Category Archives: Education

CSTP celebrates the big 1 – 0 ! Now where are those talking points?

Posted by Maren Johnson on October 1, 2013
Education, Education Policy, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

We’ve got something unique here in Washington state in terms
of education organizations that work with teachers. Yeah, we have some great districts, state education agencies, unions. In
addition to all that, here in Washington, we’ve got an independent nonprofit
with a focus on teaching—and that organization, the Center for Strengthening
the Teaching Profession, is celebrating its ten year anniversary this month!

So what does CSTP do?
Just a few of the activities:

Community Dialogue
and Advocacy. What’s different about
CSTP advocacy training? No talking
points provided! Whether online or in
person, CSTP advocacy training gives teachers the opportunity to develop their
own messages for their own audiences, whether that audience is local, state, or
national. At an advocacy training
before a recent legislative session, one teacher, a tad frustrated, asked, “Where
are the talking points?” The facilitator’s
response: “The talking points will be better if you, the teachers, develop
them!”

The communication is not just limited to speaking—writers’
retreats (and this blog!) have given educators the opportunity to develop writing
skills.

Teacher Leadership.
Very frequently, in K-12 school cultures, the term “leadership” is used
interchangeably with the term “administration.” The Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession
has worked to expand that definition with the development of the Teacher
Leadership Skills Framework.
The NBCT Leadership Conference, one of CSTP’s
signature events, has been a launchpad for many newly certified NBCTs to not
only hone leadership skills, but also to develop their own personal network of
statewide teacher leaders.

CSTP doesn’t just strengthen the teaching profession, CSTP
strengthens individual teachers. One
teacher recently said, “There’s a whole lot going on besides what is
going on in my own little classroom, and CSTP helps me learn about it.”

Research. CSTP commissions research to help all sorts
of agencies and organizations better understand teaching and learning, as well
as support for teaching and learning, in Washington state classrooms.

And hey, the audience for all this is definitely not limited
to teachers! CSTP pulls together
instructional leaders of all sorts in work such as helping train and
support the Instructional Framework Feedback Specialists for our new state
teacher principal evaluation system. In
another example of working with administrators and teachers across the career
continuum, CSTP developed a module designed to help principals better assist
new teachers in their buildings.

Advocacy, leadership, and research? It’s been an amazing ten years. So where is CSTP going in the next ten?

Finally: Growing our Newest Teachers and Leaders

Posted by Mark Gardner on September 23, 2013
Assessment, Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Mentoring, Teacher Leadership

By Mark

I had an amazing mentor my first year of teaching. Fresh out of my M.A.T. program and almost three hundred miles away from my small-town home, she was exactly what I needed.

A great start makes all the difference.

Any investment we can make in a great beginning is a worthy investment, whether for our pre-K kids, our own new students in September, or for those teachers just starting their careers. Of course, resources are sometimes the stumbling block. However, the Beginning Educator Support Program is a way to provide opportunities for early-service teachers. Grant applications are due October 4th… so get those ducks and row them up. Here is the text of a recent email from CSTP about this work:

Districts or consortia of districts may apply now for grants from the Beginning Educator Support (BEST) Program, administered by OSPI and funded by the legislature. BEST provides competitive grants for districts to create comprehensive support for early-career teachers. Specifically, BEST grants provide $2500 per first year teacher, $2000 per second year teacher and $500 for other provisional-status teachers who change assignments. Districts agree to provide a paid orientation for new teachers, well-trained mentors, professional learning for both new teachers and mentors, and release time for mentors and mentees to observe others.

Applications are due to OSPI by 5 pm on Monday, Oct. 4. You can find the application and more information about BEST here - http://www.k12.wa.us/BEST/.

To read the State's Induction Standards go to CSTP's website - http://cstp-wa.org/sites/default/files/CSTP_ind-standards.final_08.pdf

As exciting is the recent news that the state of Washington has been selected to part of a $15 million, three-year grant program from the U.S. Department of Education via the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and which will be collaboratively administered by the powerful trifecta of WEA, OSPI and CSTP in the coming school years. These grants are in part aimed at cultivating teacher capacity as instructional leaders. The name of the program, SEED (which stands for Supporting Effective Educator Development), says it all.

Growth, Part Three: Growing Others

Posted by Mark Gardner on September 20, 2013
Assessment, Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

By Mark

One drum I beat constantly is that if we want education reform to work, teachers must be the ones empowered to not only implement the change, but to be the ones who design it.

I often hear about "layers of bureaucracy and waste" in school districts. The comments under the news website articles about education tout the inefficiency and top-heaviness of school systems. That is perhaps the case in some places. Over the last few decades, instructional coaching has been in fashion as a layer somewhere in limbo between classroom teacher and building administrator. In tight budgets, these positions are often the first to go, since their impact on students is not always so obvious and traceable.

