Search results matching tags 'education' and 'accountability'

Moving Past Shallow Accountability

Anonymous — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:30:00 GMT

accountable (əˈkaʊntəb ^əl)

-adj.

1.	responsible to someone or for some action; answerable
2.	able to be explained

Since the early 1990's (perhaps before, but I wasn't particularly concerned before then) both state and federal politicians have been calling for measures to "hold teachers more accountable." Most of their ideas have lacked creativity and instead of searching for true measures of accountability, have searched for efficient and scaleable ways to sort the good from the bad. Instead of rich, multi-dimensional measures of accountability, we get mechanized testing.

Students corralled into auditoriums, gymnasiums, any available classroom in front of computer screens for several hours a day over a two to three week period taking mostly multiple choice tests. Schools and teachers are then judged on the results. Schools must go through great efforts to make sure that every child sits for a test. If they don't for any reason, it counts against the school. Testing coordinators must track down transfer students who've moved from out of state or who've failed tests in other Virginia districts to take the tests. If they do poorly, the school is accountable even if they haven't provided the instruction. Students only need to pass a set number of tests to graduate. If they've met this requirement, they still must take the additional tests. Their performance doesn't affect them, but again, it will count for the school.

Schools have had informal methods of accountability for decades. Whenever I give a grade to a student, or make a decision about their instruction I am accountable to a student, parents, and administrators at all levels. From A-F, my class policies are clearly defined and in print year after year. From time to time, a student or parent will ask for an explanation while a term is in progress or after a grade is received. I am answerable to them, and on more than one occasion in my career, that answer has not been acceptable.

Then it moves up a level. Those conversations are difficult and uncomfortable, but usually lead to growth. Sometimes a parent is left dissatisfied and angry. Sometimes the teacher is left unsupported and frustrated at having to make a change. Usually a compromise is reached, both sides having a chance to dialogue with each other, and future actions informed by the outcome.

Teachers live with accountability.

I can understand that what I described above doesn't always work so well. Some parents are not empowered to advocate so well for their child and some schools are not so inclined to responsiveness. But accountability should belong to the very individuals most influenced and invested in a given action. We're moving in the direction of making teachers accountable to the influence of corporate standard setters, test makers, and data gatherers.

We can create a better system of accountability. It's not as easy as giving a test and applying a score, but the informal systems of accountability like what is outlined above could become more formal through policy. It would also place accountability into the hands of the ones who deserve it the most.

When the System Strikes, Refute.

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 06:12:49 GMT

I’m stuck tonight unable to sleep. It seems dumb, but I cannot stop thinking about those HB555 changes. I’ve got this image in my head of what the end of the 2014-2015 school year will look like in Ohio, and it’s a little something like this:

We’re a year into holding kids back in third grade for the Third Grade Reading Guarantee. Elementary schools across the state are scrambling to find highly qualified reading teachers; principals are struggling to figure out the scheduling issues that go along with promoting students in some areas while retaining them in reading; teachers are still trying to figure out how to create effective RIMPs (once they’ve finally figured out what the *** that abbreviation stands for–”Reading Improvement and Monitoring Plan,” if you’re curious) and implement them and monitor them; we’re a year into the new tests, which extend all the way down to this already-clustered third grade level and the data from those tests are skewing (?), replacing (?), calling into question (?) the data from whatever diagnostic tests the school has been using for two years of 3GRG implementation.
We’re one year in to the new assessments. At the elementary levels, we’ve got teachers trying to teach advanced technology to kids because there hasn’t been enough guidance from testing companies in the previous two years to show teachers what technology skills the little ones should be developing. It isn’t until that first fall diagnostic assessment when the student sits down and pushes the “on” button that teachers across the state realize they should’ve been teaching advanced computer programming to 7-year-olds since 2012 at least. At the secondary levels, teachers have had a couple years to practice with the new standards, but haven’t had adequate time to make sure they are meeting rigorousness of the tests–they’re administering tests (whatever “administering” looks like in two years) and crossing their fingers that either the student scores high enough on the end of course test (given that end of course tests will account for some percentage of the course grade) or scored high enough on the rest of the coursework to manage to pass the class.
Everyone, K-12, statewide and beyond, is waiting to see this epic academic cliff. Some…are waiting to say, “I told you so! Our schools are awful!!!” Some…are waiting to say, “If we had adequate funding this wouldn’t have happened.” Some…are waiting to say, “It’s these standards, they’re terrible.” Some…are waiting to blame. Some…are going to use it as an opportunity to retire. Some (I’d say the minimal few)…are just waiting to see where to start picking up the pieces and moving forward. No matter the camp, everyone is anxious.
Evaluations (well, 50% of everyone’s evaluations statewide) are plummeting in response to the epic academic cliff. Why? Because HB555 set it up that way. Why not? Given this incredible storm of chaos, it’s the perfect time to base 50% of an educator’s evaluation on new, unknown, inadequately-planned-for tests….especially if you want to be able to say I told you so…or Our schools are awful.
Resident Educators, in only their 4th years of teaching if they started in year one of the program, fall right into this wonderful trap. Their scores on these new tests are low, they’re submitting giant assessment projects in the midst of the storm while their evaluations are affected by these tests. Again, what better time than this to say that our teacher preparation programs are creating poor teachers? What better time than an epic academic cliff, new evaluations, and a sizeable retained 3rd grade student population to say our teachers aren’t prepared? In droves….I see new teachers leaving in droves….unwilling/able to cope with this unbelievable anxiety caused by their true inherent desire to fulfill a calling and a system dumping more and more on them until they can’t swim out.

It’s bleak. I look forward and I don’t just see a “perfect storm”; I see one of those “hunker down all winter and stockpile the pantry with canned goods” kinds of storms that take a long time to thaw.

I’m not becoming negative or pessimistic. That’s not what I do. I see things for what they are, and I try my best to find ways to prepare–if you’re telling me there’s an ice storm coming, I’m buying salt for the driveway; if you’re warning me I’m going to be miserable stuck indoors, I’m jazzing up my queue on Netflix. I’m prepared.

