By Rob

It is easy to criticize Washington’s commitment to education as illustrated by the budget cuts over the past few years. One idea that was recently floated was eliminating state funding for busing. Eliminating this funding will save approximately $220 million.

Washington State’s funding covers two-thirds of the cost to bus students to school. If eliminated local districts would have to bear the extra costs. Presumably some districts can afford this extra burden and others would require levies. However, an additional levy would be difficult to pass in many communities.

Eliminating bus routes may be necessary. This fact is alarming. First, a school bus loaded with 45 kids is an efficient way of bringing students to school. It is far more economically efficient (time and fuel) than individual cars or carpooling.

Second, how many schools are equipped to handle an increased number of students being dropped off by car? Presently the morning drop off at my school looks like an Ikea parking lot on a Saturday. We are not designed to handle the traffic we currently have.

Third, and most importantly, is safety.

“Each year approximately 800 school-aged children are killed in motor vehicle crashed during normal school travel hours. Of these 800 deaths, about 20 (2 percent) – 5 school bus passengers and 15 pedestrians – are school bus-related. The other 98 percent of the school aged deaths occur in other motor vehicles… or to pedestrians, bicyclists, or motorcyclists.” (The Relative Risks of School Travel: A National Perspective and Guidance for Local Community Risk Assessment– a study released by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences in June 2002).

On average there is one school bus fatality per 500 million vehicle miles traveled. School bus drivers are among the most professional and safety conscious individuals to serve our children. They make school buses one of the safest forms of transportation in the United States.

Every educator understands that schools must be a safe place for students. This begins at the bus stop. Cuts to education could put the futures of students at risk but cuts to transportation have the potential to put lives at risk. Let’s take this proposed cut off the table. It never should have been there in the first place.

By Tom

I just finished a week of parent-teacher conferences. And although it can be physically exhausting, it’s always one of my favorite times of the year. They always come at a time when I’m just starting to think about my class as a group of different individuals, and when I’m curious about how they got to be the way they are. As always, this year’s conferences were enlightening. It may surprise you to learn that I’m actually a pretty good listener, which is what I spend most of the conference doing. I’ll ask a few questions and go through a few pieces of student work, but mostly I listen to what parents tell me about their children. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, “You can hear a lot by just listening.”

Specifically:

-A lot of families are really struggling right now. You already knew that, and so did I, but after talking with some of them, it’s become far more real. People are unemployed, underemployed and badly-employed. I talked with a guy from Microsoft who’s been out of work for months; a former dentist from the Ukraine, who’s working at an entry-level, low-skill job; and several parents who work nights at the only jobs they can find. Most of us in education look at the current budget crises in Olympia and quickly decide that the answer is more taxes. But most of us in education don’t live nearly as close to the edge as some of the families we work with. Higher taxes might improve their children’s education, but they might also push them over that edge.

-I work with a lot of recent immigrants. Over half of my students were either born overseas or have parents that were. Many of these families come from places where child-rearing is a multi-generational endeavor. Adjusting to the American way of raising kids doesn’t always work out very well.

-Somewhat related to that, it was clear that at least one-third of my students are essentially ruling their households. Their parents seem to have lost control. For some of these families, it's partly because their children speak better English than anyone else in the house. For others, it's simply weak parenting. Either way, these are eight-year-olds, for crying out loud, and I can only imagine what the future holds. I actually had one man, with no sense of irony, ask me to tell his daughter to read on the weekends. I was about to ask him the same thing. I’m clinging to the belief that this is just a small-sample aberration; that there isn’t really a parenting crisis in this country. Please let me cling to that belief.

-My personal relationship with parent conferences has evolved. When I first started teaching, I was about ten years younger than any of the parents. I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t know what I was talking about. And they knew it. Then for awhile I was about the same age as the parents. I also began to know what I was talking about. Conferences became a lot more enjoyable. Now I’m about 20 years older than most of the parents. I’m roughly their parents’ age. Consequently, they treat me like a person from the previous generation. I’m still getting used to that.

-More than anything else, math confuses parents. Especially the fact that we seem to lack a consistent approach to teaching it. When third-grade math problems confuse grown-ups, something’s amiss. I’m at the point where I would agree to any math curriculum, even the worst math curriculum, as long as we stick with that curriculum for eat least thirty years. Honestly.

-One of my students, the oldest of five kids, hasn’t seen her dad since he went to Iraq nine months ago. He’s coming home in three weeks; the day before Veteran’s Day.

 Just thinking about that makes me smile and cry at the same time.

By Tamara

First, thank you Rob for inspiring the title of this post in one of your recent comments.

Last weekend I attended OSPI/CSTP’s symposium on Teacher Principal Evaluations and Common Core Standards implementation. I walked away with the overall sense that most teachers want an evaluation system that validates their efforts and provides opportunities for professional growth. There was also an overall sense of anxiety about how these new evaluations will be implemented. Who is doing the evaluating? How and when are they being trained to evaluate? Will my evaluator be knowledgeable about my content area or grade level? Or about goals and standards for special populations (hello, I teach English Language Development-I can assure you my students are not going to be meeting standard as defined by Common Core any more than they are with EALRs and Power Standards now)?

The overwhelming theme in my small group session was the need for implementation to be approached with positive intent by all involved. No wants to feel trapped in a game of “Gotcha”. At the same time the only positive thing I heard about our current evaluation model was that it doesn’t involve student data.

