Category Archives: Assessment

TPEP 1: Re-Evaluating our Evaluation Model

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Assessment, Education Policy, National Board Certification, Uncategorized

This is the first of a series of posts I will be writing regarding the current Teacher and Principal Evaluation System (TPEP) in Washington State.  Each post will examine findings from the University of Washington’s Final Report on TPEP, titled ‘Washington’s Teacher and Principal Evaluation System:  Examining the Implementation of a Complex System.’  The full report can be found here:  http://www.education.uw.edu/ctp/sites/default/files/UW_TPEP_Rpt_2017_Rvsd_ADA.pdf  

Washington’s Teacher and Principal Evaluation System (TPEP) created fundamental changes to the way teachers and principals talk about teaching and learning.  Moreover, TPEP established a shift in how teachers are evaluated and how they evidence their achievement in eight criteria. The system requires that each teacher complete a comprehensive evaluation (all eight criteria, including measurements of student growth towards specific learning goals) once every four years and a focused evaluation during the other three years (evidencing one criterion and one student growth goal).  A new teacher must successfully complete the comprehensive evaluation for three consecutive years before he/she can move towards a focused evaluation.  Additional legislation now allows a teacher to carry his/her comprehensive summative rating into the focused cycle as a way to promote growth and zero in on a focused area of weakness for improvement without fear of receiving a worse summative evaluation rating at the end of the year (see WAC: 392-191A-190).

I was an early adopter of TPEP.  As a building leader and local education association president I felt it was important to see what this new process looked like first hand so I offered myself up as a guinea pig. Thankfully, a few of my building colleagues did the same. Four and a half years ago we underwent the comprehensive system for the first time and like anything new, we (both teachers, building, and district admin) muddled through the process, putting this new policy into practice. We learned a great deal from trial and error. Within a few months our building established an effective system based on routine meetings (every three weeks) and grounded in teacher agency over artifacts. Our process is now streamlined in contract language and having completed a full cycle (1 year of comprehensive and 3 years of focused) I can confidently say that conversations about teaching and learning are firmly entrenched in language found in the criteria.  We’ve established a process that helps teachers and administrators talk about our work with shared values and a common language. A recently released report from the University of Washington regarding the implementation of TPEP echoes similar sentiment from stakeholders in districts around the state  (Elfers and Plecki, xii).

I’m back on the comprehensive model this year and finding the process to be inhibiting to my growth as a teacher. It’s not that I’m unwilling to closely analyze my practice to demonstrate my achievement in these areas. In fact I welcome these opportunities. But evidencing eight criterion (three pieces of evidence for each) and two student growth goals (with three different assessments) is challenging to do well in one academic school year.  To be fair, I live this work every day.  Half of my day is spent serving as an instructional coach supporting our building teaching staff as they prepare for meetings and reflect upon their practice. The University of Washington TPEP report indicates that the comprehensive evaluation model within a single year poses series concerns for teachers, school administrators, and superintendents. “More than three-quarters of teachers, four-fifths of school administrators, and 71% of superintendents either strongly or somewhat agreed that the comprehensive evaluation attempts to cover too many aspects of teaching in a single year.”  (Elfers and Plecki,  xiii).  But now that I’m back in the mix of the twenty four pieces of evidence, six assessments, etc… I’m feeling like I can’t juggle all of  these criteria well and as a result, I’m not demonstrating my best work and that has me concerned. These feelings signal to me that I’m treating the comprehensive evaluation system as a checklist of attributes and indicators that I have to reach so that I can show that I am a “Distinguished” educator this year so that next year I can go back into the focused model and take some real risks, pushing myself in my areas of weakness so that I can make substantive changes without fear of losing my “Distinguished” label. I’m tired of proving that I’m “Distinguished’ enough to do this work.  I’m a National Board Certified Teacher, once renewed, who has shown through a variety of means that I continually seek out opportunities to grow professionally so that I may be a better teacher for my students.  The comprehensive evaluation system makes me feel weighed down and less reflective, not more.

