Parent Communication

The Teacher Leaders Network recently had a discussion prompted by this piece written by Bill Ferriter for Teacher Magazine.  In the article and discussion, Bill and TLN teachers discussed some of the communication gaps between parents and teachers.  Bill described the problem as a “false sense of transparency"--the feeling that parents know everything about teaching and teachers know everything about parenting.  The Teacher Magazine article includes a number of suggestions, like “recognizing that parents are valuable partners” and “admitting your mistakes.” They’re perfectly good suggestions, but nothing surprising.

I’m left wondering about the elephant in the room, something that came up last night at a fascinating National-Louis forum:  What about when teachers and parents do not communicate well, not just because they have different roles with regards to the child, but because their conversations are filtered through the lenses of their race, class, age, or language?

Labels: Conversations

Encouraging students to try hard things and make mistakes

Alexander Russo at This Week in Education points to a New York Times piece on how people process mistakes and their own sense of success or failure.

“Studies with children and adults show that a large percentage cannot tolerate mistakes or setbacks,” [Prof. Carol Dweck] said. In particular, those who believe that intelligence is fixed and cannot change tend to avoid taking chances that may lead to errors.

Often parents and teachers unwittingly encourage this mind-set by praising children for being smart rather than for trying hard or struggling with the process.

For example, in a study that Professor Dweck and her researchers did with 400 fifth graders, half were randomly praised as being “really smart” for doing well on a test; the others were praised for their effort.

Then they were given two tasks to choose from: an easy one that they would learn little from but do well, or a more challenging one that might be more interesting but induce more mistakes.

The majority of those praised for being smart chose the simple task, while 90 percent of those commended for trying hard selected the more difficult one.

In the comments on the TWIE piece, Teacher Leaders Network‘s John Norton links to a related piece by a TLN teacher talking about how he encourages his students to “do hard things.” Some of his suggestions:

- Use portfolios to help them see progress
- Use rubrics to help them clearly understand expectations
- Model high quality work.

Meanwhile, in the TEN discussion forum, lapstrauss, a new teacher, is struggling to get her students to try hard things and be invested in their own learning:

My kids are not used to thinking.  They are more comfortable with book work.  They want points to be associated with everything that they do.

Have advice for her?  Click here.  (Don’t forget to log in).

Labels: Conversations

Conferences, parents, and planning for next year

Now that you’ve gotten through the (pick one or more: great, fun, terrifying, stressful, enlightening, confusing) experience of parent-teacher conferences for another year, it’s the perfect time to share some reflections and suggestions for next year.  We’ve already got a discussion going on this topic, with several suggestions from Golden Apple Fellows.  Click HERE to enter the discussion. (You’ll need to log in to comment).

For another set of perspectives, check out the District 299 blog, where parents and teachers are sharing their experiences.

This Teacher Magazine article highlights some new strategies districts are trying to make conferences more meaningful, including providing childcare and translation services to make it easier for parents to attend.

The Teacher Leaders Network brings up the more general topic of how to engage parents.  You know...I bet we could have a great TEN discussion on parent engagement… Feel free to comment on this blog post or start a new discussion in the forum!

Labels: Conversations

What is great teaching?

In this two minute video, designed to support education reporters trying to do a better job of representing teaching in the media, a number of teachers talk about great teaching. 

Among their thoughts, they mentioned that great teachers…

-- are reflective and question themselves...constantly ask why.
-- have a purpose...and the students know what it is
-- are knowledgeable. There’s a lot of valuable, rich content.
-- have a buzz in the classroom.  Students are engaged and talking about their learning
-- are never satisfied with what doesn’t work.

One says, “Mediocre teachers instruct, good teachers model, great teachers inspire”

How do you define great teaching?

(If you’re interested, the site has a number of other videos about what to look for in a classroom.  These are intended for journalists, but I can’t help but wonder who else should be viewing them, too.  Politicians, perhaps?)

Labels: Conversations

The nature of school violence

In a familiar turn of events, No Child Left Behind has designated a certain level of violence that constitutes an official “Dangerous School,” but left each state to determine its own criteria.  And it will shock nobody to hear that Illinois, like many states, is using the most stringent standard, expulsions, rather than police incident reports. According to this month’s Catalyst:

Under the Illinois criteria for designating a school as dangerous under No Child Left Behind, not one CPS building has ever received the label, even though numerous campuses have problems with violence year after year.

Not only does using expulsion statistics underestimate the volume of violence experienced in some schools, but I believe it misrepresents the type of violence.  I don’t have statistics to back me up here, so chime in if this doesn’t match your experience.  I think most violence in schools, even violent schools, is pushing, shoving, and yelling - not shooting - and it’s based on the most mundane of things.  Misunderstandings, jealousies.  Every school has these, but violent schools have an incredibly high volume of them every single day.  They grind down students and teachers’ nerves, leaving everyone feeling anxious, tired, and angry.

A group of students from Chicago’s Mikva Challenge Youth Innovation Fund (a group I helped launch in 2003) recently released a report outlining what youth think should be done about school violence. Their recommendations thoughtfully consider some of the root causes of the violence, suggesting things like better security guard training, better lunch options to avoid hunger-based frustration in the afternoons, and organized social programming to help break down barriers between students.