So when the system strikes, when we can foresee what may come as a result of what is happening, it may not do us any good to scream and yell, but it will do us wonders to pull ourselves together in an effort to refute, rebut, and contradict what the system says. Here are the ideas I’m tossing around…

I go back to that clear communication post I posted recently. Communicate. Clearly. Frequently. Through many channels. Keep the message positive and simplistic: ”Changes are coming. We are preparing. Understand what the data means.”
Make sure the screeners, diagnostics, progress monitoring tools, etc. your district is using are research-based, quality tools. Whether or not legislation is going to allow us to include this data on any formal level doesn’t matter–we have data that shows children are learning REGARDLESS of what the unknown new tests say. Make sure that data is good, reliable, and valid. Let those numbers speak in your district as strongly as these state- and national-level numbers do.
Use the “Uniform Standards for Remediation-Free Status” report produced by the Ohio Board of Regents last week to your advantage. Start gathering your ACT and SAT scores from the last several years and compare them to the remediation-free ACT and SAT scores on this report. When the new tests say students are below proficient, produce your storehouse of data showing what percentage of students over several years meet these remediation-free numbers. Trust the data that has stood over time, and publicize that information alongside your new test scores.
Work with the willing. Focus on those who are on board.
Create a list of district-wide best teaching practices, preferably brainstormed, compiled, internalized by teachers, and communicate these outward. What is good teaching? What does it look like? Don’t focus on the buzzwords–we can all list differentiation, scaffolding, KWL charts, etc–focus on what it really looks like. How does a parent or community member know when they walk into a classroom if good teaching is happening? Then post these practices everywhere–posters in the school buildings, posters in offices, send a letter to the local paper, beg/plead for articles to be written about awesome teaching.
Recognize the accomplishments of the teaching staff and students on a constant basis. Perception in 2014-2015 is key, the perception will be that our schools are failing, so take that perception head-on and stop it before it can begin. Make sure the board, community, parents, and business leaders know just how successful and talented your staff and students are.

There is still time. We cannot accomplish everything that needs to be done academically before 14-15, but we can begin to counter whatever negative images will result from uncontrollable factors of legislation and assessments that year.

We are in a state of asking our teachers for evidence (OTES/OPES), How do you know students are learning? we ask them, and we want to see proof–work samples, observation notes, effective feedback. In two years, people state- and nationwide are going to ask us, How do you know students are learning? and we can either respond with uncontrollably abysmal test scores from new assessments that don’t adequately represent us because of their newness, or we can respond with a multitude of data from several years that prove what we know to be true.

HB555 and What It Means for Ohio’s Schools

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:20:32 GMT

It wasn’t that long ago when I followed the report card legislation from first mention, through the “Yes, it’s happening/No, it’s not” debates, to the 11th hour NCLB waiver application, and finally to the May 30, 2012, NCLB waiver approval.

In May we were left knowing that the NCLB waiver application submitted by the state of Ohio included provisions for revising the current report card system for Ohio’s schools. In March, I posted the information available at that time about the potential new system:

Ohio’s No Child Left Behind Waiver Proposal

Ohio was one of the states to request a waiver from the regulations of NCLB. Unfortunately, I cannot find last night’s slides about this on ODE’s website, but I did find it with OEA.

Ohio proposed 5 elements: 1) Replacing that undoable AYP expectation that Ohio will reach 100% proficiency by 2014, 2) Reform SES, specifically Title I funding, 3) Targeted assistance for low-performing schools, 4) Cutting red tape, and 5) Institute a new letter report grading system. Let’s go through these one at a time.

1. Replacing AYP: Proposed the new goals of implementing CCSS (done), and cut achievement gap by half over six years.

2. Reform SES funding in Title I: Aim to give schools more control over selecting intervention services. Instead of allowing parents to dictate providers of services, services must have a proven track record, and schools would have final say.

3. Target Assistance: New designations of “Priority” (lowest 5% of schools), and “focus” (at least 10% of schools with larget subgroup achievement gap and graduation gap and not making progress)

4. Cutting Red Tape: Attempt to combine some of the reports required by districts (TIFF, SIG, CCIP), but Sawyer said the federal government did not sound on board with this proposal.

5. Completely Overhaul the current district/school rating system in Ohio……which is going to require it’s own section header:

NCLB Waiver Proposal (Continued): #5–Overhaul Ohio’s Ranking System (Pending legislation)

For the most updated information about the new report cards, be sure to read my other post in which I follow the legislation.

Current rating system is excellent with distinction, excellent, effective, continuous improvement, academic watch, academic emergency.

SB316 would modify state level report cards to reflect grade level ratings, and if it passes, the new report cards would begin this fall based on data from this school year.

Schools/Districts would receive a letter grade in four areas: Student performance (aka “Performance Index”), Student progress (aka “Value-Added”), School/District Performance (Percent of indicators met), and Gap Closing.

1. Student Performance

What you’re seeing: The Student Performance rating is Ohio’s old “Performance Index,” which was based on a percentage score out of 120 indicators. Under the new rating, a district gets an A if they meet 90% of the indicators, B if they meet 80%, C = 70%, D = 60%, and F = 59% and below. Also note the bottom line in the boxed area that will denote your building/district’s rank out of Ohio’s public schools.

2. Student Performance:

What you’re seeing: This rating is based on the school’s/district’s previous 2 years of data. If a school exceeds expectations for 2 years, it receives an A; if it exceeds 1 year and meets 1 year, it gets a B; if it meets both years, it gets a C; if it meets 1 year and fails another, it gets a D; and if it fails both years, it gets and F.

3. District Performance:

What you’re seeing: This grade is based on the % Ohio meets out of 26 indicators (previous “Percent of Indicators Met” on Ohio’s current reports). 90% = A, 80% = B, 70% = C, 60% = D, and 59% and below = F

4. District Performance Gap

What you’re seeing: The district performance gap will replace AYP. It is based on 6 years of data. Schools/Districts receive a grade (A, B, C, D, or F) based on how well (%) they met specific % growth in the areas of Reading/LA, Math, and graduation rates. If the school does not have a graduation rate (ex. a middle school), the performance gap will only include the LA and Math scores. The overall performance gap letter grade will be an average of the letters in each of the 3 (or 2, as applicable) areas. An A = 4 points, B = 3, C= 2, D = 1, and F= 0. Add and divide by three to get the letter for this area.