What about our newest teachers?  Our state, like others, is struggling to retain teachers in the profession, yet we immerse them in this complex process right out of the gate.  84% of building administrators felt that covering all aspects of the comprehensive evaluation with a first year teacher was of major or moderate concern (Elfers and Plecki, xiii).  So how can we expect new teachers to the profession to carefully and thoughtfully engage with this instructional evaluation tool?  Spoiler alert: I’ll address the rise in support systems that have emerged since the implementation of TPEP in my next related blog post.  Nonetheless, the UW report on TPEP Implementation doesn’t zero in on the experience of new teachers (from the perspective of the new teacher) as an analyzed sub group, but there are hints at the familiarity of new teachers with TPEP.  The report finds that teachers who recently graduated from a teacher prep program (within the past three years) largely had experience with TPEP related criteria such as use of assessments to inform instructional practice and the assessment and collection of evidence of student growth (Elfers and Plecki, xii, 6).  But does experience alone mitigate the challenges presented in the first year of teaching coupled with the use of a comprehensive evaluation?  I’m hoping to see additional research in this area. So I wonder, what would happen if new teachers began with focused area, allowing for richer reflection and analysis in one area, instead of jumping head first into the all eight criteria?  This would create less pressure and more confidence for those just starting into the career.  

So where do we go from here?  We’re now almost five years into implementation and perhaps now is the time for policymakers to step back and make adjustments to this system.  Re-examining how we evaluate our newest teachers and ensuring that all teachers are able to take risks, improve weaknesses, and cultivate practice will create an even stronger, perhaps more sustainable teaching force for our students.  

Wish List for WACs for 2018

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Assessment, Education Policy, Elementary

In November of 2017 several groups banded together to present comments to the legislature regarding the WAC revision of Section 412 of EHB 2242. That’s the section of the WAC that requires districts to prioritize identification of low-income students for participation in the Highly Capable (HC) Program.

The Washington State Association of Educators of Talented and Gifted (WAETAG) was involved in writing the letter. So was the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education, The Northwest Gifted Child Association, and the National Association for Gifted Children. But the letter didn’t just include voices from gifted-land. The Washington State PTA and the Washington Education Association added comments as well.

So what did we ask for? What was our wish list for the New Year?

Our number one, first priority, was universal screening.

Universal screening eliminates the reliance on nominations/referrals (which eliminates any potential of bias or problems of access skewing the identification process).

By the way, we also want people to stop using the term “nomination” for HC students. After all, a nomination sounds like you think people deserve something extraordinary—an award, an election. The correct term would be a “referral” for services, just like any other service a student might need. Districts could continue to collect referrals from parents, teachers, community members, and even students who self-referred, but that more subjective input would be used as supplemental data after the universal screening.

There were other items, including:

  • Report card grades or teacher recommendations should not be used as “gatekeeper” screening devices. Use objective tools to screen. Subjective tools can be used for additional information, but nothing more.
  • All screening needs to be done at the student’s home school, during normal school hours.

We also asked the legislators to clarify a couple of points. The phrase “multiple measures” means there are different ways to identify students, not that students need to score highly on every measure in order to qualify for services. The 5% funding formula is not a limit on enrollment. Districts are supposed to identify and serve all students who qualify for services, no matter what the percent.

There was a section in the letter on using local norms to identify HC students. You can read the Seattle Times article, “The Push to Find More Gifted Kids,” to see how Miami’s school district uses local norms.

Here are the things I loved about Miami’s success story (and the Florida law that drove it):

  • They acknowledge that students who have less exposure to vocabulary, books, museums, and so on—or students who deal with Adverse Childhood Experiences Syndrome (ACES)—can score lower on IQ tests. They need a safe and rich environment to expand their potential.
  • Those students who are brought into a HC class who scored lower and had fewer rich experiences or had more ACES—those kids will require tutoring in order to catch up. (That tutoring costs extra money.)
  • Miami spent additional money in other ways too—more “psychologists, teachers, administrators and a battery of nonverbal intelligence tests for kids not yet fluent in English.”
  • “Florida law mandates that all teachers of the gifted complete 300 hours of study on the temperament of highly intelligent kids, as well as the best ways to instruct, counsel and draw out their creativity.” That would be great if we had a similar requirement in Washington!
  • They spent about $1850 more per gifted student beyond the cost of basic education.

