By Tom

While leafing through a recent copy of The Stanwood-Camano Crab Cracker, looking for something to do in the greater Stanwood metropolitan area, one event caught my eye:

Ready Reader: Preschool Storytime; 9:30AM or 10:30AM at Stanwood Library. Let imaginations run wild with fun books, sing-along songs, and creative activities that prepare young minds for the adventures of reading. Playtime or craft may follow. Ages 3 to 5 years. Caregiver required.

There it was: the Achievement Gap, in all its ugliness, hiding beneath something as sweet and innocuous as a preschool story hour.  But when you think about it, the implications are clear: if you want your child to get ahead – and stay ahead – then you need to get her down to the Stanwood Library on Wednesday mornings. This is what we tell ourselves.

It's certainly what my wife and I told each other. She interrupted her career for ten years and took our children to every story hour, tune-time and kiddy-exercise class in town. And when nothing was scheduled, she read to them or took them to the zoo. Why? For the same reasons you did all those things: she wanted to give our kids every advantage so that they’d be successful in school and beyond.

We talk a good game in this country, but we really don’t want a level playing field. We’d rather play downhill. We want to get ahead and we want our children to get ahead. We don’t want our children to enter school and then learn how to read, we want them to enter school knowing how to read. And if possible, we’d prefer that they enter a school in which everyone knows how to read. That’s the American way. It’s probably the French way, the Mexican way and the Ukrainian way too, for all I know, but it’s definitely the way we do it here.

So we tell young parents to engage their children in all these learning activities. And we tell them that if they do, it will help their children be successful. We also tell them that if they don’t, their children risk becoming unsuccessful. Later on, of course, those prophecies pan out. The Ready Readers get the best grades, go to the best colleges and grow up to get the best jobs, and the kids whose parents couldn’t read the Crab Cracker, or didn’t know where the Stanwood Library was, or simply didn’t have time off on Wednesday mornings fell behind. Just like we said they would.

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By Tamara

I observe my class of seventh graders struggling to complete their persuasive writing assessment. It is quiet enough to hear the ticking of the clock. To an unpracticed eye they are engaged and hard at work. Yet in reality one is more interested in reading student work posted on the wall, another is staring into space (waiting for inspiration or for the clock to run out?). One I caught writing on her ankle. When I said "Really?" her excuse was "I'm not texting!" Me: "No, you're not. You're not writing either."

The assessment was due last Friday. It is now Tuesday. They had three days in class. And the weekend. And last night. We offered a "reward" to the class withthe highest percent of on-time turn ins. They are still not done. Looking for anything to do but write. Sure, they have their topic, their power map (mostly), but they would rather be taking down chairs or rushing to close the door on the noise in the hall. Anything to avoid opening that vein and bleeding onto paper.

Is it frustrating? To no end. But I empathize. I too have been overwhelmed and avoiding writing.

By Mark

Though I do not believe that uniform curriculum standards will actually cure any ills in education, and though I do not believe that the Common Core standards for the language arts are really clear or specific enough to even do the job a standard should, I do not oppose the idea of being able to connect my daily instruction to specific learning goals and, yes, broader context standards such as the Common Core.

I teach high school language arts. In my 9th grade class, the first day back from Spring Break, I passed back grades and feedback on my students' recent essays (they did very well!) and we worked through a reflection/goal-setting activity to ready them for the coming long-haul of five-day-weeks with no holiday weekends or days off. 

The lesson went well. The kids strategized how to "keep the wheels from falling off," and I shared with them the story of my personal "gremlin" which followed me around in high school and messed up all my science experiments. My gremlin–rushing through tasks rather than reading directions–was the cause of many academic stumbles. I had the kids identify their own gremlins and reflect how to avoid pitfalls of student-hood as the sun is coming out. We strategized how to avoid the kind of saboteur-gremlins that start to multiply this time of year.

So why did I start this post with talk of standards? It has to do with a hallway conversation that followed this gremlin lesson.

