Teach A Kid To Fish…

October 13, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

It’s so tempting sometimes to actually teach my kids some history. But I can’t.

Well, I CAN – it’s just I know I shouldn’t. Not very often. Teaching them stuff is, um… bad.

Direct instruction has been weighed and found wanting, as the amount of information available is simply too vast and the needs of the next generation too unpredictable to settle on this or that bucket of knowledge as canon. We are called, it seems, to teach them to think! To question! To boldly go where no student has gone before!

If you read the various criticisms of lectures and other teacher-driven, direct-instruction-ish stuff, you’d think the underlying problem is that such things are ineffective. That’s not true.

I give pretty sweet lectures, packed with content and connection and interaction with students – all sorts of edu-goodness. When former students come back to visit, or email me years later, they may thank me for pushing coherent thesis sentences – but they remember with enthusiasm the stuff from the lectures. They tell me how it was the first time they’d liked history, or understood government, or whatever, and tell me stories of how something learned therein came in handy in subsequent academia.

The problem isn’t that my activities or direct instruction aren’t effective; the problem is that they leave me doing so much of the work. As a department and a district, we’ve prioritized teaching kids to think, and to learn, and to function. We’re trying to make our students into students.

We’re trying to teach them to ask various types of questions effectively, to dig into documents or statistics or pictures and ponder what those sources do or don’t communicate, and how they do or don’t communicate it. We want them to read and write coherently, and above all else – and this is the killer – we’re trying to teach them not to be helpless little nurslings in the face of every idea, task, or challenge.

That part feels damn near impossible most days. If ignorance is a mighty river, we’re that ichthus fish swimming against the tide – losing out to the gar of apathy and the tuna of better-things-to-do.

Seriously, we should make shirts.

This is where the idealists jump in to argue that we can do both – we can teach content THROUGH the skills! Whoever’s doing the struggling is doing the learning! Let’s celebrate this breakthrough!

The learning DOES happen in the struggle – this is dogma to me. I would argue, however, that we must inculcate and consciously teach the struggle. Our darlings do not, by and large, come with a built in appreciation of struggle – at least in application to education. Some struggle enough getting through the rest of their worlds and have little energy left for academic wrestling matches. Others push themselves quite impressively through their own little zone of proximal development while playing music or sports or video games, but lack enthusiasm for transferring the principle to unpacking the Federalist #10.

It’s that teaching of the struggle that’s killing me.

It’s not an intelligence problem, or an attitude problem. It’s not even the challenge of the content.

It’s the mindset of helplessness and a sort of dazed, bewildered hurt they experience at the least of my expectations. That’s what I can’t seem to overcome. I don’t know how to fix it. I must fix it, of course – we’re no longer allowed to let kids fail in any way, shape or form – we must save them repeatedly or they’ll never learn to be independent, self-directed learners.

Forget analyzing the Federalist Papers, I can’t get them to reference my class webpage for help or assignments they’ve missed, let alone videos I’ve posted for them to watch. And getting them to check their own grades online rather than expect I spend half of every class period EVERY DAY explaining what they haven’t turned in (“but I wasn’t here that day”) – you’d think I’d handed them a scalpel and suggested they do their own colon splicing.

It’s not that they don’t know how the internet works – Google is their info-god. It simply never occurred to them that not EVERYTHING associated with school would be photocopied and hand-delivered to their backpack as many times as they can lose it. The drive – the initiative – the risk-taking craziness required to click on a few things or look on more than one page or ask questions of the people around them – it’s simply beyond many of them.

We’ve taught them to be completely helpless. We’ve trained them not to move until we tell them exactly what to do, and how, and then do it for them. The learning does indeed happen in the struggle, but how do they learn to struggle without, well… struggling?

I don’t say this to curse them or bust out the standard “kids these days” routine. It’s a new generation and we’re going to have to figure out some new ways to reach them. That’s fine – that’s why I make the big bucks. I’m SO up for the challenge.

Most days.