That is the ultimate sticking point. Everyone seems to see new teacher and principal evaluation as a positive until we get to the part about using student performance data. I agree this issue needs to be approached with caution and careful consideration. But I also think, what is the ultimate outcome of our work supposed to produce? Is it not improved student performance/learning over time? How often do we bemoan that the public does not see teaching as a bona-fide profession? All other “professionals” are evaluated to some degree or other as to how their work directly impacts achieving specific outcomes. Granted children are complex packages of multiple variables that make their growth as learners difficult to quantify. But going through the National Board Certification process opened my eyes to the fact that learning (as defined by growth demonstrated over time) is absolutely quantifiable. And because student learning is the core of what we do, we should not shy away from having that data as a part of our evaluations.

But student data can not be used as a “one shot” snap shot of teachers’ performance. And it cannot be based on a single measure (like MSP, HSPE, pick your alphabet soup high stakes test) especially if we can all agree that student learning is defined and growth demonstrated over time. We talk about portfolio assessment being a more accurate measure of student progress than individual on demand performance assessments or tests. Why not a portfolio assessment model for teachers when it comes to the student data portion of our evaluation? That would bring us far closer to the balance of accountability and flexibility I hear so many of us pining for.

By Tom

I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between problems – which can be solved – and polarities, which can’t. A problem would be like a broken copy machine. You call the repairperson and tell them to fix it. Soon. And when they do, the problem is solved.

A polarity is different. A polarity is a situation for which there are two opposite approaches, or “poles.” Each pole has positive as well as negative aspects. It looks like this: (pay attention to the arrows)

An example of a polarity would be classroom management; One approach, represented by Pole 1, would be fierce accountability and rule enforcement. Pole 2 would be a more relaxed, fun approach. A teacher might start out acting really strict and quickly notice the benefits: a quiet room, a serious atmosphere, etc. This is represented by Box A. Soon, however, our teacher might notice that there are negative aspects to being ultra-strict: nobody’s having fun, nor are they really engaged in the learning. This is Box B. As a result, the teacher relaxes things a bit and the mood lightens. The kids are more engaged and the atmosphere is livelier. Now we’re in Box C. Soon, however, things get out of hand, and the classroom becomes a zoo: Box D. In response, the teacher gets all strict and rigid again and we’re back in Box A.

The best teachers aren’t the ones who find the perfect balance between strict and fun. In a polarity, balance is only an illusion. The best teachers are able to nimbly transfer from one box to another in response to the situation. They dwell mostly in Boxes A and C, reaping the rewards that are found there. As soon as they dip into B or D, they change it up and move on. The best teachers can go from Vince Lombardi to Jimmy Buffett and back again in the course of a single lesson, knowing full well that both approaches are essential to effective classroom management.

This paradigm is also useful to explain Education Reform. Specifically, teacher evaluation, which I see not as a problem – something to be fixed – but as a polarity; a situation for which there are two opposite, yet equally valuable, approaches.

The two poles of teacher evaluation are accountability and flexibility. We need both. But in order to have both, we need to engineer and sustain a system that’s nimble enough to use both. If our system seems too rigid and focused on accountability and data, we need to be able to quickly tweak it, making it more flexible. And vice-versa.

As we speak, Congress is mulling over the reauthorization of ESEA. One thing they’re mulling is teacher evaluation; specifically whether each state should have an evaluation system that uses data from student test scores. The high accountability camp – which includes most Ed-Reform groups, as well as the Obama Administration – sees this as essential to ESEA’s original purpose as a tool in the War on Poverty.

The other camp – which includes the NEA and the AFT, as well as conservative politicians – doesn’t. They would like to leave the specifics of any teacher evaluation system up to individual states. Anyone who sees teacher evaluation as a polarity would have to agree. Personally, I have questions about the validity, reliability and fairness of using student data to evaluate teachers. But even if I didn’t – even if I loved the idea – I would still want a system that had the capacity to make large or small changes as the need arose.

Federal laws do not have that capacity. Take NCLB. (please) That law started out looking sweet. We were identifying low-performing schools left and right and doing something about it. Test scores were rising. We were solidly in Box A. Then we started seeing the negative effects: decent schools being mislabeled, hyper-focus on tested subjects, test-prep at the expense of real teaching; and we knew we needed to recalibrate.

But we can't. We're in Box B with no way of getting to Box C. The Federal Government is many wonderful things, but it is not nimble. It was actually designed to not be nimble. When a system literally needs an Act of Congress to tweak itself, it is not nimble.

Teacher evaluation is something that will never be solved or figured out. There will always be a push and pull between those who favor more accountability and those who want more flexibility. That’s as it should be. A healthy system respects a polarity and has the capacity to change, nimbly harnessing the best of each pole.

A well-run district would have that capacity. A well-led state might. The Federal Government?

Not a chance.  

By Tamara

When I first started hearing the RTI (Response to Intervention) drumbeat I didn’t think much of it. My district is quick to adopt the latest education silver bullet to solve all that ails us. Even after reading Rena’s Post, I figured it would come and go like so many other “models”, “plans”, “curriculums” with little impact on my day to day life as an English Language Development teacher. Well I have been hit by the RTI bus. Hard.

As implemented in my building, RTI stipulates that “intervention specialists’ (Special Ed, Literacy & Numeracy Coaches, Reading Recovery, ELD) can only work with served students during “non-instructional time”. Obviously we also can’t work with them during Library, PE, Art, Music, Lunch or Recess. So certain “sacred” windows of time have been identified by grade level during which I can work with English Language Learners. Which works out fine…on paper. But then a teacher changes their schedule and is suddenly doing direct instruction. Or one member of the grade level team has their day scheduled completely opposite that of their other team members. Or it is Art and Band day which blows my “windows” right out the door.

This has been far more of a nightmare for Special Ed as they attempt to comply with required IEP minutes. But a program that is apparently designed to provide more intentional instruction to struggling students is making it exceptionally hard for me to work with said students.

What is happening other places? How is RTI impacting your instruction and how are you making it work?