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.

#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?

Assessments & Grades – Why?

September 20, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

The State of Oklahoma, like many others, is determined to assign numbers and letters to the schools and teachers within its purview. Like the standardized testing of students on which many of these numbers and letters are based, the conviction seems to be that if you just keep pretending to measure things in ridiculously oversimplified ways designed to guarantee widespread failure, you’re “reforming” the system and calling forth a brighter future for all. This is analogous to – actually, never mind the analogy. It’s just stupid.

For those of you who are not teacher-types, there are two basic types of assessment. Formative Assessment is primarily intended to ascertain student understanding or accomplishment. Do they understand the material? Can they demonstrate the skills you’ve deemed important? Are they making an effort to plow through whatever you’ve assigned in your efforts to help them ‘get it’?

We’re all familiar with tests and quizzes, but Formative Assessment can be made through discussions, artsy-fartsy projects, tickets-out-the-door, etc. In some cases the grade is the grade, and in others students are expected to redo, relearn, retry, etc. Either way, the goal is to figure out what’s going well and what’s not, and to adjust, or to identify what students do or don’t get, and decide what you – and they – can maybe do about that. The “grades” handed out by the State of Oklahoma make little claim of such goals, and our legislature clearly has no intention of adjusting or contributing in any way. So… THAT’s not the purpose of these statewide ‘report cards’.

Why do students fail? Some kids are doing the best they can, and just don’t get it. They are mostly present and involved, but just aren’t there yet. Our job is to figure out how to help them. Far more fail simply from not doing what they could or should be doing – in other words, by choice or something that looks a great deal like choice. We don’t write them off, or use this as an excuse not to try different approaches, but solutions begin with identifying sources of problems – not with the scores assigned after the fact.

The State of Oklahoma and the OKSDE have shown a determined lack of interest in the underlying sources of low achievement. It would actually be a huge step forward if they merely covered their ears and ran about yelling ‘NANANANA ICANTHEARYOU NANANANA ICANTHEARYOU!’ Even in the classroom, the oversimplification of A B C D F hinders recognition that no two kids excel, survive, or fail in the same way, or for the same reasons. Whatever the root of shortcomings, our question is the same – what can we as teachers, as teams, as districts, do differently so more kids DO succeed? Even when many factors are undeniably out of our control – home life, background, socio-economics, DNA, etc. – any ethical educator asks themselves what they COULD try… what they COULD do.

Which, as I may have mentioned, the state has shown absolutely no interest in considering.

Summative Assessment is the other category. It’s the ‘BIG TEST’ at the end of a unit or a semester. These attempt to document what students “walk away with” in knowledge and skills. The data can identify strengths and weaknesses of individual teachers so we can help each other improve, or help compare classes from year to year. For students it’s generally the finish line, for better or worse – here’s how you did, now off with thee.

What type of assessment you choose depends on your purpose. That sounds rather obvious, but it’s easy to fall into doing stuff mostly because that’s just… how it’s done. But grades should have a purpose. Otherwise, why bother?

Each semester, 18 weeks of a student’s experience in a given class – their effort, their understanding, their organization, their attitude, their ability – is summarized by a single number between 0 – 100, which in turn translates to one of 5 letters. This is, of course, inane. But it’s been how we’ve been doing things for so long it’s rather entrenched. That number and letter could mean so many different things they’re essentially useless as formative assessment. They’re only real functions are as carrots, sticks, or labels.

Most teachers still give these numbers and letters – they’re pretty much required – but we tweak them based on a variety of formal and informal assessments of our own. We tell students their grades, but we spend far more time talking them through more specific, potentially useful feedback about what they seem to be doing well and what they might try instead if they’re not. In other words, while we still retain the trappings of an outmoded grading model, we do our best within structure to more fully discern and more effectively assist.

The A-F Report Card given by the State of Oklahoma to its public schools each year does none of the things assessment is supposed to do. It provides no support, and intentionally limits the data it is willing to consider. There are no adjustments on the part of the state based on how well a given school is doing, and no conversation regarding options for improvement. It’s not even measuring most of the things we claim are most valuable to us. It is merely calculated and published, and each year more and more schools are sent to sit in the corner with their ‘dunce’ caps on.

If the goal isn’t to help struggling schools, and there’s no state interest served merely by comparing apple schools to the orange, what exactly is the purpose? Is the OKSDE going to call our parents and ask for a meeting? Are our state legislators going to suggest we be tested for meds or glasses? Best case scenario, what are we hoping happens as a result?

