Author Archives: Tom White

Live Blogging from the NBCT Leadership Conference: Part 3

Posted by on
Uncategorized

By Tom

First breakout session: Navigating the Systems of STEM, by Al Gonzalez, who teaches middle school in Chimacum, Washington. He’s what you might call a “Techie.”

He began the session by pointing out the fact that most adults now travel to events like this conference with more than one internet-compatible device.

Al acknowledged that teachers are overwhelmed right now, but asserts that a lot of what we do overlaps with other stuff. (Think TPEP and Common Core) He also encouraged us to use technology to ask for help, in particular; places like Yahoo Groups. He uses practically every conceivable form of social media to connect with his students, their parents and other teachers. Technology, of course, can be fickle. To wit: most of the activities Al had planned were based on-lined; yet the room had limited connectivity. Fortunately, Al had plenty of “Plan Bs.”

Al talked about “branding.” Teachers need to establish and maintain their digital identity. We need to think about how we look when someone googles our name. Blogging, Facebook, Twitter and all the rest are a part of our “brand.”

Another aspect of technology is “curating.” Curating refers to the collecting and rendering of the vast amount of information that’s out there. His favorite collecting tool is something called “Feedly.” which he uses to collect information from a vast amount of teacher bogs and other sources.

Al spent some time talking about advocacy. Starting at the classroom level, he invites legislators into his room to co-teach or just visit. And then he blogs about it. At the district level, he makes sure that school board members, as well as the superintendent, know what’s going on in his classroom. He videotapes a lot and posts on YouTube, showing what his students are doing in his room. We had a nice discussion of various platforms for displaying student learning on-line.

The last thing Al discussed was grant writing. His best advice is to contact district administrators and have them forward grant proposals his way. He reasons that grants proposed to teachers are going to be exponentially more competitive, since there are so many teachers. Administrators, on the other hand, are less numerous; the grants they have access to are therefore less competitive. He’s raised nearly $300,000 by writing grants, most of which went directly into his own classroom.

This was a fun session. All is obviously way farther down the road than most of us in terms of implementing technology into his classroom.

 

Live Blogging from the NBCT Leadership Conference: Part 2

Posted by on
Uncategorized

By Tom

The first Group Session! After lunch we all moved into the next room for the grand welcome. One of our own bloggers, Maren Johnson, got things rolling with an introduction to Twitter, encouraging everyone in attendance to tweet out updates from the conference. We learned how to post tweets, retweet, use hashtags, and so on. Everyone went immediately to their phones and iPads and got busy.

Cindy Rockholt, conference co-chair, then took over, orienting all of us to the upcoming activities. Each session presenter stood up  in turn, introducing themselves and giving a quick blurb about their session. (Including me. It’s tomorrow and it’s on blogging.)

Beth McGibbon, the other co-chair, then took the helm. She guided us through an activity designed to familiarize people to the unique relationship in Washington State between OSPI, CSTP and the WEA. All three agencies have a stake in promoting and sustaining National Board Certification, yet each has a distinct role.

The WEA’s roll includes Jump Start and Home Stretch, both of which are focused on supporting candidates during their certification. The WEA also runs an Ambassador program, which is focused on encouraging teachers to consider National Board Certification.

OSPI plays three roles in NB Certification. They handle facilitator training and cohort coordination so that candidates have a quality experience during their candidacy process. They also handle the conditional loans, helping candidates afford the process. Last, but definitely not least, they run the stipend program, delivering a well-deserved bonus to Washington’s NBCTs.

CSTP’s purview is teacher leadership and advocacy. They help NBCTs find themselves as leaders and build their own capacity in the roles they choose. They also amplify teachers’ voices on education policy. (One of CSTP’s teacher advocacy projects is the very blog you’re reading.)

The big news of the day, shared by Michaela Miller and Cindy, was about the new certification numbers for Washington State. We have 946 brand-new NBCTs this year, bringing our state total up to 8285. 14% of the teachers in Washington are now National Board Certified!   Not only that, but thanks to heavy recruitment, 34% of our new NBCTs work in challenging schools: 53% of them work in STEM fields. In addition, Washington State now has nine of the top twenty school districts in terms of percentage of NBCTs.

Katie Taylor, NBCT from CSTP took the stage. She introduced the Teacher Leadership Framework, a tool designed to help teachers identify the knowledge, skills and dispositions for leadership roles to which they find themselves attracted. Participants had a chance to delve into the Framework and discuss their interests in teacher leadership, as well as the challenges teachers face as they move beyond the walls of their classroom.

