I've long been a fan of Mike Rowe, his show "Dirty Jobs," and the fact that he sheds light upon the backbone of our country: the skilled workers who keep pipes clear, lights on, toilets flushing, and walls square, among many other critical services.

What I particularly admire as well is that he is aware of how American public schools, buckling under the pressures of high stakes testing and the pervasive fallacy that "everyone must have a four-year-degree," have all but eliminated vocational education–and where it isn't eliminated outright, it is marginalized or labeled as "alternative" education. On May 11, 2011, Mike testified to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, highlighting this very reality and how it threatens the very backbone of our economy, country, and communities.

Though I encourage you to follow the link above and read his whole testimony, there is one portion I want to highlight. He says:

In general, we’re surprised that high unemployment can exist at the same time as a skilled labor shortage. We shouldn’t be. We’ve pretty much guaranteed it.

In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We’ve elevated the importance of “higher education” to such a lofty perch, that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled “alternative.” Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as “vocational consolation prizes,” best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree.  And still, we talk about millions of “shovel ready” jobs for a society that doesn’t encourage people to pick up a shovel.

In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a “good job” into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber – if you can find one – is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we’ll all be in need of both.

Throughout his testimony, Rowe refers to the "Skills Gap." This is the very real situation where schools are producing droves of graduates who lack fundamental skills to, as he puts it, do anything that "looks like work."

This is a drum I and others have beaten again and again here at SfS. When we as a system finally realize that more tests, more often, are actually the best way to weaken our country by underpreparing an entire generation for "real work," perhaps we'll value the vocational arts and sciences once again.

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By Kristin

Dave Eggers is smarter, a better writer, and more successful than I am.  Plus, he has better hair.  It's hard not to hate him just a little, under all my love, admiration and gratitude.

And now he and Ninive Clements Calegar (who also has better hair than I do) have said what I want to say, but a thousand times better, and via the New York Times.

I'd throw my laptop against the wall in jealousy, but I need to make a quick donation to 826 Seattle – an amazing tutoring spot for kids.  A FREE tutoring spot.  Go Dave, Go.  And thank you.

By Kristin

The New York Times reveals the concern some feel about how little American students know about civics.  On a test given by the Department of Education, students did a pretty poor job of demonstrating mastery of "how government is financed, what rights are protected by the Constitution and how laws are passed."  Sandra Day O'Connor calls this a "crisis."

I call it a crisis too, but for different reasons.

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By Tom

It’s looking more and more like teachers in Washington State will get a pay cut. It’ll either be 3%, if the Senate gets its way; or 1.9%, if the Governor prevails. Whichever way it ends up, the issue begs the obvious question: should teachers work less days if they get less pay?

On the one hand, the last thing our students need is a shorter school year. And despite the logic that the public should “feel the pain” after voting down a couple of juicy tax bills last election, the people who would feel most of that pain are the citizens not yet old enough to vote.

On the other hand, it stands to reason that if you get less money you shouldn’t have to work as much. My brother in law works in construction. Things have slowed down lately in that industry, so his salary has dropped. But so has his workload; he now works a four-day week. Teachers work 180 days. According to my math, three percent of 180 is 5.4 days. If we ran the school system like my brother in law’s construction firm, teachers would get an extra week off for the next two years.

Personally, I’d rather work those extra days. I enjoy teaching and I have a hard enough time getting everything done in 180 days.  And I’m willing to take a three percent pay cut if that’s what it takes to balance the state’s budget.

I do, however, have some conditions.

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By Tom

Suffice to say, this hasn’t been the easiest year to be a teacher. And with the Legislature back in session, figuring out where to make cuts, it’s likely to get even worse. To add insult to injury, our school, like many, recently learned that we’re going to lose one of our teachers. As you might expect, she’s young, talented and enthusiastic. The kids like her, the parents like her and the rest of us like her. But she was the last one in, so she’s the first one out.

Many of us would like to see her stay. We’d prefer to have someone else leave; someone who isn’t as good at teaching.

It would be nice to have the means to do so, and if certain legislators have their way, we soon will. We may end up with a law that forces districts to force the least effective teachers out during staff reductions.

But while that might sound like a good idea right now, I don’t think it’ll work out in the long run.

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And, of course, I'd love to see Bill Gates teach sentence structure to a class of forty 14-year olds if class size doesn't matter.

In my last post about Teacher Credibility, I shared how my efforts to forge relationships and build trust with my students has resulted in greater success in my recent lessons about everyone's least favorite Language Arts subject: grammar.

This got me thinking about Bill Gates et al.'s assertions about increasing class sizes. Rather than take the standard educator response about the value of connecting to each student blah, blah, blah, I instead thought about sales.

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Dear Mr. Duncan,

Thank you for the letter. It was nice to read your sincere appreciation for the people who work in our nation’s schools, and a refreshing change from the treatment we received seven years ago when one of your predecessors referred to us as “terrorists.”

Most of us genuinely believe that you and the administration are working hard for the best interests of our public schools. We feel that you value and respect America’s teachers. While we may not always agree with all of your specific strategies or policies, it’s clear that you want the best for our students.

That said; I want to discuss the eighth paragraph of your letter:

“So I want to work with you to change and improve federal law, to invest in teachers and strengthen the teaching profession. Together with you, I want to develop a system of evaluation that draws on meaningful observations and input from your peers, as well as a sophisticated assessment that measures individual student growth, creativity, and critical thinking.”

When are you planning to begin working together with us? It’s been over two years since you’ve had this job and so far we haven’t seen much change in the federal law. I’m talking about NCLB, with its onerous sanctions. Those of us in the field are watching as good schools and good teachers are being labeled “failures” due mostly to the demographics of their student population and the relentlessly rising expectation of bad legislation.

