Category Archives: Education

Elementary Specialization

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Education, Elementary

I teach 5th grade, the last year of elementary school in my district. Do you remember what it was like when you were in fifth grade? I actually have a hard time remembering that year, so I’ll just think back to 6th grade. And maybe that’s better anyway because in my school, 6th grade was the last year in elementary. Ok. There’s my teacher: short sleeve button-down shirt and a striped tie. I remember sitting in his room all day long – time to do this, time to do that, recess, lunch, you get the picture. This doesn’t look anything like what 5th grade looks like in my school, and I’m pretty happy about that.

My school has three tracks, which means that there are three teachers at every grade. Not long ago there were only two, but we’ve grown. Before I came to this school the two 5th grade teachers (one of whom I now teach with) decided that they didn’t want their students to miss out on what the other had to offer, so they swapped students for one period a day. Many elementary teachers have done and continue to do this. I did this with my previous teaching partner at a different school with a single subject. “I’ll do all of the math; you do all of the science,” or whatever. What they started here went a step further, and then a step further. When the other teacher retired six years ago I slid into the program as the math and science teacher. When we grew to three tracks and hired a third teacher, the division of labor became even more well defined.

Our program is a little like middle school, but as we like to say – with a safety net. It’s still elementary school, but we do everything we can to prepare our students for what is to come. Students move between each of the three 5th grade teachers in the morning periods, and spend the afternoon period with one of us on rotating basis. They also see specialists once a week in the afternoons for P.E., library, and choir. There are many fine things about this arrangement. Students win because they are exposed to the gifts from each teacher and they get a chance to learn in different settings with different teaching styles. The teachers win too because they love their subjects, and they no longer have to prepare for six different classes, rather just two. But there are some sacrifices too. My student load is 78 students rather than just 26. That means more grading, tracking, remediating, challenging, and helping along, but nothing a typical middle school teacher would mind – many of them have a load of 125 or more. The relationships with students are typically not as deep as they would be in a self-contained class, but then again there are more relationships. Up until this year this type of arrangement always seemed really good to me, but now it seems to be almost necessary. Here’s why.

School has changed – even in the short timeframe (nine years) I have been teaching. We now have Common Core and Race to the Top – both of which have brought significant changes to every classroom in America. But beyond (and within) some of the shifting lingo, there is a great deal more being asked of our young students today than there once was. I think we all agree about that. As these expectations rise, the skills required to teach these disciplines does as well. Is a generalist expected to be an expert in all of these subjects (reading, math, science, social studies, writing, and health)? Don’t get me wrong, there are amazing generalists out there, but the job has gotten more and more difficult to the point where there probably just aren’t enough. I think it’s time to (re) consider having more specialists in the elementary schools. How about a math department that can coordinate and deliver a closely planned sequence of instruction for all of the students in an entire school? They would be able to deeply collaborate about math (or their shared math students) and not have to worry about “the other subjects.” In an era of ever-increasing teacher and student expectations, taking on everything in an elementary curriculum is a tremendous load.

Consider too that this model of teaching has impacted my professional development. Because I was so deeply engaged in mathematics, I was able to take on a master’s degree in math education in the evenings and summers without it being completely overwhelming. Not that it was easy, but all of the mental energy was inline with the rest of my work, so it fit. In addition to the master’s degree, I also added a high school math endorsement to my teaching certificate. This deeper grasp of math helps me better prepare my students for higher mathematics. A few years after I finished the master’s I pursued National Board Certification – equally rigorous, and deeply beneficial to my practice. This too was in line with my teaching practice as I certified in Early Adolescent Mathematics. Now, six years into this specialized program, I have developed a much deeper expertise in teaching math to young students.

The job of teaching is difficult on its own, but if that wasn’t enough there are often big changes that take place from year to year. This year my district adopted a new math curriculum for K-5. It takes a great deal of work outside of my contracted hours to learn a new program and prepare to teach it. In my case, I get to teach each lesson three times a day. My single prep is also made that much easier due to the depth of my content and pedagogical knowledge. Then there is the speed at which I become proficient with the material. Before winter break most elementary teachers will have taught about 70 math lessons, while I will have taught 210. Student learning outcomes surely improve with all of that experience. At the same time, changes coming down the pike in English Language Arts fall upon the shoulders of my more-than-capable colleagues.