If you haven’t looked through this document, I highly recommend it. I was in the room when it was conceived and written back in 2009.  The basic impetus was the realization that NBCTs have demonstrated their expertise in the classroom and were now being asked to take on leadership roles, for which they may or not have the skill set. It’s important for our profession, therefore, to identify what those various roles are and list the essential knowledge, skills and dispositions they require. Thence the Teacher Leadership Framework, which is now used across the state, principally by school districts that are trying to develop a leadership corps.

Now it’s off for “snack time” and then to the first breakout session.

Live Blogging from the NBCT Leadership Conference: Part 1

Posted by on
Uncategorized

By Tom

For the next 24 hours I will be “live blogging” from the 2014 Teacher Leadership Conference at the beautiful Skamania Lodge along the Columbia River about 40 miles east of Vancouver, WA.

CSTP has held this conference every year for the past decade or so. The goal is to welcome new (or old, actually) NBCTs into the Accomplished Teacher community of Washington State and develop their interest in, and capacity for, teacher leadership. Like with most conferences, there’s a combination of whole-group sessions and breakout sessions. And lots of food.

I’ve been lucky to be involved in every one of these conferences since it started, mostly as a presenter, but also as a participant.

This year I’ll also be blogging live from the conference. I’ll try to attend as many sessions as possible and post what I see and hear. Look for frequent updates over the weekend!

Initiative 1351 Passes. Now what?

Posted by on
Education Policy, Elementary

By Tom

It took a while for the results to trickle in, but after nearly a week it’s become clear that the voters have decided to lower class sizes in Washington. I voted yes, with all the passion as a 1988 vote for Michael Dukakis.

Why the lack of enthusiasm? Three things: implementation, allocation and expectations.

Implementation: Now that the initiative passed, none of us can expect our classes to suddenly shrink. I certainly don’t. Class sizes aren’t going to get any smaller unless and until there’s someplace to put those extra kids. And in my school, there simply isn’t. Every one of our classrooms is being used, along with the two portables that were brought in over the summer. And it’s the same all over our district. If I understand the Initiative correctly, there are workarounds for schools that don’t have room to create new classrooms; it involves hiring extra teachers until the average class size goes down. It sounds to me like my district will be hiring a fleet of learning support teachers, which is a good thing; as long as we’re careful about how it plays out. This is definitely something all of us need to pay attention to and get involved in. It could be a great thing for our schools or it could be a mess.

Allocation: 1351 is going to be really expensive, which is a problem, since lawmakers don’t run the state like a restaurant. “I hope you enjoyed your lower class sizes, citizens; here’s the bill. I’ll be your cashier when you’re ready.” What they do instead is move money around so that as few voters as possible notice. My guess is that the people who will end up noticing the most will be teachers. I worry about my salary, my benefits and my National Board bonus. I also worry about the state’s ability to pay for other important education programs, specifically those that involve college readiness.

Expectations: Once we get these smaller classes – or whatever workaround we end up with – all eyes are going to focus on outcomes. And I don’t think they’ll be waiting for the class of 2028. In fact, as a fourth grade teacher I’m looking forward to 2016, when I get a class of kids who all came out of 17-student third grade classrooms, all of whom had the benefit of more teacher attention. And my expectations will increase each year. But that’s nothing compared to what “outsiders” will be looking for. And by “outsiders” I probably mean the Seattle Times, who were relentless in their opposition to 1351, both in and out of their editorial page. I don’t seriously doubt that we’ll have the data to show that the Initiative led to student improvement, but I have no doubt that the doubters will be looking really hard to prove that it didn’t. And that worries me.

So I guess it’s time to celebrate. But briefly, because there’s a lot of work to be done to make sure this turns out well.

A Response to Spencer’s “Handshake Post”

Posted by on
Education Policy, Elementary

By Tom White

On Monday, Spencer put up a post about Initiative 1351 in which he described the dramatic decrease in the number of relationships within a classroom when class size drops from current levels to those proposed by the Initiative. While this is certainly a novel approach to thinking about class size and the effect it has on the complexities within a classroom, I have two concerns.

