Category Archives: Education Policy

Building a Hybrid Virtual School

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Teacher Leadership, Web/Tech

Qbqonw By Mark

A colleague of mine posed an interesting proposition lately. Like many school districts, mine is apparently toying with the idea of a hybrid virtual/brick-and-mortar kind of school-within-a-school. The idea is that the curriculum would be administered face-to-face when necessary and via web interface when necessary, so this colleague of mine was casting out a few lines to see if any of us would bite.

I've voiced interest in participating, but have concerns and questions. 

A few years ago, I was part of starting a small learning community "school-within-a-school" of sorts in my high school, and it is still operating, but that endeavor was small by comparison with what my colleague has in mind. I am wondering what models of this kind of hybrid exist, what are the benefits or shortcomings, and what the best course would be.

I'm definitely in the learning stages here. Sure, I can Google it or read some journal articles, but that only gives part of the story.

So, SFS readers and contributors: what do you know, or what advice do you have about building this kind of educational opportunity? If you are a brick-and-mortar teacher, what concerns would you have for a hybrid or virtual school? What hopes would you have?

Someone Please Give the Whole Story

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Social Issues, Television

CddunUBy Mark

I am just old enough to remember Paul Harvey, and the "rest of the story."

Eve Rifkin, at our Arizona partner Stories from School has helped flesh out the "rest of the story" on that annual USNews "Top Schools" list, and it is as if she was reading my mind.

Between Waiting for Superman, Oprah, Education Nation, Obama's charge to raise the bar, and the resulting present (and I pessimistically argue ephemeral) empassioned focus on education in this country, it is clear that the whole story has not been told in far too many instances. Here is my take on the untold halves of the many stories told in the last couple of weeks…the rest of the story, if you will:

1. Unions oppose merit pay not to protect lazy teachers but because no one can come up with a fair and reliable way to assess teaching "merit." Issue number one: test scores don't work because not all teachers are in tested disciplines.

2. Those other countries who post great education stats? Their systems are different than ours. Some screen out special education kids. Some have separate vocational tracks which are conveniently not part of their data. Many in those systems lament the fact that the kids they produce are test-takers, not thinkers.

3. Weighing myself will not make me lose weight…I've being weighing in for years and the number is only going the wrong way. Testing kids more will not make them learn. In fact, testing actually takes up instructional time, the loss of which not surprisingly has a negative effect on test performance.

4. American schools held up as models of success always have the following by comparison to the mainstream: extra funding or an enrollment screen or both. These models are neither replicable nor sustainable in other schools unless those schools also get extra funding or an enrollment screen or both. 

5. Every child can learn, but not every child will. To blame that solely on teachers or on students is yet another heinous oversimplification of the complex problems facing education, educators, students, and families today. 

The rest of the story? I'm sure there's even more. I'm tired of hearing half-stories in the sound bytes mainstream America turns to as it's source of facts.

Classroom Management: Fear vs. Understanding

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Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Parent Involvment

Gman By Mark

I have a three-year-old son at home who is that child whose behavior is my karmic payback for the times I mouthed off to my parents. He's a boundary-tester and an eye-lash-batting innocent cherub for whom consequences like time out and taking away of toys have no influence on behavior. Though I regret it, there have been times when the worst of me has come out, and this 32-year-old ends up shouting at that 3-year-old.

And then he cries and cries and I feel horribly guilty.

But usually it changes his behavior, at least for a while. The same results cannot be said for a stint in time-out.

I was venting my frustrations to my dad this last fourth of July when he mentioned that behavior changes only result from one of two things: fear or understanding. I don't know if he discovered this on his own or if he learned this from some workshop, but it rings very true. My dad is a well-respected educator who taught for over three decades, served in the military, and has even volunteered in prisons to teach math to inmates. He made me realize that if I want to influence my toddler's behavior, I should aim for understanding. My son needs to understand why it's not okay to punch his brother or jump off the dining room table. Sometimes a lesson is learned the hard way (he hasn't leapt off the back of the couch even once since that trip to the ER with bashed-in teeth) but there are many other lessons I'm having a hard time teaching him simply because there are a lot of things a three-year-old just isn't capable of understanding yet.