What did they gain? Miami is a front-runner in finding and developing ELL gifted students. Their gifted program demographics closely reflect their overall district population percentages.

Here’s what I wasn’t so excited about:

“In Miami, middle-class and affluent kids need IQ scores of at least 130, while low-income children or those whose first language is not English can get in with scores 13 points lower—provided they rate highly in measures of creativity and academic achievement.” That 130 cut-off seems really dated and wrong to me. I don’t know anyone who uses a 130 test score as a cut-off anymore. (How last century!)

Here’s a simple solution for those of us in our state.

We are supposed to look at multiple measures. So you go into your Multidisciplinary Selection Committee. You have a spreadsheet with data, student numbers (not names) down the left and labeled columns along the top, for example: CogAT verbal, CogAT quantitative, CogAT nonverbal, verbal achievement, quantitative achievement, HOPE scale (read the instructions first!), and so on.

You should have other things easily available on file for supplemental information, like a parent referral form or a teacher referral form or report card grades.

Next add a couple of other columns to your spreadsheet:

  • One should be for any demographic data you might have on each student.
  • One should be for free/reduced lunch data. As long as you identify students by number instead of name, there is no problem with sharing that data for the team to use.

Now as you use multiple measures to identify students for HC services, consider demographic and F/R lunch data as measures so you can make your best effort to maintain diversity in your HC program.

Do you want to make sure you are being fair? When you think you are done, do a sort by each demographic group to see how they compare with each other. Then do a sort by F/R. How well do your results align with your over-all district demographics?

Over time, you should see a more balanced HC program!

And happy new year to all!

National Board Certification, the Second Time Around

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Assessment, Education, National Board Certification, Professional Development
Shelly Milne

Lately, I have been reading a lot about the importance of helping students develop a growth mindset. A student with a growth mindset knows she can grow through hard work and perseverance. Right now, I am totally embracing the concept of the “not yet” mind set. Thank you, Carol Dweck, for celebrating the idea of encouraging students to ‘stick with’ hard things. This concept is especially important to me because I have been a National Board Certified Teacher in Early Adolescence English-Language Arts (EA ELA) since 2004, and three years ago I decided to attempt certification in new area.

After renewing my certification in English-Language Arts, I moved to the position of Library Media Specialist in my building. As a Jump Start trainer and year-long National Board candidate support provider, I started reading the standards for Library Media Certification, and, yes, I saw some connections to my language arts standards, but I also noticed other areas that were unique to Library Media. I started thinking, “I need to learn these new standards and work on a second National Board Certification.”

Now achieving National Board Certification in Library Media is important to me because, after spending over three years working as a Teacher-Librarian, I realize the role and importance of Library Media Specialists is not fully understood. I earned a Library Media Endorsement from Antioch University three years ago, and before that experience I didn’t really know the significance of the role either. Earlier this school year, I was asked to cover another teacher’s class. I said, “I would, but I have a 5th grade library class coming in at that time.”

I was surprised when I heard this response, “We’ll get someone else to cover the library, so you can cover a core language arts class.” Fortunately, I have been around awhile, so I felt comfortable saying, “No, I am going to stay with the class I prepared to teach because I am doing important work in the library.” This attitude that library media is an extra add-on that isn’t as important as core classes is something I would like to address as a teacher-leader and earning my Library Media Certification will help me with this task.

I may be feeling anxious about finding out my scores, but working on a second certification has reminded me of just how much courage it takes to open up your practice for evaluation. It’s more than just a considerable time commitment. As a National Board Candidate, you tell assessors what you did; how and why you did it that way; and share student results and your reflection on the process. Then you send in your work and wait…and wait…and wait some more. Waiting for the score report where assessors tell you how much evidence of accomplished practice they found in your written commentary and other submitted artifacts. No teacher wants to read the words: shows little or no evidence of accomplished teaching practice.

So like all candidates who are waiting for their scores, I am nervous. As a National Board support provider, I am also nervous for the candidates I have been working with for the last three years. I know first hand how much energy, time, and commitment they have invested in this process. When they started in 2014, they didn’t know what score it would take to certify, but they were willing to open their practice to scrutiny and start the journey toward certification. I have the utmost respect for the pioneers of the NB 3.0.

