By Kristin

I played coed indoor soccer at one point in my pre-mother life and was hastily made keeper so that we could have a (faster, more skilled) guy on the field.

I had to learn to tend goal quickly.  The most important thing, I realized, was to keep my eyes on the ball, not the game.  It's more interesting to watch the game, more terrifying (or reassuring) to watch the clock, and hopeful to watch the score, but the important thing is to know where the ball is.  It doesn't matter where the ball used to be.  What matters is where it is now, and where it's going.  Grading schools is like watching anything but the ball while tending goal.

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By Kristin

There are reasonable concerns with implementing and holding teachers accountable for the Common Core Standards, but I'm still excited about them.  They scaffold backward from where a student needs to be at graduation to what she needs to master in kindergarten, they elminate the crazy inconsistencies we had between the states before, and while they're a little wordy they leave a lot of room for academic creativity in serving the children sitting before each teacher.  Before, our nation's academic standards were like a mall's food court – lots of different options, but few of them really good.

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By Kristin

Should curriculum be narrowed down until it is comfortable for each student?  Seattle Public Schools recently required Race
and Justice curriculum taught in a senior class at the Center School to be suspended after a student felt “intimidated.” The teacher, Jon
Greenberg, was transferred to Hamilton Middle School after Center School students protested the course restrictions.  While this has been discussed in my district as an issue of academic freedom, I see it as something even more important – as a parent, I see it as other parents deciding what my daughters can and cannot learn about in school, and that deeply concerns me.

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By Kristin

The New York Times reports that New York will now include standardized tests in art, gym, foreign languages, kindergarten and first grade, and English Language Learning.

I suppose we all saw this coming. It's an unfortunate response to states being pushed to grade every teacher and the inequity of only some teachers teaching tested subjects.  But a standardized test for art or gym?  Really? A standardized test for kindergarteners?  Really?

The single biggest problem with the direction testing is going is that instead of assessments being used to support student growth, which is how I use them, students are being asked to spend inordinate amounts of time supporting the measurement of their teachers.  It's not about the kids, and it's not ethical.  

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By Kristin

This year I taught a reading intervention class and was given one task: teach my students what they needed to know to be at or above grade level standard in reading.

Our goal was no secret, and from the first moment I saw my students I was like Jillian Michaels, ignoring the whining, forcing them past the fear and being honest with where they were and what they had to do.  It was exhausting, and we didn't let even a minute slide by.  No singing Happy Birthday, no holiday parties, no movies.  After the big test, we took one day off to celebrate our hard work before hitting the mental gym again.  Why?  Because now our goal is to be above grade level.  We continue to use every second  and to work as hard as we can.  Except for last Tuesday, when in my heart I know my 6th period spent the most important ten minutes of the year.

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By Kristin

You don't have to have a lot of money to have a lot of sense about money.  Say your car is an older car.  If you have good financial sense, you take care of it.  You replace the brakes before you also need to replace the calipers because you know that will save you $500.  You take it into the shop at the first sign of malfunction, because you know that dealing with an early problem is cheaper than dealing with a big problem.  You make sure your tires have tread, because sliding on wet pavement and crashing is expensive.

People with poor money sense end up spending more because they're reluctant to spend.  They go from crisis to crisis, spending more than they can afford and more than they need to.  Our goverment at both the state and federal level is demonstrating a terrifying lack of money sense when it comes to early learning.

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By Kristin

Last February a Senator from Tennessee proposed legislation that would reduce welfare benefits-  "Temporary Assistance for Needy Families" (TANF) – by 30% if children weren't performing in school. 

"Performing" was defined by one journalist as “Advancing from one grade to the next and receiving a score of proficient or advanced on required state examinations in the subject areas of mathematics and reading/language arts."

The bill is dead, considered too punitive, misdirected, and begging for judicial action to make it out of the Senate debate, but it raises some interesting issues because I think we all saw this coming.  Everyone is desperate to find a way to help struggling students perform better, and various sticks and carrots are being designed to make that happen.

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By Kristin

Are any of us really surprised by the news that 35 Atlanta Schools district officials and employees, including the Superintendent, were indicted because of cheating on state tests?

Of course we are.  In Washington State we're not so whipped about scores that we can imagine going into a windowless, locked room, being called the "chosen ones," and replacing wrong answers with right. I think it should stay that way.  The line between honorable and desperate isn't so thick we can assume teachers in Washington will never be told to raise their scores no matter what it took – wink wink.  In fact it's already happened.

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By Kristin

I'm the short one in the photo.  That's my boat at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Regatta in 1993, my last year of college at the University of Washington.  This picture wouldn't exist, and I wouldn't be a college graduate, if it hadn't been for someone at my high school who, without being asked by me or my parents to do so, put me in honors classes and on a college track.  

SB 5243 does what some mysterious educator did for me in 1984; it requires that schools automatically place a capable student in academically accelerated classes.  What a beautiful policy.

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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.

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