To get the school’s/district’s OVERALL LETTER GRADE, add up the letter point values from each of the four areas (A = 4, B = 3, C = 2, D = 1, and F = 0) and divide by 4.

Under these new guidelines, out of the 291 current “excellent” districts and 91 current “excellent with distinction” districts, only 22 will receive an A using simulated data from 2011:

Sorry for the bad iPhone pic (and my writing), but I thought it was important enough to post, and I can’t find it online. For another perspective on the new grading system, see think tank Shanker Institute’s analysis.

For more on the new school rating system and better graphic representations, see here.

For info on how these new ratings might affect charter schools, see this State Impact Ohio post from 4/5

When I read yesterday’s Dispatch article about the proposed HB555, it seems to me like most of the currently proposed provisions resemble those of last March. Specifically, we are looking at an A-F system that would replace current designations, raise benchmarks, show a drop of 35% or more in marks, and it would factor in standardized test scores, evaluations of grade-level reading abilities in elementary school, college and career preparedness in high school (remember that new 10th grade College and Career Readiness assessment Michael Sawyers mentioned at the OH Statewide Education Conference a couple weeks ago?), and the percentage of kids in AP and dual-enrollment classes.

My Thoughts on How NOT To Stress Out About An Already Too-Stressful Educational Climate in Ohio

I guess I’m talking more to myself here than anything because I, too, am stressed about how much is coming at teachers in Ohio. There is very little in public education that is untouched by the hands of reform right now. And yes, if we jump on every bandwagon that comes at us, we’ll be reforming ourselves (and our teachers) into total resistance. Right now, we cannot do anything to affect the outcome of the new report card system. When it comes down to it, those in charge will make the numbers on those report cards reflect what they want them to reflect, which may not be a reflection AT ALL of what we are working so hard to do inside our schools as we transition to new standards and work on shifting our paradigms. I would put these report cards on the back burner: we cannot prepare for them, we cannot affect them, we cannot change them.

What we can do, instead, and what is a much better use of our time is communicating clear and consistent messages to our communities. I advise focusing on three messages:

Changes are coming to our schools. Some good, some not as good. But our schools and teachers are rising to the challenge. Even if the data is a bit shaky at first, we will quickly meet new expectations.
Our teachers are continuing to provide excellent educational opportunities to students even as they undergo intense professional growth themselves and make adjustments to their classrooms. Shaky data does not represent bad teaching or bad teachers; it’s a result of adjusting to a new system. (Maybe put this in relevant terms, “Imagine if your workplace switched from biweekly paychecks to monthly paychecks and you got paid once a month on the last day of the month. You can prepare as much as you want in advance, but making that shift is going to be a challenge until you get adjusted and used to it.”)
Education is changing. What you experienced in school is not the same as what your kids need to experience. We’re working to prepare them for a different kind of future–one that didn’t exist before the technology craze of the 21st Century.

To me, these clear and consistent messages are what we need to be sharing with our communities because they somehow encompass everything that is happening. These messages provide proactive preparedness so when the data and misinterpretations of that data in 2014-2015 (with new assessments, teacher evaluations, new reporting systems, etc.) try to present one message about public education in Ohio, our communities are informed enough to be critical of that information. We can prepare for the unprepareables (like the report cards) by getting people informed.

Edit: If you’re a superintendent, you should be on Twitter. Twitter can be a POWERFUL tool for communicating positive messages about your district. Need an model? Try following @DrJoeClark, superintendent of Nordonia Schools. I have never been to Nordonia, couldn’t even point it out on a map of Ohio (though I’ve seen their buses in our district for sports, so I assume they’re close!), but from just his consistently positive messages about what going on around his district, in classrooms, at board meetings, I feel good about Nordonia Schools. Start making your communities feel good about your districts

Doing Versus Thinking

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 19:09:00 GMT

Which is the more noble task? Generating the idea or carrying it out? Action without thought is ineffective, but thought without action is useless. The dichotomy reminds me of James' warning in the Christian Bible's New Testament. He reminded early Christians that "faith without works is dead." For two millennia, Christians have debated the role of faith and works, but most would agree, they are not mutually exclusive expressions.

Likewise, ideas and execution-- thinking and doing-- cannot exist in isolation. As teachers, we plan, we do, and after it's over, we think some more and evaluate so that next time we can do it better. At least that's how it should work.

I'll admit, there are times when I don't see that I have time to think. I simply "do." I taught U.S. Government the first six years of my career. It was my only consistent prep, so every year I had to prepare for a new class in addition to teaching Government. I didn't have time to plan or think about what to teach so I relied on the previous year's material. After six years, even I was tired of what I had to teach. I started throwing away materials after I used them just to prevent myself from going back to them the next year. But too often as a teacher we get so caught in the busyness of everything that needs to be done that thinking becomes a luxury that our time can't afford.

In regards to education, some people spend more time thinking than doing. Educational structures facilitate this. A recent article noted that with the exception of Administration, there is little room for vertical movement of teachers. Making the choice to move upward in the world of education usually removes one from the classroom. Many capable teachers do not seek higher level positions because of this, but do we really want to encourage good teachers out of the classroom anyway?

Administrators, guidance counselors, tech support, etc., all have their jobs to do; "Thinkers" don't include everyone that serves our schools outside of the classroom. But from created positions in individual schools all the way up to our Secretary of Education, too many education professionals spend their day "thinking" without very much "doing."

How do we bridge this divide of "doers" who don't think enough and "thinkers" who don't do enough?

Thinking takes time. We put quite a bit of thought and time into the Teaching Underground. Still, we fail to match the depth of content or frequency of posting that so many others manage to handle. The frequency and quality of the Underground is a product of how much "real" work we have to manage as teachers. I'm sure most bloggers feel this stretch. I've often thought "why do I do this, there is not enough time in the day and what do I really accomplish in the end? I'm simply thinking about my profession and sharing those ideas with others."

