TeachMoore

Chicago Teachers: It's Not the Money

As I watch the events in Chicago, affecting many students, parents, and teachers I know well, I am struck by how superficial much of the media coverage of this strike have been. When teachers finally reach the point where they are willing to risk everything by going on strike, it's not money. When money becomes the only thing left to argue about, it means many other things have gone very, very wrong for a very long time. 

Thankfully, there have been some real nuggets buried in the coverage. For example: On her show this past weekend, MSNBC commentator Melissa Harris Perry included on her panel a Chicago high school teacher who spoke passionately about working with 170 students a day while trying to pursue quality education. 

Layered within the CNN coverage have been testimonies, such as this story on one special education teacher:

Her students need special supplies, so she's spent $4,000 to $5,000 of her own money since she began teaching three years ago, she said....

'I teach special education in Chicago because regardless of the working conditions, I am going to find the resources somewhere to make our classroom function,' she wrote on CNN iReport.

These comments and many others are best summed up in a recent blog post about the strike by my Teacher Leader Network colleague and co-author, Barnett Berry in which he focuses on the issues of teacher working conditions and mistrust. Says Barnett, 

Today, Chicago teachers point to their current working conditions that have appeared to have substantially deteriorated—conditions that hurt students and their ability to learn.

Chicago is not the only school system in the nation in which the conditions for students and teachers have worsened. Some teachers, many of them excellent educators, have left either the public schools or the profession in hurt and frustration. Others have chosen, often at the expense of their own families and careers, to stay with their students, trying to do what they can for as many as possible. The CTU teachers have resorted to striking as a means to publicize and change the situation for them and their students. 

In another article, earlier this year, Barnett made "A Revolutionary Suggestion" that one of the best ways to truly reform American public education is to rebuild our trust in teachers: 

We could draw on the expertise of accomplished teachers to craft better student assessments, additional evaluation measures (like peer observation), and systems that support the professional growth of all teachers (whether in their first year or their twentieth).  

Teachers are well-suited to inform teacher development and evaluation. They understand the nuances of the work they do each day—and can help create equally nuanced systems for gauging and supporting teaching effectiveness. They grasp the complexity of their profession.

Will the situation in Chicago be a model, or another missed opportunity to address the real problems?

READ THIS: Is Education a Right or a Commodity?

The ACLU is suing the state of Michigan and the Highland Park (MI) school district for violating students' right under the state constitution to "learn to read."

My friend and editor, Sam Chaltain, has written eloquently about this case and the larger issues surrounding it. Most notably, he briefly traces the ongoing political battle in the U.S. over whether education should in fact (and under law) be a protected, guaranteed right of every American child.

Here's a slice:

Although this case is the first of its kind, we’ve been having this debate for a loooong time now. For years, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. has tried — and failed — to introduce language for a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution “regarding the right of all citizens of the United States to a public education of equal high quality.”

Then there’s the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, a 1989 gathering that resulted in the first legally binding international treaty and establishment of universally recognized norms and standards for the protection and promotion of children’s rights. By any account it was an overwhelming success; all but three member nations signed on.

The three holdouts? Somalia. South Sudan. And us.

You need to read his entire post, then join the conversation. Should a quality education be the birthright of every child in America? How essential is that to the future of our nation? Do we have the moral and political will to pay for such an education for all our children the way many other nations have for theirs?

READ THIS: Rural Superintendent Gets EdReform Right

Superintendent John Kuhn, of Perrin-Whitt Consolidated School District in Texas, has written one of the best summaries  I've seen of how to get education reform right. He urges policymakers and others to look at the Oppportunities to Learn campaign's 2020 Vision Roadmap: A Pre-K Through Postsecondary Blueprint for Educational Success.

In his article, Kuhn points out why it is not just up to teachers to make education work; here's a slice:

In the end, although salesmen of countless nouveau “miracle” programs will say otherwise, our success or failure in education isn’t the exclusive property of teachers. If anything, many thousands of brave teachers nationwide are trying to undo the harms perpetrated by politicians – both in Texas and in our nation’s capitol – who use budget shortfalls as an excuse to ignore the needs of the most vulnerable (and most under-represented) in our society. We have seen fit to quietly give educational scraps to other people’s children for too long, and now that we see the inescapable results, we would rather tear down the schools than offend the merchants of inequity who inhabit our voting booths — ourselves.

Highly Qualified Teachers for ALL Children

Thanks to my friend and TLN colleague, David B. Cohen,  for a timely reminder that the Senate is about to consider legislation that might put into law the 2010 U.S. Department of Education ruling on what constitutes a highly qualified teacher.

