By Tom
We learned recently that Governor Gregoire decided to postpone Washington's application for the Federal Government's Race to the Top grants. The first round of applications is due in January. The second round is due in June. So the question is, what's the next move?
As I see it, there are two choices.
By Tom
A recent story brought my attention to a brand new issue. Teachers are now selling their lesson plans to each other on-line. Some of them are making some pretty good money at it, including an English teacher from California, who brought in an extra $36,000 by selling his plans.
It's an interesting story, to which I have several reactions:
By Tom
Mrs. Rooney was my third grade teacher. We spent all day with her, from September through June. She was tough, smart and observant. She knew me well, and was able to tell my parents about all the wonderful things I would accomplish once I began to "apply myself."
Today I teach third grade, and my students endure the entire day with me. I teach language arts, math, science and social studies. And sometimes art.
I'm what's called a "generalist." I have no specialty. I'm supposed to be as good a math teacher as I am a writing teacher. The prevailing wisdom in this country is that children in the younger grades benefit from the stability and constancy of a single teacher who teaches every subject. The prevailing wisdom also holds that once a student enters seventh grade or so, the benefits of having a subject-area specialist outweigh the benefits of having the same teacher all day long.
But that wisdom is being challenged. In fact, up to 20% of our nation's grade school students, some as young as six, are moving from room to room, just like their high school brothers and sisters, taking their classes from specialists.
Why?
By Tom
I love irony. I live for it. In fact, one of my favorite moments was during the end of the year assembly a few years ago, when the principal was giving out awards for Everything You Can Imagine, including perfect attendance. All the perfect attendees proudly strode to the stage, except one. He was absent.
So when these three stories came to my attention, all on the same day, I couldn't resist.
The first story is a report from the National Board showing the positive impact National Board Certified Teachers have had on student achievement in Chicago. And it's been huge.
The second story was about Washington Governor Christine Gregoire. Gregoire recently received an award from the National Board for her contributions to education. Specifically, she was able to increase support for National Board Certification even during tough economic times. For all intents and purposes, Gregoire's support for National Board Certification consists of merit pay for those teachers who demonstrate that they've reached the profession's highest standards. For more on the award, check out Mark's post.
The third story was about a series of grants given out by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The grants don't go directly to schools. They're to be used to help states apply for the Race to the Top money. The money that Education Secretary Arne Duncan is giving to states that promote charter schools and merit pay based on student test scores. Gregoire has all but written off Washington's chances for claiming any of this money, since charter schools have been rejected three times by the voters and test-based merit pay is a non-starter with the WEA.
What a weird irony. A Washington governor gets an award for promoting National Board Certification, a process with proven results, recently and specifically in Chicago. That's where Arne Duncan's from. The guy who authored Race to the Top. But his idea of merit pay is based on the use of test scores. An idea that is strongly promoted by the Gate's Foundation, which is based in Washington State.
So Gregoire's state gets none of the money from the guy from Chicago, a place where her idea of merit pay has made a huge impact.
Hmm.
We want to alert our readers that we'll soon feature a joint post by Senators Rosemary McAuliffe, 1st District; Chair of Early Learning and K-12 Committee and Senator Eric Oemig, 45th District; Vice Chair of Early Learning and K-12 Committee.
Senators McAuliffe and Oemig were both instrumental in the passage of House Bill 2261, which redefined and restructured education in Washington State. Both senators now sit on the oversight body 
for 2261 called the Quality Education Council.
Stay tuned and check back to read their post this week. We’ve seen it, and we’re confident that it’ll spark some lively debate.
By Tom
A recent editorial by Seattle Times columnist Lynne K. Varner caught our attention. She argues for school reform, specifically in the Seattle School District. I like what she says about teacher evaluation, I agree (to a point) with what she says about firing bad teachers, but I take exception to what she has to say about merit pay.
And as Meatloaf famously told us, "Two out of three ain't bad."
Since the beginning, Schools have been called upon to fix societal dilemmas. Way back when, schools were supposed to teach kids how to farm. Then they were expected to turn kids into factory workers. In the post-war years, they were charged with directing some kids toward college and others toward the trades. In the sixties, they were told to produce rocket scientists and astronauts. In the seventies, schools were expected to end segregation. In the eighties we were expected to prevent drug abuse, and in the nineties we were told to prevent AIDS.
But now we're being asked to do something truly difficult. There's an Achievement Gap in this country. Children of color and of poverty tend to perform significantly below their white, Asian and more affluent classmates. And schools are expected to fix this dilemma.
In one sense, it's flattering to be asked to solve such a complex problem. It's sort of like the testosterone spike I get when my wife asks me to open the pickle jar.
But this is one tight pickle jar, and I'm not sure how to open it.
By Tom
Today was an in-service day. One of the activities on which we worked involved analyzing various assessments that we administered to our students early in the school year. We worked in small groups of four teachers. The first test we discussed was the QRI, which stands for something that involves reading fluency. Our group had mixed opinions; I found the data useful, as did two other teachers, but the fourth thought her kids read much better than the data revealed, so she disregarded it.
Next we talked about the writing assessment. Again, three of us thought the data was useful, but another (different) teacher thought her kids could write much better than the data revealed, so she disregarded it.
Then it was math. Again, we had mixed opinions on the quality of the data, and a conversation ensued. But then I pointed out that it was moot; we were instructed at the math trainings to power through the curriculum regardless of how well the students were learning it. (It's a "spiraled" curriculum.) We had essentially been trained to disregard the data. They all agreed, so we disregarded the data.
So I got to thinking. To what extent are we, as a profession, data driven?
By Tom
There are good laws and there are bad laws. And there are some laws that seem to cause exactly what they were designed to prevent. This year I got to see what that looks like.
Eight years ago, No Child Left Behind dramatically amplified the federal government’s role in public education. In an attempt to eliminate the Achievement Gap, schools in which students do not meet “adequate yearly progress” are now subject to increasingly severe sanctions. Meanwhile, the target for all schools climbs ever higher, until the year 2013, at which point every student in the country is supposed to be reading and doing math at grade level; something that’s never happened in our country’s history, and probably never will, since “grade level” is essentially determined by finding the mid-point in a range of data.
Instead of supporting our struggling schools, this law punishes them. First they’re publicly identified. Then the parents are “invited” to send their students to a better-performing school, at the district expense. If that isn’t possible, the district is responsible for hiring tutors for the students. If these schools keep failing, they’re eventually shut down.
The law was well-intentioned. No one wants their child to perform below grade level, and no one likes the fact that poor children and children of color consistently under-perform on achievement tests.
By Tom
I once had a principal who came into our school as a self-proclaimed "listener." She wanted rich conversations, with everyone participating in the decision-making process.
But she really didn't.