By Tom

 I taught a pretty good lesson the other day, while trying to get my third graders to revise the rough drafts of their paragraphs.

I started by asking Audrey about her hair. Audrey has beautiful hair which is always combed into complicated arrangements. I asked her whether she used a mirror when she combed her hair each morning. She explained how she and her mom stand before the mirror, constantly making adjustments until it looks perfect. Like Audrey, most of my students are careful about their hair, and they could relate to our conversation.

I shifted the discussion to writing: Like hair, writing needs to be adjusted and revised until it looks perfect. I showed them what I was talking about. I projected a paragraph that they had watched me write the day before. I modeled adding details to my piece, switching words around, dividing sentences and combining ideas.

Then we put Taylor’s work up on the screen. I picked her paper because it was fairly well-written, yet presented several opportunities for revision. After we made a few changes to Taylor’s paper, I released the class to work on their own. They had seen me revise, they had practiced revising together and they were ready to work independently.

Most of them, anyway.  There were a few that I still had some concerns about, and I went to their desks first to help them clean things up.

After about ten minutes I told the class that as soon as their paragraphs were fully revised they could walk around and read other finished papers and write comments on the back to the authors.  After that we reviewed the main points about revising, put our work away and got ready for recess.

It was a good lesson. I took the class from one place to another. My students didn’t know how to revise their writing, and now they do. There was nothing particularly fancy about this lesson, nor was there anything seriously wrong with it. It was the kind of solid, meat-and-potatoes lesson that I’m expected to chunk out several times a day for the length of the school year. The kind of lesson that I love to teach.

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By Kristin

Scores scores scores.  They're everywhere.  I agree with testing.  I agree with using test scores to evaluate teachers.  I agree with getting rid of ineffective teachers.  But many of the tests currently used are shoddy assessments.  As Brian's most recent post demonstrates, we are not yet to the place where test scores should mean as much as they do.  In this panic-driven "race to the top" (and it's not to the top – districts are racing to prove they test) districts are whipping out tests that haven't been, well, tested.  

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by Brian

I teach math, but it's football season, so here's an analogy from the gridiron.  It's just the start of the second quarter, and we're getting our butts kicked.  And it looks like the refs want us to lose; we just can't get a call!

By second quarter I am referring to the fact that the class of 2014 has entered our high schools and joined the class of 2013 as the first students who will have to pass End of Course exams in Algebra and Geometry in order to graduate.  And by getting our butts kicked I mean that we are behind 42% to 58% ( that's students who passed the HSPE last year vs. those who didn't.)  And by the refs I mean the State Legislature, The State Board of Education, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction, who have collectively not yet even figured out what the End of Course exams are going to look like. 

Today we got a look at Item Specifications that showed which standards would be included in the EOC exams.  A quick check against the Algebra 1 Crosswalk, which also claims to show which standards will be tested, showed some glaring inconsistencies.  Will quadratic factoring be on the test or not?  It matters.

I also teach Algebra 2, and recently signed up to have my classes pilot test questions for the EOCs in Algebra and Geometry.  Sometime in October we will take a class period to answer potential items for the EOCs which will be given next spring (within 3 weeks of the end of school). Obviously, the tests have not even been created yet, or field tested, or validated, yet they will be used to determine whether or not our students will be able to graduate.

Wait, it gets more crazy.  You see, students who passed Algebra last year are in Geometry this year, so they will take the Geometry EOC exam.  But the state law says they have to pass an EOC exam in Algebra too, and there was no EOC exam available for Algebra last year when they took the course.  So they have to take something called Comprehensive, Part 1.  No wait, that was last week. (I'm not making this up!)  This week it's the EOC Retake.  The sophomores in Algebra 2 this year (they're the reason we keep leading the nation in SAT scores), well they have to take Comprehensive Parts 1 and 2, or maybe it's the EOC retakes for Algebra and Geometry.  That's not clear either.

Last February I went to Olympia to testify before the Senate Education in support of a bill postponing the requirement that the class of 2013 and beyond pass EOC exams that had not even been written.  They listened politely, kind of, but the bill died in committee.  I plan to go back when the legislature convenes next year and try again.

