By Tom

Last winter, Nick Hanauer famously called Washington State “an education reform backwater.” It’s a curious insult. Strictly speaking, a backwater is a stretch of river that moves slowly, due to a dam or other obstruction. It’s water that’s “backed up.” Washington’s geography, of course, is dominated by the Columbia River, which winds its way slowly from the Canadian border to the Pacific, through 11 hydroelectric dams, which render it, for all intents and purposes, a 745-mile “backwater,” a label that belies the fact that it provides power and irrigation for most of the northwest.

But that’s not what Hanauer had in mind with his insult. He was complaining that education reform tends to move slowly here in Washington State, due mostly to the obstruction of the Washington Education Association. If only he could have seen what I saw this summer.

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By Tom

Last summer I was part of a panel discussion with several other teachers. As it was winding down, the moderator asked us one final question. “What would you say is the most important factor impacting student learning?” Each panelist said something about class size, funding, standards, blah, blah, blah.

I got to go last. “The most important factor, as far as I’m concerned,” I said, “Is the extent to which we as teachers are able to work effectively with our students’ families.”

I still think that’s true.

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By Tom

I was teaching my third graders how to solve division problems the other day. Specifically, we were solving story problems which involved division, and the students had to figure out what to do with the remainders.

The first problem involved brownies. There were three people sharing sixteen brownies, and we figured out that each person received five whole brownies and one-third of the last one. Simple enough.

The next problem involved balloons. Again, three people had to share sixteen balloons. Balloons, of course, don’t lend themselves well to fractions; a third of a balloon is essentially worthless. For this problem, we decided the best answer was five balloons each, with one balloon left over, to be popped. For some reason, third graders always prefer to pop the leftover balloon, rather than let one of the five people have it. Maybe it’s greed; maybe it’s the thrill. Who knows.

We practiced several of each type of problem, until they got pretty good at deciding whether a problem was a brownie problem, where the remainder gets turned into a fraction, or a balloon problem, where the remainder is left alone.

Then I introduced a new problem. Sixteen people were going on a boat ride. They had to rent rowboats, and each boat held three people. How many boats would they need?

“Five and one-third!” said Ronald. He saw this as a brownie problem.

“So Ronald, you think they should rent five whole boats and then get one-third of another boat?”

“Of course!” He was adamant.

Let me explain about Ronald.

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By Tom

Last Wednesday I found myself in a conference room as part of a task force focused on implementing Washington State’s new evaluation system in our school district. As the day progressed, I learned five important things:

1. Thank God for the WEA. As the legislation behind the new system made its way through Olympia, our teachers’ union worked feverishly to insure that most of the important details would be worked out at the local level – where teachers themselves would have the greatest chance of being heard. That’s essentially why I was sitting in that conference room instead of teaching in my classroom. The reason why the WEA worked so hard on this front is open to interpretation. If you’re an idiot and/or an editorial writer for the Seattle Times, it’s because the union is greedily trying to maintain the status quo by giving ineffective teachers a greater chance of keeping their jobs. The rest of us understand that no one’s interests are served when teachers are treated like voiceless, dispensable cogs in a system where every decision is made from the top down. Like I said; it’s open to interpretation.

2. People will be losing their jobs. Early in the meeting a principal sitting across the table said something that startled me: “At least a third of my teachers are going to fail under this evaluation system.” I was taken aback, “How can you know that, when we haven’t even fleshed out the details?” “I’ve been in their rooms,” he said, “I know how they teach, and I know how they’ll score on this evaluation.” The WEA, along with OSPI and local school districts have tried to emphasize the potential to tie this evaluation system to professional development, and I’m sure they’ll succeed, to a point. But make no mistake: this system was originally conceived and is currently perceived as a way to facilitate the removal of poor teachers.

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By Marge’s Son

In 1966 I started kindergarten. The bus stop was in our front yard, and my mom put me out there with the other kids to wait. “Stand here,” I was told, “and when the bus comes, get on it. When the bus gets to the school, get off and someone will tell you where to go.”

The bus came, but I didn’t get on. Instead, I went back in the house. My mom was there with the rest of my family, and when she saw me I could tell what she was thinking, “This one clearly needs more supervision.”