There are obvious analogies to teaching. 

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Kicking the Tires

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Assessment, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom | , , ,

Untitled By Kristin

Buy this car.  I'm serious.  Come on.  This car has been around a long time.  It has proven its worth.  It deserves to be on the road and anyway, the rules are that you can't buy another car until this one is purchased.

I wouldn't buy the car in the photo.  I don't have the time and money to make it queen of the road, and I don't need test results to know that.  Unfortunately, because we can't seem to design a better system of teacher evaluations than seniority, this "you have to take it" policy is what many buildings face when they have a position to fill. 

The system is faulty, and districts and their communities are trying to fix it by placing more weight on student test scores.  We don't need test scores to identify ineffective teachers, we just need to make it easy for administrators to evaluate their staff.  I think it can be easy, and measurable, because you can kick a teacher's tires, so to speak.

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TTWWADI

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Education, Education Policy

Arizona-map Mike Lee at Arizona's Stories From School blog has enlightened me about the evil beast known as the TTWWADI…"That's the way we've always done it." As he points out, the TTWWADIs are the real forces which undermine our efforts to reform education and improve our practice (and thus, student achievement)…and TTWWADIs need to be closely examined if we ever wand to move forward. Take a read and add your thoughts.

The TTWWADI which stands out most to me: advancing kids from one grade
to the next based more on calendar year than actual readiness. In your perspective, what TTWWADIs need to become TWWUTDIs (The Way We Used to Do Its)?

Should Math and Science Teachers be Paid More?

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Mathematics, Science

CSX8EhBy Mark

An article in this week's Tacoma News Tribune points out that in the state of Washington, high school math and science teachers get paid less, on average, than teachers of other disciplines. The assumption–not backed up by research or widespread observation–is that math and science teachers are lured away to more lucrative careers in the high tech industry and therefore do not stay in teaching as long.

Besides that, this study by Jim Simpkins, Marguerite Roza, and Cristina Sepe and produced by the University of Washington's Center for Reinventing Public Education raises several valid points about teacher compensation. However, it is what the study does not include that concerns me most.

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Whose Profession Are We Developing?

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Education Policy, Professional Development

I heard a sad story the other evening. It was during the annual NSDC conference here in Seattle, and a bunch of us were gathered for dinner downtown after the first day. A colleague began to describe the teaching career of her young niece, who had dreamed of being an educator since she was eight years old. Her first year had gone well; she had been paired with an excellent mentor who had been very supportive and helpful. A mentor who then moved on to work with the next first-year teacher. Now, after five years in the classroom, my friend’s niece wanted out. She was lonely, wasn’t getting any feedback and was concerned that she just wasn’t any good at teaching. She was looking for a new career.

Me being me, I didn’t think too much about it. In fact, I had a hard time relating to the young lady’s problem. I had no mentor during my first year, and it seemed like I learned everything on my own, without a whole lot of support from anyone. My principals have generally left me alone, which is pretty much the way I like it.

But I’m an idiot.

And it took world-renowned cultural anthropologist Jennifer James to make me realize that this story was more important than the interrupted career of one frustrated teacher. James was the keynote speaker at breakfast the following morning, and part of her lecture was on the differences between my generation (I’m 48) and that of our younger teachers. 

My generation attended grade school in straight, quiet rows of desks. When our young teachers were in grade school, they sat around in cooperative groups at tables of four. We did our high school homework all alone in our rooms. They did their high school homework in study groups. We did our college homework all alone in our rooms. They went through college, including education classes, in cohorts; learning together and supporting each other.

My generation taught their generation how to work together. We encouraged them to collaborate, helped them form study groups and cohorts, taught them how to give constructive feedback and how to support each other.

Then we hired them to teach in our classrooms, gave them a mentor for a year, and left them all alone with a group of kids. For good. Well, not completely; every now and then we take them out and send them to two-hour workshops so that they’ll learn something new.