But it makes me tired. The number of ways students go out of their way to make their own learning untenable is fascinating. The internal mechanisms protecting them from forward momentum are legion. The currently trending vision of an edu-spirational Arcadia where students are natural learners if only the damn teachers would get out of the way is ridiculous. Come watch 200 kids in the commons a half-hour before school starts staring bored into space rather than risk reading or finishing their math and tell me how self-actuated they are.

I love them, you understand – but I drag them into the light kicking and screaming, if at all. Meanwhile, I hear repeatedly that I should be letting them do more of the dragging.

I’m not supposed to spoon-feed them, but they won’t chew – and they’re starving, informationally-speaking.

I’m not giving up on them, but more and more I’m wondering if the skills and mindset I’m failing to instill are worth the trade-off of basic knowledge and cultural literacy I could lead them through instead. AND the results are clearly measurable – we like that, right?

I feel myself giving in… letting go of the idealistic ‘oughta work’ and looking longingly towards the ‘would actually result in learning.’ I feel myself slipping off-program, avoiding my admins, and lying to my PLC about what I’m really doing in class that day.

I want to just teach them stuff about history and government and things that actually matter to them in the real world right now. I want to see that look where they ‘get it’ and remember it and love me for it. I don’t care if they become self-directed learners THIS year. I don’t care if they don’t master document analysis or political cartoons or thesis sentences anymore.

I’m tired. Maybe I’ll just teach a little… just this week… I won’t get hooked. I can quit any time I want – I swear. Just say the word and I’ll… I’ll flip my lesson and establish mastery-based standards achieved through collaboration, I promise! But just give me a little… one PowerPoint over the Progressives… one crazy story about Andrew Jackson and I’ll stop.

I promise.

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Seven Steps to Personal and Professional Growth, Feat. Wild Cherry

October 4, 2014June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

My ELA comrades are fond of discussing ‘universal themes’ and ‘common plots’ in literature and in life. I can’t speak to every book ever written, but I will confess I have a much better idea of who’s going to die and who’s going to betray the hero in any decent sci-fi or superhero movie now that I’ve sat in on a few literature classes.

In a similar way, our personal journeys often share common elements. That’s why disparate support groups can build their discussions around the same 12 Steps without discounting each member’s personal story, or church ‘cell groups’ can seek spiritual cohesion despite varied applications of the chosen text – every story is unique, but every story is the same.

We see this in history as well – it repeats itself, sort of, but never in quite the same ways. Universal themes and common plotlines seem to be, um… well – they seem to be universal. You know – common.

The ongoing kerfuffle over #edreform involves large-scale efforts to standardize curriculum, standardize tests, standardize teachers, and standardize kids. Good luck with that. In the meantime, while we decry the nonsense inherent in that approach, I’d like to outline the Seven Steps to Personal and Professional Growth which I believe apply equally well to educators and the common rabble alike. I’d like to suggest that a little personal reform, revival, or rebooting, is essential to break even over time – maybe actually grow.

Stay in place for long, and you’re suddenly all kinds of left behind.

If some themes are universal, as my ELA brethren suggest, any classic tale of personal revival should work as a launching pad. I choose as mine the timeless wisdom of Wild Cherry.

Step One: Recognize when you’ve hit a rut or lost your edge.

Hey, do it now. Yay-hey.
Once I was a boogie singer playin’ in a rock’n’roll band.
I never had no problems, yeah, burnin’ down the one night stands.
When everything around me, yeah, got to start to feelin’ so low…

The first step towards fixing anything or making a situation better is recognizing there’s a problem. Call stuff what it is. Many times that’s actually the most difficult part – identifying and admitting what we actually think, want, do, or feel. Accepting possible evidence that what we’re doing isn’t working, or isn’t working as well as it could.

This is true professionally as much as it is personally – sometimes moreso.

Step Two: Open Your Eyes & Look Around.

And I decided quickly (yes I did) to disco down and check out the show.
Yeah, they were dancin’ and singin’ and movin’ to the groovin’ –
And just when it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted,
“Play that funky music white boy; play that funky music right.
Play that funky music white boy; lay down the boogie and play that funky music till you die.
Till you die – yeah, yeah…”

Opening your eyes and looking around is harder than it sounds – that’s why there are so many songs and books about it. You’ve probably noticed how often major characters experiencing personal revelation are blinded or in pain from the sun or other sources of light, even when they don’t kill Arabs on the beach. Jackson Browne even had to go to the doctor after trying to keep his eyes open for so long. We’re all fighting the darkness, sure – but we’re equally blinded by the light.

