Author Archives: Rob

Searching for Mr./Ms. Right

Posted by on
Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy | ,

Mr.mrs right
By Rob

Me: Teacher- youngish, energetic, and looking for new perspectives. You: an inspiration- must be willing to share ideas and be a good listener. Let’s build a relationship based on good intentions, trust, and a common vision.

Earlier this month Diane Ravitch spoke on school reform at Town Hall Seattle. Her message to a friendly audience was a critique of the “corporate reform movement.” It was a mix of motivating rhetoric, valid points, and verbal grenades. Her positions concerning Race to the Top, NCLB, merit pay, the use of student assessment data to evaluate teachers match my own. I appreciate she is speaking on my behalf.

A week before Ravitch’s visit to Seattle Michelle Rhee spoke at Boston Symphony Hall. I can only assume her speech was equal to Ravitch’s in passion but opposite in perspective. I expect someone in the audience found her perspectives matched their own and they are thankful she is speaking on his or her behalf.


Continue reading →

The Bus Stops Here

Posted by on
Uncategorized

School-Bus-Stop-Sign-K-2973By Rob

It is easy to criticize Washington’s commitment to education as illustrated by the budget cuts over the past few years. One idea that was recently floated was eliminating state funding for busing. Eliminating this funding will save approximately $220 million.

Washington State’s funding covers two-thirds of the cost to bus students to school. If eliminated local districts would have to bear the extra costs. Presumably some districts can afford this extra burden and others would require levies. However, an additional levy would be difficult to pass in many communities.

Eliminating bus routes may be necessary. This fact is alarming. First, a school bus loaded with 45 kids is an efficient way of bringing students to school. It is far more economically efficient (time and fuel) than individual cars or carpooling.

Second, how many schools are equipped to handle an increased number of students being dropped off by car? Presently the morning drop off at my school looks like an Ikea parking lot on a Saturday. We are not designed to handle the traffic we currently have.

Third, and most importantly, is safety.

“Each year approximately 800 school-aged children are killed in motor vehicle crashed during normal school travel hours. Of these 800 deaths, about 20 (2 percent) – 5 school bus passengers and 15 pedestrians – are school bus-related. The other 98 percent of the school aged deaths occur in other motor vehicles… or to pedestrians, bicyclists, or motorcyclists.” (The Relative Risks of School Travel: A National Perspective and Guidance for Local Community Risk Assessment– a study released by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences in June 2002).

On average there is one school bus fatality per 500 million vehicle miles traveled. School bus drivers are among the most professional and safety conscious individuals to serve our children. They make school buses one of the safest forms of transportation in the United States.

Every educator understands that schools must be a safe place for students. This begins at the bus stop. Cuts to education could put the futures of students at risk but cuts to transportation have the potential to put lives at risk. Let’s take this proposed cut off the table. It never should have been there in the first place.

NCLB 2.012

Posted by on
Assessment, Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Literacy, Mathematics

By Rob

In a comment on my recent blog post Tom asks: "How can we rewrite the federal education bill so that it actually helps student learn?" This is a huge question. The difficult issues of funding, evaluation, accountability, standards, and testing must be addressed in a politically feasible manner. I don’t know what is feasible but I'd advocate for these ideas-

Standards: I support national standards. As a population we are more mobile than ever and there should not be a drastic difference in the curricular content among states. This requires a level of monitoring and evaluation of states and educational systems. Currently this evaluation and monitoring is done by comparing the separate standardized tests in each state. Although these tests are given to every student multiple times throughout their schooling it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions since these tests vary in rigor and content. Our testing system needs reform.

Testing: Evaluation and monitoring of education systems is necessary for oversight and informed policy decisions. However this does not require the current two week assessment window, every child tested, a huge financial cost, lost instructional time, and enormous pressure on educators and students. Instead this should be done with a smaller randomized sample of students and less impact and intrusion on instruction.

Summative tests, currently the HSPE and MSP (sort of), are assessments of learning given at the end of a particular educational stage. Passing these tests is necessary for students to receive credits or in some cases progress to the next grade. Presently these are a part of a broken testing system. With rare exception, the students who come into the tenth grade performing far below grade level are the ones who are not going to pass the High School Proficiency Exam.

This idea isn’t new but I support summative tests at grade 3, 5, 8, 10, and 12. Students should not exit that grade until they are proficient. How can a fifth grade teacher instruct a student on comparing and contrasting an author’s inferred message when the student is struggling to sound out every third word? How can an eighth grade math teacher approach the Pythagorean Theorem with a student who struggles to multiply?