I have been rehearsing what I will say to people if I don’t certify on my first attempt in this new certification area. When people ask I plan to remember the work of Carol Dweck and simply say, “Not yet.” This mindset is actually not a new concept for me. I have always embraced the “not yet” mindset. Not yet just means I am continuing to grow. As a 30+ year educator, a growth mindset makes sense. In over thirty years in this profession, I have never completed a school year, and yelled at the end, “I nailed it! All of it!” This teaching thing is complex. Like all accomplished educators, I always end the year reflecting on where I nailed it, and where I missed the mark.

So even though I am a little nervous as I anticipate Score Release Day on December 16. I do know this if my score is 110 or more, I will celebrate with all the thousands of new NBCTs across the country, and if my score is 109 or less I am still going to celebrate the growth I have experienced so far after digging deeper into what an accomplished Library Media Specialist knows and is able to do. After seeing my scores, I will do what I have always done. I will roll up my sleeves and decide what I need to learn, understand, and show in my next attempt because that’s what accomplished teachers do every single day.

 

Biography: Shelly Milne is National Board Certified Teacher in Early Adolescence English Language Arts. LA. She certified in 2004, and renewed in 2012. Four years ago, she moved from a 7th grade Humanities classroom teacher at Cashmere Middle School into the position of teacher-librarian. She earned her endorsement in library media from Antioch University. She is currently a National Board Candidate in Library Media. She provides candidates with yearlong support and works as a Washington Education Association Jump Start Trainer. She’s also member of the National Education Association Jump Start Team.

Creating Coherence

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Assessment, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom | ,

There’s a special kind of efficiency that happens when we’re able to see overlaps and connections. It is very easy to look at all of the demands upon us and see them as discrete and separate elements on a never-ending to-do list, but there is tremendous power in the pursuit of coherence.

One example: Student Growth Goals, Professional Growth Goals and Data.

We know that by law we all have to write and monitor student growth goals. I’m lucky to be in a district and building that gives us as teachers ownership of our goals, so we are empowered to design and implement growth goals that are meaningful to our students…not just for checking a TPEP box or demonstrating our compliance. In addition to student growth goals, we also have our professional growth goals we are expected to develop. If you’re on the comprehensive “all eight” evaluation (like I am), that means a small group student growth goal, a whole class student growth goal, a collaboration goal, and a professional growth goal.

Imagine if all of these things could be focused in a way that any data I gather serves to monitor all of these goals.

Here’s how I’m attempting to achieve this coherence:

Continue reading →

Equity in Identifying Highly Capable Students

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Assessment, Education Policy

I spent several days this summer at the annual board retreat for WAETAG (Washington Association of Educators of Talents and Gifted). Jody Hess, OSPI’s Program Supervisor for Highly Capable Student Programs, came to talk with us about a change to the law: districts must “prioritize equitable identification of low income students.”

Universal Screening

One of the barriers to equity in HC programs is the process districts use to invite students into the identification procedure. I was stunned to learn this year how many districts still use nominations as an initial screening device.

What’s the problem with that?

There is still a great deal of confusion about the nature of the Highly Capable or gifted student. Many people—teachers and parents—nominate only those students who are responsible, high-achieving, engaged, motivated, and well-behaved. They fail to nominate students who never turn in their assignments, resist doing any class work, are distracted, and chronically misbehave, even if those less than stellar scholars meet the state criteria for identification.

Then there’s a thornier issue. It seems that people do a better job at nominating students who are similar to them—the same ethnic background, the same socio-economic background. If a majority of teachers in a district are white and middle class, it’s possible HC minority and lower socio-economic students in that district may be overlooked.

If teachers don’t nominate a student, the parents can always fill out a nomination form, right? Trouble is, relying on parents to nominate their children is always tricky. Some parents are savvier than others. Is it fair to make a child’s chance at identification rest on their parents’ ability to access and maneuver around the system?

The solution is called universal screening. ALL the students in the district are tested for the Highly Capable program. Or at least use a quick screener (it might be test or checklist such as WaKIDS) with all students initially. Then include those students who score well in a pool for more formal identification.