First of all, Spencer seems to treat all relationships within a classroom equally. As if Aaliyah’s relationship with Travis, for example, is as important as her relationship with her teacher. I don’t think that’s true. I can certainly accept that she and Travis should have some relationship, and I agree that having more kids in the room might crowd out that relationship, but the primary relationship for both Aaliyah and Travis is that which they have with their teacher. Therefore, while it’s true that the number of relationships is a quadratic function of the number of people, the number of primary relationships – those between a student and her teacher – increases much more slowly as class size creeps up. While I agree that more students means less attention for each student and I agree that less students per class is preferable, I don’t accept Spencer’s dramatic math.

Furthermore, simply lowering class size doesn’t necessarily mean that instruction changes. I teach 28 fourth graders this year. If Initiative 1351 passes, I’ll eventually have only 25 students in my classroom. I honestly can’t promise that my lessons will be noticeably different with three fewer students. They won’t need to be. I’ll still construct and implement my lesson plans in much the same way, using much the same activities. True, I’ll have slightly more contact with each kid during each lesson, but the activities won’t be much different. I’m well aware that in the lower grades and in high poverty schools, class size will drop enough to actually change the learning activities, but in most classrooms – including mine – we’ll be spending an awful lot of money for pretty much the same lessons.

That said, I’ll be voting yes, mostly as a matter of principle, and I hope it passes, but I worry about the cost.

I’ll Take College Readiness Over Smaller Class Size

Posted by on
Education, Education Policy

By Tom White

Counting my parents, I was the fourth person in my family of seven to go to college. That was because I was the second-oldest kid. My three younger siblings also went to college. We were raised on going to college. When I found a five dollar bill in a birthday card from a grandma or uncle, I was allowed to hold it for a few days and then it was taken away and put into my savings account where it was “saved for college.”

In my life, college was a huge part of the eighteen years that preceded it.

That, however, is not the case for many kids in America. A recent study by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows a huge disparity in college attendance between students in “high income schools” and “low income schools.”

As educators, we play a long game. Our job is to take five year olds and turn them into college-ready adults. Thirteen years later. So why is it that that the relative income level of a student’s family and classmates should play such an important role in that student’s likelihood of becoming ready for college?

I don’t think anyone has the complete answer. But I keep thinking back to my own childhood, growing up with college-educated parents and the expectation that I was also going to college. Not to mention the fact that they were prepared to help me pay for it and had the wherewithal to get me through the process of enrolling. With that kind of support, there was about a 99% chance that I was going to college. But I honestly think if you removed those factors from my personal equation, the number would be close to 50%. I could have gone either way.

I teach fourth grade. Most of my students don’t really understand what college is all about. Some of them, however, know that it’s the pathway to an adult life with more choices, more opportunities, and yes, more money. Not surprisingly, most of those kids come from families where the parents went to college. I think the biggest challenge in our state is to include the rest of those students in this culture of college readiness. We need to make college students out of every five year old, not just the lucky ones. But how?

There are probably lots of effective ways to make college students out of little kids, but one that I’m fairly familiar with is AVID. It stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. AVID essentially does what my parents did for me. It creates an expectation that each kid is heading toward college. It focuses on creating a growth mind-set and instilling the foundational skills that college-bound kids need. It also works with parents, teaching them how to get their kids into – and through – college.

But it’s also expensive. It involves teacher training, tutoring and on-site coordination. AVID, or any intensive support program designed to close the college-readiness gap between students from high income schools and those from low income schools costs a lot of money. A lot of districts just can’t afford it. They shouldn’t have to. The state should.

As far as I’m concerned, an intensive, targeted, college-readiness initiative would deliver a bigger bang for the buck than reducing class size. That’s not to say that I oppose reduced class size. I have 28 kids in my class right now, and I know that I would be a better teacher if there were only 25. But I’m not sure losing those three kids is going to make the difference in terms of getting the other 25 into college.

And getting kids into college is what we’re paid to do.

A Common Core Metaphor

Posted by on
Education Policy

buildingBy Tom White

I live near a five corner intersection, and for as long as I can remember, it’s been equipped with five stop signs. I wouldn’t call it dangerous, but it’s never been very efficient, mostly because of the ambiguity. Turn signals are well-suited for four-way stops; you turn them on when you want to turn and you leave them off when you don’t. Everyone usually knows where everyone else is going.  Turn signals are far less effective at a five-way intersection; you’re never really going straight so you never leave your signals off, but when you do signal, no one knows exactly which right or left turn you’re proposing. Thus the ambiguity.