I’ve heard teachers say (myself included) I could teach 35 students if they came to me proficient in the previous year’s content. Let’s go with this idea-

It begins with half day Pre-K for all students and full day kindergarten. Before they leave kindergarten they need to know their letter sounds, numbers, reading behaviors, and should be able to read and discuss the events in a predictable text. Those who are proficient enter a first grade class capped at 24 students (35 is too many first graders for any teacher no matter how academically proficient the kids are). Those who are approaching proficiency enter a first grade class capped at 16. Those far below proficiency enroll in a class capped at 12.

Schools would use their ongoing formative assessment in grades 1,2,4,6,7,9, and 11 to reconfigure classes and to carry the model forward. The student who enters second approaching standard but exits meeting standard would enroll in the third grade class with the highest student-teacher ratio.

This model has imbedded funding implications. The schools with the highest performing students would have higher class sizes and would be cheaper to staff as long as they continued to maintain high student performance. The schools with lower performing students, ostensibly with underserved populations, would have a lower teacher-pupil ratio and would receive more funding.

This model is not without its challenges. Schools would need to take great care not to track students by providing some students with continual remediation while others engage in higher order thinking. I believe smaller numbers of students is important when serving struggling students in reading and math it is also important for students not to be ability grouped for other content areas.

Can somebody tell me why this wouldn't be an improvement? Maybe this idea isn’t ready to be written into law but couldn’t congress earmark some funding so some districts could try it?

 

Corrective Action

Posted by on
Assessment, Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Teacher Leadership

Graph Down Arrow

By Rob

My school is in the third round of No Child Left Behind sanctions.  Among other procedures these sanctions call for ‘corrective action’ to be taken. 

Arriving at this point wasn’t a surprise.  It’s taken many years to get here.  Our school has been labeled ‘failing’ for a while but only after seeing last year’s test results do I feel like we’ve failed.  No teacher at our school wanted to enter the third round of NCLB sanctions.  Round 2, Schools of Choice, was embarrassing enough. 

There was pressure to improve our school’s test results.  I sensed a change in the tone of my evaluations.  Many new teachers were not hired for year two.  A veteran teacher was removed.  It seemed to me that the pressure was high and morale was low.

Perhaps other teachers felt this pressure more acutely than I.  Last year many of them have transferred elsewhere.  Of 23 classroom teachers 11 are novice (in their first or second year).  In my tenth year teaching I’m the second most experienced teacher at our school.

I’ve wondered how we’ve arrived at this unfortunate point.  Each fall we receive our state’s standardized test scores.  Teachers, energized and committed, face the challenge.  We’ve created systems for tracking student progress, providing extra support, engaging families, growing professionally, and improving instruction.  I believe some of these systems have been of great benefit to students.

While I thought these systems were beneficial our data never really showed it.  Here’s what it shows: (click the picture for a clearer view) 

Capture
In 2011 our scores dropped 30% to under 40% of students passing the 4th grade reading MSP.  The year before 71.4% of students passed the 3rd grade reading MSP.  The test didn’t get harder.  The state average pass rate remained flat.  This isn’t isolated to one grade.  Our 3rd grade reading pass rate fell 13.1% from the previous year.  Our 5th grade reading pass rate fell 32.8% from the previous year.

This drop in performance is startling.  So what happened?  Who knows?  I wish I had more answers and fewer questions.

Did the students consistently miss a particular type of reading comprehension question?  That could be addressed with an adjustment to the curriculum.

With a 37% mobility rate could the students who left be the ones who passed in 2010.  Might they have been replaced with students who didn't pass?  How about the families who left because of school choice (a NCLB sanction for schools in step 2 of improvement)?  Did the student population change significantly?  Are we comparing the same students from year to year?

Did students who narrowly passed the MSP in 2010 narrowly miss passing in 2011?  Did a slight drop in performance signify a drastic drop in the percent of students meeting standard?

Did significant numbers of non passing students come from specific classrooms?

Could school community, teacher morale, and the shame & blame policies of NCLB account, at least in part, for a dramatic drop in student performance?

Answers to these questions are important as a school undergoes “corrective action.”  I don’t know if anybody is asking these questions.  I don’t know if answers are available.  But I’d like to know exactly what problem I’m correcting and we all deserve a clearer answer than ‘you didn’t meet adequate yearly progress again.’ 

One of the Best Ideas I’ve Seen

Posted by on
Uncategorized

By Rob

For many years the school where I teach has housed a Family Connection Center (FCC).  When a student doesn’t have a coat for the winter or supplies for school I contact the FCC and these items get distributed to students.  The FCC also refers families to community resources provided by civic organizations, for-profit companies, non-profit groups, faith based groups, and organizations like the YMCA, United Way.