These recommendations might not prevent major gang warefare, but could they help diminish the sheer mind-numbing volume of he-said-she-said pushing matches?  Sure.  The full set of recommendations is here.  I’m sure the students from Mikva would be interested to hear teachers’ perspectives on this.

Labels: Conversations

Is teaching your final destination?

I wonder what I would have said back in grad school in 1999 if someone had asked me the question “how long do you intend to stay in teaching?” I think that I probably knew then that teaching was going to be part of my working life, but not necessarily my final destination.  I stayed in the classroom for four years.

A few interesting studies have been published recently that look at teacher retention rates, and teachers’ explanations of why they stay or leave the classroom (look here, for instance).  But I’m intrigued by a slightly different element of this issue, featured in a recent New York Times Magazine piece on Teach For American, which takes up the common assertion that TFA teachers “view their teaching stint as a résumé-burnishing pit stop before moving on to bigger things — that T.F.A. stands for ‘Teach for Awhile.’” It makes me wonder if different types of teacher preparation yield teachers with different career goals at the outset.

It makes sense that someone who has done their teacher training as an undergrad will come out of college thinking “teaching is my career,” while someone with a liberal arts degree might think “teaching is just one of many things I could do.” And perhaps career switchers entering teaching through alternative certification programs are more likely to see teaching as their long-term career, thinking “I have chosen teaching after examining all my other options” than teachers who are younger and haven’t had a chance to experiment. Are people who think “teaching is a good job” more or less likely to stay than teachers who think “I want to change the world”?

Is someone asking teacher preparation candidates questions like,
- Why do you want to be a teacher?
- How long do you intend to stay in teaching?

What about you?  Did you see teaching as your long-term career when you were preparing for it?  Do you still? 

Labels: Conversations

Discipline

"In Chicago-area public schools, African-American students are five times as likely to be suspended and nearly eight times as likely to be expelled as white students,” reports the Chicago Tribune this week. 

The Trib analyzed “little-noticed” 2004-2005 school year data from the US Department of Education and saw that “In every state but Idaho...black students are being suspended in numbers greater than would be expected from their proportion of the student population.”

These statistics aren’t particularly new; I feel like we heard this a few years ago, back when zero-tolerance discipline started making the news.  The question is, what now?

Alexander Russo wonders if it isn’t time for “differentiated discipline” to go along with all that differentiated instruction we’re all doing.

The Trib article mentions a program called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS), which seems to be funded by the US Office of Special Education Programs.  According to their website, “The purpose of school-wide PBS is to establish a climate in which appropriate behavior is the norm.” The system focuses on preventing issues rather than punishing students after the fact.

Thoughts about either of these solutions?  Anyone’s school implementing PBIS?

Labels: Conversations, News

The end of Brown v. Board of Ed?

It will likely be years before the full impact of the Supreme Court’s latest school integration decision is clear.  In the meantime, there’s plenty of commentary to keep us busy.

Just have time to read one thing?  My recommendation is NPR senior correspondent and biographer of Thurgood Marshall, Juan Williams, who takes the controversial position that “it is time to acknowledge that Brown’s time has passed” in his New York Times OpEd “Don’t Mourn Brown v. Board of Education.”

Desegregation does not speak to dropout rates that hover near 50 percent for black and Hispanic high school students. It does not equip society to address the so-called achievement gap between black and white students that mocks Brown’s promise of equal educational opportunity.

And the fact is, during the last 20 years, with Brown in full force, America’s public schools have been growing more segregated — even as the nation has become more racially diverse. In 2001, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that the average white student attends a school that is 80 percent white, while 70 percent of black students attend schools where nearly two-thirds of students are black and Hispanic…

...Racial malice is no longer the primary motive in shaping inferior schools for minority children. Many failing big city schools today are operated by black superintendents and mostly black school boards.

And today the argument that school reform should provide equal opportunity for children, or prepare them to live in a pluralistic society, is spent. The winning argument is that better schools are needed for all children — black, white, brown and every other hue — in order to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy.

Want to hear Juan Williams instead of reading him?  Try his NPR conversation with Renee Montagne.

Looking for balanced television coverage of the decision?  Try NewsHour.

Have hours and hours?  Google News is your source for EVERY. ARTICLE. EVER. WRITTEN.  It’s overwhelming, but a great resource.

Labels: Conversations, Resources

Where are they now?

Last week I had dinner with a former colleague, and we caught up on all the gossip: who was doing great at college, who had had a baby, who had come out of the closet, who had won a scholarship, who had suffered a great tragedy.  Finding out where life has taken my former students is a great joy, especially for being so rare.

My favorite run-in has to be the year I took a few students to the Rainbow/PUSH conference downtown.  At lunch, they handed out the NAACP scholarships for that year, and who should be on the list but Darius, a boy who was possibly the greatest challenge of my challenging first year teaching 8th grade.  This was a boy who had impersonated his mother when I tried to call home, whose mother had threatened to sue me, who threw temper tantrums in class, who wrote inappropriate essays just to see what I’d do.  And yet, when I saw him after the awards ceremony, he was so happy to see me and we had a wonderful talk.  He had grown up, had found ways to survive the chaos at home and no longer take it out on those around him, had channeled his energies into getting a full scholarship to college.