Hung-Hsi Wu wrote an in-depth article making the case for elementary math specialists a few years ago, but I would suggest that similar arguments could be made for every discipline. What do you think?

McCleary and Adequate Progress

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy

File5414fdd030f69By Mark

The Seattle Times posted a couple of days ago that the Washington State Supreme Court has found the state legislature in contempt for failing to make adequate progress toward the mandate issued in the McCleary case. (Quick review from the Times link above "in 2012, the Supreme Court … ordered the state to increase education spending enough to fulfill the Washington state Legislature’s own definition of what it would take to meet the state constitution’s requirement of providing a basic education to all Washington children," emphasis mine).

Obviously, I'm in favor of the legislature funding schools to meet their own definition of basic education. However, when I typed the first sentence above, I almost inserted "yearly" between "failing to make adequate" and "progress."

Considering the letters that many schools had to send home to parents about not meeting "adequate yearly progress," this idea has been in my head a great deal lately.

My own school's failure to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (we're in Step 2 despite test passing rates high enough that the state cannot even report them because of privacy laws) and the legislature's failure to make adequate progress toward funding solutions both seem to come with consequences. Paradoxically, my school's failure to meet AYP means funding set-asides, program restrictions, and letters home to parents…while I have not yet managed to sort out how a contempt finding actually will sting, since there is only a threat of sanctions should the 2015 legislative session be less than productive.

The big difference: the punishments related to AYP failure result from the fact that AYP expectations are plainly unrealistic. I believe that it is realistic for the legislature to meet its obligation and avoid whatever sanctions the court might determine. 

Here's the real question: how will your school or your classroom be different when public education in Washington is funded the way the legislature itself says it should be? These stories of what can be–not the stories of what we don't have, so easily dismissed as idle complaining–will have the potential to move policymakers forward.

 

Previous StoriesFromSchool posts about the McCleary decision:

 

Back to School: One New Thing

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Current Affairs, Education, Life in the Classroom

UnknownBy Mark

My wife is going school shopping for my sons tomorrow, but before deciding to do this she went through the boys' backpacks and folders to determine what school supplies were salvageable and didn't need to be repurchased. Turns out there's not a whole lot left on the list to raid Target for, which is good.

The same process happens with the clothes: do they have enough decent clothes to make it through the warm months? Probably. And what about shoes? Definitely a need. If nothing else, that'll be the one "new thing" each boy definitely gets. Their backpacks and lunchboxes miraculously held up and have another school year left in them, at least.

Similarly, August is a time when teachers take the same stock of their own practice and decide what to keep and what to retire. Often the impulse, being economical as teachers are often forced to be, is to hang on to what we have…to maintain what is comfortable. If something comfortable is worn out, like a pair of shoes, we'll likely just replace it with an updated version of the same thing.

Updated same is not the same as new. 

I see teachers, including myself, integrating updated same in our teaching practice and deceiving ourselves into believe that this represents change. Many of us are jaded against new, often because new is usually presented as an acronym or mandate that we don't really get to choose but still have to accept–even though ITSP (it, too, shall pass) as the edupendulum swings away.

My challenge to myself is to figure out what new I want to integrate this year. "If it ain't broke don't fix it" is a great motto for things with gears and belts and things we're content having stay the same. 

I'll know I've found that new that I want to bring into my teaching when I start to feel nervous–even worried about failure. That uncertainty, that risk, is a sign that I'm on the verge of learning something. 

What's the new, not the updated same, that you're considering in your teaching? What do you hope to see happen when it works?

So Maybe We Should Get Our Waiver Back

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

U turn permittedBy Mark

I support that Washington state resisted political pressure from the USDE to require the use of state tests in teacher evaluation. My reasoning, among other points, included that the coming Smarter-Balanced tests based on Common Core State Standards were yet to be explored and fully understood by teachers, students, and school systems.

The Gates Foundation is now communicating a similar idea–to wait at least two years before using state test scores in teacher evaluations.