I’m grateful for the community resources provided by these non-profit and public agencies.  But even with the help of the FCC many families don’t qualify for services.  Some families can’t arrange reliable transportation outside the neighborhood.  Other families are unavailable during service hours.  Consequently, many of the community’s most valuable resources go underutilized.

Schools have long recognized the importance social and human services.  In communities where these services are lacking the schools suffer.  This was realized by Geoffery Canada.  It led to his establishment of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a non-profit organization that provides family, social, and health service programs.  The brilliance of Geoffery Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone is it brought the services of a supporting community to a convenient but underused site: school.

A Federal grant from the Dept. of Health and Human Services has helped expand a similar program called “Wrap-Around Services” to the school where I teach.  The program is a partnership between the city (which leverages resources), the school district (which provides the facilities), and the United Way (which provides support for early childhood learning programs).   Using schools as the delivery site, this program coordinates resources and aligns the efforts of organizations providing health services, human services, and recreation activities.

Once, the Family Connection Center directed families to outside organizations.  Now, the Wrap-Around Service brings outside organizations to school.  A dental van provides teeth cleaning to students.  Before school child care is offered.  Families can receive food, clothing, furniture, emergency rent assistance or help to keep the lights on.  There are partnerships with KidsQuest, Drama Kids, Mad Science, Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, and others to provide meaningful and engaging after school activities at the school site for students and families.

While I’m not an active participant in this program I can see more community engagement at my school.  I’m seeing families a little more often.  I’m excited about the possibilities.  It benefits children, families, and communities.  If it takes a village to raise a child then it’s wise to bring the village’s resources closer to school.  This is one of the best ideas I’ve seen.

Testing the Limit

Posted by on
Assessment, Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Mathematics

ScantronBy Rob

Great investments have been made to collect and use data.  The role of assessments and use of student data has shifted and it has changed the nature of education.

The standardized test, Washington’s Measurement of Student Progress, is analyzed extensively to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind.  It is used to identify schools as “failing to meet adequate yearly progress.”  It is used to rank-order schools.  New metrics which control for the impact of poverty use this data to compare effectiveness among districts.  This assessment comes at a great cost- financial, time, lost instruction, grading, and tools for analyzing.  The information gained from it could be found with a smaller sample size and at a lower cost.

The Measurement of Academic Progress (MAP) tracks student growth across a school year.  This test is completed by students on a laptop in a separate classroom.  Our technology and curriculum coach devotes weeks to setting up the computers, scheduling, and proctoring each class.  The list of goals compiled for each student is exhausting and includes standards not covered for months or years or, depending on the curriculum, not taught at all.  I am pleased when the assessment result matchs my analysis of the student but often it doesn’t.

I get very little actionable intelligence from the results of my MSP or MAP scores.  But increasingly I have to answer for the results. 

The emphasis on testing extends far beyond MSP and MAP.  Over the course of the school year my students must complete 32 mandated “common assessments” with the score recorded into a database.  How the scores are used I have no idea.  Increasingly these assessments feel more like an audit of my teaching than a tool for improving student learning.

Students also complete regular math and spelling quizzes.  This is an additional 85 assessments.  While these tests tie closely to the content they contribute to the culture of ‘no child left untested.’  My students are expected to demonstrate their proficiency 117 times throughout a 180 day school year.  They are second graders.  In third grade the assessment load will increase.

This certainly wasn’t my experience in elementary school.  It wasn’t even the experience of my students ten years ago.  And this emphasis on testing isn’t preparing my students for adulthood:  The last assessment I took was four years ago.

One form of assessment has been overlooked by policy makers and more attention should be paid.  It is the teacher’s ongoing examination of student progress and understanding.  Teachers use this information to inform their practice and to adjust lesson pacing.  It gives teachers an indication of what to re-teach or where to extend.  It allows teachers to identify struggling students while there is time to arrange extra support.  It requires acute observation and meaningful interactions with students.  This process is at the heart of teaching; it’s where the magic happens.  It happens every day… except when we're testing.

 

A Top-Down Reform I’d Support

Posted by on
Education, Education Policy, Teacher Leadership

By Rob

Human-pyramid
Teaching is a flat profession. A teacher with 20 years of experience performs the same job as a teacher with two years of experience. Aside from moving into administration there isn’t a career ladder for teachers to climb. School systems may be hesitant to remove the best teachers from classrooms. Consequently, cultivating leadership from the ground up is a difficult task.

Why not cultivate leadership from the top down? Two-thirds of superintendents are hired from outside the district. Nationwide the average tenure for superintendents is just over five years. In urban districts it is under four years. This constant turn-over negatively impacts the continuity of reforms.

When a new superintendent arrives the cabinet, departments, and programs are often restructured. This creates a lot of work for school personnel. It may be done in the name of improving student learning but it is not about student learning; it is about change and reorganization. Given the rate of superintendent turn-over it is a task that is likely to be repeated soon.