I was reminded of these conversations when I was referred to these fascinating articles, which Alexander Russo refers to as time-lapse journalism:

• Young and Restless: Follow the 13-year journey of 23 Harlem kindergartners.
• Pieces of an educational dream: Twenty years ago, a stranger made a stunning offer to an entire class of sixth graders: A free college education. Some triumphed, others faltered.

So, how about your students?  Where are they now?

Labels: Conversations

Kindergarten is the new first grade

A recent New York Times Magazine piece unpacked the increasingly common practice of “redshirting” kids who would be young for their grade, sitting them out for another year so they’ll be the oldest in their grade.

An interlocking set of motives are guiding this trend:

• Parents are increasingly concerned with self-esteem as a primary goal for their children.

[According to one development psychologist,] “We used to revere individual accomplishment. Now we revere self-esteem, and the reverence has snowballed in unconscious ways - into parents always wanting their children to feel good, wanting everything to be pleasant.” So parents wait an extra year in the hope that when their children enter school their age or maturity will shield them from social and emotional hurt. Elizabeth Levett Fortier, a kindergarten teacher in the George Peabody Elementary School in San Francisco, notices the impact on her incoming students. “I’ve had children come into my classroom, and they’ve never even lost at Candy Land.”

• With high-stakes testing in 3rd grade occupying the minds of parents, teachers, and school officials alike,

>many parents, legislatures and teachers find the current curriculum too challenging for many older 4- and young 5-year-olds, which makes sense, because it’s largely the same curriculum taught to first graders less than a generation ago…

...In a report on kindergarten, the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education wrote, “Most of the questionable entry and placement practices that have emerged in recent years have their genesis in concerns over children’s capacities to cope with the increasingly inappropriate curriculum in kindergarten.”

Some states are considering countering this trend by pushing back their kindergarten age cutoffs so that all kindergartners will be older.  But this is not a solution, because it highlights one of the primary troubling effects of this trend:

one serious side effect of pushing back the cutoffs is that while well-off kids with delayed enrollment will spend another year in preschool, probably doing what kindergartners did a generation ago, less-well-off children may, as the literacy specialist Katie Eller put it, spend “another year watching TV in the basement with Grandma.” What’s more, given the socioeconomics of redshirting - and the luxury involved in delaying for a year the free day care that is public school - the oldest child in any given class is more likely to be well off and the youngest child is more likely to be poor. “You almost have a double advantage coming to the well-off kids,” says Samuel J. Meisels, president of Erikson Institute, a graduate school in child development in Chicago. “From a public-policy point of view I find this very distressing.”

Education bloggers Alexander Russo and Joanne Jacobs both commented on this article, and Russo even introduced me to a neat tool to see what all the bloggers out there are saying about it.

Labels: Conversations

You made a difference

A big golden apple for all of you who just finished the school year, whether it was your first, your last, or anywhere in between.  You made a difference this year.

What do teachers make?
(If you’re rolling your eyes because you’ve had this forwarded to you a zillion times, watch the video!  The real version is much tougher, funnier, and - at least to me - more inspirational than the email forward version. Warning: there’s some minor strong language.)

Labels: Conversations

Goodbye to the Best & Brightest?

Today the Illinois Education Research Center (based at SIU-Edwardsville) released a new report, Leaving Schools or Leaving the Profession: Setting Illinois’ Record Straight on New Teacher Attrition. [PDF]

The report counters the endlessly repeated statistic that half of all teachers leave within their first five years, pointing out that 1/3 of teachers who leave in the first five years ultimately return to teaching, and if these returners are accounted for, the rate of loss shrinks to 27%.  (The rate could actually be even less, given that they were unable to track teachers to schools in other states or to private schools).

Interestingly, they found that highly educated teachers were most likely to leave their initial schools and the profession generally.  While new teachers with masters degrees have tended to be a small proportion of the teaching force, the study points out, “as more academically strong teachers are recruited to disadvantaged schools, we can expect attrition rates to increase unless other conditions for working and learning also improve.”

Oops, says the Chicago Sun Times.  CPS has gone out of its way in the last ten years to increase the number of new teachers pulled from selective colleges and holding advanced degrees.

But here’s the rub.  New teachers with just such qualifications are among the most likely to leave…

Why are the best and brightest more likely to leave? For starters, they could face culture shock working in schools that may look far different from the ones they attended.

Plus, they are attractive to other schools—be they more advantaged ones or suburban schools with higher top pay scales.

Susan Kurland, a CPS principle quoted in the Sun Times story offered another explanation:
“Possibly people with higher ACTs have higher expectations for themselves, and they find the failure to be more overwhelming than someone else. It’s brutal.”

If we (as teachers, as professional development providers) are committed to attracting well-educated critical thinkers to this profession, this study suggests that we need to be deliberate about how we go about keeping them in the profession.  As someone who came into teaching with a masters degree from a fancy school, and left after four years, this all cuts very close to home for me and leaves me wondering what such measures would look like, and how to do this in a way that doesn’t leave a bad taste of elitism in everyone’s mouth.

Labels: Conversations

Survey of the American Teacher

Every year since 1984, MetLife has published a detailed Survey of the American Teacher.  Past year’s surveys have focused on elements of the teaching experience ranging from school-family partnerships to violence in the schools to school leadership.

