aren’t performing well, in such a market?

Rhee seems to be convincing. For example, she points out that school districts are hugely political (which is true): “I think part of the problem of how the district has been run in the past is that decisions have been made for political reasons, and based on what was going to placate and satisfy adults instead of what was in the best interests of children.” The political nature of school districts makes change ponderous, slow, and often difficult. However, this same nigh-immovability may prevent hasty decisions that could prove problematic down the road.

What can we say? Congratulations to Michelle Rhee who has the courage to undertake a seemingly impossible task. At the same time, red flags and warning bells should sound when one person (or one office) can exercise this kind of power.