My answer: because thinking is just as important as doing and I refuse to give up the power of ideas to drive the efforts of my work toward meaningful ends.

To the doers: Take a break. Think about what you're doing, why you're doing it, and what you'd like to do next. Learn about what's happening around you and figure out your appropriate place within the context you live and work. If you have to leave somethings "undone" to protect your time and energy for thought, do it. If you're too busy to stop and think, you're too busy. You're going to harm someone if you keep going.

To the thinkers: Get your hands dirty. Not a casual drop in or guest appearance in the classroom. Find a regular consistent way to directly impact a teacher, student or group of students. Don't overburden the "doers" with good ideas that you can't test out yourself. Remember that ideas don't have a life of their own, don't treasure them so much that when the doers tell you the ideas aren't working that you don't believe them. If you don't remember what it's like to miss your lunch or postpone a much needed bathroom break because you're occupied with students, you're not connected with the place where your ideas are carried out. If that's the case, stop thinking so much and do something. You're going to harm someone if you keep going.

To everyone who can make a difference: Give teachers the power to think and trust them to make good decisions. Provide the space and time for their experience and practice to gel into sound theory and plans for moving forward. Don't make decisions in isolation, but build systems that give teachers the ability to engage in deliberate thought about policy and practice. Don't provide opportunities to attend after-school forums, complete surveys, or serve on another committee and consider it teacher leadership. Consider placing certain decision-makers in the classroom more often, and give certain teachers a break from full teaching schedules in exchange for leadership roles.

Effective education requires a proper mix of thinking and doing from everyone, not a cadre of thinkers to direct the activity of the doers. This is education after all, not a beehive.

In Support of Standards-Based Reform

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:10:47 GMT

Sometimes I wonder what the word “reform” even means in the world of education today. When I scroll through my Twitter feeds and Google reader, I see far leaning left reformists who want a total overhaul to schools as we know them. They idealize schools without borders, totally individualized and student-driven learning paths, no standardized testing. At the same time, I see far leaning right reformists who support choice and charter schools, vouchers and accountability. Everybody critiques something about the state of schools as they currently are, but nobody can agree about what to do. Even the word “reform” has become almost cliche in a field where we are “reforming” ourselves to death from a million different angles and in a million different ways. The only constant in education is change.

I often hear teachers say they are tired of fads and trends and that elements of education come and go in cycles and waves. These are the teachers who don’t jump on board when policies change because they know reform; they’ve taught through many of the cycles, and they know by the time we adjust to this most recent reform movement, the next one will be on the way.

But to me, there are tiny shifts of true reform that seem to persist through all the ups and downs of change. These are small changes that make little ripples when they first come about and become great waves of change over time. While most “reforming” is really guessing in the dark and hoping to find something that sticks, these shifts are strong, educated guesses that force us to shift our entire approach to education and how we see ourselves and our students.

I think of tiny shifts over time that slowly but surely chipped away the boundaries of having students with disabilities mainstreamed into our typical classrooms. That didn’t happen overnight; it trickled through reform movements, withstanding the test of time until it became our new educational paradigm, until we recognized the equity and equality involved in educating all of our children to their maximum potential.

I think of tiny shifts that brought about desegregation. Again, small changes, small shifts over time until we recognized that students of all backgrounds were entitled to the same quality of education.

I think of how curriculum has changed over time to meet our societal needs. Our current curriculum stems from its foundations in religious instruction; over time we have recognized there is more to being an educated American than simply reading the Bible.

Our understanding of students as learners has changed significantly over time. How we engage our children and work with them to raise their individual achievements is very different than our educational predecessors who believed in rote memorization (over and over and over), recitation (over and over and over), and raps on the knuckles to establish obedience.

These are small changes over time. Little shifts that stuck and brought us to where we are today.

I like to think that all the “reforms” happening to us at least in the last few decades are leading us to some even greater shift, so I look for the tiny shifts of change that keep persisting and that have enough of an impact on equality and equity to actually shift our mindsets as we keep trudging forward. In my opinion, the standards movement is having that impact.

I recently read an Alfie Kohn article that was very critical of reform. In it, he lumped standards-based reform (what I would liken to actual instructional-level changes) and market-based reform (which I liken to a political tennis ball being used by both parties to manipulate our system) into one challenge to be overcome. He discusses the dismantling of the education system through standardized assessments, deprofessionalizing of teachers, standardized curricula that ignore individual student needs. I think his critiques are more than appropriate when applied specifically to market-based reform movements–Yes, making schools into mini businesses, setting up competition as a way to improve education, and using assessment data as a means of ranking and punishing will have that kind of impact. But I fail to see the sustainability of such reform movement because it doesn’t reach into actual instruction. Sure, some schools (out of desperation) purchase standardized curricula that guarantee improved standardized test results, but teachers who teach these curricula don’t internalize them; they don’t shift their mindsets and change their core beliefs in teaching and learning as a result. Market-based reforms, then, are superficial. They are transitory. They are the fads. They come from outsiders who want to impact instruction, but because they are outsiders they don’t have the same reach. They don’t ensure equality or equity; they don’t change the game the way desegregation did.

But to me, standards-based reforms do have this reach. We have been through two+ decades of standards, and every classroom has been affected by them. Teachers have had to dive in and do the leg work of figuring the standards out, making appropriate shifts in instruction, working harder to figure out each student’s strengths and weaknesses and keep them learning. Teaching changed as a result of our first round of standards, and it’s arguable whether these were for the better or worst. These were just our first couple rounds of work with standards–nobody could’ve expected to get it right the first few times. But they keep coming back, and each time they get better, stronger, more clarified, driving students (and subsequently, teaching and learning) deeper. Teachers cannot help but to shift their classroom instruction because new standards require new demands.