But fight to keep them open. Don’t be vain, or narrow-minded, or fall back on what you “already know” every time you’re in a rut. You don’t have to like or understand what everyone else is doing, but whether the issues are personal or professional or some messy mix of both, you may be surrounded by talented people of various giftings. Don’t compare yourself to them so much as acknowledge and appreciate what they do well – whether or not it’s the same as what you do well.

And – by the way – I’m beyond certain there are many things you do well.

It is, though, strangely freeing to be comfortable with the talents of others. To allow yourself to learn from them. It often leads to a more energetic and creative you.

Seek wisdom and advice, but of course filter the responses. Those with the least to offer usually have the most to say. But don’t filter so much that you can’t hear common themes. Compare your head and your gut and see when they align – that’s when it starts to get promising.

Step Three: Allow Yourself Time to Digest New Ideas or Unexpected Directions.

I tried to understand this. I thought that they were out of their minds!
How could I be so foolish (how could I?) to not see I was the one behind?
So still I kept on fighting – well – losing every step of the way.
I said, I must go back there (I got to go back) and check to see if thing’s still the same…

Don’t beat yourself up every time you realize you’ve missed something, but don’t ignore it either. The more you don’t want to think about something – whether pedagogical, interpersonal, strategic, or even emotional – the more you should probably revisit that somethinguntil you can Step One & Step Two it properly.

Step Four: Seek Out People, Places, and Ideas That Energize & Inspire You.

Yeah, they were dancin’ and singin’ and movin’ to the groovin’ –
And just when it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted,
“Play that funky music white boy; play that funky music right.
Play that funky music white boy; lay down the boogie and play that funky music till you die.
Till you die – oh, till you die – come on and play some electrified funky music…”

Be a student. Also, shake what your momma gave you – sometimes metaphorically, sometimes quite literally.

Step Five: Initiate Conversations.

(Hey, wait a minute -) Now first it wasn’t easy, changin’ rock’n’rollin’ minds,
And things were getting shaky – I thought I’d have to leave it behind.
But now it’s so much better (it’s so much better) – I’m funking out in every way.
But I’ll never lose that feelin’ (you know I won’t) of how I learned my lesson that day.
Yeah, they were dancin’ and singin’ and movin’ to the groovin’ –
And just when it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted,
“Play that funky music white boy; play that funky music right.
Play that funky music white boy; lay down the boogie and play that funky music till you die.
Till you die – oh, till you die…”

There’s no substitute for going in questioning. This is equally true whether we’re looking to learn or seeking to transform. Share your enthusiasm with relevant parties, but stay grounded and realize your epiphany may not be their epiphany. Solutions are rarely universal, but the experiences which follow a willingness to learn and adapt should be memorialized, evangelized, and rebirthed from time to time.

Besides, while you idealistic types are always ready to stand apart and hold your ground in sacred isolation, most of the time you don’t have to figure it out all alone or move forward totally solo. Life is largely a group activity.

Step Six: Whatever You Do, Right or Wrong – Do It Hard. In Fact, Take It Up A Notch or Two

They shouted “Play that funky music!” (Play that funky music)
“Play that funky music!” (You Gotta keep on playin’ funky music)
“Play that funky music!” (Play that funky music)
“Play that funky music!” (Gonna take you higher now -)
“Play that funky music white boy! Play that funky music right.”
“Play that funky music white boy! Play that funky music right.”

One of the mantras in my classroom is that it’s better to be wrong than to be afraid. You don’t want to take this too far and simply become willfully stupid and annoying, but don’t let potential (or even actual) failure hold you back indefinitely. Personal and professional modulation doesn’t always mean being louder – it means if you’re going to do something, do it. If you’re not, don’t.

Step Seven: Live and Teach Like It Matters – Right Where You Are, Right Now. You might change the world or earn yourself eternal acclaim, although statistically that’s well-outside likely. You might some days barely nudge kids a bit further up the food chain only to watch them slide back down. But if all you manage is one hit from 1976, what the hell – that’s one more hit than most. Make it count.