The DoEd ruling allowed states to classify interns from the hundreds of alternative route teacher certification programs around the country, such as Teach for America, as "highly qualified" teachers under the No Child Left Behind Act, and thereby eligible to receive a state teaching license, and more important, to be placed in charge as teacher of record, over classrooms of students. Some of these interns have as little as three weeks of training prior to entering the classroom. Most of them are entering classrooms for the first time with these shaky credentials, and are actually doing their "practice teaching" while they are in fact in charge of a classroom. During this practice year, they are usually assigned a mentor teacher or some other supervisor, but that person is only in the classroom with the novice for occasional visits and after school or Saturday training sessions. Subsequently, the 9th District Court ruled in Renee v. Duncan, that the Department ruling violated the law, but the practice still stands.

It is a well-established fact by many independent observers and by the DoE itself, that most, if not all, of these underprepared, not-yet-qualified candidates are place in schools and classrooms serving disabled, poor, or minority children.  Here in Mississippi, for example, almost all of the special education teachers going into our secondary schools in recent years have come exclusively from one of the alternate route programs. I say this as a member of our state Licensure Commission, fully aware that without these alternate route programs, many of our schools would not have teachers at all. But alternate route programs were developed as stop-gap, temporary measures to deal with a problem that demands a better solution, and that solution is to implement the good proposals sitting on the table to improve teacher preparation and induction so that ALL children in our public schools may have truly highly qualified teachers.

The U. S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Tom Harkin, is scheduled to consider a bill on Tuesday, June 12th that would extend the highly qualified amendment developed by the Department of Education, and groups are actively lobbying on both sides of this issue, which brings it back to much needed public scrutiny.

Teachers-in-training cannot and should not be labeled as highly qualified teachers. Doing so is deceptive and harmful to children, to parents, and to the candidates themselves. Parents and educators should make their voices and expertise heard on this issue.

Is DoED Considering Sacrificing Disabled Children?

Diane Ravitch set off alarms with this recent post about plans bubbling up at the Department of Education to cutback on enforcement of provisions of IDEA, specifically the Individual Education Plans (IEPs) of every special needs student. Ravitch's remarks are based on listening to a speech by the Director of OSEP, Melodie Musgrove, at an April convention of the Council for Exceptional Children.

In its press release about the plans, the Department of Education is very general as to what the actually changes might be, but the implication is clearly that more emphasis will be placed on "academic performance and graduation rates".  Ravitch and others fear that means more emphasis on their performance on standarized tests, and less attention to schools providing the hard-won supports these students often need.

The OSEP did announce that  it " will not be conducting the on-site monitoring visits scheduled for the 2012-2013 school year."  That's a cause for some concern since it's in preparation for those visits that I've seen schools, even entire districts, get their house in order--at least in regards to the paperwork--for all special needs students. How will OSEP replace that oversight role? Will they be using technology, or is that going to be shifted more to the states (a problematic transfer, much like asking states to ensure that the civil rights of all their citizens are being protected).

In the past, academic peformance by special needs students (which includes gifted, physically handicapped, mentally impaired, and many other categories) has been determined in light of his/her IEP. Further, whether and how a special needs student is included in statewide standardized testing is also supposed to be governed by the IEP. The inclusion of special needs students in such testing has been a source of much frustration, and even shown in some cases to be detrimental to the children.

Like edblogger Alice Mercer, I too am a teacher AND a parent of a special needs child (actually of 2, and now a grandparent of one as well).  This discussion strikes very close to home for some of our must vulnerable students, their families, and teachers.  Mercer raises some poignant questions for the OSEP to consider as they move in this area, including the observation that states are not all that "compliant" yet with providing for their special needs populations, so is this really the time to consider lessening the oversight?

This is an area that should be closely watched, and about which the Department should move with great caution and transparency.

 

More Important Things to Do With Student Writing Than Just Grade It

A recent study by University of Akron comparing the scoring of student essay writing by computer software programs versus that done by "trained human readers" has caused quite a bit of controversy among college level English teachers.

The authors of the study rightfully point out that these findings should not be taken as an excuse to rush to replace English teachers, but rather as an indication that these software programs could be a useful resource for student writers as a way to get additional feedback on their writing. 

Coincidentally, the English faculty at the community college where I teach, just met to conduct our annual review of student performance across our writing program. One thing we do at these sessions is a blind cross-score by teachers of essays written by our students on the essay portion of the Proficiency Profile test from ETS. The essays are first scored using the eRater software program (this is one of the same programs evaluated in the Akron study); then we compare the scores of the teachers to those given by the e-Rater program. Our results, however, are the exact opposite of the larger study. For five years running, we have found scores given by teachers to be significantly different (almost always lower) than those given by the software.

Teachers of English, however, are not just "trained human readers" or warm-blooded scoring machines, and we have much more important things to do with our students' writing than assign it a grade or score. Writing is first of all an exchange of ideas. Our students are sharing their thoughts with us, and before anything else, teachers should be respectful, thoughtful readers of those ideas. Like many of my colleagues, I respond to my students' writing with questions and comments--on what they are saying (e.g., "What makes you say this? Could you tell me more about this point? Do you have more evidence or examples to support this particular point? What an effective and delightful analogy!") 