This year’s survey, ”Expectations and Experiences,” [PDF] examines the way teachers, principals, and education deans see teacher satisfaction and preparation.

Some of the main findings:

• Principals are twice as likely as education deans to feel that new teachers have unrealistic expectations about their first year, including the number of hours they will work and the number of special needs students they’ll work with.  Principals are also more than five times more likely than deans to report that new teachers are unprepared to engage parents and maintain discipline in their classrooms.  Deans should take note: teachers who report that teaching compares poorly with their expectations are much more likely to say that they are planning to leave the profession.
• In comparing teachers who said they were likely to leave the classroom with those who planned to stay, the study found that teachers who plan to leave are more likely to report that principals do not value their suggestions or appreciate their work and that they are not adequately able to influence the policies that impact them in the classroom.

The issue of whether teacher salaries are a major determinant of teacher dissatisfaction or likelihood to leave is still unresolved for me.  While more than half of principals and education deans cited this as on of the top two determinants of teachers leaving the profession, the data from the teachers is much more nuanced.

Of teachers who reported they were likely to leave the profession, 69% said they felt their salary was not fair for the work they did.  But 63% of teachers who said they were NOT likely to leave the profession said the same thing!  More significant differences were seen in questions that asked teachers about the level of respect, support, and collegiality they experienced at their school.

According to the report, “All other factors held equal, new teachers who feel other teachers do not go out of their way for them are more than three times as likely to leave the profession.”

Labels: Conversations

Classroom visits?

I spent this afternoon tagging along with a new teacher coach who works in several CPS schools.  I asked her later if she ever got a chance to coordinate classroom visits for her beginning teachers, so they could see what excellent classrooms look like.

They’re starting to implement this, but it’s slow going, she says, and here’s why.  It’s hard to identify which classrooms her teachers should observe.  Does it makes sense to send a new PE teacher from an extremely high poverty school to observe a fantastic teacher in a school with more resources?  Will new teachers in overcrowded schools benefit from seeing classes taught in charters with limited enrollment?

The answer is probably yes: teachers benefit from seeing great teaching, wherever it is.  BUT (and it’s a big “but"), in the short term, it seems like what would help a new teacher most is to see really excellent teaching that takes place in a very similar context to the one they are teaching in.

When TEN was first being developed, one of the ideas on the table was to use it as a way to gather a really comprehensive list of all the good teachers in Illinois.  Not just Golden Apple winners, not just National Board teachers, but all of them.  I’m not sure how practical this would be, but I’m interested in seeing if we can figure out how to do it, if only so new teachers and their coaches will have more options for seeing good teaching in action, and will be able to choose teachers from schools that face similar challenges to theirs.

Labels: Conversations

Performance Pay: coming soon to a school near you!

Pay-for-performance plans have been percolating in school systems all over the country for a long time.  Seems like the momentum is picking up now, at least in Chicago.

First there was this report, from a national group of teacher leaders, with recommendations on how to make merit-pay an effective tool for improving student learning.

And now, CPS announced this week that ten schools will be part of a new performance pay plan. According to the Tribune, the plan was created after the district won a $28 million federal grant to experiment with pay structures.  (More of an auditory learner?  Get the scoop from WBEZ!)

The schools chosen are all hard-to-staff schools with high teacher turnover, where at least 3/4 of the staff voted for the plan.  In a reversal of the union’s earlier opposition to this type of proposal, even CTU president Marilyn Stewart is calling this, “a whole school reform model that is designed to improve teacher quality, maximize principal effectiveness and promote student achievement.”

CPS teachers: what’s the buzz?

Labels: Conversations

Finding your level

Teacher Magazine recently ran a series of three first-person narratives called “Take this job and love it.” In each, a teacher described how she had discovered their perfect grade level (elementary, middle, high school) for teaching.

I had always expected to be a high school teacher, but I was assigned to student teach in a 7th and 8th grade classroom, and discovered despite myself that I loved working with middle school students.  On the other hand, after four years teaching 7th and 8th grade, I hit a wall and ended up, like so many teachers in their first five years, out of the classroom.

Was it the grade level?  I do wonder sometimes how things might have been different if I’d started out working in a high school.

How did you choose your grade level?

Labels: Conversations

Education in the media: A call to action

Golden Apple Fellow, author, teacher, and professor Greg Michie explores what is left unsaid when mainstream media covers education in “Elephants in the Room,” a new article for Rethinking Schools.

He concludes with a call to action:

[We] need to pay close attention to the silences in popular accounts of urban education, and to seek out public spaces where we can tell counter-narratives: op-ed pages, letters to the editor, community or city council meetings, blogs, online discussion boards. There’s not just an elephant in the room—there’s a herd. As often and as conspicuously as possible, we need to wave our arms, point each one out, and call it by name.

Blogs? Online discussion boards?  I sense a great opportunity for TEN members…

Labels: Conversations

Education and Equity

In this month’s Nation, education expert Linda Darling-Hammond outlines her views on No Child Left Behind and how to implement meaningful education reform. She offers an interesting perspective from Gloria Ladson-Billings, who argues that the “achievement gap” is not the real issue.  The real issue is “an educational debt that has accumulated over centuries of denied access to education and employment, reinforced by deepening poverty and resource inequalities in schools.” Darling-Hammond’s essay challenges educational policy-makers to begin to “repay the debt,” by addressing these fundamental inequalities.