And you never know what impact your efforts are having, or will have a year later, or five years later, or five decades later. Long after your stories are forgotten, your lesson plans filed – maybe after you’re, you know… dead and stuff – the time and effort you’ve poured into shaking things up and rocking things out might still be popping up on someone’s metaphorical playlist. You might fade, sure, or you might be forever part of their drive – windows down and music cranked up, singing along badly but with great joy. Because you did. Because you showed them how.

Play that funky music, child.

I’m Not Sure ‘Local Control’ Is A Good Idea

September 28, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

I hate to be difficult.

Actually, that’s not true – I enjoy being difficult sometimes. It’s how I learn, and how I try to force others to acknowledge problems they might not otherwise address, or clarify my own thinking regarding issues I find important. In this case, I’m very much hoping those more insightful than me will explain why I’m completely and totally mistaken.

Because on this one, I don’t like what I’m about to say. It runs against my libertarian ideals. Worse, it’s one more thing likely to annoy the people I most admire in the education blogosphere, some of who have been quite decent to me even though I’m a bit player at best.

I’m not sure “local standards” are a good idea for public education.

To be sure, nationalized tests and oppressive curriculum requirements are a disaster. Forget Common Core – ANY standardization of what every child in every situation everywhere must know and be able to do as measured by bubble fillinnery, based on their chronological grouping is, well… insane. In a “you’re a very bad man” kind of way.

State requirements aren’t much better, at least around here. They flip and they flop and they still come with all sorts of stupid tests which crush anything positive about public schooling. They make us hate our jobs and they make kids hate school, all while accomplishing nothing – since the results aren’t actually used to fix or change anything.

So of course the only remaining alternative is to let local districts, local parents, local school boards, based on local circumstances, decide what their students should and shouldn’t study, and how success will be measured.

In some cases, this would be wonderful. Perhaps in many cases.

But while I love my state, rural Oklahoma is full of districts who don’t much cotton to them big city ideals. I don’t want to burst into a musical number from Tatooine, The Musical (“Beyond Uncle Owen’s Moisture Farm” is my personal favorite) but there are numerous districts where the toughest thing about teaching high school is convincing families there’s anything out there bigger than the local poultry processing plant or Assistant Manager at Dollar General.

I’m not one to argue that every child in every situation absolutely MUST pursue a doctoral degree before fixing air conditioners for a living, but I can’t abide the image of thousands of Oklahoma teens stuck hanging out at the Quikie Mart eating hot lamp chicken until their prowess at The Last Starfighter or a dancing Kevin Bacon frees them from the backwater morass.

Local standards may not aspire to be much more than local. And you can’t become what you can’t see.

I love my state, but Oklahoma voters – the same ones I presume would be helping to set ‘local standards’ in their districts – keep electing Representatives like John Bennett and Sally Kern and Senators like Josh Brecheen.

Senator Josh Brecheen, of course, is the man who recently cited the Old Testament of the Bible – specifically a passage suggesting that those outside the faith be hunted down and killed with swords – to support his opposition to Common Core. We really must get him together with Representative John Bennett who is currently on his “Muslims are all Sleeper Cells” speaking tour condemning Islam – any form, any practice, any believer thereof. His reason? The Quran demands the deaths of non-believers. You know, like the Bible.

Kern is most known for her crusade against gay people, who are apparently much like Bennett’s terrorists. She uses her background as an educator to explain that she’s just keeping it simple for folks, explaining it this way. In her defense, she doesn’t much like blacks or women (?!?) either. Because so many disagree with her, and are in fact horrified by her remarks, she’s also the victim of the worst sorts of persecution.

“It just broke my heart because so often what they were doing, they weren’t just stoning me, they were stoning and desecrating the God that I love…
There was just so much hate, they accuse me of being hateful, and I never once said anything hateful. Such hate expressed against the Lord and against his word and then the way they, I mean these people, I believe these people, I believe scripture teaches this, they’re deceived and to me the real hate is from those people who say, ‘you’re born this way and you can’t change, deal with it’…”

In other words, because not everyone accepts her bizarre hate speech, she is the real victim. Well, her and God – who in Kern’s theology apparently has many of the same attributes and insecurities of Tinkerbell. New whine in old skins.