I suppose they could be onto some cutting edge pedagogy I’ve overlooked. Perhaps if I just keep posting my kids grades in the main hallway outside the front office, I’ll be the highest standards most teachingest educator ever! I won’t even lesson plan or teach anymore, and when kids ask for help, I’ll explain I have so many obligations and just can’t spare the time or resources unless it’s to give them more tests to post.

A teacher who just kept failing more and more kids while providing less and less assistance or supplies would be condemned as completely useless and unethical. A state that just keeps failing more and more schools while providing less and less is the same – but moreso.

Related Post: #OKSDE & The A-F School Report Card

Related Post: He Tests… He Scores!

Ms. Bullen’s Data-Rich Year

April 25, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

You ever across something while browsing online, and wish you hadn’t? I believe it was Tosh.0 that did a segment called “Things You Can’t Unsee.” Sometimes they just gross you out, or cause emotional distress, and sometimes they’re just inappropriately violent or pornographic or just plain wrong.

This one is none of those, except perhaps ‘just plain wrong.’ It’s from the OKSDE website, and of course it’s about Data-Tracking, and Value Added Measurement, and all sorts of other bureaucratic verbiage designed to disguise a much simpler phrase, “blame everything on teachers whatever it takes.” It’s also the death knell of my efforts to focus on the positives in education.

Here is what the State of Oklahoma – and the State Department of Education in particular – thinks of you, the teacher, represented here by dear Ms. Bullen:

I know you can’t read the small print yet, but already a few things are clear:

(1) VAM / TLE / State Data in General is designed to consciously require a giant graphic full of small print to even begin to understand.

(2) The OK SDE / State Legislature is glad you’re not married and thus presumably lack any sort of a family, otherwise you’d never be able to put in the kind of time outside the school day we’re expecting. So much for a pay scale based on having a spouse with a real job! [Confused Reader: “But, married women can use the ‘Ms.’ – it’s marital status neutral, that’s the whole point.” Me: “Clearly you’ve never been to Oklahoma.”]

(3) The OK SDE / State Legislature is under the impression you are approximately nine years old. (In which case I suppose it’s just as well you’re not married.) On the other hand, if you can find Waldo in this picture, you may get a sticker!

Let’s take a closer look at a few parts of this wonderful chart:

(4) On zooming in, I think we have a much better idea why Ms. Bullen is not married. Elective cosmetic surgery is such a risky venture – just ask Kenny Rogers, Bruce Jenner, or Ms. Bullen. Yikes!

(5) How wonderful that Ms. Bullen is able to use one of those pesky PD days before school begins for something so unlikely to develop her as a professional. Instead, she can spend her time labeling, tracking, and otherwise pre-judging her students based on how they did last year. Given that she’ll have approximately 170 of them, this might take several days, comfortably cut off from her department, administration, or other professionals. But all the best educational studies show, of course, that the ideal way to tap into a child’s full potential is to form judgments about their abilities and potential before you’ve even met them!

(6) It seems I’ve been a little unfair in assuming this will all be on Ms. Bullen, as Joey apparently comes from a very involved two-parent family. Plus, Ms. Bullen’s principal has nothing but time to help design IEPs for all 1,246 students in the building, so that’s not really a problem – unless he or she also wishes to complete all 73 levels of the required Teacher Leader Evaluation System for every adult in the building as well. But, some of the burden can be shared by the many Tutors and Trainers in the building.

Hey, you know what would be fun? Let’s each stop for a moment and see if we can remember the name(s) of the Tutor(s) and Trainer(s) in our buildings who will help us with all of this when it’s our turn…

How did you do? If you came up with “none of these positions even exist,” you get another sticker, just like they do in Tennessee!

(7) You are expected to create an IEP for each and every one of your students before school even begins! (Step Two) Setting aside the fact that this is insane, it’s still nine full steps before Step Eleven, where an ‘early warning system’ (which appears to be an iPad app) will send an alert to a strange man in the room that Joey is off-track, or failing. Presumably the strange man will tell Ms. Bullen, who can call Joey’s very involved parents in to look at the full-sized mural she’s devoted to the Chutes & Ladders version of Joey’s educational journey. Thank god there’s finally a way to know when students are failing – other than the fact that they’re, for example, failing.

