By Tamara

Here is your three part challenge should you choose to accept it: 1.) Demonstrate your proficiency as a teacher measured in part by MSP/HSPE scores, 2.) Mentor a student teacher so they may start their career at a point of proficiency, 3.) Remember those tests? MSP and HSPE? Make sure your students pass them.

In light of a new position I recently started and conversations about whose class to place my own child in next year, I have been ruminating about the three way raw deal this “mission impossible” presents. How should we shepherd new entrants into the profession given the current climate of high stakes testing and teacher evaluation tied to said tests? No matter how knowledgeable of content and pedagogy, no matter how energetic and committed, a student teacher by definition presents inconsistency in instruction. In spite of the fact we have all been there, in spite of the fact no one can step into teaching with any hope of success without at least minimal “in front of the class” experience, how many of us are going to continue to be willing to take on student teachers? Especially in the spring, when our names, our evaluations, our jobs are tied to a test someone else is preparing our students for? And what about those fresh faces who bring talent, energy, and optimism? How are they to get the experience they need to become successful teachers? Then there are the students. Kids need consistency and firm boundaries on multiple levels to feel secure enough to take the intellectual risks required for growth. The first grade classroom I am considering for my son will transition between the master teacher (fabulous known commodity) and at least two student teachers (who will likely be great). Dynamic? Yes. Consistent? In fits and starts. Is that set up really in students’ best interests?

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By Tamara

I read somewhere (probably the NYT) recently that the "Great Recession" we are experiencing and the attending income equity gap are leading us to toward both a cultural and economic "Reset". Essentially we will hit bottom both culturally and economically and then collectively decide how we are going to redefine our values and norms as a culture and society.

I think what we see happening in the two-pronged debate regarding education reform and education funding is the canary in the coal mine. We want the the best we can get for the least possible cost. Maybe that can work for consumable goods or even in some cases cars and homes. But when you apply that principle to people, you only get diminishing returns. The product from the education system is people. Ideally, smart people, skilled people. People with both the ability and mores to go out and contribute to pulling our society out of our collective mess.

I was raised to understand that my education is the one and only investment no one can ever take away from me. What do you think legislature? Are you ready to hit pause and reset in the special session and make a lasting investment to benefit us all?

By Tamara

One of Mark’s recent posts discussed the struggle to balance the time and energy we invest in students-especially failing students versus average or high performing students. It left me asking, “And why is tracking such a bad thing?”

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By Tamara

Travis and Mark have recently touched upon two issues that I am working to get my head around: addressing an institutional culture of sameness and how to equitably budget my time and energy for students all over the needs spectrum. I’m not sure they are even related issues-so I will address them in separate posts-but right now they are the ones with the greatest impact on my life in the classroom.

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By Tamara

WELPA, MSP, MAP…. What I used to think of as second semester (or even spring) has now become in my mind “Alphabet Soup Season”. It is also when my instructional year is put on hold for seven weeks. For the next four weeks my “teaching” day will consist of nothing but proctoring the annual language proficiency test. It takes four weeks because I have sixty-eight students in seven grade levels to test in four sub-sets: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking (which is one-on-one with each student). Then in late April (as we all know) instruction crashes to a halt again for MSP. I don’t think losing seven weeks of instruction (more, really, when you factor in MAP) was what the feds had in mind when they crafted the assessment requirements for NCLB.

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By Tamara

With levy renewal votes on the horizon for many of
Washington’s districts I’ve been thinking a lot about what an education worth
paying for should look like. I think we
can all agree a solid grasp of fundamental skills in reading and math should be
a non-negotiable outcome. Followed by the ability to form, support, and articulate
an argument whether spoken or written. Art, music, physical education, and
technological literacy each play critical roles in the development of those
skills. As a bookend, adequate time
within the working day for teachers to plan and collaborate on lessons should
also be non-negotiable. That is the core of an education I want for my own
children and one I would support monetarily beyond taxes.