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By Tom

A few years ago I was giving my third graders their annual standardized test. This was the reading assessment, and Rachel had her hand up. I asked her what she needed. She wanted to know what a “selection” was. She was stuck on a question that asked her to pick the correct main idea for the “selection” she had just read. Now, you and I know that “selection” is the generic term for any form of text, whether it’s a poem, an essay, an article or a story. But when you’re in third grade, the generic term is “story.” Rachel was a good reader, and if I had told her that the question was asking her to pick the main idea of the “story,” she would have been just fine. The question was clearly directed at her ability to find the main idea, not her understanding of the term ”selection.” Nevertheless, I wasn’t supposed to explain it to her.

I was conflicted. Should I define the word, thus enabling the test to actually measure what it was designed to measure and enable Rachel to demonstrate a skill that she actually had? Or should follow the letter of the law and do what I was told to do during the 20-minute Proctoring Workshop that we all had to attend?

What would you have done?

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By Tamara

Here is your three part challenge should you choose to accept it: 1.) Demonstrate your proficiency as a teacher measured in part by MSP/HSPE scores, 2.) Mentor a student teacher so they may start their career at a point of proficiency, 3.) Remember those tests? MSP and HSPE? Make sure your students pass them.

In light of a new position I recently started and conversations about whose class to place my own child in next year, I have been ruminating about the three way raw deal this “mission impossible” presents. How should we shepherd new entrants into the profession given the current climate of high stakes testing and teacher evaluation tied to said tests? No matter how knowledgeable of content and pedagogy, no matter how energetic and committed, a student teacher by definition presents inconsistency in instruction. In spite of the fact we have all been there, in spite of the fact no one can step into teaching with any hope of success without at least minimal “in front of the class” experience, how many of us are going to continue to be willing to take on student teachers? Especially in the spring, when our names, our evaluations, our jobs are tied to a test someone else is preparing our students for? And what about those fresh faces who bring talent, energy, and optimism? How are they to get the experience they need to become successful teachers? Then there are the students. Kids need consistency and firm boundaries on multiple levels to feel secure enough to take the intellectual risks required for growth. The first grade classroom I am considering for my son will transition between the master teacher (fabulous known commodity) and at least two student teachers (who will likely be great). Dynamic? Yes. Consistent? In fits and starts. Is that set up really in students’ best interests?

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By Rob

Sometime ago the teachers in my district decided to extend our school day four days a week so it could be shortened on Wednesday. 

This was a benefit to teachers. Wednesday was a day for collaboration and planning.  My team of second grade teachers had a standing meeting on Wednesdays.  We planned curriculum, and designated responsibilities.  We consulted our ESL teacher and literacy facilitator. We graded collaboratively.  We learned from sharing successes and failings.

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By Travis

Education is a fascinating field in which to work. In addition to the joy and interest that students bring with them each period, I find our educational system fascinating. This system can be observed, and analyzed, as if it were an animal, a personality, and in many cases, a machine.

Suzy is a teacher. This is not her real name. In fact, it may not be the correct gender. However, for this tale, I will use Suzy. It is the name I use with all of my writing that I do with my students. Suzy is not the name, but the person is real.

Suzy is a teacher who works in a large school within a large school district. Recently Suzy learned something about how the education system works, or more to the point … Suzy was taught something that I find appalling.

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By Tom

There has been a fundamental shift in the teaching profession over the last ten years or so. Previously, the focus was mostly on what the adults did. Now the focus is primarily on what the students are doing. Ten years ago, teachers went to college, entered schools of education, took the classes, passed the tests, got jobs, went to workshops, and generally did what they were supposed to do. Nowadays, it doesn’t much matter whether or not you went to a school of education. Nor does it matter whether you go to any workshops. What matters now are results: measurable indications of student learning. Everything else is just…everything else.

Like most teachers, I had trouble adjusting to this change. I was in denial. When No Child Left Behind passed I chalked it up to something ridiculous coming out of a Republican administration. It would soon blow over, letting us go back to doing what we did before. I denied the fact that it was actually a bipartisan bill, supported by many lawmakers who had traditionally been strong backers of teachers and their unions. “This is Bush’s law,” I thought, “and as soon as he’s gone, it’ll go away.”

But Bush is gone and NCLB isn’t. Not only that, but the new administration, the one the teachers’ union helped elect, came in with a vision of public education that is just as focused on student learning as the previous administration. If not more so.

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