To some, coaching or being a TOSA (like I am for .4 of my day) is a stepping stone out of the classroom into administration. That's fine, but I believe that for most of us in that role, it isn't a means to some personal ladder-climbing end. For me, having no aspirations to be in administrative leadership, coaching or TOSA-ing is about supporting classroom instruction.

Logic and research both prove that of all the factors within the control of a school, the one with the greatest impact on student learning is teacher pedagogical skill. If this is the case, the potential power of teacher-leaders in coaching or TOSA roles cannot be understated. With so many demands on building administrators for everything from student discipline to recess duty to teacher evaluation, it is very easy for the difficult and time-consuming work of improving instruction to get unintentional short shrift. In too many cases, efforts to improve instruction manifest as hastily assembled sit-and-get powerpoint assaults or the spending of inordinate amounts of money to fly in some expert to talk at teachers for a day or two about decontextualized theory and the next new curriculum to buy. Missing are the intense and reflective one-on-one probing conversations that demand not only time but strong relationships that likewise require time to develop.

Continue reading →

Growth, Part Two: Open to Learning

Posted by Mark Gardner on September 17, 2013
Assessment, Books, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development

By Mark

About a year ago I was sitting in a training, titled "Common Assessments, blah, blah, blah" (I can't remember the title).

But it was in that session that I remember, for probably the first time if not in my career then in a long time, actually learning something I thought I could use. Hence, this facebook status update:

I had just finished my tenth year of teaching, and was about to embark on my eleventh and begin referring to myself as "mid-career."

In reflection, it obviously wasn't that I had never been exposed to quality professional development. (Well, maybe…) The change, though, happened in my head. Suddenly, I was at a point in my career where I was mentally ready to learn. Seeing a new strategy was no longer a threat meaning that "the way I teach is wrong." Rather than feel obligated to accept and apply everything the trainer offered, I realized that even walking away with the tiniest applicable nugget was a success.

It was really at that moment that I finally began to grow as a teacher. It started by simply becoming open to learning that challenged me, rather than only being open to learning that already fit into my current view of myself and my practice.

Continue reading →

Growth, Part One

Posted by Mark Gardner on September 14, 2013
Assessment, Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Professional Development

By Mark

If you say the word too many times, it starts to sound funny (like if you say "moist" or "pancake" too many times and they start to sound strange…maybe that's just me). It seems like every sentence in my professional life includes that word "growth" in one context or another. Student growth scores, Professional Growth Planning, proficiency growth scales…

I like it. It does something more than grades or labels once did: talking grades and labels felt so static and permanent, talking growth is talking movement. Where I used to talk to kids about "bringing a grade up" (in other words, struggling to move something beyond themselves) now I find myself talking to students about developing their skills and growing toward proficiency. There is a real difference.

I attribute this directly to my professional and personal learning about the new teacher evaluation system.

Continue reading →

Interest Based Bargaining

Posted by Rob on September 6, 2013
Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Social Issues

By Rob

Last June the members of the association gathered into a high school gymnasium to vote on a new labor contract. No union member or district official can recall a contract that was settled so early. We have always bargained through the summer. Our ratification meeting usually happens in August when room is hotter and tensions are higher.

After the bargaining team briefed us on the new contract a teacher approaches the microphone and asks, “What did we give up with this contract?”

“Animosity.” was the reply.

The district and the union followed a new model of contract negotiation- Interest Based Bargaining (IBB). In IBB both sides generate a list of issues they wish to see resolved in the contract. But unlike traditional bargaining solutions are not proposed. Instead the bargaining sessions are used to brainstorm solutions and the negotiations become problem solving exercises.

The contract was ratified with over 99% of the union voting yes. The Association was very happy with the outcome.

The next morning I attended the district’s contract briefing. Surprisingly, the district was just as satisfied. In this briefing, the Director of Human Resources shared each issue and solution. The common denominator in nearly every agreed upon solution was “What is best for student learning.”

The only solution that has the potential to negatively impact student learning was to remove the cap on the number personal days that can be taken by staff on a given day throughout the district. There is a possibility for a substitute shortage. Both sides have agreed to revisit this topic next spring and share data on the impact of this new contract language.

I contrast this bargaining process with our past negotiations and the recent brinksmanship in Seattle and I’m convinced IBB should be the model we follow going forward.

Myth and Misunderstanding about TPEP

Posted by Mark Gardner on August 30, 2013
Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership

The History Channel recently ran a series called Your Bleeped-Up Brain, and if you can get past that staggeringly stupid title, there are some interesting tidbits to be found about how our minds work.