Consequently, traffic through this intersection has always been messy and slow. Although I’ve never seen any serious accidents, there’s always a lot of halting and stalling; with everyone waiting for everyone else to commit to a turn. During rush hour, the traffic can back up for several blocks. It’s by no means a disastrous situation; it’s more like something that could obviously be better.

So along came a guy with a vision and a degree in civil engineering. “What if we constructed a roundabout?” he thought, and eventually the city council decided to fund the project. Most of the local people were mildly opposed to the change. Roundabouts are still somewhat exotic in this area and they came along well after most of us learned to drive. Besides, like I said, no one was all that concerned with the current situation at Five Corners.IMG_2119

And then came June, when the project started. The intersection became a complicated mess of  torn-up asphalt, orange cones and large, yellow vehicles. Flaggers brought traffic to a complete stop, causing most of us to look for alternate routes through formerly quiet neighborhoods. If the situation was bad before construction, it was horrible during the summer.

And now it’s late September. The worst is over. Traffic has started to travel counter-clockwise around the large circle in the middle. The landscaping has started to materialize. People are beginning to realize that a roundabout is far safer and far more efficient t5-corners-roundabout-2han a confusing five-way stop. Everyone yields and everyone turns right. It’s consistent and predictable.

Long story short: we had a system that seemed good enough, although it really wasn’t. We went through a tough period of change in which everyone was miserable. Now we’re beginning to realize that it was well worth it, because the system that’s emerging is much better than what we had before.

I Love My Job

Posted by on
Uncategorized

1024px-Heart_corazón.svgBy Tom White

Regular readers of this blog might get the impression that we’re a bunch of unhappy teachers. After all, much of what we write about deals with our concerns for the teaching professional and our complaints about some of the policies that shape the world in which we work. And it’s true! We do have concerns and we do have complaints. However, I think I speak for the whole writing team when I say that despite my concerns and complaints, I overwhelmingly love this job!

I love the people I work with. I’m not talking about the other teachers, although they’re great people; I’m talking about the kids with whom I spend most of my time. Fourth graders have such an infectious sense of joy and innocence that for seven hours every weekday you would never know that there were any problems in West Africa, Eastern Europe or North St. Louis. Fourth graders are open and honest; they laugh when they’re happy, cry when they’re hurt and skip when they’re supposed to walk. I wish we could all be like fourth graders, but we can’t, so I’ll take the next best thing.

I love the fact that society trusts me to do something so important. There are 27 families that send their kids to my classroom every day, confident that I’ll consistently keep them safe and get them ready for a successful future. Thirty years ago, when I was first starting, that overwhelming responsibility kept me up at night. Now it just keeps me busy during the day. Really busy. I get up every morning, eager to get to work and come home every night exhausted but happy with what I’ve done.

I love the extra stuff. Starting about fifteen years ago, I realized that there were opportunities for teachers to extend their skills and knowledge beyond the classroom. So I began doing extra stuff. The hardest part – for me, anyway – was letting go of my classroom every once in a while. But I finally realized that with clear lesson plans in the hands of a decent substitute, things will be just fine without me. And any problems that occur are more than offset by insuring that teachers have a voice in the profession. Extra stuff can be fun. Although I’ve never done anything outside the classroom that was as fun or as important as teaching, I’ve met some wonderful people and traveled all over the country working on interesting and important projects.

So don’t get the wrong idea from our blog. Yes, we have concerns and yes, we’ll have complaints. But we still love what we do.

My Failing School

Posted by on
Uncategorized

Lwe_entranceBy Tom White

Last week my school district sent out letters to every family in our school, informing them that our school is failing. This week we learned that fourteen of our students will be going to a different school. One that isn’t failing.

I can’t tell you how upsetting this is. I have worked at Lynnwood Elementary for the past 25 years and it’s become part of my soul. I have worked with an entire generation of that neighborhood and now I’m beginning to work with the children of former students. In fact, one of my former students is now a teacher at my school. We have nearly 600 wonderful, diverse students from all over the world, taught by a faculty of bright, caring professionals, dedicated to their work. Although we have plenty of room for improvement, ours is not a failing school by any stretch of the imagination.

To be told by someone in Washington DC who has never set foot in my school that we’re failing is about the most ridiculous characterization I can think of. We’re not alone, of course; over 90% of the schools in our state are “failing.”

Here’s why:

In 2002 George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) into law. This was a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which previously gave states and districts block grants with which they could fund special education and other programs designed for at-risk students. NCLB was supposed to make schools more accountable for student learning; they had to make steady progress over the course of the next twelve years, culminating in 2014 – last year – at which point every kid in every school in America was supposed to be performing at grade level or risk sanctions.