By the way, universal screening also means there is no impediment to the testing. For example, the testing isn’t offered only on Saturday when some families might not be able to bring their child.

At my district we test every student at the end of second grade. The tests are conducted during the school day, and they are administered in the second grade classrooms by the students’ own teachers. There is very little test anxiety in that situation. We’ve been doing our testing this way for about 15 years now. I honestly thought by now it was standard operating procedure around the state.

If you don’t see every student in your district having some screening for your HC program, you should start asking why.

Multiple Points of Data

Another question you want to ask is if your district is relying on a single criterion for identification: a CogAT score, for example.

While a CogAT is a great way to say, “Yes, this child definitely needs services through the Highly Capable Program,” too often a slightly lower score is used as an excuse to say, “No, this child definitely does not need services.”

No district should be using cut off scores—those in the 95%ile and above are eligible and get served, those below aren’t and don’t, and we’re done.

Instead districts should be looking at multiple data points. It’s fine to say that children who score at 130 and above obviously need services. Now it’s time to look more closely at the children who don’t quite make that. How do they score on achievement tests? On their SBA? On report cards?

When the Multi-disciplinary Team at my district meets to work on Highly Capable identifications, we have access to many types of data, including:

  • CogAT scores (broken down so we can see verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal scores),
  • STAR math and reading (we can access STAR scores for the year so we can track the progression of scores),
  • SBA (for grade levels that took the test),
  • parent and teacher nominations (which still get turned in even though they are not required), and
  • HOPE scale scores (from teachers).

Other information we have is ELL status of students. Our district ELL coordinator is a member of the team and keeps us up-to-date about how ELL students on our lists are progressing. We take that information into account when making decisions. We attempt to keep the identification for HC proportional with the demographics of the district.

For students going into grades 3-5, we first look for students whose scores are so high in both verbal and quantitative areas that they belong in the self-contained HC classes. We don’t limit ourselves to just the CogAT scores to determine which students require those advanced services. Then we go through the lists again. If there are students who are strong in math or verbal, we identify them in those particular areas for extra attention in their general education classrooms.

We are looking for reasons TO identify students, not reasons to deny services.

In middle school every fifth grade student’s math scores in the district are analyzed and every student is placed in math according to their abilities. There are sixth graders in middle school this year taking sixth grade math, seventh grade math, algebra, and geometry.

(When I first arrived in my district the math department at the middle schools would not allow a student to take algebra before eighth grade. “They aren’t developmentally ready.” Now we have sixth graders taking geometry!)

Students who were in the self-contained fifth grade class, students who were identified for verbal skills in elementary school, and additional students whose parents or teachers request that they get retested at the end of fifth grade can all move into the HC English/social studies classes at the middle school. We have one full class at one middle school and

two full classes at the other. Then at the high school all students have access to pre-AP and AP starting at ninth grade.

Low Income

The trouble with saying we have to “prioritize equitable identification of low-income students” is that we can’t know which of our students are low-income. Not when

we go into the Multi-disciplinary Team meetings and look at data. After all, we aren’t allowed to have individual students identified as free/reduced lunch.

(Jody Hess from OSPI is working on what indicators of low-income may be useful, without “profiling” students.)

The point it, we have to do the best we can at identifying every student who needs services. And then provide those services.

Smarter Balanced: Celebrating the Scores?

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Assessment, Education Policy

Like many parents across the nation, we received our children’s Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA) results a few weeks ago.  The results, printed in color ink, did not largely surprise us. What did, however, was our children’s reaction.

My daughter is now a 6th grader.  She’s been taking this test for a few years, although science was a new component for her last year in 5th grade.  In the past, she’s been worried about the adaptive portion of the exam, nervous about whether she’s moving too slow or too fast and wondering if her screen should look alike or different from her peers.  One year, right before school let out for summer, we received notification that she was invited to attend a summer math program. This invitation was an opportunity for extended math instruction, which I was gladly willing to take her to.  I did, however, have no sense that she was struggling in math.  Her standards based report card always revealed that she was on target.  So when I dug around a bit more and contacted the building assessment coordinator, we discovered that she met standard and that the invitation was an accident.  However, the damage was done.  She was downtrodden about her math skills and entered into the 5th grade believing that her skills weren’t where they needed to be (whatever that means).  After receiving the official score report and looking at the data with her, I saw a noticeable difference in my child and how she thought of herself as a math student.  Even then, it took her months and at least a quarter in 5th grade math before she felt confident about her skills and abilities.  You’d think that I would have learned my lesson.