Yet I find myself in an uncomfortable position as a teacher
with a “backstage view” of how resources are allocated. When I witness my district
making new curriculum adoption with all its attending professional development
year after year (especially this year with the full knowledge Common Core is
coming) as a taxpayer, I feel short-changed. When I know first- hand that
developing proficiency with new curriculum and assessments takes time, as a
parent I worry my children are not getting the quality instruction their teachers
are capable of if not having to adjust to yet another adoption. Those are the biggies. But I also find myself
thinking , “Really, we are paying for children to spend twenty minutes reading
with a “Reading Rover” dog because a dog
is so much better at imparting literacy skills?” and “Really, we need five certificated
staff to proctor MAP to twenty-six
students for two hours out of the instructional day?” We have an entire room
full of class sets of books that we actually hired a “volunteer” to organize
but that no one has used in classroom instruction for at least three years. Sure
some of these expenditures are site-based decisions. But whether site-based or
district-wide, this is not how I expect my tax dollars for education to be spent.

So I am on the fence about my local levy. To vote no feels
like cutting off my nose to spite my face. But voting yes feels like a stamp of
approval for resource allocation I cannot as a parent, taxpayer, or educator
support.

By Tamara

We talk a lot here about reform: change in education. But do those conversations lead us to action? Or more conversation? Not that more conversation is bad. More conversation is often needed to flesh out ideas.

It's New Year's Eve. That time when many of us are making resolutions. Some that will stick, some that wont. This year one of mine is start taking real action based on my education policy conversations. I don't know exactly what those actions are going to be. This is probably the year I take the leap and try some lobbying in Olympia.

What about others? Are there actions you are looking forward to taking in the new year that support your thoughts and conversations here?

By Tamara

A couple of posts ago the issue of students and their families being ready for and knowing how to “do” school was raised. Working in a title school it is easy to see daily example of this lack of preparedness for school. Especially in the area of discipline. Like many title schools the discipline issue in my building has been an ongoing source of frustration for quite some time.

Our new principal has been working to tackle it with mixed results. She spoke to this in a staff meeting recently and her observations triggered an “aha moment” for me. She talked about how we as the adults expect these children to recognize the cause and effect relationship their behaviors and actions can trigger. Yet, my principal pointed out, few of our “repeat offenders” have any concept of cause and effect as it relates to their actions. At home it doesn’t matter what they do or don’t do, their needs (be they physical or emotional) continue to go unmet. It doesn’t matter if they behave/don’t behave, someone is going to continue to hit or hurt them. So when they get to school, she pointed out, our asking them to see their behavior and its consequences in the light of cause and effect has no meaning. So her approach whenever possible has been to use her time with that child to discuss recognizing cause and effect as a skill to manage their behavior and then send them back to class in order to practice that skill. My principal acknowledged that sending students back to class is often not what the teacher wants or needs. But she made a strong case by pointing out that these children need a place and opportunity to practice behavior management skills that they will not get at home. Like it or not, reality dictates we are that place.

After listening to my principal explain her approach to discipline in light of her observations led me to the conclusion that we are derelict in our duty to children if we do not point out cause and effect relationships in their behaviors and allow them to practice the skill of recognizing it, just as we would be derelict if we did not teach them the skills necessary for reading or computation. Is it time consuming? Yes. Is it hard? Yes. But until we can help them learn to manage themselves, neither they or the other children in class are going to learn academic skills or how to “do” life.

By Tamara

In our district every week we have a late start day so that teachers and administration can participate in collaboration. Some weeks it’s by grade level, some by content area, and some, as whole staff. Quick disclaimer: as a whole I think my district has one of the more progressive and supportive approaches to collaboration in the state.  Recently as a whole staff we spent an hour essentially being told we didn’t really know how to teach. And here are some strategies to fix that. Keep in mind we have nine National Board Certified teachers on our staff. Nonetheless, our instructional coaches, principal, and area director, loaded us up with strategies and formative assessments (because, it was implied, we aren’t developing or making use of those) they used when they were in the classroom that would improve our student’s learning.

Now every one of the strategies presented were good and worthwhile in their own right. The issue was the tone in which they were presented: if you just did these things (because the strategies you are currently using are not increasing MAP/MSP scores sufficiently) students would be learning. No acknowledgement of what teachers are currently doing that is working, no celebration of success.

While the message to a seasoned staff that we have a lot to learn about how to teach is troubling enough, what really bothers me is the attitude that district leadership has about its teachers in light of the new teacher/principal evaluation system coming down the pike 

Both Mark and I have touched on the need for professional development of evaluators in our recent posts about the new teacher/principal evaluation system. I have been optimistic that administrators and teachers would approach this coming change by assuming positive intent from all parties. What I heard recently left me disheartened and worried. If my district is currently working on an assumption of deficit model, the transition to a growth continuum model (even with heavy PD) will be rocky at best, if possible at all.