This is ‘Merica and they can believe as they like, although I question political leaders using their position in government to attack segments of our own populace. Kerr assumes blacks are naturally criminals because they’re lazy, but she’s not executing them in broad daylight for not walking on the sidewalk, so… um… I guess it’s all relative? And I have friends who are not particularly fond of Islam no matter what its trappings and more who just don’t buy gay as a morally neutral issue. That’s fine – whatever.

But those friends aren’t setting the curriculum for my local public school. Xenophobia may be there in practice, but it’s not codified in the official standards for all to follow. Gay-bashing may occur verbally or even physically, but it’s not generally promoted by the authority at the front of the room or sitting at the big desk down front. On paper, at least, we’re trying to function in a global society. On paper, at least, we’re trying to look beyond the pissy Presbyterian next door and realize that right or wrong, we’re just going to have to deal with the “others.”

Local standards would roll this back. I’m not trying to be conspiratorial, but I see who these people elect. Repeatedly.

It’s already problematic in many rural areas to cover the basics of various faiths as part of World Cultures class, or to explain Evolution even as a ‘theory’. I recently attended a workshop with a lady in a nearby state whose head was exploding because Noah’s flood was the mandated correct response in World History class covering major population movements.

Nothing against Noah or Noah’s god – but is that really so much less onerous than Common Core’s suggestion that written arguments must be supported with facts and reasoning?

And that’s not even getting into novels or sex education or racially integrated cheerleading squads – stuff that really sets folks off ‘round these parts.

Given the recent kerfuffle over curriculums challenging the narrative of America as the infallible bulwark of justice and freedom-eagles, can you imagine the approved versions of history in areas still angrily downing 32 oz. Keystones, listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd, and cursing the War of Northern Aggression? We can’t stop Donald Trump from arguing that Obama’s not a citizen, but that doesn’t mean we have to make “Kenya” the only acceptable answer on the multiple choice quiz, either.

I hate federal government programs and demands. I’m not a huge fan of the Department of Education or most other bureaucratic leviathans who feed on the nectar of paycheck deductions and red tape. But every time we’ve left important decisions up to local control in the past century, things get pretty weird.

Outside standards don’t guarantee anything, and we can’t write enough rules to force well-rounded, questioning young people to magically appear out of every high school. But surely we can’t just smile and trust that the same people who’ve got us to where we are today can will somehow burst forth in wise, long-term thinking about tomorrow.

I’d Rather Be Aquaman

September 25, 2014July 31, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

There’s a kerfuffle going on in Texas (again) and Colorado (huh?) regarding the level of flag-waving patriotism in history textbooks and curriculums, including APUSH. The short version is this:

The Patriotic Upstanding Americans are upset that these damned liberal touchy-feely freedom-haters twist everything to make it look like all the U.S. has ever done is exploit and enslave everyone. Every new textbook will be titled “Why the Terrorists are Right” or “Let’s Get High and Have Lots of Gay Sex.” The Patriots would like more emphasis on the undeniable accomplishments of U.S. History. American schools should be shaping good American citizens, not future leaders of North Korea.

And in their defense, it does sometimes seem like political correctness requires back-writing a level of cultural and philosophical pluralism that just wasn’t always there. However multicultural we’d like to be, it’s hard to give equal time to the contributions of Islamic Puerto Rican Handicapable Vegans to the Second Industrial Revolution. Early American History requires some understanding of Protestantism, and Capitalism – both of which were woven into lots of important lives and ideas. Let’s not run from that.

The Modern Liberal Academics are upset that these flag-waving right-wing extremists want to whitewash American history to feed their predetermined paradigm of American Exceptionalism. There’s something Orwellian (or at least Valdimir Putinian) about euphemizing (or simply ignoring) travesties like slavery, genocide, and Woodrow Wilson. The Academics would like more emphasis on effective questioning and understanding multiple points of view. American schools should be shaping good world citizens ready to confront things of which we cannot yet conceive, not drones painted red, white, and blue.