In particular, I caught a snip the other day about how humans define "truth." The main salient points: first, we are wired to believe the first information we see, hear, or learn; second, it is incredibly difficult for us to unlearn that "first" and replace it with new information. This is essentially the "primacy effect," where we are inherently more apt to trust, accept, and maintain belief in the first thing we hear or read. Add this as well: we are far more apt to believe information that confirms feelings we already hold, regardless of the veracity or validity–or even logic–of that information.

I have been fighting a slow and constant battle within my district to help implement our new evaluation system (TPEP, though I hate acronyms) and empower teachers to understand and use the framework not just when thinking about their performance review but moreso when thinking about their own practice. In our district of roughly 400 certificated staff, it is obviously difficult to communicate to everyone in a personal, meaningful, and clear way. It is also a challenge to accurately and authentically monitor what they really do and don't understand.

Because we are human beings, we often look to one another first for information, before digging into things such as legalese about what is actually policy. The clear problem with this? It is easier to chat in the staff room and spread hearsay than to actually look it up. Sadly, we're then more likely to use unsubstantiated hearsay as the foundation for our feelings and opinions–and then refuse to accept new information when confronted with fact that contradicts what we thought we knew.

Case in point: recently I was told that it states unequivocally in the state RCWs that teachers are required to compile an eight-section portfolio of evidence to support their performance on each of the eight state evaluation criteria (and in areas of focus, cross-referenced with framework elements). I know the law, and it states absolutely nothing that could even be stretched to construe such a directive. Yet, this colleague of mine was certain she was right and I was wrong. Why? She heard it from a friend who teaches in another district.

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Test Scores and Teacher Evaluation: Now What?

Posted by Mark Gardner on August 21, 2013
Assessment, Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

There are few things worse than being fired up and not knowing what to do next.

That is where I find myself with the recent discussion about student growth, teacher evaluation, and the federal government. (Chances are you've already read a little about this from me, Tom, Maren and Kristin.)

But here's where I get stuck. It is easy for me to sit here at my desktop and engage in discourse with my peers about how misguided is the federal position on using one-shot test scores to evaluate teachers. In discussion here, on facebook, on other blogs, and even in old-fashioned face-to-face conversation, I've discovered that there are a lot of very intelligent people talking about this issue. (CSTP even noted that the traffic on this blog has spiked by a couple thousand pageviews in the last few days alone.)

For other issues, I've known to whom to go: my local leadership, state legislators, and so on. With this one, though, I truly don't know what to do next. Conversation needs to continue, for sure. At some point it needs to translate to action, or else this is all just a bunch of cached webpages.

Brainstorm with me, if you will: What can you and I do next? Who do we talk to? Is there hope? And what do we do once we've ignored the people who answer "no" to that last question?

If nothing else, let's keep the conversation going–and invite others to join in.

Ignore the Feds on Student Growth

Posted by Mark Gardner on August 16, 2013
Assessment, Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom

By Mark

So, we got a warning.

The Feds have sent a letter to the state of Washington indicating that we aren't quite doing what they want when it comes to teacher and principal evaluation. Aside from our crazy approach of taking time to learn, train teachers and administrators, and implement the system thoughtfully rather than quickly, one sticking point appears to be that we are a little too willing to differentiate when it comes to how student data is used to evaluate teachers.

In my opinion, we're right, they're wrong. As it stands, the state law…

Does not require districts to use state test scores in teacher evaluation; this option is a district choice. (In most districts, only about 12-15% of teachers actually teach tested grade levels and content… oh, also see #2 and #3 below that clarify the limits of state assessments.)
Emphasizes evaluating the teacher's professional ability to choose the right assessment sequence to determine student growth, and then set meaningful growth goals for classes and subsets of students based on student needs, entry skills, as well as appropriate content standards. (This is actually weighted more heavily than whether "all the kids pass" the assessments.)
Requires multiple points of data all aligned to the same learning or skill standard, rather than a single snapshot assessment. (Multiple points show a trajectory, whereas a single point captures a moment.)

Like too much policy, the further the "deciders" are away from the classroom, the more out-of-touch the policy is and the more focused it becomes on what is easiest to administer. Which is easier… looking a a once-a-year matrix of test data OR tracking each individual student using targeted skills assessments over the course of time? Duh.

But the right question is which is better?

That, to me, is just as obvious.

Washington: we're doing the right thing. It may not be perfect, but it is better for kids, teachers, schools and communities than hinging everything on a single moment in time.

Stories From School

Practice Meets Policy

Category Archives: Education

CSTP celebrates the big 1 – 0 ! Now where are those talking points?

Finally: Growing our Newest Teachers and Leaders

Growth, Part Three: Growing Others

Growth, Part Two: Open to Learning

Growth, Part One

Test Scores and Teacher Evaluation: Now What?

Ignore the Feds on Student Growth