And another thing. When you say you want to “work with us to change and improve federal law,” what exactly do you mean? As teachers, we know that could mean one of two things. There’s the “working together” where teams of teachers actually work together to plan a lesson or unit. In this form of “working together” the end is unknown at the outset. The team engages in genuine collaboration in which each partner contributes to the product. This is real and authentic teamwork.

Then there’s the other kind of working together. Many of us start the year by inviting our students to “work together” to form a set of class rules and responsibilities. For many of us, this is a disingenuous exercise; a façade in which the outcome is essentially predetermined. There’s no way, for example, that the rules we end up with won’t include something about “keeping our hands to ourselves.”

It might be OK to “work together” disingenuously when the rest of the team is eight years old, but we’re much older than that. And frankly, most of us know at least as much about education as you do.  

The evaluation system you describe in this paragraph sounds pretty cool. But it sounds a lot different from the plans proposed by the states that won your “race to the top.” Most of those plans seemed to use student performance as a proxy for teacher effectiveness. There’s certainly a connection between the two, but it’s not as clear as you might think. There’s a kid in my class, for example, who is so hyperactive that his body literally vibrates all day long. But his low test scores belie the enormous amount of effort and work it has taken to get him to read and write almost at grade level, and to get him to complete his math assignments independently. At the same time, the girl who sits across from him, whose parents are both doctors, reads better than either you or I. Her high test scores represent almost none of my effort and talent. I’ll gladly take credit for them, but frankly, she would have done just as well on that test with a folding chair in charge of the class.

One more thing. Our unions have taken a beating this past year. Mostly at the state level and by members of the media and business community. But there’s a sneaking suspicion by many of us that a lot of these people have become emboldened, not so much by what you and the rest of the administration has said or done, but by what you haven’t said or done. Contrary to popular myth, most of us actually feel represented by our unions. Their policies, after all, are directed by the teachers they represent. Our unions are us. And they do a lot of great work, for both teachers and students. Would it be too much to ask to have you stick up for us every now and then? 

So anyway, thanks for the letter. It was good to hear from you as we head down the homestretch of the school year. And if you really mean that part about “working together,” give me a call. I’ve got a few other ideas.

Tom

I loathe teaching grammar.

Every year, it seems that I try a new approach, and seldom does it accomplish what I want it to (improvement in student writing). I'm no expert, and a cursory read of my posts will probably produce scores of errors which would infuriate devout grammarians, but I do believe that by high school, there is merit in helping students see the "interior structure" of the language they use. Knowing that structure, hopefully, helps the strong writers refine and the weak writers give name and therefore understanding to their weaknesses.

This year, my rocky relationship with grammar led me to make a dangerous decision. Last semester, I did not teach it. At all. I responded to student writing and offered revision advice, but I didn't instruct about anything grammar-related. Instead, we focused on higher order rhetorical arrangement (argument, essay, paragraph). Over the course of the semester, I proved to my students through lessons, assessments, and feedback that I knew what I was talking about and knew how to help them. They started intentionally responding to my feedback and advice, and in reflections on their writing processes, I repeatedly saw references to "I never knew this before" or "now I understand." A strange thing happened, then, a few weeks ago when I finally, grudgingly and anticipating epic futility, settled into my hardcore grammar lessons and curriculum.

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The intentions are in the right place: the goal is to measurably improve high school graduation rates through community partnerships and other programs.

The logic and the timing are what is wrong, however.

House Bill 1599, the "Pay for Actual Student Success Act" (yes, that's its real title, and it will take all the restraint I can muster not to discuss their choice of modifiers), passed the Washington State Senate last week without making many media waves. The bill establishes criteria for determining a school's improvement in high school graduation rates and then offers financial rewards to buildings and districts which accomplish this feat. According to one article, "The bill provides that if funds are appropriated in the budget to implement the cash grants, they would be awarded beginning with the 2011-12 school year. The House budget includes $6.4 million to launch the program and provide awards for two consecutive years."

In high-hog years, I wouldn't bat an eye at this kind of bill, or even its minute-by-comparison budget. Yes, I do see that its budgeted price tag is but a drop in the bucket. What the bill represents, however, is the backward logic which has gotten schools where they are at the present anyhow.

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By Tom

Thing are heading into the homestretch in Olympia. There’s sure to be a special session in which the House, Senate and Governor’s office hash out a final budget for the next two years.

No one’s going to be happy with the final outcome. That’s for sure. But depending on who prevails, there may be less unhappiness in the area of K-12 education.

Personally, I’m pulling for the House.

First of all, Washington State invested a lot of time, money and effort on National Board Certification as an effective school reform initiative. It’s been growing steadily for the past ten years, to the point where our National Board system is the envy of the nation. National Board Certification is supported by research as an effective way to increase teacher capacity and student learning. It works.

The Governor’s budget suspends both the base pay for NBCTs and the challenging schools bonus. The Senate’s budget retains the bonus, but only for the first three years of certification. The House budget retains the entire bonus system, but moves the next payment from November of this year to July of next year, effectively suspending the bonus for one year. (The Senate budget also does this.)

Looking at the three budgets in regards to the damage they would do to our state’s National Board system, the House has the clear advantage.

Looking at the broader picture, both branches propose eliminating funding for lower K-4 class sizes. Additionally, the House budget would freeze salary step increases next year to save $56 million. The Senate budget has a 3% salary reduction to save $261 million. The Governor’s budget does neither of these and she has also spoken out against the Senate’s salary cut.

 Again, the House budget seems to be a little less harsh on its impact on education. I hope they prevail.

Go House!