Our next responsibility is, as fellow writers, to help these budding younger writers develop in the craft of writing. We help them learn how to shape, clarify, and express their ideas for a variety of audiences and purposes. Part of that, of course, is teaching the conventions of formal usage. One way to accomplish both those goals is to expose them to a wide variety of great writers.

When I sit down next to each of my students or with a small group of them (physically or virtually) to share their most recent work; to reflect on how they have grown as writers since their last piece or since the start of the course; to give sincere, critical feedback on what would help make it better---I am doing what no software program can copy. It is through these very human interactions that I also show them that they have worth far beyond a number on a scale. I also learn some very real and fascinating things from my students' writings. They also have experiences, points of view, information, and writing techniques to share with me and the world. It is a wonderful place to be, and one that no software program can take from me.....yet.

 

 

What Do Test Scores Really Mean?

As a parent (my husband and I have raised 11 children--all of whom attended public school), I always had questions when the school gave us the results of any standardized tests they had taken. What do these numbers really mean? What are you saying about my child?  My concerns were compounded by my knowledge as a teacher of the problems inherent in this type of testing.

Consider this recent finding shared by Stephen Lazar in a recent blog on SchoolBook: 

In New York, as Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University, showed, having students answer just one more multiple-choice question correctly would lead to a 20-percentile-point jump in a teacher’s rating. That is insane!

Yet this insanity is being pushed on parents as if it were a truthful or even helpful representation of what our children know or can do. As a parent, what I REALLY wanted was an in-depth report from the classroom teachers of my children that could supplement, and in some cases correct the snapshot presented in the cryptic test reports. I never selected a teacher for my children based on the student test scores that teacher had the previous year. I did want a professional, who looked at each of my children as an individual with talents, interests, potential, goals, as well as needs.

It's time to step back from the testing frenzy and see just what we have done to our children.

Sign the National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing.

 

Read This: Should We Accept Common Core Standards?

After reading this fascinating post by Anthony Cody, and hearing same concerns from many others, I want to know from teachers and parents around the country: Are the Common Core Standards in your state a "done deal"? Should they be? 

 

Replay> Parental Involvement More Complex Than We Think?

This combined post first appeared in TeachMoore Jan. 21 & 25, 2007.  I share it again as my TLN colleagues are addressing parental involvement over at the Teaching Ahead roundtable at Teacher Magazine.  Join the conversation.

Educators and administrators across the country are wringing their hands and shaking their fingers over the need for “more parental involvement in our public schools.” But what exactly do we educators mean by “parental involvement”? There are at least three possible scenarios:

#1. Send us your child. Clean. Well-dressed. Fed. Disciplined. Obedient. Eager to learn. Cooperative (and preferably already reading, counting, and computer literate). In 12 years (give or take a few months), we’ll send the little darling back to you ready to use that college trust fund.

#2. Come to school when we call you and deal with your child (this usually means there is a disciplinary problem); send money, supplies, science fair project boards, and your signature when required. You may come on parent night or to special events.

Then there’s another possibility.

#3. The parent who thinks public education means the public gets to run it. The parent who wants to approve lesson plans, classroom rules, and the reading list. The parent who questions the necessity and logic of homework or class assignments. The parent who demands to see credentials, has a copy of the curriculum guide, and highlights the school’s published report card, noting deficiencies. The parent who has the principal’s cell phone number, and the school board president’s on speed dial. The parent who visits the classroom frequently, and stays. The parent who never misses PTA meeting and always has questions, suggestions, or criticisms for the staff.

When I hear fellow educators lamenting the lack of parental involvement and blaming parents for not supporting their children’s education, I wonder which of the scenarios they’d wish to see instead? There are some places where meaningful parental involvement is routine. In those places where it is not, there are reasons--and some of those reasons are us. If we had genuine parental involvement from the majority of our parents, how many of us could really take the pressure?

Some of the best and brightest students I have ever taught had parents who were not just dysfunctional; they were dangerous. Conversely, some of the lowest performing students I have seen had parents who were passionately interested in their education. 

Larry was one of the most naturally intelligent and engaging youngsters I have ever taught. He was also terror in the hallways at our high school. He loved to write, absorbed books by the dozens, and generated questions at light speed. Parental involvement? Larry’s mother deliberately put rat poison in his food,"To teach him a lesson because he was eatin’ too much food from the other children."

Cinque, another amazing young African American student, had earned one of the highest scores ever at our school on the ACT. Halfway into his senior year, we learned that his mother had packed up his youngest siblings and left him and a younger brother to fend for themselves. They lived in a dilapidated trailer in an extremely rural area. Cinque had been paying the bills and maintaining the home for two months before anyone found out they were living alone.