And in their defense, they’re right.

Every curriculum, every textbook, every teacher in every class makes judgments (consciously or not) about what’s important and what it means. We can try to reduce that bias, but if I assign Shakespeare instead of Marlowe, I’m making a judgment. If I choose eight Supreme Court cases through which to explore the judicial process, I’m suggesting some big issues are more important than others. It’s just how it is.

We can’t teach everything. Heck, many days we’re not sure we can teach the basics. Decisions have to be made, and some conflict is appropriate.

But this goes beyond that.

This is about choosing narratives. Choosing the guiding stories for what we teach and how we teach it. That’s a debate worth having. There are infinite possible ways to frame our history, most well beyond my pay grade or blogging ability.

So I’ll talk about Superman.

The Man of Steel was for generations the prototypical American icon. He had pretty much all powers – strength, speed, flying, moral fiber, good hair… he even managed to go back in time once or twice. Yeah, there was kryptonite, but that’s not even a flaw – it’s a weakness to something so rare as to be almost impossible to wield.

Superman was perfect.

The version I grew up with was part of the Superfriends on Saturday morning cartoons. He worked with Batman and Wonder Woman and some zany space teens with a monkey. I watched the show, but I never ‘got’ Superman. I was never a big fan of Batman, either. I mean, sure, he’s dark and tormented, but he’s also bursting with wealth, intelligence, training, intimidation, and bringing on the suave. I’ve only got, like THREE of those things – so kinda hard to relate, you know?

I liked Aquaman.

Sure, they played him up like an equal on the show, but let’s face it – the man breathes underwater and coordinates fish. Years later they gave him a hook and some sharks and stuff, but that’s not the guy I connected with. The guy I connected with was almost absurd in his uselessness 99% of the time. He dressed badly and had no business hanging with that Hawk-Fellow or the Green Lantern, let alone the Last Son of Krypton.

Thing is, if you needed someone to go way, way underwater – hot OR cold – or talk to fish VERY persuasively, Arthur Curry was your man. Supes could run like Flash, fly like – well, everyone, see through things or melt them with his eyes – but he couldn’t convince fish to be useful on his BEST DAY. Neither could Batman with all his gadgets and pale young wards.

Aquaman may not have been good for much, but he filled an absolutely unique and essential role. Trying to make him more than that diminishes him in the worst well-intentioned way.

Marvel caught on long before DC that flawed heroes were essential for connecting to readers, a mindset reflected in subsequent movies. Spiderman, X-Men, even Guardians of the Galaxy – we connect with them not because they shoot ice out of their palms or use a nuclear heart to fly around in a metal suit, but because they’re people. Messy ones, even.

Some are rather loveable, some you wouldn’t let your daughter date, and some are quite loathsome much of the time. The best of them do foolish, selfish, or stupid things, and the worst win your affection sporadically until they go back to being naughty. They interact in unexpected ways, and they learn and grow and try and fail and sometimes they’re awesome. Inspirational.

We learn about them, and ourselves, and we think big interesting thoughts as a result. That’s the whole point.

Why can we not allow Thomas Jefferson the same intellectual and moral complexity we accept in Mystique? Why accommodate a Batman who does dark twisted things so soccer moms feel safe but insist on ‘hero’ or ‘villain’ labels for Andrew Jackson or Malcolm X? Can we not accept that real people – who lived monumental lives and did big stuff – might be at least as unpredictable as Magneto or Malcolm Reynolds?

My students can be a bit dense, but they’re not stupid. They’ll willingly regurgitate whatever they’ve been told regarding George Washington or Martin Luther King, Jr., but they don’t really believe in the Superman version of either of them. Trying to deify any of our American pantheon just breeds even further contempt for whatever lessons we attach or slogans we recite.

You can’t narrow the gap between young people and American ideals by doing a better job bullsh*tting them.

In the same way that the people around you are so much more meaningful, useful, interesting, when they allow you to see something beyond the façade… in the same way heroes are far more heroic when you know what a mess they are, but they keep trying to do the right thing anyway… our history, our icons, our story resonates far more – not less – when we do our best to lay it all out there as whatever it is.