(For more on Darling-Hammond’s views on reforming NCLB, see her “Marshall Plan for Education.”)

In their responses to her essay, sociologist Pedro Noguera, National Urban League VP Velma Cobb, and education scholar Deborah Meier expand on the idea of equity as a fundamental goal of education policy.

Noguera:

If we want to insure that all students have the opportunity to learn, we must insure that their basic needs are met. Students who are hungry should be fed, children who need coats in the winter should receive them and those who have been abused or neglected should have counseling and care. Expanding access to healthcare, preschool and affordable housing, and providing more generous parental leave policies should be included on the education reform agenda.

Cobb:

It is no small coincidence that poor schools are in poor neighborhoods. If we are to get serious about education reform for the twenty-first century, we must talk about community development. Only a full-empowerment agenda will address the unequal access to quality education.

Meier:

There are two important areas in which we could work toward narrowing the achievement test gap aside from directly through schooling: narrow the health gap (as Richard Rothstein argues) and narrow the income gap. Both paths would positively affect test scores as well as real learning. Since NCLB has been in effect, we have instead widened such gaps. Although we claim to be worried about our poor international standing on tests, we might better worry about the fact that we rank nearly last in measures of childcare. These data lead me to be somewhat suspicious about our will to upgrade educational outcomes.

In the classroom I felt a tension between wanting to believe that really good teaching could counteract the effects of poverty and knowing deep down that long-standing inequities would continue to impact my students no matter what I did.  Is it enough to be an excellent teacher...or do teachers need to also find a role as activists for social justice?

Labels: Conversations

Harmless?

In early March, I went to a performance of Harmless, a new play by local playwright Brett Neveu.  In the play, three characters - a professor, college president, and army psychologist - square off over the fate of a student who has written some extremely violent material in his creative writing class.  The student, an Iraq war vet, is never seen.

As the three authority figures discuss the student’s fate, they struggle to define their positions, to determine what the real issue is.  Is the real issue the creative writing professor’s directive to his students to push the boundaries of their writing?  Is the real issue the student’s possible post-traumatic stress disorder?  Is the real issue the intersection of authority between the school and the military/medical establishment?

In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, I think we’ve all been thinking about the issues in Harmless, especially the role of teachers when it comes to students who produce disturbing or violent material in class.  As pre-K-12 teachers, our relationship with students - and their parents - is different than for college professors.  So, I’ve been thinking a lot about Allen Lee.

Lee, a senior at an Illinois high school, wrote an essay - more of a free association ramble - for his creative writing class a few weeks ago.  In it, he described violent acts and denigrated his writing teacher.  The teacher took the essay to her administration who reported it to the police.  Lee was arrested on disorderly conduct charges, expelled temporarily from school, and discharged by the Marines. (Read more about Lee in the Sun Times or Tribune).

Over the last week, Lee (or, perhaps, Lee’s lawyer) has done a fairly good job of reframing himself as a misguided kid who let his attitude get out of hand.  I read the essay and honestly, to me, what stands out more than the violence is his contempt for his teacher. Every time I think about it, I wonder how I would have responded to this essay if I had been in her shoes.

Sometimes as teachers we push students to open up their interior lives for us.  I’m not sure we prepare ourselves adequately to respond to what we find there.

Labels: Conversations

School funding reform update

Governor Blagojevich’s controversial proposed business tax increase is heating things up in Springfield this week.  House Speaker Michael Madigan is planning a special hearing on the issues, and both Democrats and Republicans are starting to denounce it.  (Tribune coverage, Sun Times coverage)

The Gross Receipts Tax (GRT) increase was proposed as a solution to Illinois’ school funding crisis.  (For more background on the funding crisis and the GRT, this TEN blog post links to a whole series of Tribune editorials that outline the situation.)

A fascinating twist on the action in the last few days: according to the Tribune,

While rally organizers said they talked to Blagojevich and several legislators about addressing the crowd, plans to invite any politicians were scrapped when it became clear that not all education groups supported the governor’s tax plan, said Jim Reed, a lobbyist for the Illinois Education Association.

None of the rally’s speakers spoke in favor of the governor’s tax plan. Instead, they simply asked lawmakers to step up and solve a school “funding crisis.”

Whether or not they came out in favor of the GRT increase, the failure of the education community to rally around something--anything--specific, seems like a missed opportunity, doesn’t it?

(photo from the Tribune: King College Prep students rally in Springfield)

UPDATE 5/31/07: A new poll shows a majority of Illinois residents would support a “tax swap,” where income and sales taxes are increased to provide more money for schools, while property taxes are decreased slightly.  The governor, having pledged not to raise taxes, opposes the tax swap plan.

Labels: Conversations

Who wants to be a principal?

At the end of this year, over 100 principals will retire from Chicago Public Schools.  According to the Chicago Sun Times, the exodus of principals from CPS in the last year--the result of retiring baby boomers combined with the expiration of “a pension sweetener"--will mean that “about half of the system’s roughly 600 principals soon will be relatively new to their jobs, with no more than three years experience.”

The wave of principal retirements is not limited to Chicago. According to the National Association of Elementary School Principals, “More and more principals have been nearing retirement eligibility for at least the past 12 years; fewer and fewer individuals are attracted to filling these demanding positions.”