For true standards-based reformers, the standardized assessment doesn’t need to be punitive. It’s sole purpose should be formative/summative in nature, but not for passing judgment, comparing, or ranking schools. True standards-based reform focuses on the teacher-level analysis of data to inform instruction and drive learning forward. After all, the focus in this movement is each student’s individual learning path–with a progression of standards as the vehicle for learning, and standardized assessments as checkpoints along the way.

It is when market-based reformers put such a negative spin on standardized assessments that we all feel negatively about them. There’s a whole lot of value in a group of teachers collaborating and pouring over assessment data to analyze the needs of students, but there’s not a whole lot of instructional value in politicians using assessment data to pass judgments on entire systems (though, one may argue there is an entirely different kind of “value” involved in using data this way….).

I am very optimistic about standards-based reforms, and I’m also optimistic and positive about how standardized data can help teaching. I do not think what we’re experiencing now in terms of our standards and tests is the be-all, end-all, but I feel like we’re still moving forward. Standards give us equality and equity that penetrate our classrooms, change our thinking, and keep improving our instruction. Sometimes we just need to focus on the trees instead of the entire forest; I believe we should focus on these tiny shifts that pervade rather than those political shifts that don’t.

Numerically Speaking, Who is the Best? .

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 11:36:00 GMT

It is actually a stupid question. Most say it is Michael Jordan. But there are number of ways to determine the best basketball player of all time. For some it depends on which number you look at. Where a player ranks in terms of a particular statistical category is the usual measure. Scoring, rebounding, assists, simple wins and losses, game winning shots or even number of championship rings. Some move past this and direct focus on who could change a game or wanted the ball in their hands at the end of the game.

Kobe, James, Jordan, Russell, Chamberlain and many others enter the conversation at various points. Experts weigh whether it is even fair to judge players from different eras against each other. The game changed. For that matter whether it is even fair to compare players who play different positions as their roles are different. Guards, centers all perform different jobs. If a guard leads your team in rebounding, you've got issues.

Student and even teacher excuses can be more plentiful

Personally I've never really enjoyed the NBA and get a bit more into the NFL. With the advent of Fantasy Football these conversations have taken on a new dimension. Fantasy teams mean players are valued not for talent heart or value to the team but for how they stack up on the tally sheet.   Numbers can mislead you and as you stare at charts of player data. Participants in fantasy leagues neglect the big picture and only look at stats.   Yards, points per game, supersede all else in a data driven. They can make you think a player is good when they are not and vice versa. Like many the Underground has found enjoyment in this diversion. We have become especially fond of pointing out the ineptitude of other basement member's fantasy squads.    Fantasy sports have changed the way we watch the game and how we find enjoyment in sports. The argument is less about who is the best and who had the best fantasy day. Let's jump from athletics to education.

As you likely aware there are significant efforts to place a metric on the effectiveness of teachers. The "game" has changed.   Politicians and reforms are using the obvious impact of teachers have on student performance as a reason to try and rate them using data.   Unable to affect change with what studies say is the biggest factor, poverty ,they then go to teacher quality by default. Out of their mouths flow phrases like "every child deserves to have great teachers" and that turns into some bastardized form of accountability. The next step is to make some metric the measure of whether or not a teacher is effective.   Too often this is connected to some sort of test. Having a score or number then somehow legitimizes your ability as a teacher. It quantifies your impact. For me and the rest of Virginia's teachers, forty percent of my evaluation as a professional is taken from student growth. I am fortunate it is not directly tied to a statewide test score as this approach seems to be incentivized by Race to the Top Funds, yet. It is that way now. But I foresee the day when that is not something I will be able to say.

To date I have created my student goals and begun to plan on how to implement them but I am still not quite certain what or how I will use to show this growth without being too subjective. I am choosing one mesure of student growth related to our lifelong learner standards and their ability to write. But because I grade this work it is invariably subjective. Which leads us to the more objective method. Standardized tests. Sparing readers the indignity of why they are flawed as a true measure and far from ideal when it comes to telling whether or not someone can teach I'll just say they are as misleading as fantasy points.   In fantasy football a player's team can build a big lead and that could actually hurt their point total. Teachers are the most significant in-school piece to student learning and success but they are not the only piece and there is much out of school that plays a role. There's the motivational of students, desire to learn, attendance, class size, social incentives, socio-economic level, and school size all of which top a list that researchers constantly study and debate.

These guys have taught me a lot

Teachers matter. I know they matter a lot. But other things matter too. To attempt to objectively measure why one teacher might be better than another has the potential to prove as fruitful as an argument about who is the best NBA or NFL player. And conceivably more pointless. How much authentic learning goes unappreciated or is even replaced with narrow result oriented instruction? The end result of this effort and energy does little to help me improve as a teacher and frankly I feel less supported. Am I more inclined to narrow my approach to serve my goal(s)? I hope not. But the best way to measure me as a teacher is to be in the room with me while I teach. Not once, but a lot. Still improving teachers and learning by measures such as this is just that, a fantasy. Thus it does little to improve the quality of education for students. Maybe we should instead focus our attention on working to support all teachers and devote resources in their service, not to figuring out who is the "best".

RFP for Alternative Compensation Plans

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 23:07:08 GMT

ODE just released an RFP (“Request for Proposals”) from any local district (RttT and non-RttT) for alternative compensation plans.

Proposals are due November 1 and must include:

Each proposal shall include:

A detailed description of the LEA’s current compensation system

Evidence of the need for, interest in, and commitment to an alternative compensation system. Include annotations of research that have led to the decision to pursue this opportunity.

Identification of the design team who will be involved in creating the system.

An outline of the proposed alternative compensation system to be implemented during the 2013-2014 school year

The description of the alternative compensation system shall include:

Factors that exist in the LEA that need to be taken into consideration regarding the project

Key personnel who will be included in the alternative compensation system (e.g., teachers and principals)

A consideration of potential barriers to success

An implementation timeline

A budget/fiscal plan incorporating funding sources, both current and potential.

A communication plan (e.g., How will the changes be communicated to personnel, stakeholders, the community, etc.?)

An explanation and demonstration of the reformed compensation plan’s sustainability.