We’ve done some great things which should not be downplayed or ignored based on the bad parts. We’ve committed atrocities which should not be marginalized based on the lofty rhetoric employed while committing them. America is supposedly of-the-by-the-for-the people – and people are messy.

Teach it like it happened, as best we can. Our kids will get it. If we do it right, those ideals will resonate with them far more powerfully as a result.

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#OKSDE & The A-F School Report Card

September 21, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

The Oklahoma State Department of Education recently released its infamous “A-F Grade Report” for districts across the state. Why?
Let’s look at their own A-F Frequently Asked Questions page, shall we?

Note three things about this, keeping in mind the OKSDE chose the question, wrote the answer, and put it first on their own FAQ:

1. The A-F system is designed so parents and others can get a quick & easy idea how schools are doing. If you know anything about public education at all, you know that how we’re doing is anything but easy to measure. Half the time we can’t even agree about exactly what we should be doing. But the whole purpose of A-F, according to this, is to more conveniently label HOW SCHOOLS ARE DOING – minus context, nuance, causes, solutions, etc. This is repeated throughout the FAQ. Parents or community members could, of course, quickly and easily determine how local schools are doing by visiting and asking how it’s going, and what they could do to contribute – but that would be expecting someone outside the school itself to do something other than offer criticisms and blanket condemnations from afar.

2. The report card is a measurement “for challenging students and communities to strengthen the effectiveness and performance of public schools”. What does that mean, exactly? More importantly, now that we’ve done this a few times, what signs are there that each year with the A-F report cards come out, students rise up and communities mobilize to begin “strengthening” their schools? Does the SDE have even anecdotal evidence suggesting anything positive happens as a result of these press releases? If not, then by its own defintion the process is a failure and we can stop. If, on the other hand, students and communities are having montage moments over school effectiveness, then we should see very few schools on the ‘F’ list twice, yes?

3. The primary indication of success is standardized test scores. That’s a world of issues in and of itself.

Let’s look at another question from the FAQ:

Wow. Where to begin?

4. Of course there’s a loss of funding. The state keeps cutting education budgets across the board. The only distinction is that they cut funding for all schools, not merely those labeled ‘D’ or ‘F’. This is the opposite of what a teacher – even a mediocre teacher – does with a student who’s trying, but not finding success. Imagine me bragging to a parent or administrator that although a specific child is in grade trouble, I’m not reducing the time and energy I spend trying to help her! Well – I am, but I’m reducing the time and energy I spend helping every other kid also, so let’s just pin on that Excellence Through Equity medal now!

5. If kids don’t hit those nebulous testing targets, we send in the REAL experts – the folks at the SDE – to educate the teachers. Of course the SDE has held the key to student success all along, but they’ve been keeping it super top secret to give those poor struggling teachers a chance to try it THEIR stupid way. Do we have any stats on the impact of this visit from the SDE on student test scores the FOLLOWING year? I mean, if the problem is that the teachers need some “spurring,” and the SDE’s done come and “spurred” them, scores should soar, yes?

6. Can you tell the ‘spur’ thing bugs me? You spur a horse that’s not trying very hard or moving very fast. You spur a horse because horses are too stupid to know which way they’re supposed to go on their own. You dig your metal into its flank and keep your bit in its mouth so it will remain compliant – an extension of your own purposes. Spurring suggests schools and teachers get F’s because they’re just not trying very hard. They’re meandering, munching some grass, peeing a long time – just standing there until the SDE comes to do some spurrin’. Giddy-up go, Ms. Hernandez – giddy-up, go! Because you know what grade a horse really wants? A neighhhhh…

7. Choose any “low-performing school” near you. Give them a call and ask what the OKSDE has done to “support” them lately – or the state for that matter. Teachers are expected to address problem areas, find solutions, build success; all state leadership seems willing to do in practice is label and publish. Useless.

8. Grants to the good schools? I’d never heard of this one before. How adorable – it’s the White Man’s Burden, Education Edition. We’re going to further reward upper-middle-class-two-parent-family schools for explaining to the high-poverty-broken-world schools what they’re doing so badly! “Have you tried getting your kids to be less… poor? Are you familiar with the need for more ‘grit’?”