Why the shortage? According to e-Lead, an online resource center for principals, to some extent the candidates are there...they just don’t want the job:

One of the primary factors that appears to be contributing to the dearth of applicants is the relatively low salaries vis-a-vis the increased number of work hours...[C]andidates are frequently unwilling to accept the increase in responsibility for such a nominal sum of money. Others do not relish the principal’s role as a “jack of all trades, master of none.” Many perceive the role of principal to be unrewarding in that it may leave little time for interaction with students and participation in the act of learning, as the principal can become overwhelmed with disciplinary and managerial issues. It is important to note, however, that some people feel that the apparent shortage of candidates is misleading in that it implies that there are not qualified candidates out there. In reality, say some, there are plenty of qualified candidates, but few who are motivated to apply or few who are “ready” to succeed in the job.

So, how about you?  Would you ever consider making the jump from teacher to principal?

Labels: Conversations

“Where is our voice?”

Practical Theory, an education blog I particularly enjoy, written by the principal of a new school in Philadelphia, pointed me to a fascinating opinion piece in EdWeek.

In the piece, Jane Owen, a former teacher (now a professor of education), deals with an issue that is very close to the heart of why TEN was created:

As educators, we have been a sleeping giant for too long. Our numbers are in the millions, and yet we meekly stand by as politicians mock the value of education, the contribution of educators, and the ultimate worth of children. We have been pressured by accountability until we have violated our own integrity and the integrity of our profession by hurting children.

Where is our voice? It is time for the sleeping giant to stir, awaken with a roar, and take back our profession, our integrity, and the education of our children. It is time we quit being obedient sheep following the leader, and it is time we pledged our resources, our intellect, and our hearts to a battle that has the potential to be the crowning accomplishment, the capstone, of our careers…

Who is better equipped than we to redefine and renew public education? Who else possesses the determination and educational vision, albeit left sleeping too long, that can now be awakened, honed to a sharp edge, and applied decisively? Who else has the knowledge, the training, and the love to make education something exciting and beautiful again?

If teachers want to join the public discourse on education, we need to start defining our terms and shy away from vagueness.  Owens’ piece itself is nothing earth-shattering.  It’s a start.  Are we ready to take the next step?

Labels: Conversations

Charter School News

By law, Illinois has limited itself to 30 charter schools in Chicago, 15 in the suburbs, and 15 downstate.  In the last few years, a few of the larger charter operators such as Chicago International Charter Schools (CICS) have exploited a loophole in the law that allowed multiple campuses to exist under the same charter.

Last week, the Illinois House defeated a bill that would have closed the loophole, making multiple campuses a thing of the past.

The Trib came out firmly against the bill, taking its originator, State Rep Monique Davis (D-Chicago) to task for her opposition to charters.

“Instead of opening charter schools, we need to go in there and see what the hell is going on in our schools,” she said.

How about both, Ms. Davis? Without the success of charter schools, most parents stuck in perpetually failing neighborhood schools might not know better alternatives exist for their kids.

According to the editorial, “the real reason this stinker of a bill made it out of a House committee: Charter teachers don’t have to be union members, which drives the teachers unions bonkers.”

In a move tailor-made for “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” jokes, the Chicago Teachers Union (along with its national AFT affiliate) announced this week its plans to unionize charter school teachers.

I’m sure we have both charter school teachers and union members in the ranks of TEN readers (as well as lots of teachers who can’t figure out what all the fuss is about). From your perspective: should we limit the number of charter schools or lift the cap?  Should charter school teachers be unionized, or is the current individualized contract system working fine?

Labels: Conversations

MA?  BA?  Are degrees really necessary for teachers?

Two interesting research studies were being discussed on various education analysis sites this week.  Both studies dealt with whether it makes sense to require/reward degrees for teachers.

In 21 states, BA degrees are now required for teachers in state Pre-K programs.  In every state, K-12 teachers with MAs are rewarded with higher pay scales and sometimes have an easier track through recertification.

But do they work?

Yet if there’s one thing that all the research studies out there agree on, it’s that there is no relationship between having a Master’s degree and classroom effectivenes. In fact, the latest large-scale study on the issue found--incredibly--that teachers who go back to get a Master’s degree after starting teaching are actually less effective than those who don’t…
-- The Quick and the ED

Yet Diane M. Early, a researcher at UNC-Chapel Hill--and one of 19 authors of the new paper in Child Development--said there is “no clear pattern” showing a relationship between a four-year degree and positive academic outcomes for children.
--EdWeek

A degree is only as valuable as its associated program. Should salary increases be tied to Master’s degrees that don’t have a proven impact on teacher performance?  Should pre-K teachers be required to get a Bachelor’s degree? And if we do think degrees should be part of teacher prep, how can we make them more worthwhile?

Leave comments below.