Tonisha finished high school in the top 10 of her class, with scholarship offers from several major colleges. Her freshman year, her mother and stepfather slipped off one night and moved out-of-state leaving Tonisha and her two brothers asleep at an aunt’s house. Tonisha slept on a cot in the kitchen for the next three years, and stayed awake most nights to fend off her drug-addict uncle. 

The list goes on and on.

Still, all students need support. They need and deserve teachers who are genuinely concerned about them, their lives, and their academic progress. Students also need other adults around to encourage them and to push (or pull) them through the rough places.

I grew up with an incredible and extended network of supportive adults. In fact, I cannot remember any adult ever using the word if when discussing my future; it was always, when you finish college…when you become a professional. It distressed me that so many of my students would not have that kind of wonderful nurturing and encouragement.

One technique I developed to help give all my students the opportunity to experience that kind of support was a classroom mentoring program. At the beginning of the school year, I required each student to choose a significant adult to be his/her mentor for our English class for the entire year.  This could be the parent(s), but it did not have to be. The primary requirements were that the person be:  a) an adult over 21 years of age;  b) someone the student respected highly;  c) someone who really cared whether the student finished high school. One of the first writing assignments of the school year was to draft a personal letter to that person asking him/her to be a mentor.   

Over the several years I used that process, the results were always overwhelmingly positive.  Grandparents, pastors, coaches, Scout leaders, Head Start teachers, all came to serve as stand-in parents. There were always a couple of students who could not think of any adult they believed would be their mentor. For them, I always had a set of colleagues and community volunteers on call.  I communicated regularly with the mentors about student progress, and at the end of the year, we would hold an event for the students. I did not give up on communicating and trying to work with the parents as well, but having that additional adult was beneficial in so many ways.  Some of the working parents were especially grateful that there was another adult who could help their son or daughter, or come to school events. 

Many things can hinder effective parental involvement; not the least of which is the unwelcoming attitudes of educators or the limits we put on when and how we want parental input. The best teachers cultivate strong ties with parents and communities. I would love to hear from some of you, teachers and parents, who have had positive home-school relationships on how that was done. 

 

Arts Education for All or Some?

I wrote the post below in response to questions posted by the editor at National Journal.com Education Experts blog on Secretary Duncan's push for more arts education in schools. Here's part of what she asked and my thoughts:

What is an “arts-rich” school? Is arts education really so critical?  (Duncan himself hammers on the need for more scientists and engineers.) Is it possible to quantify the benefits of arts education? Can arts education be incorporated into math and reading curricula or vice versa? Are some arts “richer” than others? What is the future of art education?

The real question is not whether arts education is important, but who deserves it. With so much attention rightfully focused on improving the quality of education in low-performing, high-needs schools [translated: schools that serve poor students and/or students of color], the prevailing wisdom argues arts education is a luxury. “Get those reading and math scores up, and maybe we’ll allow you the privilege of art classes.”  For many years, the art or music class was seen as a holding area for elementary students while their other teachers were on the 20-min break, or as an easy elective for high school students trying to earn the magic number of Carnegie units.  

I agree with award winning Alabama teacher, Anne Jolly:

Not offering the arts is as much discrimination as not offering math or reading. Some of our children with the richest talents may never have an opportunity to express them. The arts (including exposure to a wide variety of music and art styles) should not be reserved for the more affluent folk who can afford to enroll their children and transport them to classes after school.

The association of arts with privilege has a long, ugly history.  The truth is many of our students, sometimes those who are the weakest academic performers, come to school with incredible artistic talents or interests. Every child benefits from exposure to and learning about the arts; for some it could be their calling. Or could have been.

Our youngest daughter loved to draw in a variety of mediums from a young age. By her teens, she was already talking about working in art therapy. But she never had the opportunity to take art at her school, and at the time, we had neither access or funds to get her private lessons.  She entered college an honor student in academics, but convinced she could never compete with other students who had already studied art, and reluctantly chose a less satisfying career course.  How many other children’s dreams and talents have we killed with our twisted notions of who does and does not deserve education in the arts?

Another of my TLN colleagues, Steve Owen, a music teacher argues it this way:

…arts education must be valued for its own sake, not because of some presumed effect on math or literacy.  And the arts should not be lumped together, because each brings something unique to the table.  The reason we must advocate for the arts is that these are fully human endeavors, things that people do and find value in irrespective of the material conditions in which they find themselves.  People were painting on cave walls and performing the Verdi Requiem in a concentration camp!

For those who need more practical arguments and data for the inclusion of arts education in every school, I recommend this recent analysis at Edutopia, Why Arts Education is Crucial, and Who’s Doing It Best, but teacher Bill Ivey sums up the greatest value of all: “The arts open up the world.”