By Tom

As a people, we have a weird relationship with data. On the
one hand, we love to collect it; we love to measure every possible entity from
every conceivable angle so that we can arrange all those numbers in tables,
spreadsheets and graphs. On the other hand, we like to take all those numbers
and distill them down to a single digit. It’s as if we overwhelm ourselves with
numbers and respond by getting rid of most of them.

One of my fourth graders was able to put her finger on it. We
were learning how to find averages. One of the practice problems involved five
kids who went fishing. Each kid caught a different number of fish and my
students had to find the average. Like a good teacher, I started with the concrete.
I had each student build towers of interlocking cubes corresponding to the
fish. When they were done, they all had five towers of cubes standing on their
desks. “Finding the average,” I announced, “means finding the number of fish
each kid caught, if they all caught the same amount. That means we’ll have them
‘share’ the fish. We take some fish from the lucky kids and give them to the kids
who weren’t so lucky. We’ll ‘even out’ the towers until they’re all the same
height.” The answer was six. Then I showed them how to find the same number by
adding up all the fish and dividing the total by five. The answer was still
six.

That’s when Kiran spoke up. “I understand how to do this,
but I’m not sure why,” she said, “Why is the average number of fish more
important than knowing how many fish each kid caught?” Good question, Kiran.

It’s the same question I have about Senate Bill 5328, which
is moving its way through the Washington Legislature. It would require the
state to post a letter grade for each school based on how well their students
did on the state test. The bill's supporters think it will make it easier for parents to figure
out how well their local schools are doing, while holding educators more
accountable for their students’ achievement. I think it’s unnecessary,
simplistic and at odds with the last school-reform law out of Olympia: the teacher
evaluation system.

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By Tom White

When I was growing up my father was the city manager of
Mountlake Terrace. He was – and is – a cheap man, so when it came time to
purchase some additional police cars, he decided to buy a fleet of four used
checker cabs from a New York City taxi company. Expecting brand-new, top-shelf
Crown-Vics, the police force was not amused. In fact, they made an astonishing
prediction: within months, these cars – which they decided were dangerously
top-heavy – would all overturn. And sure enough, they all did. Oddly, no
civilian witnessed any of these “accidents,” all of which happened late at
night. Fortunately no one was injured.

In the end it was a win-win. The cops got their Crown-Vics
and my father got a great story to tell at his annual city manager conferences.
And at every Thanksgiving for the past forty years. The citizens of Mountlake
Terrace, of course, didn’t win; they had to pay for eight cars instead of four,
but such is life.

I share this story in light of what’s happening concerning
education funding. As we all know, the past few years have been bleak. Class
sizes have gone up and para-educator support levels have dropped. Teacher
salaries have also taken a 3% hit; absorbed and mitigated by many districts with
furlough days, resulting in less instruction time.

Like the cops in my father’s city, teachers predicted that
student learning would pay a price. However, this is what actually happened: 

What you’re looking at is math achievement in Washington
State over the last three years. Reading and science scores have also gone up.
This is not what we predicted or feared. This is definitely not a fleet of
police cars rolling around, upside-down in the streets of Mountlake Terrace.

So what happened?

Let me offer three possible explanations, presented in order
of increasing likelihood:

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By Kristin

That's a huge wave.  If you've ever carried a gallon of water you might have a better appreciation for what it feels like to have tens of thousands of gallons of water smashing into you.  

I have surfed, badly, and on waves that were maybe two feet high.  I grew up in San Diego and am a strong swimmer so I thought – before I ever tried surfing – that it would be easy.  It's not, and when you bury the nose of that board in a two foot wave and flip foot over head, it hurts.  When you add a child to a classroom, you're adding the whole range of needs that child brings.  It's like adding a foot to a wave – it's not just one foot of water, it's a foot of water that's 300 meters long.  That's a lot of weight added to that wave.

Some people – people who have never taught 32 children – think it's not a big deal to add a child or two to a classroom.  It is a big deal, and I would argue that just like surfing isn't about being a swimmer, teaching more children isn't a matter of being a teacher – it's an entirely different game, and not one that someone who wants what's best for children would support.

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I had a student walk into my 9th grade class five years ago, and after her first writing sample I knew that I was going to struggle.

What she wrote stymied me. It was fluid, articulate, focused, insightful…all of the things I wanted my students' writing to be. If my supervisor had walked in and glanced over her shoulder as she worked in my room, the level of quality he'd see there would be above-and-beyond–and probably make me look darn good at first blush.

Over the next four years, she was a student in my 9th, 10th, and 12th grade classrooms. By the time she graduated, I had shared with her many, many times how she had challenged me as a professional to find ways to push her to that "next level" as a writer and thinker. She had walked in my door from day one a high-achiever in that regard. Many times, I questioned whether I had been able to truly promote progress, but through the teacher-student relationship we developed, she helped me see the very small, subtle ways that I had in fact helped her progress as a writer–not so much in mechanics as in nuanced craft and internal disposition.

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A couple of weeks ago it was finals week at my school. My English 9 semester final included both skills and content assessments which represented the culmination of the work we'd done for 18 weeks, and included assessments in reading comprehension, literary terms, writing skills, and speaking skills. Overall the class performed quite well.

One portion of the final asked students to use TPCASTT to annotate a poem that was unfamiliar to them, and then compose a one-page analysis of how the shifts (or juxtapositions) in tone or structure within the poem helped to illuminate a central theme or main idea of the poem. 

For that particular part, I had high standards. And sadly, low expectations.

In the weeks leading up to the final, we'd practiced those two skills (poetry annotation and evidence-based written analysis) and the results were underwhelming. In total, if students did what was asked, they wrote a total of eight paragraphs, each one receiving formative feedback from me, to get practice and demonstrate progress toward the final.

Too often, my feedback went unheeded and mistakes were repeated, nuances of the poems missed or written analysis underdeveloped. I fully expected this written portion of the final to drag everyone under.

Of course, as teenagers are wont to do, they surprised me.

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By Tom

If there was any doubt about what education funding in Washington will look like when the legislature finally gets around to complying with the McCleary Decision, that matter has been put to rest.

Steve Litzow, the new chair of the Senate Education Committee, published an op-ed in the Seattle Times this week outlining the ever-popular opinion that education funding should be tied to results. The background for his piece appears to be a study by the Center for American Progress which examined data from school districts all over the country, looking at the correlation between money spent on education and student achievement.

The apparent goal is to be a low-spending, high-achieving school district. An efficient, results-based district. Obviously, this is a goal borrowed from the business world. People who spend money want to see results from that expenditure. People who spend even more money want to see even more results. And while that sort of thinking certainly stands to reason, I think we need to think it through before assuming that this fundamental economic principal is applicable to education.

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