Labels: Conversations

Teacher retention

The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) published a study in 2003 entitled No Dream Denied: a Pledge to America’s Children [PDF].  In the summary report, NCTAF framed the issue this way:

The number of teachers entering the schools increased steadily during the 1990s. The problem is that teacher attrition was increasing even faster. It is as if we were pouring teachers into a bucket with a fist-sized hole in the bottom…

An analysis of the most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics found that approximately a third of America’s new teachers leave teaching sometime during their first three years of teaching; almost half may leave during the first five years…

Not surprisingly, turnover is highest in low-income urban schools.  The turnover rate for teachers in high poverty schools is almost a third higher than the rate for all teachers in all schools…

This is old news.  We’ve heard these statistics before.  But the report had an interesting addition to the last part, about turnover in low-income schools:

Teachers who initially benefit from staff-development investments in low-performing schools often end up leaving the profession or moving on to more “desirable” teaching positions in affluent communities, contributing to the talent drain in our most troubled schools…

Schools serving the students with the highest needs are left to constantly restock their staff with brand new teachers who must be trained and mentored, who then leave the system or the profession within five years.

Statistics don’t tell the whole story, though.  There are schools out there who are beating the odds and retaining their teachers.  There are plenty of teachers who are out there every day making up the half that DO stay in teaching, that DO stay at high-need schools.

I recently sat down with Temp Keller, the founder of a fascinating program that tries to match these groups up.  RISE (Resources for Indispensable Schools and Educators) identifies job seekers with 2-5 years teaching experience who are in danger of leaving the profession (or of staying in teaching, but moving to a wealthy district) and matches them with schools in low-income areas that value effective teachers.

It seems to be working.  After seven years, 71% of RISE teachers are still teaching in low-income schools, where statistics show that nationally up to 70% of teachers in low-income schools are gone within five years.

Apply to become a RISE Teacher or a RISE School on their website.

Labels: Conversations, Resources

How were the ISATs?

How was testing for you this year?
Did the fact that this year’s test results came out right before the test impact you or your kids?
Did you do anything this year during test season that you’re really proud of?
How did you avoid “teaching to the test”...or did you?

Comment below!

Labels: Conversations

Selective Schools

The March 19 issue of Crain’s brings up an issue that is certainly not specific to Chicago: the competition for slots in magnet/selective high schools.

For parents who have been committed to public schools since their child started first grade, the thought of private-school kids clinching coveted spots in selective-enrollment high schools is infuriating. Yet, private-school parents feel they have every right to go public: After all, they’ve been taxed to support the public schools while also paying expensive tuition.

For a number of interesting takes on this article, visit the always interesting District 299 blog and read the comments.

Much of the public debate over selective enrollment schools seems to be among parents and administrators.  Do teachers need a voice on this issue?

To generalize beyond the smaller issue of whether private school 8th graders should be taking slots in public selective high schools, I’m wondering if, as a teacher, the presence of selective enrollment schools in your district impacts your work. Have you consciously chosen to work in a selective school (or chosen NOT to work in one)?

Labels: Conversations

High Expectations

This year, Sherman School in Chicago began an experiment.  As part of CPS’s far-reaching Renaissance 2010 program, the school, a chronic low performer on the city’s south side, was completely reorganized under the management of the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL).  All the kids stayed, but every single one of the staff members left.  A new principal, a new administration, and a completely new staff opened the school year.

Chicago Public Radio has been following Sherman all year in short update reports on the morning show 848.  These are fascinating, and if you’ve got some spare space on the iPod, you should download them:

Chicago school gets a makeover - Sept. 2006
First day for the new Sherman - Sept. 2006
Sherman Students learning that staff means business - Dec. 2006

As ISAT testing comes to a close, WBEZ’s most recent visit dealt with more than just academic expectations. (At Sherman School, progress means more than test scores - March 2007).

The piece profiles Monty Apostolos, an 8th grade teacher at Sherman, who tries to combine academic instruction with careful attention to her students’ emotional development:

[from the transcript]
Because she believes the social is so tied to academic performance, Apostolos weaves life lessons with academics in unexpected ways. The week before the ISAT, Apostolos noticed something brewing amongst the girls. ...Apostolos took 35 valuable minutes away from teaching to talk first with her girls, then her boys, about how to handle the girl who was instigating chaos. But she talked about it in terms of cause and effect and point of view.- standards concepts her students will need to understand on the ISAT.

What does it really mean to have high expectations? What do they look like?  I think the issue of balancing academic and socioemotional instruction is a huge part of this.  When you talk about having high expectations for your students, is it purely an academic concept?  If not, how are you making sure that academics aren’t put on the back-burner in favor of more “touchy-feely” topics?

Labels: Conversations, Resources

Charters: the New Orleans Experiment

I went to a fascinating talk today (part of the Chicago Schools Policy Luncheon series) on how New Orleans is rebuilding its school system.  The system, which had 62,000 students before the disaster now has fewer than 30,000 (although they’re enrolled 100-200 new students weekly!) The population of the schools is 98% African American and extremely high poverty.

Faced with the near-total destruction of its school infrastructure New Orleans has had to innovate.  Close to 60% of New Orleans students currently attend a charter school, the highest percentage in the nation.  There is no central office and no widespread collective bargaining agreement.  Instead, there is citywide school choice, with schools competing for employees.  Funding from the state and local government goes almost entirely directly to the schools on a per-pupil (not per-teacher) basis, so money follows the students and can be spent directly on them.

The system faces enormous challenges: while students are returning in droves, the service professionals they need - teachers, social workers, etc. - are not; the physical buildings are still being renovated.