What I think is funny: When discussing the USDE's opposition to the call for a moratorium in using test scores in teacher evaluation, Dorie Nolt, spokeswoman for the USDE stated “We believe the most thoughtful approach is to work state-by-state to see what support each state will need, and not to stop the progress states have already made, or slow down states and educators that have been working hard and want to move forward” (from the article linked above).

What we in Washington state need, the progress we have already made, and the hard work we have done to move forward does not seem to have been considered when our NCLB waiver was revoked. 

And still, more and more research is coming forward questioning the actual impact a teacher has on standardized test scores. (My one worry: that this can get misinterpreted as "teachers do not impact student learning," thus further demeaning the impact that teachers have beyond what broad standardized tests are able to assess. These tests, by virtue of their intention toward universality, can only with validity assess the lowest end of cognition such as identification and recall, but cannot reliably explore analysis and synthesis.)

If nothing else, the call for a two year moratorium is a small-scale version of the Number One thing schools are rarely given but most critically need to enact meaningful change and reform: TIME.

Administration: So what if I do?

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Teacher Leadership

File5376129719381By Mark

"So, when do you plan to start your admin program?"

I get that question nearly every time I cross paths with my district superintendent. He means well by it, and I take it as a compliment: It is a gesture that he sees leadership potential in me.

More often now when I get the question it is from colleagues, and usually the tone is much different. My colleagues with whom I am close friends say it because they know it needles me a little bit (frankly, it's on old joke I'm past ready to retire) but from others further outside my social circle, there are definite barbs to that question. It's intended not to pose a question, but to send a message: don't you betray us.

Already, as half-classroom teacher, half-"other" in my district, what I do is often confusing to others. My fellow teachers know what the classroom half is all about; that's what we live, breathe, know and share. The other part…the leadership-y part? That's more ambiguous, so like all human beings we attempt to sort the ambiguous into the previously constructed schema we've developed over time. It becomes simply: Not being a teacher? There's only one other option: Must be an administrator.

Or, as Travis pointed out in a post from long ago, adminisTRAITOR.

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Stuck in the Middle

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Teacher Leadership

File536cdcb235dce
By Mark

I am a tremendous believer in the importance of teacher leadership. Teachers do not need special job titles or labels to exert meaningful influence in their school, district, or beyond–they need the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to give them confidence to advocate.

For the first two-thirds of my career, I tried to exert influence through untitled leadership. I was Mark, the classroom teacher, willing to speak up, go to meetings, engage with those in the higher pay grades, and advocate for what I believed to be best for kids, teachers, and our school. 

This untitled leadership, in my personal career track, has since evolved so that for the last two years I have had a leadership "position" as Teacher on Special Assignment (TOSA) for two periods of my day, while I teach the other periods. This has opened countless new doors for me and given me a much different perspective than I had before. Now I get to sit in administrative team meetings–often the only practicing teacher in the room–and listen to how decisions are made. I have become collegial and collaborative with principals and district administrators in ways that simply would not be possible for teachers not in such a hybrid role.

Before I go any further, let me make clear: hyrbid TOSA/teaching or coaching/teaching roles are exactly the kind of roles a teacher-leader like me needs. To be able to exert influence in policy decisions, to aid in the learning of both my colleagues and my superiors, yet to still get to return to the joyful chaos of a ninth grade English classroom for three hours a day–this is the perfect mix where policy can meet practice. When decisions are made in the boardroom, I can test their impact the right away in my classroom.

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Leadership, Implementation, and Puppetry

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Teacher Leadership

Picture0017 copyBy Mark

Education Secretrary Arne Duncan recently shared his "Teach to Lead" initiative, which has sparked some interesting responses, including this one on Education Week which discusses a couple of perspectives on the issue. (Duncan has partnered with Ron Thorpe and NBPTS to focus on "raising the visibility" of teacher leadership.)

I believe, like many others do, that teachers and teacher leadership are essential to the success of our public education system. There is a difference, though, between leadership and implementation. Rick Hess in the Education Week post linked above takes the position that Duncan's call for leadership is "a call for teachers to help promote the Obama agenda–to shill for the Common Core, celebrate new teacher evaluation systems, and be excited that the feds are here to help." My gut makes me tend to agree with Hess's interpretation of Duncan's call–something tells me that the USDE would not be thrilled with teacher-leaders who design and advocate for alternatives to the Common Core. 