9. May I see the numbers on increased parent and community involvement based on low scores on this “report card”? Can I get in on this “conversation”? Dr. Barresi echoes this talking point in the Tulsa World when asked about the mass of research demonstrating the “grades” with which she bludgeons schools are not merely pointless, but demonstrably harmful and deceptive:

“The grade card may be cursed, it may be praised, but it sure is causing conversation in the state of Oklahoma,” Barresi said.

Adrian Peterson should try this approach: “Well, my disciplinary techniques may be cursed, or they may be praised, but they’re sure… (*patronizing chuckle*) causing conversation.”]

After this FAQ, the next item provided to explain the whole A-F system is this letter from the OKSDE’s own “Executive Director of Accountability.” He proceeds to contradict pretty much everything explained in the FAQ.

I’ll excerpt the essentials:

…we must ensure that the A-F system is both understandable and interpreted appropriately. Therefore, it is important to have a clear idea of what it is — and isn’t — intended to measure.
The A-F Report Card is:
* An indicator of the percentage of students, regardless of background, within a school who are currently meeting or exceeding grade-level academic standards.
* An indicator of the percentage of students (particularly the lower performing students) who are at least making significant progress toward meeting grade-level academic standards.
* An indicator of whether schools are exceeding expectations in terms of school attendance, high school graduation, etc…
The A-F Report Card is not:
* A measure of the “school” or “teacher” effect on student learning.
* A statement about a school’s overall quality of services provided.

10. I love his concern that we make A B C D & F somehow “understandable” and “interpreted appropriately.” The reason you choose to format something in terms of commonly recognized symbols and terms is because everyone recognizes those symbols and terms. Divide your class into reading groups christened Eagles, Sharks, Otters, and Turtles, and no one has to guess which group is the slow one. If the OKSDE were worried people might think that A B C D & F means what it obviously and always means, perhaps they could have chosen other terms.

11. Suddenly now this whole A-F thing is about measuring students – are students meeting expectations? Are students making progress? According to the rest of the OKSDE, the only part students have in this whole thing is when they rise up with the community to strengthen… something or other. But according to Dr. Tamborski and his fancy title, it’s all about the students. The only thing schools are directly responsible for is making sure every kid on their roster gets up and to school every day. I assume this involves setting their alarms, maybe pouring them a bowl of Fruit Loops, that kind of thing – stuff it makes complete sense to hold schools exclusively accountable for. Not this other stuff.

12. Lest we continue in our ridiculous delusions, we are explicitly corrected – WITH QUOTIE ACCENTS – not to view these A-F Report Cards as a measure of the “school” or “teacher”. Seriously – why is “school” in “quotation marks”? I’m not “sure” for what “purpose” they’re being “used” here. In any case, I’m confused. If these report cards don’t allow “parents and community members” to “quickly and easily determine how local schools are doing,” what exactly will the students, parents, and communities be rising up to encourage excellence and performance OF?

13. The A-F card is not a measure of “teacher” effect on student learning? This part I can actually believe, since there’s a whole slew of other mechanisms in place to blame teachers for every kid they so much as see in the hallway, for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately he didn’t tell THE ENTIRE REST OF THE OKSDE, the media, the state legislature, or the state. They think it is.

14. These Report Cards are not a statment regarding a school’s quality? Seriously, do these people not even talk to one another? The building isn’t that big.

Perhaps the third and final link for public consumption can act as a sort of “tie-breaker” between the OKSDE and the OKSDE. It’s not a FAQ or a letter, but something called a Quick Reference Guide. Perfect! I can use it to quickly reference what the hell they’re talking about.

1969? What did one use to update web pages in 1969 – a hammer & chisel?

Well, OKSDE, if and when you get back from Woodstock or whatever, please consider reposting that reference guide. I can’t wait to see which side of your conflicting explanations it agrees with. In the meantime, I know I’m feeling much better about the accuracy and consistency of these A-F grades you’ve published now that I’ve seen the care and clarity you bring to explaining what they are and what they aren’t.

Related Post: Assessments & Grades – Why?