A detailed description of the rigorous formative and summative evaluations the LEA will use during the implementation of the proposed alternative compensation system.

If currently in TIF 3 or TIF 4 (Tier 4), documented evidence of how this proposed plan takes the next step in performance based compensation system beyond the scope of the TIF grant.

My thoughts….

I think we all know at this point that alternative compensation is on its way. Be it now or in the near future, I foresee mandated alternative compensation very soon.

This provides funds to figure out how to make it happen.

Participation in this also allows participating districts (teachers, administrators, etc.) to steer the direction of the eventual mandate.

As I have said many times before, we can either sit back and let things happen to us or be proactive leaders. There are pros and cons to alternative systems, and I think both merit at least some exploration.

Professional Learning Through Curriculum Development

Anonymous — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 02:44:04 GMT

My classroom teaching experience was spent in smaller districts. The first “district” was a small, private school in Chillicothe where I literally had 7 middle school students (grades 6-8) and maybe 10 high school students. I don’t know that there was a set curriculum other than I was given a couple of textbooks and told, “Good luck.” I had a tremendous amount of freedom, no guidance, and a lot of work to do on my own. Without any sort of curricular plan, I was just following along chapter after chapter through the texts–using the stories I liked and that I thought the kids would like and disregarding those I thought were boring or that the kids would think were boring. No direction. No progression of skills. Hum-drum instruction.

I chocked this lackadaisical approach to curriculum off to the fact that it was a private school. Clearly, since they were not tied to state standards and standardized assessments, they were removed from the idea of an organized plan of what to teach and when.

Then I started teaching in a small public school. Lo and behold, I had no curriculum guidance. What I thought was a private-school-only phenomena was suddenly in the public sector as well, but now I was in charge of 130 students while I aimlessly led them through the textbook with no attention to skill/learning progressions or instructional best practices. (After all, how could I formatively assess when I had no real clue what I was teaching.) We read stories (again, those self-selected for personal interests as well as my perceived interests of my students), we answered the questions as written and dictated by the textbook company, and we made it through the year. I’m still not sure what I actually taught them, but I learned that with blind faith to the publisher’s alignment to standards and without any real knowledge that things could be different, I could make it through the school year and pat myself on the back for a job well done in June.

It is now as a curriculum director that I have finally had the opportunity to see what a pacing guide looks like and what a course of study is, and I see real benefit to both but not in the documents themselves, but instead in the work that goes into creating the documents.

A pacing guide, for those who (like me) haven’t seen one, is a guide for which standards should be addressed at which points throughout the year. It serves as a guide whether you are the ONLY teacher at a particular grade or a part of a slew of grade level teachers in a district that are at multiple buildings. So, if you’re teaching 8th grade math at Building A, the way your content/learning unfolds throughout the year should match that of 8th grade math at Building B. Or, if you’re the only 9th grade ELA teacher in District C during 2012-2013, your content/learning should unfold at the same pace during 2013-2014. It’s also beneficial in that it provides a structure for formative assessment. If you know your first quarter of the school year is spent working on standards 1, 2, and 3, then you know you should focus your planned formative assessments on standards 1, 2, and 3–you are paying specific and careful attention to these standards because your pacing guide is providing you with that focus. How my first years of teaching would have been improved with a document such as this!

Creating a Pacing Guide

Having not seen one before, I’m coming into the creation completely untainted by previous practice. Because I don’t know “the box” of how these have worked in the past, I get to create my own “box” for writing them. Here’s what I envision…

To me, the pacing guides of our new standards (“Ohio’s New Learning Standards: K-12 ______(subj)_____” deconstructed learning targets committees of teachers create.
Writing a pacing guide, then, begins with groups of teachers at each grade level (divided by content, obviously) creating learning targets for their content. What is really cool about the ELA standards is that for the most part, they are devoid of specific content requirements. This means that learning targets created for a certain grade level reflect actual skills to be learned–these skills can be learned and applied regardless of the content. So, if you’re a 9th grader taking Science Fiction Literature, you can still learn the same skills as a 9th grader taking World Literature.
Once grade level teachers write their learning targets, some vertical work needs to happen. We need to make sure that the 9th grade Reading Literature targets for standard 3 (RL.9.3) build on those written by the 8th grade teachers. We also need to make sure the learning targets do not repeat. 9th grade teachers do not need to reteach concepts taught in earlier grades (Side bar–We really have to stop doing this. I always operated under the assumption that I had to start from scratch when teaching thesis statements because nobody in any grade before me knew how to teach thesis statements like I did. No. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. At some point we MUST hold students responsible for their learning and stop demeaning those professionals who are in line before us. Learning targets give us a clear framework for moving learning forward grade after grade–do not REDO the work of teachers before you.)
Work on skill development over the course of a grade. Here’s what I see for this…we have these templates of deconstructed standards and their corresponding learning targets. 1) Determine quarterly power standards that you want to really hone in on, 2) Organize the learning targets that are connected to those power standards into a logical progression keeping in mind that they can be paired, grouped, etc. Ultimately, when you plan your lessons, you know you are inherently teaching many learning targets (thereby, standards) at once, but because you have determined power standards/power learning targets (your focus), both you and your students know specifically what will be addressed in the lesson. Subsequently, your focused and target-based feedback will correspond with that single learning target (although, again, you know you are addressing many learning targets during the lesson as well–they just aren’t you major focus).
Plan for resources that correspond to those skills and put those into the pacing guide. Finding target-based resources in advance will only help with planning later.

Let’s think about all of that work for a minute…a committee of teachers (insert subject), carefully combing through each individual standard statement and collaborating to break it down into manageable pieces (learning targets) that make formative assessment more focused and feedback to students more effective, combined with a final document (pacing guide) that pre-plans and guides all teachers in ensuring skill development throughout the year…If that isn’t improving instruction by diving into curriculum work, I don’t know what is!

Go another step further with this work and begin creating common assessments with assessment items that are related directly to specific learning targets. Again, think about the amazing professional growth that comes from guiding teachers in diving into this kind of work and how that professional growth translates back into improving instruction.

