By Kristin

Every summer, we go to the lake to swim, and my daughters have to pass a swim test before they can go beyond the rope to the deep water, where it's fun.

Like being able to swim, and not drowning in deep water, being able to read and do math to a certain level of aptitude is important in our society.  Tests were written that measure whether or not a child has basic skills at certain points in her school career.

In the hysteria and panic following our realization that children who live in poverty, predominantly children of color, aren't meeting minimum standards of skill, we've focused more and more on the test.  That's unfortunate. We haven't lengthened the school day or year, reduced class size for those students, or put any money into summer training of teachers.  Instead, we're simply told to test more, and we're told the test results have real consequences.

Continue reading →

B y Kristin

Students Matter, a national non-profit organization whose mission is to sponsor litigation that will improve education, will go to trial on January 27th in what will be a groundbreaking lawsuit.  Vergara vs. California is about educational inequity – that current dismissal, tenure, and evaluation systems cause "devastating consequences" for students who live in poverty.  The focus is on teacher quality and how current firing, RIF, and tenure systems work to keep ineffective teachers in classrooms, disproportionately in classrooms of high-poverty schools.

The plaintiffs in the case are nine public school children, ranging in age from eight to seventeen.  If Vergara wins, enormous change could happen.  Teacher quality and how to measure it is a hot topic here in Washington State, too.  The vague anecdotes fly back and forth – a terrible teacher shuffled from school to school and reading the paper at her desk, a brilliant teacher whose politics earned her the wrath of her principal and who was unfairly dismissed.  I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Continue reading →

By Kristin

The first time I tried taking a practice Smarter Balanced assessment I almost lost my mind.  I was overwhelmed by the user interface, which required me to scroll up and down through a long skinny column of text.  I was defeated by my inability to mark up the text, see the questions and text at the same time, and the test's awkward expansion tab which allowed me to widen the text's column but then prevented me from seeing the questions.  With a big knot of anxiety in my stomach, a headache, and a sense of failure I shut it down without answering even the first question.

When this video went viral, I cheered the student's every word.  Yes, I thought, this has all gotten out of hand!  But then I remembered how much I really liked both the Common Core and its intent – that every student in the country be held to the same high standards.  I like the standards, and I like how well they're aligned from K-12, so I decided to try the SB assessment again and guess what?  It's a good test.

Continue reading →

By Kristin

CSTP turns ten this year. 

Ten years ago I was teaching at Ingraham High School in north Seattle, pregnant with my first child, and somewhere down in Tacoma Jeanne Harmon thought it would be great if teachers were given the tools they needed to be more involved with creating the education policies that affect them and their students.

I don't know when I first took advantage of CSTP.  I can't remember if applying to write for this blog came first, or if I attended a teacher leadership training through CSTP and then learned about the blogging opportunity, but this is what I do remember about that first interaction: we met at a beautiful retreat center in Seattle.  It felt luxurious.  It felt really good to be sitting in a room with grown up tables and chairs, with windows that looked out onto a fountain instead of in a drafty cafeteria.  For lunch we went to the retreat center's cafe and ate delicious food in a beautiful room, and I thought, "This is what happens when teachers take care of teachers." 

Continue reading →

By Kristin

In an earlier post, I promised to write about how I transformed my classroom management so that it was student-centered. 

It all started with my third period – a reading intervention class where every child was behind in his or her skills because of one reason or another - often unscholarly behavior.  In my third period I had five boys who were all good friends, and they were in the habit of socializing instead of working.  I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't ever kick them out – an intervention class is the end of the line, and they were behind because of time spent in the office instead of class. National efforts to end discrimination in school discipline, something my district is under investigation for, echo what we already know - African American and Latino students get in trouble more often than their white and Asian peers.  I made a personal commitment to create a classroom that served the most challenging kids, but it wasn't easy.

There were days that when 3rd period began, the boys continued their conversation about Mohammad's shoes not matching his shirt, or what happened in last night's game. I would get Mohammad to sit down and Michael would pop up, arguing with Stephen.  I'd get Michael and Stephen to sit down and Trey and Mohammad and Donald would get going.  I'd get them to all sit down and work, I'd finally have some time to go work with the other students, then Donald would fart and it all fell apart again.  Luckily, there was Sensei.

Continue reading →

  By Kristin

Eleanor Barkhorn, a Senior Associate Editor at The Atlantic who oversees the Education Channel wrote this piece about how she almost quit after her first year as a Teach For America corps member, but didn't.

Ms. Barkhorn's experience teaching Black children in the Mississippi Delta had the same effect on her that it has had on so many other unfortunately vocal TFA alums – it changed her life, made her a better journalist, opened her eyes to the reality of racism, forced her to summit the peak that was Eleanor's Inner Being and introduced her to her own true self – and this is exactly why so many teachers resist the idea of TFA.

Continue reading →

By Kristin

I've been teaching a long time, but I think I'm only now figuring out what matters most – creating a classroom my students own, are proud of, and where they flourish.

Last year, my first year teaching a reading intervention class, I threw away almost everything I knew about classroom management and tried to create a room that worked for the most challenging students. Things got a little crazy, and they got a lot uncomfortable for someone who doesn't like loud noises or a lot of jumping around, but I worked hard to adapt.  

What I got in return were moments like this one, and that made it all worth it.

Continue reading →

By Kristin

As Linda Shaw points out in this piece, Washington State officials aren't doing much to catch possible cheating on state tests.  Instead of spending $100,000 on "erasure detection," looking for answers that have been erased and replaced, Washington puts its energy into training and making it easy for whistle blowers to report any irregularities or suspected cheating.  Should we be doing more to catch cheating?

Continue reading →

By Kristin

The last three posts on this blog have responded to the Federal Government's warning that unless Washington uses test data as part of a teacher's evaluations, we no longer meet the waiver requirements for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA or No Child Left Behind).

In no moment of my professional or academic life has one test been used to measure my growth.  The biggest assessments I've sat in my life – the SAT, the GRE, my National Board tests – were used to measure whether or not I was ready for the next step of my career.  

Why are some groups still insisting this is the best way to measure a teacher's impact on student growth?  It is so misguided.

Continue reading →