Should teachers be driving the implementation of Common Core, new teacher evaluations, and all the other changes? Absolutely. However, that's driving a vehicle that someone else designed, bought, and parked in our parking lot. 

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Washington Education: A bargain, for now…

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

By Mark

A recent guest piece by Bill Keim in The Seattle Times's Education Lab Blog points out some sobering numbers about education funding in Washington, particularly considering the Supreme Court ruling that the state of Washington is not adequately funding public education.

Keimgraphic-517x620Particularly interesting is the infographic from the Washington Association of School Administrators that compares Washington's per-pupil funding over time as compared to the national average, to Massachusetts (similar in demographic, economy, and education standards), and to Alabama (historically under-funded and under-performing by various measures).

Simply put, our state has been in neutral while Massachusetts, Alabama, and the nation as a whole has been in high gear. 

And here's the problem with that: As of right now, Washington's schools seem to be performing well. 

This is of course a problem for two reasons. First, it weakens the argument that Washington schools need to be better funded. Second, it runs the risk of leading people to believe that good performance can be sustained without resources.

The last three years in my classroom I have been living the good life. Due to local support, my program received funding that provided me access to desktop computers every day, every period for each my 9th grade English students. Every day, if I want, I can have my students use technology to consume and produce meaningful texts and engage with content in exciting ways. Instead of having to rely upon the (decades old) literature anthology on the shelf, the whole world can be our textbook thanks to the technology–which of course, came with a cost.

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HB 2800

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Assessment, Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Games, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Social Issues

boxesBy Mark

I strongly believe that civil consideration of all sides of an issue are important for a literate society.

So let's take the Inslee/Dorn joint venture, House Bill 2800, which adds to RCW 28A.405.100 at section 2(f) a passage that begins on line 31 of page 3:

"Beginning with the 2017-18 school year, when relevant to the teacher and subject matter, student growth data elements must include results from federally mandated statewide student assessments."

This language is also inserted elsewhere in the document where it is relevant to define student growth.

Based on what I am reading, I hesitate to boil this issue down to a simple pro v. con. This issue, as are most, is more complicated that our society's convenient dualistic reduction.

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Inslee and Dorn: “Can,” “Must,” and “Will Not.”

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Assessment, Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Games, Social Issues

George is watchingBy Mark

I'm not sure I understand. 

Did Jay Inslee travel to Washington, D.C., solely to tell Arne Duncan that our Washington will do whatever the USDE wants? And this was initially heralded as "progress"?

The Governor's office has issued this press release, which is thin on details and basically says a bill will be proposed soon by Dorn and Inslee that will include requirements for statewide assessments in 2017-18 (which I thought was already the works) and a recommendation from the TPEP steering committee (about what, it is unclear) by 2016-17. The media seems to interpret this is as a victory for "must" over "can" which, as I've already pointed out, does NOTHING to actually make our teacher evaluation system better for kids, nor does it make teachers more accountable."Must" over "can" only means we have to budget to spend more money on standardized testing instead of more money on making student learning happen. My weak metaphor, considering my goals to get healthy this year: we're buying a very, very expensive scale (and an invalid and inaccurate one at that) instead of investing in healthier lifestyle.

As of my groggy pre-workout-and-coffee reading this morning, the Dorn-Inslee bill doesn't appear to have been released for me to examine the text. If the bill holds back on changing the law, and the waiver is granted pending the TPEP steering committee recommendations in 2016-17 (a.k.a. kicking the can down the road), then I suppose I'm satisfied–I just hope the steering committee has the guts to do and say what Inslee apparently didn't. If the bill proposes the same word change as the bills that already died in the legislature, then the fight picks up again. But seriously, everyone: Stop playing games and give us the waiver. We're doing the right thing. 

With renewed focus on "can" and "must," I guess I'll repeat: Our teacher evaluation system may not be perfect (though I think the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses), but including a "must" around test scores will not hold more teachers accountable, will not impact student learning, and will not improve the profession.