By Kristin

I like to poke around on the New York Times website.  Mostly I like to read about food, as in the article I mention in my previous post.  For those of you who also like to read about food – good food, not junk food and obese kids – let me steer you towards this lovely piece on Thomas Keller and the meal he served his father right before his father died.  But my post today is not about barbeque chicken.  It's about books, and how the school libraries of the future may not have as many of them as they do now.

Today as I was poking around during lunch, enjoying the world the internet brings to my face and fingertips, I came across this piece in the New York Times about schools eliminating books in their libraries.  Books are heavy, expensive, and they're quickly outdated when you want them to be meaningful reference materials.  Just because I love books doesn't mean libraries have to be filled with them, right?  Anyway, I get most of my news online.  I'm writing online now.  Online is efficient and free!  Who needs books?

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By Kristin

Two things detoured my walk home when I was in elementary school: the nickel candy bins at the 7-11 and the week's top-forty rack of lyric sheets at the record store.

After school my best friend Diane and I would take the change we'd rounded up from the car floor, dad's dresser and the kitchen junk drawer and hit the 7-11, loading up on candy before heading over to Licorice Pizza to see if Blondie's Rapture had been printed so we could sing along without making stuff up.  These days I can google a song if I want the lyrics and the nickel bins are long gone, but that's not all that's changed.  What I had to sneak off to 7-11 to buy students are now getting at school.  Luckily, the government is getting involved to put an end to it.  We are up against enough trying to help our students reach standard every year without loading their bodies up with sugar at break and lunch.

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By Kristin

I spent a lot of time today trying to learn a little more about the High School Proficiency Exam (HSPE), the new state assessment that my students have to pass in order to graduate.  I even called our building's test coordinator, but she hasn't "been trained yet" for the HSPE and knows nothing. 

    My own district and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in Washington have published nothing but the test schedule and the reassurance that "it's a lot like the WASL," our old state assessment.  "Like" is not good enough.  Running the 800m is a lot like the 400m since they both involve running on a track, but I would prepare my athletes differently for each one.  Running may be running and reading may be reading, but how you're going to be asked to demonstrate mastery affects how you approach the assessment.

    For all I know, my milers will be told on the starting line that they're running the 400.  Are their scores going to accurately reflect their skills?

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By Kristin

An editorial in the Seattle Times gives a vote for charter schools and merit pay.  "Students are graded according to their abilities," the piece says.  "Imagine paying teachers according to theirs."  Let's take a moment to imagine that.

Merit pay would be great.  I work hard and I care.  I think I'm effective.  I should be paid a little more than the teacher who alternates between movies and packets.  But merit pay is problematic.  When we "grade students according to their abilities," it's based on spending an hour a day with them for nine months.  If someone wants to come give me that kind of attention I'd be so excited I would hardly know what to do.  Just thinking about it gives me shivers, because it would be the end of the mindless societal whining about what's wrong with education, and it would be the beginning of people realizing we cannot continue to impoverish our schools and expect educational miracles.

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  By Kristin

The proposed state budget for Washington suspends some pretty crucial things. 

Everything that's being suspended in education directly affects the ability of public schools to teach disadvantaged kids.  So, here's my proposal to the people of Washington:  if we're going to suspend things like reducing class size and making sure 3-year olds living below the poverty line get quality preschool, then let's also suspend our expectations of equity in public education.  Let's suspend No Child Left Behind.  Let's suspend expectations that every child, even the one who spent his first 15 years in a refugee camp in Chad, needs to pass the WASL.  If we're going to suspend financial support for the programs that help the poorest among us gain equal footing in education, we are fools to think public education is democracy's shining jewel.  Without these programs the poor will sink, because the golden ticket in our society, the thing that helps kids break generational poverty, is a quality education.  The children of some of our neighbors need more help in this area than others.

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By Kristin

I teach both honors and standard language arts.  For some time now I've been struggling with the concept of what makes an "honors" kid honors?  What makes a "regular" kid regular?

It's certainly not intelligence.  With the exception of some of my regular students who eat so poorly they're kind of out of it, I would say my regular kids are as intelligent if not more so than my honors students.  My honors students are just better educated and more sophisticated.  It's not simply academic skill, since some of my honors students write like third graders and aren't strong readers. It's not motivation, because some of my regular kids get to school despite tremendous obstacles, and some of my honors students do the bare minimum.  Two months ago I started to wonder would happen if I persuaded the counseling office to turn my regular class into an honors class.  Labels matter.  An honors class is like riding in the first class carriage of the train.  Being there gives you status.  Being seen stepping off gives you status, and that feels good.  Am I capable of teaching well enough that my regular kids could succeed in an honors class?  I decided to give it a try.

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By Kristin

I haven't seen "Mike" in class for four days and the online attendance system shows he's skipping most of his classes, so I phone his mother during my prep period to let her know.  Mike and his mom don't have internet, and she's not home when the automatic system calls to report an absence.  This is the third time I've called her in two weeks; she is not happy to hear from me, and I don't really blame her. 

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By Kristin

My district is looking to have full inclusion of our high-incidence special education students at some point in the next few years.  High-incidence kids are the ones with learning disabilities or behavior disorders who, with modifications that fit their 504 or IEP, could be successful in a mainstream classroom.  Of course, as with many things, the news came before the details and mainstream teachers are freaking out.

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By Kristin

My district is trying something new and daring in order to either lower the graduation requirements and help more children graduate, or raise them.  It's hard to tell which.  The most controversial part of the plan is to lower the GPA required for graduation from a C average to a D average – a 2.0 to a 1.0.  D for Dismal, some say.  Others argue that if a D is passing, it should be good enough to earn a diploma.  But like all things in education, it's more complicated than that.  The district is also moving from a point system that doesn't average failing grades into a student's GPA to one that does.  Sound messy?  It is.

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By Kristin

The Obama Administration is looking to give grant money to states that show commitment to early education.  I hope Congress passes this piece of legislation, because the gap between kids who are ready for kindergarten or not ready for kindergarten continues to widen over the years.  By the time I see them, the four-year old who doesn't know his ABCs has often become a 15-year old who has no confidence, no academic curiosity, and no faith in the system.  Everything that can be done for a child's academic life before kindergarten is worth more than anything that is done after.

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