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Turnaround is Fair Play

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Assessment, Education Policy

Sometimes when I’m riding my bike I have imaginary conversations with real people. This morning I spoke with the Seattle Times editor who wrote this piece. Here’s a transcript of our discussion:

Me: So I’m still waiting to take my test.

Editor: Which test is that?

Me: Well, I’ve been reading your paper for over 35 years, assuming that at some point you’re going to give me an assessment on my comprehension of local, national and world affairs so that you’ll know how well you’re doing.

Editor: We don’t do that.

Me: Seriously? Isn’t it your job to inform your readers? How do you know how well you’re doing if you don’t assess them on the extent to which they’re informed?

Editor: First of all, writing a newspaper is a very complex undertaking. We do a lot more than report on current affairs.

Me: I guess that’s true.

Editor: And besides, not everyone reads the articles about local, national and world affairs. Sometimes they just read the sports page. Or the funnies.

Me: Imagine that. But can’t you do something to make us pay attention to the important stories of the day?

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And How Did I Do?

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Assessment, Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom

To steal from Tom’s post a few days ago, I too wonder “How I did” this school year. Since my evaluation was likewise “satisfactory,” I thought I’d consider the question how a state government might: through test scores.

Colorado has joined with a few other states (Florida and New York are among those with plans in motion) to tie a teacher’s continued employment directly to test scores. It appears that student test scores must comprise “at least fifty percent” of the evaluative criteria for teacher tenure and retention. If improvement is not sustained, a teacher can lose tenure and risks being fired. That would certainly align with an “unsatisfactory” review…potentially sparked by poor test scores. 

As I read the article, it stated clearly the bill calls for teachers to demonstrate student growth. I’m not familiar with the Colorado assessment system, and a half hour of wading through the web didn’t net me many answers. I’m a skeptic of that word growth, however. Something tells me we’re not talking about a preassessment in September and a postassessment in June, which is the only kind of assessment of growth I’d feel comfortable tying to teacher pay and continued employment. The old argument of comparing apples to apples is key. If we’re comparing apples to oranges, then ready the court for appeals.*

In a once-a-year test situation, how can growth be assessed? Let’s trace it out and play the how I did game by considering my students’ performance on the recent High School Proficiency Exams (HSPE) in reading and writing and previous years’ Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) tests.

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Running Stop!

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Education Policy

In an earlier post in response to the meme “Five Things I Would Change about Our School System,” one of the items on my list was the Running Start program. Running Start is an option that students have to take classes at the community college and earn college credits while still in high school. Some students are able to finish high school with both a diploma and an AA degree. Sounds good, right? So what is my problem?
 
While students have to pay for their own books and transportation, the tuition is paid fully by the state. Every dollar is a dollar that doesn’t go to the students’ respective high schools, so it is a financial drain on public education. I can just hear some people say, “If you want to keep those kids in high school, offer the classes and programs that will attract them.”
 
It’s not that simple. At my high school, we have the International Baccalaureate program. These are college level classes that challenge the intellect and offer potential college credit. For many of our Running Start students, IB or AP classes are too difficult. Instead, they take basic reading and writing, or biology, or chemistry, or whatever that is also offered at the high school. They don't leave because our high schools don't offer a good education; they leave for the free college credits.
 
It’s not just the money that runs away to Running Start, it is a core group of mid-to-high-level students who both set behavior and academic standards for the school. When there is an exodus of large numbers of these students, it actually changes the climate of the school. Who are left? The very high IB students in their IB classes. And the lower, more poorly achieving students mixed with a smaller than necessary core of "middle" kids.

I do understand that there are some students who simply need classes that aren’t available through the public school system. However, the number of students whose needs could not be met by an IB or AP program is very small.
 
I don’t take issue with high school students taking classes at the community college; I just have a problem, as a taxpayer, diverting the money from our public schools to pay for it. It is our responsibility as taxpayers to pay for education through high school, but it is NOT our responsibility to pay for college.