So this year when the assessment results arrived in the mail, I immediately opened them up. After reviewing the data, I decided to sit down with my children to discuss the results.  My daughter the now 6th grader, looked at her scores and said, “I guess this means I’m pretty smart.”  I was stunned.  I’m thankful that I had enough clarity of thought to respond with, “Uh, this test doesn’t measure whether you’re smart.  It tells you that you can answer specific questions related to certain skills and standards that the testing organization wants to measure. It certainly doesn’t address your ability to learn music.”  My husband, her father, is a middle school band teacher.  My daughter has been playing piano for five years (read:  I’ve been paying for piano lessons for five years.)  She nodded and walked away.  I then sat down with my son to review his first SBA results.  

But I wish I hadn’t.  In fact, I’m done sitting down with my children to talk about these scores. Sadly, I think they, like so many other children, adults, school districts, and states, are defining themselves in relation to a score.  My daughter’s self esteem as a math student was tied to that exam.  This year, she used the exam to confirm a sense of self.  

And that’s scary.

And unhealthy.

And it must stop.  

I want to be clear.  I’m not anti-test.  I’m not anti Common Core.  In fact, I embrace the Common Core, and I’d be happy to address that in another post.  However, I fear that we’re sending a dangerous message to our youth if we oversell the data learned from the test.  My school, like so many others, examined our scores in our back to school meeting.  Thankfully,  I didn’t get a sense that our students and our teachers were being overly celebrated or beat up due to assessment data. Our building elevates a variety of achievements, accomplishments, and talents. However, communities across the country put up gigantic signs on  schools when some percentage of students are meeting a standard.  This isn’t helping.  We award schools for these scores and for the most growth over a year.  I’m not saying it’s negative to give a hard working staff recognition for their efforts, but essentially aren’t we also celebrating the test score?  What false sense does that give us of who our students are and what our students know and can do?  

Do teachers walk around defining themselves by their evaluation score?  I sure hope not. This would be an unhealthy approach to the profession, one that isn’t sustainable, and does not encourage self reflection or growth.  So why do we do this with kids?

Let’s find other things to celebrate.  Shouldn’t we consider exalting our students and our schools as more?

Summer Reading: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

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Assessment, Books, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development

I should be reading the new budget and writing about that, I know. That’s for another day.

Instead, I spent my Fourth of July family trip getting sunburned while reading Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, by Zaretta Hammond. A much better choice, as I walked away with far less frustration than a close read of the budget likely would have offered me.

I have to admit that I rarely look forward to my summer “work reading.” Typically, my reading is more of a skim, dipping in when something seems to connect to my work. This book, however, seemed to connect at every turn.

I read this book with a specific purpose: When I and the other thousand-or-so staff return for our August kickoff meetings, we’re taking the idea of culturally responsive practice to scale. Specifically, the district Teaching and Learning team is working to design a common experience for the adults in our system to open us to more frank and meaningful conversations about race, inequity, privilege, and what culturally responsive practice should look like.

The challenge I’m facing, and which this book helped me with, is the reality of being a white male teaching is a largely white (generally affluent) community, and in this context trying to find the right way to communicate with my fellow white teachers that culturally responsive teaching isn’t about using rap music to “connect with kids” or putting up posters of famous nonwhite scientists or changing John to Juan in a story problem and checking the “culturally responsive” box. Further, saying “but I’m not racist” and “I treat every student the same” isn’t an excuse for not learning about and adopting culturally responsive practices (and I think such statements constitute a neon sign pointing at someone who probably needs more than anyone else to read this book).