Changes in leadership impact teachers. With new superintendents come changes in curriculum, programs, models of instruction and evaluation. In my ten years of teaching I’ve had three superintendents. Where we once focused on expanding access to Advanced Placement classes and participation in Lesson Study we now focus on Guided Language Acquisition Design and Professional Learning Communities. We’ve shifted from broadening all curricula to narrowing some and expanding math and literacy. We’ve replaced teacher designed tests with norm-referenced tests.

Whether these shifts in focus have been positive or negative depends on your perspective. Professional Learning Communities can be a powerful transformative tool. So too can Lesson Study. Japan’s practice of Lesson Study has been well established since the 1960’s. My district tried it for only six years. The constant shifting of focus, energy, and funding that comes with new “outside” leadership means many programs never reach their full potential.

When a new leader takes the helm I question if they were good a teacher. Do they have an appreciation for the complexities of managing classrooms? Will they take these complexities into consideration as they make decisions? If new superintendents are from outside the district these questions may not be answered. I’m less likely to have these concerns if I’ve had the chance to work beside them.

Suppose schools hire two-thirds of their superintendents from inside the district. There would be more opportunity to build a culture around a common vision. Wholesale changes to programs would be less likely. Shifts in focus may be more gradual and more targeted. Their initiatives may realize greater potentials.

I’m not a fan of many top-down reforms but I’d be happy to see schools cultivate leadership from the top.

A Full-Time Salary… for School Boards?

Posted by on
Uncategorized |

By Rob

Lynn Varner, of the Seattle Times, recently wrote this editorial advocating for larger salaries for school board members.  Her argument is school boards are tasked with oversight of complex educational systems and informed decisions require more time and a deeper understanding than most board members can offer given their small stipend.

Today, school boards serving large districts must oversee multi-million dollar budgets, allocate resources, communicate district goals, build consensus around initiatives, monitor academic progress, and, at times, answer to frustrated parents or stakeholders.  These are not easy tasks; especially when done after work on a Tuesday evening.   

Compared to other civic institutions the school board is undervalued.  The city of Seattle has over 10,000 employees and a budget of $3.9 billion.  Those who oversee the city government, the members of the Seattle City Council, each earned over $110,000.  By contrast, the Seattle Public Schools have half the employees (4,914) and a budget of $833.5 million; a large institution by most measures.  Yet the School Board members each earn just $4,800 per year.

Would a full-time salaried position for board members increase the effectiveness of the school board?  What would a full-time salary buy the public? 

A full-time salary would not solve many of the problems that plague ineffective school boards.  It will not prevent board members serving different constituents from crafting conflicting policy.  It will not prevent infighting, dysfunction, or distrust.  A full-time position may lead to increased involvement in issues best left to professionals.  It may increase opportunities for discussion of issues but it doesn’t ensure decisions will be made in a publically transparent manner. 

Presumably, a full-time position would allow for more thoughtfully vetted policy and greater oversight.  All stakeholders would champion more thoughtful policy.  But school boards are limited in crafting policy.  Many policy decisions are dictated by state and federal statutes.  Other policy issues, such as curriculum adoption, are best left to those with expertise in that area.  It is unlikely a school board could match the institutional knowledge of curriculum departments or curriculum adoption committees.

The Superintendent is already accountable to the School Board.  Would greater oversight extend to the Superintendent’s cabinet?  To principals?  To department heads?  To teachers? 

Finally, a full-time position would limit the potential pool of applicants.  School Board members represent the community and the constituents they serve.  There is value in them maintaining their roles as business leaders, community organizers, involved parents, etc.  A full-time board position would most appeal to those without other employment or those seeking loftier political ambitions.

School boards are the link between communities and schools.  I am in support of strengthening that link.  But I don’t believe paying a school board a full-time salary is money well spent.

 

Charles “Rob” Duerr

Posted by on
Uncategorized

CSTP_Profile_resized

I teach second grade in a community just outside Seattle.  This will be my eleventh year teaching and my eleventh year at this school.  The school is federally designated as Title I.  It serves a linguistically, culturally, and economically diverse body of students.  It is a wonderful place to teach.

Originally from Michigan, I followed the trail west.  I have two children, the oldest is entering Kindergarden.  I’ve played soccer most of my life and I am still active in the sport.  My summer involves tending to a garden, raising chickens, and catching a Sounders match whenever possible.

I always thought I’d work my way into the policy side of education but I find too much joy in the classroom.  Writing on this blog allows me to combine my life in the classroom and my interest in policy.  I am grateful for the opportunity to lend my voice to the vibrant dialogue of the Stories from School community.

Charles “Rob” Duerr