Which I got. All through school my mom was on top of things. Getting me to bed on time, getting me up on time, making sure my clothes were clean, my lunch was packed and my homework was done correctly. She drove on field trips, stayed home with me when I was sick and baked cupcakes on my birthday. She didn’t do anything huge; she did all the small things that go into raising a child. She did all the stuff that every teacher wants every student’s mom to do.

Twenty years after the failed bus ride I was a very young teacher. I was living at home, trying to save money for my upcoming wedding. My little brother was home from college and we decided to go skiing. It was a Wednesday night and my mom saw me heading out the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Me and Steve are going skiing.”

“Steve and I. And isn’t it a school night? Are your lessons planned for tomorrow?”

Always the mom. Always worrying; never fully convinced that I would succeed without supervision. And always right.

Throughout my career I’ve had to measure every parent of every student against the standard set by my parents. Some have come close. They’ve done all the little things. They get their kids to bed on time, get them up on time, make sure their clothes are clean, their lunches are packed and their homework is done correctly. They come on field trips, stay home with their kids when they’re sick and bake cupcakes on their birthday. They do all the small things that go into raising a child. All the stuff that every teacher wants every student’s mom to do.

Twenty years after the ski trip I was up on a stage at a huge convention center in Washington, DC, receiving an award for teaching. As I stood there, I saw my mom in the crowd. She looked relaxed; as if realizing that a lifetime of supervision – of parenting – had finally paid off.

This is for you, Mom. Thanks for everything.  It’s also for the rest of the moms, who make what we do possible.

By Tom

While leafing through a recent copy of The Stanwood-Camano Crab Cracker, looking for something to do in the greater Stanwood metropolitan area, one event caught my eye:

Ready Reader: Preschool Storytime; 9:30AM or 10:30AM at Stanwood Library. Let imaginations run wild with fun books, sing-along songs, and creative activities that prepare young minds for the adventures of reading. Playtime or craft may follow. Ages 3 to 5 years. Caregiver required.

There it was: the Achievement Gap, in all its ugliness, hiding beneath something as sweet and innocuous as a preschool story hour.  But when you think about it, the implications are clear: if you want your child to get ahead – and stay ahead – then you need to get her down to the Stanwood Library on Wednesday mornings. This is what we tell ourselves.

It's certainly what my wife and I told each other. She interrupted her career for ten years and took our children to every story hour, tune-time and kiddy-exercise class in town. And when nothing was scheduled, she read to them or took them to the zoo. Why? For the same reasons you did all those things: she wanted to give our kids every advantage so that they’d be successful in school and beyond.

We talk a good game in this country, but we really don’t want a level playing field. We’d rather play downhill. We want to get ahead and we want our children to get ahead. We don’t want our children to enter school and then learn how to read, we want them to enter school knowing how to read. And if possible, we’d prefer that they enter a school in which everyone knows how to read. That’s the American way. It’s probably the French way, the Mexican way and the Ukrainian way too, for all I know, but it’s definitely the way we do it here.

So we tell young parents to engage their children in all these learning activities. And we tell them that if they do, it will help their children be successful. We also tell them that if they don’t, their children risk becoming unsuccessful. Later on, of course, those prophecies pan out. The Ready Readers get the best grades, go to the best colleges and grow up to get the best jobs, and the kids whose parents couldn’t read the Crab Cracker, or didn’t know where the Stanwood Library was, or simply didn’t have time off on Wednesday mornings fell behind. Just like we said they would.

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By Tom

A few years ago I was giving my third graders their annual standardized test. This was the reading assessment, and Rachel had her hand up. I asked her what she needed. She wanted to know what a “selection” was. She was stuck on a question that asked her to pick the correct main idea for the “selection” she had just read. Now, you and I know that “selection” is the generic term for any form of text, whether it’s a poem, an essay, an article or a story. But when you’re in third grade, the generic term is “story.” Rachel was a good reader, and if I had told her that the question was asking her to pick the main idea of the “story,” she would have been just fine. The question was clearly directed at her ability to find the main idea, not her understanding of the term ”selection.” Nevertheless, I wasn’t supposed to explain it to her.