At the August kickoff, that common experience will help establish that as a district our focus for the 2017-18 school year will be on “seeing and serving every child.” Why? Simply put, the data over the last few years communicates it without question: We’re serving some kids exceptionally well, others well enough, and some not well at all. The dividing line is crystal clear and let’s just say the students on one side of the line are are more linguistically and culturally diverse than those on the other.

But our test scores are high and our graduation rates just fine!

That’s good, of course. However, my assistant superintendent shared with me the field-trip analogy: if we take 100 kids on a field trip and only return with 93% of them, that’s a problem. Yes, we can celebrate our successes, but we as responsible educators must make sure we do all we can for each child, not just most kids. Continue reading →

Rethinking our Assessment System Statewide

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Assessment, Education, Education Policy

On May 24th, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Chris Reykdal outlined a series of phases that addressed his long term vision for K-12 education in the State of Washington.  Included in
that vision is a differentiated assessment model that allows students pathways to demonstrate proficiency and mastery.  The plan calls for an immediate suspension of all test based graduation requirements for the Classes of 2017, 2018, and 2019, a policy that some legislators can get behind.  (See the June 4, 2017 Seattle Times Op-Ed piece by Rep. Monica Stonier and Rep. Laurie Dolan)  This agenda item isn’t necessarily as visionary as others but is more triage in nature.  Asking for these assessments to be waived now is a pressing concern for our potential graduates waiting in the wings (including the 7 students at my high school who are hoping that the state legislature acts immediately since graduation is on Friday, June 9th).  However, other components of this assessment system provide more opportunity and greater steering towards a student’s plans for high school and beyond.

One of the key takeaways from this plan is the use of assessment data for high school planning.  Superintendent Reykdal proposes that the 8th grade assessment (assuming this will still be mandated by the U.S. Department of Education) be used to determine what courses and in what sequence students need to take.  A 10th grade assessment (the Standards Based Assessment, or SBA, also mandated by the U.S. Department of Education) would further clarify what students need in order to be career and college ready.  That exam, while not necessary as a graduation requirement, would be a baseline for which other decisions would be made. The assessment would help stakeholders update a student’s high school and beyond plan (commonly referred to as a HSBP), either demonstrating that is student is now proficient in the required basic knowledge and skills needed to earn a diploma or highlighting what specific skills students need to further develop in order to achieve proficiency.  The plan suggests that alternatives such as the SAT, ACT, Advanced Placement exams, International Baccalaureate exams, Running Start, College in the High School, and other options be used to demonstrate proficiency.  All students after 10th grade must work towards a pathway that includes immediate entrance into the workforce, technical college, community college, apprenticeships, four year colleges/university, or the military.

This new assessment system may just help us combat the apathy that emerges junior and senior year from students wondering why they are enrolled in certain courses that don’t remotely relate to their post secondary education plans.  Such a plan opens the door to exciting new classes tailored to meet the needs of the 21st century learner on whatever pathway he/she may be on.  High schools will be able to utilize the flexibility and creativity that this system promotes and adjust current course offerings, tapping into the talents and expertise of their staff.  The idea that students can select pathways and prepare for those future careers allows students more buy in on their secondary education, potentially impacting overall attendance, number of failed classes, and eventually graduation rates.  Specific training and coursework geared towards a pathway will indeed result in a better worker or stronger college student thus largely impacting the state’s post secondary education system and the local workforce.  Superintendent Reykdal’s proposal directly impacts students allowing them to tap into their talents and interests at an earlier age so that they may develop as stronger, more effective and more efficient contributors to our communities and overall economy.

Things You Should Know About: The Washington Teacher Advisory Council

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Assessment, Current Affairs, Education Policy, Teacher Leadership

Back in 2008 I was honored to be a regional “Teacher of the Year” for ESD 112. I had the chance to sit in a room with “TOYs” from each ESD, and it was humbling, astonishing, and inspiring to hear all the great work we each were championing in our section of the state.

Then, after the interviews and celebrations and receptions, we sped back to our respective classrooms and put our respective noses back to our respective grindstones.

Lyon Terry, 2015 Washington State Teacher of the Year, likely had a similar experience. The difference was what he chose to do next. He saw highly accomplished educators be selected and celebrated each year, and in that he saw an opportunity: While you might teach down the hall from a TOY and never know it (we teachers are often reticent to share our accolades), titles such as “Teacher of the Year” carry potentially powerful ethos when we enter into policy conversations with non-educators.