I wish I had had at least knowledge of these instructional and curricular practices when I was weeding out pieces of the textbook at will during my first years in teaching.

The standards themselves will not change instruction. In fact, the standards can sit in their booklets on a shelf (or on the web, depending on which set of standards you are using) and never affect anything we teach. But through curricular work and the collaborative efforts of teachers, the standards can change instruction and our awareness of what we teach, how we teach, and why we’re teaching it.

RtI, FA, and Paying Attention to Each Student

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:28:20 GMT

I vaguely remember the moment when it hit me in my classroom…It was a couple years into my career as a secondary teacher, poring through half-sheet after half-sheet of reading pop quizzes from my 130 students, marking red “x” after red “x,” thinking to myself “We just talked about this! Why didn’t they pay attention when they were reading!!” and “Where on Earth did he get that answer?!?!”, when a sudden flashback on all of my experiences in education led me to a sudden realization….

Some high school kids can’t read.

Somewhere deep inside I knew it all along. I remember my own brother who struggled with reading all the way through school–the kid could sit for hours reading and have no idea what he read. He could read one sentence aloud, perfectly fluent, but have no clue what the words meant. I knew some kids couldn’t read, but because I didn’t know what to do about it (I was, after all, trained in my area of specialty–American literature), I chose to ignore that it happened. I told myself that if they couldn’t read by high school, they would have to figure out on their own how to fake it the rest of the way through school. I thought giving them audio recordings was the solution to all their problems, and I really thought those teachers in grades below me did the kid a disservice by passing him/her on to me without the necessary reading skills.

I sought to justify their reading difficulties (and often, their failing grades) because I didn’t know 1) their areas of weakness, or 2) how to help fix the problem.

Then, I learned about Response to Intervention (RtI). I’ve written on this blog time and time again about RtI and its benefits, but I’ve only recently started connecting the framework of RtI with the concept of formative assessment. Because I can see how these ideas fit together, I think of them less as educational fads and more as elements of good instruction. And because I see true benefits to combining formative instruction with RtI, I want to make them both as practical as possible for teachers to implement as soon as possible.

Let me make my case for RtI/FA in reading instruction, particularly at the secondary levels: Let’s face it, I am not the only teacher who willingly said, “Ok, they can’t read….Guess they need to figure that out.” I’m probably one of very few who would openly admit to thinking it, though. Like I said, as a secondary teacher, I wasn’t taught to teach reading. But as we move deeper into implementing the Common Core Standards, we all become reading teachers through all grades–we are just teaching reading at grade-level appropriate levels. As a 9th grade teacher, then, I am using 9th grade level texts to teach students how to cite specific evidence to prove what the text says. I am teaching comprehension and analysis of grade level texts. I am teaching reading. Using combined RtI/FA allows us to pinpoint areas of deficiencies, and if (like me) you aren’t familiar with specific interventions for those areas, a quick Google search will help you build an intervention toolbox for the long run.

Because we can 1) Identify the area(s) of weakness, and 2) Find methods to help fix the problem, it is unethical for us to continue to ignore the problem. Even if we are high school teachers steeped in our content.

Let’s talk very briefly about RtI and FA. I want to keep this brief because no matter how little or much you know about the two, the point isn’t to swim in the verbiage, it’s to grasp the main idea and find simple means of implementing these good practices into your own classroom.

Both RtI and FA are frameworks for thinking.
Both frameworks are adaptable to any situation.
Both are cyclical processes.
Both are elements of good instruction, and FA is something quality teachers do naturally all the time a thousand times a day.

Formative Assessment: Here’s a slightly verbose image to highlight a simple process–

In even simpler terms…

1. We teach something.

2. We assess somehow (exit slips, handout, observations, conference, thumbs up/down, etc.) to see who’s got it, who’s almost got it, and who’s in left field.

3. We do something to move those who have got it forward, to help those who have almost got it, and to really help those in left field.

4. We reassess somehow.

5. We try something else.

And the cycle goes on as we progress toward our learning goals. Good instruction is responsive to student needs–it doesn’t just truck through lesson plan after lesson plan; it is adjustable.

Response to Intervention: RtI is also cyclical, involves the formative assessment process, but quantifies FA with data.

1. We assess all students using a benchmark screener/diagnostic assessment (which will be repeated two more times during the year to see growth over time).

2. We use data from the screener to see who’s got it (on track for the year–approximately 80% of students will fall in this range), who’s almost got it (potentially on track–approximately 15% will be here), and who’s in left field (not on track–approximately 5% of students).

3. We then create customized learning paths for those students in the “struggling” 20%.

4. We teach something to all students, but we also use intervention techniques with the 20% we’ve identified as needing additional assistance (with progressively more assistance for those struggling the most).

5. We use our formative assessment practices with all students. (Teach, assess, change instruction; teach, assess, change instruction)

6. Periodically, we monitor the progress of the “struggling” 20%. Those who have almost got it could be assessed once a month or as needed, and those who are in left field can be assessed more often (up to weekly). Using the data from these progress monitoring assessments, we can figure out if the intervention we have been using with each student has worked, and if it hasn’t, we know we should try something else. We can try additional interventions until we find one that works for a student (as reflected in the progress monitoring and/or teacher professional expertise).

What this means for reading instruction (aka: How the heck do I incorporate this in my classroom?)

Benchmark screeners are a great starting point because they focus on the skills inherent in the common core. They can pinpoint skills (such as analyzing point of view) with which each student is struggling–and how amazing and wonderful would teaching be if we had this kind of information about each and every student? But given financial strain, I know beautiful benchmark screeners such as those by NWEA (MAP) and STAR that do a fantastic job of drilling down to standards-based areas of deficiencies while offering suggestions for intervention strategies for each individual student, are completely out of the question for many districts, but all hope is not lost. Look for benchmark assessments that are packaged with textbook materials and use those. Don’t have any of those? interventioncentral.org and/or rti4success.org have tools that allow you to create your own benchmark assessments for free.