That goal, of course, was preposterous. When President Obama took office there was some talk about rewriting the law so that it made sense. That talk didn’t go anywhere. Consequently, the Obama administration decided to use the threat of NCLB and its sanctions as leverage for certain education reforms by granting “waivers” from the law to those states that complied. One of those reforms was the use of student test scores as part of teacher evaluations.

The Washington State Legislature decided not to go along with that particular “reform.” So the feds revoked our waiver, which means that we’re still bound by NCLB. And since it’s now 2014 and since some of our kids failed to meet standard on the last standardized test, our school is classified as “failing.”

What makes this particularly stupid in the case of our school is that the scores used are actually two years old; we piloted the new SBAC last year (tied to the Common Core) and therefore our scores weren’t even recorded.

So here we are. The letters went out, parents read them and some decided to pull their kids out of our school and have them bused – at the school district’s expense – to the nearest “not failing” school.

What happens next? I can think of five possibilities, presented in the order of least likelihood:

1. Congress rewrites NCLB/ESEA so that it makes sense and actually serves at-risk students by providing financial support to their schools. This is obviously the best solution. It’s also the least likely to happen.

2. Every student suddenly performs at grade level. This is, of course, also highly unlikely. The only reason I didn’t put it first is because our students, their parents and their teachers are at least trying to make it happen, whereas the people charged with rewriting NCLB/ESEA aren’t.

3. The Federal Department of Education decides they’ve made their point and reinstates Washington State’s waiver. There’s actually been movement in this direction, but I get the sense that they’ve chosen to make an example of our state, especially because of the role that our teacher’s union played in swaying the legislature. But it could happen.

4. Our legislature decides to change our teacher evaluation system to include student test scores. Although the WEA will put up a strong fight, this could also actually happen. Our evaluation system won’t be as accurate or as meaningful as it is now, but at least we’ll be waived of NCLB’s sanctions. 

5. Nothing. This is probably what will happen. Congress won’t act. Our students will improve, but they won’t all pass their state tests. The feds won’t back down. Our legislature won’t change the evaluation system.

And my school will still be “failing.” 

Teachers and Their Unions

Posted by on
Education Policy, National Board Certification

PropanetankBy Tom

Most gas stations sell propane. But they usually keep the propane tank as far as possible from the main building. To me, that says something. It says, “Even though our entire operation consists of simultaneously selling gasoline, cigarettes and Bic lighters to anyone with a car; that propane tank scares the hell out of us, and we don’t want to be anywhere near it.”

That weird mix of trust and suspicion also seems to apply to teachers and their unions. According to a recent survey, three out of four Americans trust their children’s teachers, while only half believe that teachers unions have a positive effect on schools. That seems weird to me, since teachers union are – by definition – simply a group of teachers; the same teachers that people trust when they aren’t in a group. I understand what’s going on, of course; when teachers are working in their classrooms, they’re doing things for children: teaching them, keeping them safe, etc. But when teachers get together in a group – a union – they sometimes ask for things like fair compensation and job security, and that’s when the trust disappears. People don’t like it when teacher unions act like other unions. That’s when they accuse teachers of not acting in the best interests of the students.

There are two problems with that. First of all, unions are supposed to act on behalf of their members. That’s their essential purpose. They were invented in order to secure collective bargaining agreements with employers. They sit down across the table from administrators and bargain. And at some point in the conversation, the administration will insist on less money for more work and less job security. The union, on the other hand, will ask for higher wages in exchange for less work and more job security. That’s what every worker – with or without a union – is supposed to do in regards to their employment conditions. Teacher unions, as it turns out, have become pretty good at it, and people don’t like that.

But here’s the other thing: despite the fact that teacher unions act like unions because they’re supposed to, our unions actually do a lot more. I spent a couple days earlier this week in Denver, where this year’s NEA Representative Assembly is being held. Before the convention started, I attended an event called “Empowered Educators Day.” It was awesome. The entire day was focused on ways in which the NEA is working to improve teaching and learning. National Board Certification, of course, was a big part of the conversation. The National Board has had the support of the NEA and the AFT from the get-go, and it’s safe to say that it wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for the support of the teachers unions.

On this Fourth of July I’m holding my head high. I’m a proud member of a great union. A union that works hard for its members and works just as hard for our students.

Boom.