Lyon formed WATAC, the Washington Teacher Advisory Council, aimed at pulling together the expertise and ethos of alumni regional teachers of the year. Each year, the number of regional TOYs grows by nine (one for each ESD), so though the group may be small, it is certainly mighty.

This last weekend at Cedarbrook was the 2017 WATAC Spring Conference, where alumni of the TOY program gathered to learn about policy, advocacy, and the importance of teachers telling their stories. It was a powerful and inspiring experience, and I now feel like I am part of an even deeper network of teachers likewise committed to improving public education in Washington.

A big take-away and a good reminder: Everything we do as teachers is somehow impacted by a policy that someone, somewhere has written. Whether it is law from the legislature or rules put forth by a state-level group like the Board of Ed, Standards Board, or innumerable others, people are making decisions that directly impact every move we make as a teacher. Simply put: the people making those decisions ought to be teachers themselves. That’s one mission of WATAC (and CSTP, for that matter), that teachers are not just present at the policy table, but that they are the ones whose hands, hearts, and minds are creating the policy.

For more information about WATAC, here is the website and here is the overview of the program on OSPI’s homepage.

Goals for a New School Year: #ObserveMe

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Assessment, Current Affairs, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

I first spotted the #ObserveMe hashtag on a leisurely scroll through my Twitter feed. This piqued my curiosity. Who’s observing me? What are they observing? As I spiraled down the internet, I found that Math teacher, Robert Kaplinsky, is challenging educators to rethink the way we pursue feedback by making it easy and immediately obtainable. It’s simple. Make a form that says something like “Hi I’m ____. I would like feedback on the following goals:_____”. There is no right way to set up your #ObserveMe sign. Then, adjacent to this invite place a reflection tool. From reflection half-sheets to QR codes connected to google spreadsheets, a teacher can embrace any way that is easy (and I’d argue most meaningful) for them to receive this feedback.

I discovered that while #ObserveMe isn’t quite trending yet, it’s catching fire even at the university level. In teacher prep, some professors are using it as a way to model to preservice teachers the need for a clean feedback loop. Today’s teachers are constantly working to fight the isolation that can happen in this profession. We are also always looking for ways to improve and receiving meaningful feedback on our instructional moves is hard to find. Here’s what I like about Kaplinsky’s challenge to teachers.

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It increases the frequency of feedback. With #ObserveMe, I don’t need to wait for my administrator’s scheduled visit. I don’t need to wait for end of unit or end of course student reflections. I don’t need to wait for my instructional coach to find time to come into my classroom. I don’t need to wait for a colleague to get a sub so they can meet with me about student learning. In fact, this has the potential to give me more, real, immediate feedback from a variety of perspectives than anything I’ve seen this far in my eleven years of teaching.

ObserveMe-5-300x232It forces me to have a growth mindset. If this sign is on my door, I am telling the world that I want to grow. I am inviting anyone to come in and comment on my instruct. Yeah, that’s a little scary. But it’s a healthy risk that models vulnerability and openness to others. Who could pop in? A visitor. A parent. The librarian. Another teacher on planning period. I’m both thrilled and terrified at the possibilities. The #ObserveMe challenge reminds us that teaching is relational and we need all types of perspectives to help us grow. This model is based on trust. By opening myself up to the community, I am making them a part of my learning process and saying that I value their voice in my growth.Alissa

It will definitely impact students. If we begin the year with this signage, we are modeling the culture of learning we are trying to cultivate in students. We should be getting feedback that we can implement the next day. I will have concrete date for how I implemented my feedback and can brag about that to my administrator at my evaluation (wink, wink). This has the possibility of transforming my instruction and hopefully inspiring the observer to work on something in their classroom.

 

So far, a handful of teachers in my school are ready with their signs (they gave me permission to include below). I’m hoping our vulnerability will encourage others in the school to jump on board, foster deeper conversations about goal setting, and improve our practice.

Nate

 

Anyone else up for the challenge?

If you’re on Twitter, post a picture and use the hashtag

#ObserveMe