You see, it's kind of embarrassing to teach a subject based on logic and reason to students who are being treated so badly by adults acting irrationally.

By Mark

The new buzzphrase in my neck of the woods is "Response to Intervention." I know it's been around a while, and I know that RTI can take many forms, but a few recent uncomfortable conversations in the lunchroom have let me to wonder: at what cost do we respond to students who struggle?

My building, like many, has crafted means to "intervene" when it is discovered that students are struggling academically in core graduation requirements.  

First off, I am part of a teaching team in an intervention program for 9th graders. The goal is to help students transition into high school by learning study skills, organization and time management–in other words, how to be a student–all the while providing mainstream coursework in order to keep the bar high and keep opportunities open for the students' futures. However, participating in this program means that the students lose one of their half-year electives in order to participate in the program's support period. This means fewer students in art, technology, and P.E. electives. And this obviously impacts those programs and their staff.

Further, our math department has worked hard to craft during-the-school day as well as after-school opportunities for students who struggle in math to achieve greater success since, though our building scores are above the state average, math scores have not had the kind of growth or progress the teachers would like to see. The most aggressive and focused of these interventions is that certain struggling (mainstream) students are given a second mathematics class during their day's schedule. This intervention provides greater one-on-one or small-group support in core math skills necessary for achieving what is required by the state in mathematics. This means that the student now takes an extra math class instead of another elective. This means fewer students in art, technology, and P.E. electives. And this obviously impacts those programs and their staff.

Too often when I'd hear about how the testing movement saps the life out of the arts, music, and P.E. (among other subjects), I would assume that this was in the context of an elementary situation where a teacher with finite but flexible time was being pushed to devote more to the tested disciplines. Now I see that the same is starting to happen at the secondary level as well.

Those uncomfortable conversations I mentioned above have been with elective teachers who shared with me the impact that interventions are having on their courses and enrollment. If nothing else, we're talking FTE and job security here, so certainly people have the right to be impassioned. Besides that, there is the common belief that many kids who struggle in core courses thrive in the arts, technology, and vocational courses…and that the latter are what make them even want to come to school. Overriding all this is the tacit (or not so tacit) message that the only things that matter are the things the state tests us on.

It is easy to blame the Big Test movement and related requirements for these decisions that short-change electives. However, it should force us to re-examine exactly what is the purpose of a comprehensive high school. Is it to ready students for the Big Tests in reading, writing, math, and science? Must something be tested in order to have value? Should the arts be an option only after the Big Tests have been passed? Should the Test trump all?

When kids struggle, what price are we willing to make them pay to get them to pass that Test?

By Tom

First the good news: Students in Washington State scored the highest in the nation last year on their SATs. While scores across the nation stayed flat, our students improved. We might have a crappy baseball team, but on something that actually matters, we're number one.

Now the bad news. The Seattle Times, which by default is the most widely read paper in the state, gives absolutely no credit for this impressive feat to the teachers. None whatsoever. Here, read it for yourself. 

This after blaming teachers for everything that's bad about public education. Blaming them for the poor performance of students on state tests, Blaming them for obstruction to school reform. Blaming them for the need for school reform. You name it, teachers have been blamed for it.

Don't get me wrong; like The Times, I credit the students who actually took the SATs. They sat there with their pencils and answered the questions correctly. Good for them. And good for their parents for supporting them.

But for crying out loud, I want at least a little of that credit. Just a bit. Those kids learned how to write paragraphs from me. I taught them their multiplication tables. I taught them how to divide. How to subtract three-digit numbers with borrowing. I taught them how to listen, how to share glue. I taught them the water cycle. I taught them how to read.

So good for you, students. I'm glad you did well and I'm glad that you'll get into a good college. And I'm sure you know a third grade teacher or a middle school teacher or a high school teacher who helped you along the way.

It's just too bad that you're stuck reading a newspaper that doesn't know how to change its narrative in the face of data that doesn't support that narrative.