I know, I know, that’s a lot of work, so I’m losing some of you in the verbiage again…

If you don’t have a benchmark tool you can use and you don’t feel like creating one, try using your district’s common assessments. No common assessments? How about creating a learning-target-based (NOT CONTENT BASED!) benchmark tool for your own classroom? (**Let me clarify…we’re looking as assessing reading skills–skills that are applicable in any context with any text; we are not looking to assess content knowledge, such as “Who wrote Grapes of Wrath?”) The key is to start with something that gives you a better picture of each student right away at the beginning of the year–no more waiting until November to finally have solid footing with each student’s strengths and weaknesses.

From there, focus on learning-target-based lessons and target-based grades that will allow you to track individual student progress that is aligned to the skills in the standards. Because you’ve adopted, created, manipulated a screener into place, you already have a working knowledge of students’ areas of strength and weakness. As you plan units based on learning targets, you’ll know which students need more assistance (because the targeted skill is an area of weakness) and which students you may need to push further (because the targeted skill is a strength). Constant formative assessment (that thing we do naturally when we say to ourselves, “Oh, he’s definitely got it!” or “I need to work more individually with her!”) tells us whether the student is advancing in those areas of weakness or if our strategy for working with that student is not working at all.

I hear you…”Wait, Christina, you just multiplied all my work ten-fold!” And here I will argue with you. I don’t believe anymore in nightly homework assignments or grading every piece of paper that comes across a teacher’s desk. In fact, I think the assessment that comes from using a tracking sheet and working your way around the classroom to observe and work individually with students is so much more valuable than the feedback given by an arbitrary 9/10 on an assignment. Imagine how much less grading you would have if you spent less time in front of the classroom lecturing (yeah, I’m calling myself out again for my own practices) and more time working with students on assignments. Do you need to collect a product from an activity when you have already worked with John on a skill and you know he is still developing? Likewise, do you need to “grade” each answer to questions 1-10 that are all focused on citing from a text when you know Sarah has already mastered that skill with the text you’re reading? I say no. When we remove some of the grading factor and make instruction more about the one-to-one exchange of teaching and learning, we make learning more effective for each learner.

Where you go from here…

It’s not as important that you understand every single facet of formative instruction or RtI to improve your instruction. But was is important is that you begin to look at each individual student’s strengths and weakness (skills, not content!), that you notice students who struggle with reading and work individually with those students to build reading skills and track progress over time. It is important that you (I) acknowledge these students and try new strategies to help them–instead of handing over an audio recording and saying good luck. Combining the basic tenets of RtI and FA into our instruction gives us an organized means of paying attention to each student and maximizing each student’s opportunity to learn. And in the era of Common Core, it’s important that we really step up our own game as teachers.

My mindset was TOTALLY unacceptable. I, once again, think of the kids to whom I did a great disservice as I passed them on knowing they couldn’t read.

The Wisdom of Patience

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 12:30:00 GMT

Summer. A break from teaching. Routines and schedules cast aside. The greatest blessing and sometimes curse for families.

There is a reason that neither myself or my wife are stay at home parents. We wouldn’t be very good at it. But for six or seven weeks each summer we handle it pretty well. Usually.

During our week of vacation my patience was tested early. Before we even left to give an exact time. Details aside, I’d lost my patience with my wife and my children. I wasn’t satisfied with our plans, and the uncertainty rattled me. That’s anxiety. Anxiety is rooted in the future. It’s worry about how things will turn out. A little anxiety is a good thing. Otherwise we’d never be motivated to do anything.

Most anxiety is misplaced. We look to the future with a dread. Something bad is going to happen. Usually it’s not as bad as we imagine. But this persistent anxiety about future events can wreak some pretty serious havoc in the present. We act out of fear and worry instead of reasoned judgment.

At least that’s how I’m justifying how much I’ve yelled at my children the last few days. Anxiety erodes the sound practice of patience. In raising children, patience allows us to properly guide them, and discipline them if necessary toward the behaviors and habits that benefit their growth. Anxiety leads us to discourage and minimize the behaviors and actions that cause personal stress for the parent.

Even in dealing with our own children as parents, a posture of anxiety is usually self-serving while the discipline of patience serves the best interest of all.

It makes sense that it would take summer break to teach a teacher the value of patience.

If there is a scarcity of any value in our society, patience is certainly one. Our tight economy has generated a national anxiety over the future. We need to stress over this situation if we ever want to get out of it, but we also need to keep a reasoned head and not allow anxiety to guide our decisions at the expense of reason.

Our leaders are anxious and exercise too much top-down control. From division leaders to the secretary of Education, anxiety about funding, test scores, and the future of education in a digital age pushes the agenda for leading from the front, often at the expense of valuable input from teachers, students, and the general public. They usually act in what they believe is the best interest of “the system” but often ignore the expressed needs of the very system they serve.

The recent dismissal of University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan by the Board of Visitors fits this description well. A Rector anxiety about funding and getting behind in the digital age executed a manipulative and dictatorial decision, made behind closed doors and in the presence of only a few.

Members of our business and commercial world are anxious. They’ve managed to build successful ventures through the booms of the past two decades and economic growth has stalled. They fear for the long-term future of their legacies, but also for the short term future of their own welfare in a stagnate economy. Instead of focusing on the failures that lead us down this road, they look to education to solve their problems by pushing for implementation of the same business models that failed to save our economy already.

Parents and students are anxious. They’re strapped for time more than any generation before. They’re concerned about the rising cost of education and its comparative value in an increasingly dim job market.

Teachers are anxious. In unionized states, rights are being stripped away, and in states like Virginia, several years of diminishing salaries are now being hit with cuts to benefits. They’re expected to do more with less.

Vain activity rarely calms anxiety. It makes it worse. Perhaps we could use a little patience. Stop looking to an imagined future of despair and deal rationally with the current reality in which we live. The opposite of the current wave of reactionary decision-making in education isn’t status quo, it’s reasoned and informed action.

It is time we stop making decisions out of anxiety, with no other purpose than to alleviate our imagined fears and start patiently making reasonable decisions that will carry us successfully into the future.