By Kristin

The first time I tried taking a practice Smarter Balanced assessment I almost lost my mind.  I was overwhelmed by the user interface, which required me to scroll up and down through a long skinny column of text.  I was defeated by my inability to mark up the text, see the questions and text at the same time, and the test's awkward expansion tab which allowed me to widen the text's column but then prevented me from seeing the questions.  With a big knot of anxiety in my stomach, a headache, and a sense of failure I shut it down without answering even the first question.

When this video went viral, I cheered the student's every word.  Yes, I thought, this has all gotten out of hand!  But then I remembered how much I really liked both the Common Core and its intent – that every student in the country be held to the same high standards.  I like the standards, and I like how well they're aligned from K-12, so I decided to try the SB assessment again and guess what?  It's a good test.

Continue reading →

By Tom

I was reading the Seattle Times the other day when I came across an editorial by the venerable Lynn K. Varner. In it, she describes an essay written by a guy named Ron Clark who quit his principal job because he was fed up with dealing with over-involved parents.

That’s too bad. It sounds like Ron Clark was a good principal, and it’s unfortunate that he was essentially run out of town by people who actually love him. He’s not alone, of course; the education world is awash with tales of helicopter parents who badger their children’s teachers and principals with complaints, questions and comments. They want to know more about a grade on a test. They want to suggest the next field trip. They want to know why their child is sitting in the back of the room. They wonder why their daughter is always picked fifth in kickball.

What they don’t realize is that in a typical elementary school there are 26 kids per class, and twenty classrooms in the school. A teacher deals with fifty parents each year; a principal deals with about a thousand. If every parent contacts their child’s teacher twice a week, either by voice or email, that teacher has to produce one hundred responses. If each response takes three minutes to compose and send, that’s five hours. That’s a lot. Nothing, though, compared to the principal. If she gets only one message per parent per month, that’s 250 responses per week. Her responses, of course, take much longer, since she probably has to find out exactly what happened in whatever classroom the child is in. If this takes ten minutes per message, then…well, you get the idea.

My point is this: teachers and principals in some schools spend an incredible amount of time dealing with parents. Granted, some of this time is well spent. Dealing with parents is an important part of our job. Parents have every right to advocate for their children and we have the responsibility to address their concerns. And there are legitimate concerns that do need to be addressed.

But this should even out across schools. There’s no reason to think that parents in school A, in the affluent, well-connected suburbs, should have more legitimate concerns than parents in school B, twelve miles away, in the high-risk low-income area. (If anything, they should have less) Yet, it seems that wealthy, connected parents have more concerns – and send more messages – than parents in less affluent areas.

In fact, educators in high-needs schools seem to have the opposite problem. They can’t seem to get parents involved at all with their kid’s education. They have low turnout for events, fund raising efforts are futile and permission slips go unsigned.

Then there’s my school. Right there in the sweet spot. Our parents are generally supportive, yet generally hands-off. Permission slips get signed, but emails go unsent. There are well-packed lunch boxes in every backpack, but no helicopters in the hallway.

And that’s just fine with me. When I tell my district colleagues from the rich side of town that I get about two parent emails per month, they ask if we have any openings. I get the same response from teachers in the other end of town when I tell them that I don’t have to buy any coats or shoes for my students.

Life in the sweet pot. And for that I’m thankful.

How about you? Which side of the sweet spot is your school? And how are you coping with it?

By Tom

The National Board recently released the scores to last year’s candidates. If you’re one of those who received some good news, I have a few things to tell you.

First of all, congratulations! You did something incredibly difficult, and you did it successfully. You should celebrate. And I mean a real celebration, not a six pack and a thing of Oreos. This is why they make champagne. This is why they sell “surf and turf.” This is why they let certain bottles of bourbon sit there for ten years. Have fun! If not you, who? If not now, when?

So after your party – and the inevitable hangover – you’ll begin to wonder “What next?” The first thing you need to do is thank those who supported you. Start close to home. Then branch out. Your colleagues. Your cohort facilitator. Your cohort. Your Jump Start trainers. The students who endured your mood swings. Yes, you worked your butt off last year, but you probably weren’t alone. Thank those who helped.

And then think about giving back. Those of us on whose shoulders you now stand worked very hard to build a strong support system in Washington State for National Board Certification. We created Jump Start. We created a system of facilitated cohorts. Most importantly, we pushed for legislation to provide bonuses for NBCTs. You need to know that when we pushed for this legislation, we sold it as an investment. Lawmakers were convinced that the state would get more back than what they spent on the bonuses. We convinced them they would get better instruction and leadership from NBCTs. What that means for you is that you now have to live up to that portfolio you wrote. It also means that you should give thought to taking on a leadership position or two. That shouldn’t be too hard. Most teachers, especially NBCTs, have more opportunities than time. If you’re the rare teacher who has to actually seek out leadership opportunities, please consider your local association. For two reasons: they need your expertise and they, more than anyone, were instrumental in getting the bonus legislation through the legislature. And by the way, you’ve no doubt noticed that the state also has an additional bonus for those teachers who choose to take their expertise to a high-needs school. If you decide to do that, you are truly awesome.

So after the party, the hangover, the thank yous and the committee-joining spree, then what? The next step is to head over to the National Board website and download the renewal materials. So soon? Yes! The renewal process is essentially a continuation of the initial process. You basically have to document what you’ve done since certification to impact student learning. It’s not nearly as difficult as the first time around, but here’s the thing: if you look through the documents now, you can use them as a blueprint for organizing and planning your professional development over the next eight years. If you don’t, you’ll basically be playing a game of backfill; choosing things you did that kinda-sorta meet the requirements of the renewal process. Trust me on this.

A word of warning: don’t fall into the trap of perseverating on those aspects of your results that didn’t measure up. Yes, it was a ten-part assessment, and no, you probably didn’t hit 275 on every single assessment. Neither did I. But let it go. In the world of National Board Certification, no one cares what your final score was. And no one cares whether you passed every one of the ten assessments. It’s about as meaningful as your middle school GPA. There are no mitigating factors or caveats when it comes to certification. It’s only certify or not certify. The only exception is those teachers who certified on their second or third attempt. Those people are in a class by themselves. A higher class. Those people have the perseverance, determination and grit that the rest of us can only envy.

Again, congratulations. And welcome to the community. Now get busy.