Nevertheless, one of the speakers, Leslie Jacobs, a member of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, outlined a few lessons that she thinks are relevant to other school systems, including Chicago.  She suggested thinking about how to increase funding equity at a smaller level than the state - to think about how funding inequity impacts schools in the same district, who are competing for per-teacher funds. She outlined what they think of as “true choice:” transportation, many options, and parent education.  She also discussed the ways they have radically restructured the idea of “central office,” with less bureaucracy, more money directly to schools, and a streamlined sense of purpose.

There were many audience members representing different unions and they had lots of concerns about the fact that New Orleans schools are essentially all non-union.  The union has been one of the big voices in opposition to charter schools in recent years.

As a former charter school teacher myself, I’m intrigued by the debate over changing school systems and how new schools and new models for education can be both beneficial and harmful.

Labels: Conversations

Reading First

If you've been following education news online in the last two weeks, you've probably been seeing lots of references to Reading First, the federal government's attempt to influence reading instruction nationally:

Through Reading First, states and districts receive support to apply scientifically based reading research - and the proven instructional and assessment tools consistent with this research - to ensure that all children learn to read well by the end of third grade.

The proven instructional techniques the law refers to are specified: Phonemic awareness - the ability to hear, identify, and play with individual sounds - or phonemes - in spoken words. Phonics - the relationship between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. Fluency - the capacity to read text accurately and quickly. Vocabulary - the words students must know to communicate effectively. Comprehension - the ability to understand and gain meaning from what has been read. Since it was implemented, many districts have complained that the Reading First materials and trainings they received seemed to imply that only extremely regimented programs such as Direct Instruction and Open Court would be approved for Reading First. A Feb. 2007 report by the USDE Inspector General suggests that trainings were indeed biased, and that US Department of Education officials did not do enough to clarify that many possible programs were eligible for Reading First, not just those two. In fact, Reading First is, to some extent, optional. Districts can choose to forgo the RF funding in order to continue using a reading program they feel is better for their students. Last Friday, in an article in the New York Times, reporter Diana Schemo described Madison, WI's decision to forgo federal Reading First funding in order to continue using their district's reading program, which they felt was highly successful. According to Schemo:

Under[Madison's] system, the share of third graders reading at the top two levels, proficient and advanced, had risen to 82 percent by 2004, from 59 percent six years earlier, even as an influx of students in poverty, to 42 percent from 31 percent of Madison’s enrollment, could have driven down test scores. The share of Madison’s black students reading at the top levels had doubled to 64 percent in 2004 from 31 percent six years earlier.

But the real story in Madison, say a variety of education commentators, is much different. Ken DeRosa who writes about education at D-Ed Reckoning went through the Wisconsin and Madison scores and concludes that the district is "spinning its numbers" to show big test score increases that are easily explained away by changes in the Wisconsin state test and the pass cutoff point. He points to the NAEP scores, which have not shown any increases. What this story is really about, when you boil it down, is, of course, the age-old debate between proponents of reading programs based primarily on Whole Language and those who support reading programs with a much greater emphasis on phonics and skills instruction. You can get into all the analysis of Reading First by going to any of these sources: EdWeek D-Ed Reckoning This Week in Education Joanne Jacobs But, for my money, the most thoughtful commentary is coming from two of our most powerful education thought leaders, who have a new blog in which they exchange letters and ideas. To hear Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch think it through, go to Bridging Differences and scroll down to March 7, and then read up from there. TEN members, what has your experience been with Reading First?

Labels: Conversations

Talk about testing

Last year’s ISAT and PSAE scores are finally out--at least some of them--just in time for this year’s testing.  (Out-of-state TEN members: did this happen in your state, too?)

Illinois students made fairly large gains, especially in elementary school.  What caused this improvement?  The Tribune outlined the disagreement:

State and local educators attribute the improvement to smarter pupils and teachers’ laser-like focus on the state learning standards--the detailed list of what pupils should know at each grade level. They also say that the more child-friendly exams, which included color and better graphics, helped pupils.

But testing experts and critics suggest that the unprecedented growth is more likely the result of changes to the exams.

Most notably, the state dramatically lowered the passing bar on the 8th-grade math test. As a result--after hovering at about 50 percent for five years--the pass rate shot up to 78 percent last year.

Teachers: what do you think?  Does this ring true to you, or is it beside the point?  As you start this year’s ISAT testing, did last year’s results impact your teaching?

A few resources:
This year’s ISAT scores by county. [click HERE]
Alexander Russo links to the Trib and Sun Times coverage. [click HERE, or just go to his site and browse]

Labels: Conversations

Teaching through tragedy

The Golden Apple family has been reeling from the tragic death of Tanisha Thurmond, a high school math teacher at Julian HS in Chicago, who was murdered last week.

Tanisha was a Golden Apple Scholar, a Golden Apple award nominee and a dedicated educator.  She will be deeply missed.

This experience has made me think a lot about the ways that teachers process these types of tragedies both in the classroom and personally. In other words, how do we help our students with an emotion like grief while we’re struggling with it ourselves? (Other issues evoke the same tension. How did we help kids process their fears after 9/11 when we were ourselves frightened?)

We struggle as educators to find a balance between hiding our emotions completely, and pouring them out on our students in a way that makes them feel unsafe.

Where do you find that balance? How did you learn how to support your students through tough emotional places? 

Labels: Conversations

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