By Kristin
The Washington State Board of Education is asking for citizen input on how they should "measure the performance of Washington K-12 schools." They want to improve the Washington Acheivement Index, which provides a snapshot of how schools perform on state tests.
By Kristin
A new bill is going before the legislature this week. Called the "Third Grade Reading Accountability" bill, it requires that schools implement pretty serious remediation interventions for K-3 students who are not reading at standard. If they still aren't reading at standard in third grade, they can't go to fourth grade.
Part of me is really excited about this. For a long time I've argued against social promotion. As a high school teacher I often taught children who were still reading at the third grade level and I'd think, "How did they get to tenth grade?" I think we do a big disservice to children to put them in fourth grade- where explicit decoding instruction isn't typically part of the curriculum- when they can't read.
But another part of me has learned that holding a child back can be pretty traumatic for the child, and doesn't solve the problem.
I found a great article that helped me clarify my thoughts. By the National Association of School Psychologists, it outlines a common sense approach to supporting students who are below standard. It suggests that neither automatic social promotion or automatic retention make sense. Instead, "When faced with a recommendation to retain a child, the real task is not to decide to retain or not to retain but, rather, to identify specific intervention strategies to enhance the cognitive and social development of the child and promote his or her learning and success at school."
The article goes on to look at the research. Basically, while retention shows academic gains the following (repeated) year, after 2-3 years the child does worse, and is eventually 5-11 times more likely to drop out of school. Probably because without intervention strategies tailored to that child's needs, all the same obstacles are still there that prevented him from reading at standard in third grade.
So I've had to shift my position. I used to dream of the day our legislature would insist a child couldn't leave third grade without reading at the third grade level. Now, I think I want that decision, and all the other decisions made to help that child, to be up to the family and the teachers. I don't want it to be mandated. Maybe the solution is to do a better job of teaching explicit reading skills after third grade.
What do you think?
By Kristin
My students, struggling readers all, are reading a chapter from Junius Edwards' novel, If We Must Die. We've studied Claude McKay's poem of the same name so my students felt pretty comfortable with what they would encounter thematically, but when Edwards revealed the story's setting by telling us Will had been wounded in Korea and had been fired for trying to register to vote, my students had a hard time inferring the time or the place.
We talked about it, figured it out and moved on, but it's more evidence to me that knowing history helps a student's reading as much as the ability to read helps a student learn history. I'm increasingly concerned at the way history, social studies and civics get pushed to the side to make more time for math and reading. Eliminating history to give students an extra dose of reading was brought up as a possibility at a recent department meeting. This is being done for struggling readers at some Seattle schools in an effort to raise reading scores on standardized tests. My colleagues refuse to go this route and as a teacher, historian and parent, I am glad. Standardized tests are one kind of reading, and not one that lasts for long. Being able to read and appreciate literature and being an equipped citizen are lifelong skills, and two that I prioritize in my instruction.
By Kristin
Goodbye, 2012. I don't have much luck keeping challenging resolutions, particularly if they involve physical activity. Instead, I've settled into the routine of simply attempting to master the art of seeing the positive.
Last March, my fellow bloggers wrote a series of posts in response to a MetLife Survey that found teacher job satisfaction is down 15% since 2009. The survey hit me at a funny time, because in my new school – the biggest middle school in Washington State, a place where buckets are in the hallway to catch leaks and my overhead projector was held together with duct tape – I was surrounded by teachers who were positive, who made choices that put kids first, and who were willing to quickly adapt their schedule and their approaches to try new things instead of saying, "What's the point? We've been here before."
What was their secret? How were they so resilient?
By Kristin
We're all trying to come to terms with the fact a young man shot his way through locked doors and used tiny bodies for target practice. My mind goes so far, and then stops.
And I try, like any person, to think of possible ways to prevent this from happening. I think of ways we can improve mental health care, ways we can entertain young people without letting them think killing is thrilling, and ways we can keep weapons whose only purpose is killing large numbers of human beings out of the hands of the untrained, the unfeeling, and the disconnected. I try to think of ways to protect my own 6-year old first grader, whose body, when I look at it, doesn't seem to have enough real estate to sustain eleven bullets from an assault rifle.
But the solution proposed by the NRA, to put armed guards at schools, is the absolute worst solution I've heard of.
By Kristin
Seattle has rolled out "Student Growth Ratings." Some teachers are devastated, some confused, and the vast majority are unaffected. Next year all 4-8 reading / math teachers and all 9th grade algebra teachers will receive SGRs. These teachers are called, "Teachers of Tested Subjects." Despite the HSPE being THE big test students need to pass before graduation, 10th grade LA/Math teachers are not considered "Teachers of Tested Subjects." Last week some teachers were told they had "low," "typical," or "high" student growth. Watch this overview video if you are curious.
By Kristin
Just googling the image of this box gave me kind of an ill feeling. The terror, the feeling like I was taking a shot in the dark, the waiting, the exposure. Teachers who take on the challenge of measuring their practice by gathering evidence and writing a massive thesis on top of their daily teaching load are the kind of teachers I want to work with and have teach my daughters. Why? Because they're tough, they take risks, and they're not afraid to try and fail.
Two years ago my neighbor and friend climbed Rainier. There's a great picture of him standing on top, wearing his three-year old daughter's tutu because of course, even on top of Rainier she was on his mind. He thought he could do it, he thought it was worth doing, and he did it.
Earning your National Boards is like that. You've got the day in and day out evidence that you're doing a pretty good job. You're trying to do a good job. And then you decide you might successfully measure your teaching up against a rigorous set of national standards. You think you can get certified, you think it's worth doing, and you do it.
And, like climbing Rainier, it's not easy. You might not even summit your first time. And if you summit someone might shoot down your accomplishment, saying that research shows NB Certification doesn't necessarily increase test scores, saying anyone can climb Rainier if you pay the right guide.
But if you've loaded that box up with your best shot, and if you've put on your crampons and tutu and climbed Rainier, you've done something not everyone will or can do, just because you thought it was worth the pain and the effort to try. Just because you had the guts to see if you could.
Well done.
By Kristin
This article is just fabulous. Written by an ex-police officer and Marine who now teaches physics, it outlines why teachers deserve more credit than they're getting.
The reason it fits in this post is that Matthew Swope mentions things teachers do that blur the professional boundary between student and teacher. It's risky to cross that line, but teachers do it every day in order to let a kid know someone cares about him enough to stand by his side even if there's no learning target involved. Even if it could be seen as inappropriate.
By Kristin
Here's an old fashioned Polar Bear exhibit. Some effort has been made, but even if you haven't spent much of your life glued to Frozen Planet on the Discovery Channel you instinctively know that this isn't the kind of home a polar bear would choose. The tire swings and poolette are intended to give the bear some mental and physical stimulation, but I doubt this cage provides a quality of life worthy of such a magnificent creature. Zoos are getting better, but they still face the challenge of being ambassadors of wild creatures even as they keep the creatures in exhibits that, at best, mimic small parts of an animal's habitat – kind of like trying to design a school that serves the needs of all its students.
By Kristin
One night at 11:30 the phone rang, waking me up. It was one of my all-time favorite students and she was sobbing. At midnight her online application for a desperately needed scholarship was due and the librarian, who had promised to write a letter of recommendation, hadn't done so. If she sent me the link and password, would I write one? She wouldn't ask except the librarian wasn't answering her phone.