I was conflicted. Should I define the word, thus enabling the test to actually measure what it was designed to measure and enable Rachel to demonstrate a skill that she actually had? Or should follow the letter of the law and do what I was told to do during the 20-minute Proctoring Workshop that we all had to attend?

What would you have done?

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By Tom

There has been a fundamental shift in the teaching profession over the last ten years or so. Previously, the focus was mostly on what the adults did. Now the focus is primarily on what the students are doing. Ten years ago, teachers went to college, entered schools of education, took the classes, passed the tests, got jobs, went to workshops, and generally did what they were supposed to do. Nowadays, it doesn’t much matter whether or not you went to a school of education. Nor does it matter whether you go to any workshops. What matters now are results: measurable indications of student learning. Everything else is just…everything else.

Like most teachers, I had trouble adjusting to this change. I was in denial. When No Child Left Behind passed I chalked it up to something ridiculous coming out of a Republican administration. It would soon blow over, letting us go back to doing what we did before. I denied the fact that it was actually a bipartisan bill, supported by many lawmakers who had traditionally been strong backers of teachers and their unions. “This is Bush’s law,” I thought, “and as soon as he’s gone, it’ll go away.”

But Bush is gone and NCLB isn’t. Not only that, but the new administration, the one the teachers’ union helped elect, came in with a vision of public education that is just as focused on student learning as the previous administration. If not more so.

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By Tom

According to a recent survey, teachers are unhappy. They’re more dissatisfied now than they’ve been at any time in the last twenty years.

Speaking for myself, I think it has to do with a certain coincidence. On the one hand, we’re feeling pressure from lawmakers and the business community to perform at a higher level; to increase student achievement across the board, regardless of student demographics. State legislatures – and the economists who inform them - have locked onto the fact that teacher quality is the most important factor in a child’s education: any child can learn, in any classroom, in any school, in any neighborhood, as long as they have a great teacher. With this mindset, school reform becomes a matter of passing rigorous teacher evaluation bills and simplifying the process of firing ineffective teachers.

On the other hand, the weak economy has meant budget cuts to education. Teacher salaries and in-class support have been reduced, while class sizes have gone up. The weak economy has also had an effect on the student populations that many of us serve. Over the last five years, my school’s free-and-reduced lunch rate has climbed from 30% to 50%.

In other words, we’re expected to do more with less; the perfect recipe for frustration, discouragement and dissatisfaction.

But so what? Who said we’re supposed to have it easy? Why shouldn’t we be expected to deliver a high-quality product for as low a cost as possible? I mean, from what I hear, things are tough all over. Why should education be the exception?

It shouldn’t. But at some point something has to give. You can't demand better and better results with less and less support.

And when the system begins to break down (if it hasn't already) guess where the first cracks will show up? To find out, you need to drill down about halfway into the report: “Teachers with low job satisfaction are more likely to teach in urban schools and in schools with larger proportions of minority students. Teachers likely to leave the profession are more likely than others to teach in schools with more than two-thirds minority students.”

In other words, our legislative squeeze play – demanding more for less – will ultimately hurt our most fragile students. It will hit them first and it will hit them hardest.

Me? I’ll be fine. I might gripe from time to time, but when the bell rings and the students walk in the door, I can put it aside and focus on my job. Don’t worry about me.

Worry instead about the students down the street. The poor students. The students who get a new faculty every five years because their frustrated and discouraged teachers give up and leave.

By Tom

As you may have noticed, the education reform debate has recently been dominated by economists, not educators. Guys like Dan Goldhaber, Eric Hanuschek and William Sanders have been making a pretty good living using economic theory and statistics to affect the course of education reform in this country. Now, I’m in no position to second-guess any of these people. Frankly, all three of them were probably smarter than I’ll ever be before they finished fifth grade.  

No, my concern is whether education in general should follow economic principles at all. As I understand it, basic economics tells us to “minimize cost with regard to a given goal or maximize utility for a given level of cost or input.” If that’s the case, then I recently orchestrated a colossal waste of resources. Behold:

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