(8) You are expected to immediately discard the approximately 170 IEP’s you’ve spent weeks creating so you can “adjust instruction on the fly” (Step Three) based solely and exclusively on the perceived reactions of Joey. We can only hope the 34 other students in the room are not offended at the impact this must have on their individualized learning experience. At the same time, this is a great moment – it’s the only point in All 18 Steps that assumes for even an instant that you (represented here by Ms. Bullen) have any idea what you’re doing without consulting a few dozen spreadsheets of data. But don’t worry – you won’t be stuck teaching ‘on the fly’ for long!

(9) You will have plenty of time to meet one on one with each of your students (Step Six) to discuss their behavior, attendance data (which is different from attendance… how?), and performance, as well as what Joey’s parents want for him – during the one moment in which is overly involved parents are conspicuously absent. You’ll set some individualized goals for the year to replace that IEP you developed before you met him, then threw out in Step Three.

Assuming you have approximately 168 students, and that each of these meetings take about 10 minutes, that’s only about… 28 hours each week. Or is it each month? I’m not sure how often this one is supposed to happen. Let’s assume it’s just once – it’s not like Joey’s performance, behavior, goals, or attendance are likely to change throughout the year. So we’ll just use that extra 28 hours floating around during, say… October. Nothing that important happens in October anyway.

(10) I’m not sure what “Data Coaches” are (Step Seven), although each school apparently has several (they must share office space with all the Tutors and Trainers – no wonder Oklahoma schools are so darned inefficient with how they spend district money!) Apparently while teachers celebrate their one collective decent idea, the Data Coaches do some sort of ceremonial handshake – or perhaps it’s a dance. I’m not familiar with that culture, but I’d really like to see that. There simply aren’t enough dances based on hard educational data.

(11) The Building Principal, on the other hand, reviews “performance data” with Ms. Bullen, but don’t worry – he does it to “support and empower,” not “admonish” (Step Eight). You have to remember that Ms. Bullen is nine years old and unlikely to marry due to a botched elective cosmetic procedure – she cannot be treated like an adult and simply discuss how things are going with her class. Wait! I mean… with Joey. Just how things are going with Joey.

(12) We’ll skip ahead a few steps to where you can’t leave for the summer until you make sure Joey and each of your other 167 students are properly tracked and categorized for the next school year (Step Sixteen). It’s important Joey not have any input on what he might be interested in or challenge himself by taking advanced coursework. We don’t want to risk student engagement in a way that might threaten the data! It would actually be more efficient to simply divide the classes by socio-economic status, race, or educational level of whatever parental units happen to be in the picture, but we might miss a few outliers that way. So, we stick to DATA.

(13) Because you haven’t spent nearly enough time in data meetings for Steps One through Sixteen, and are assumed to have no idea how the year went based on the formal and informal assessments you give throughout the year, your relationship with each student, or anything else that might indicate you have a pulse, you’ll meet with your principal some more and work on your own Value Added Measurement numbers (Step Seventeen).

(14) This would be a great time for Ms. Bullen to lower than neckline a bit and talk to that building principal about making sure she doesn’t have any ELL, Integrated, or otherwise low-performing classes next year. Although she has a heart for struggling students like Joey, they’re totally killing her VAM scores. As Roster Verification and Teacher Linkage become dominant, she’s growing rather resentful of any little turd that hurts her scores and means she’s not getting the merit pay those Pre-AP teachers probably will. I suggest some aggressive accessorizing to distract from those rectangular lips.

(15) You and the other district teachers will spend your summers looking at data on your own time (Step Eighteen), although you’re barely paid for the required 180 days you’ve already spent at school. Only when you pass through the gate painted to look like that trip to Six Flags you can never afford are you free to begin tracking and prejudging next year’s students based on their test scores.

Of course, you’re not in this profession for the summers, or the money, or the remnants of hope you had only a few years ago – that’s not what teaching is about. You have something better than a sense of purpose to what you do, or remnants of self-respect, or even the resources to take your family on even a modest trip – you have data.

Congrats Ms. Bullen! You may have low VAM scores, endless meetings, no summers to yourself, and no money to try to fix that botched surgery, but you’ve had a data-rich year!

All I Need Is This Lamp…

March 27, 2014July 31, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

If you want to completely derail any meeting of three or more educators – teachers, administrators, curriculum coordinators, outside consultants, or whatever – ask what our priorities should be.

You know, as educators – what are our priorities for the kids? It’s hard to make a good plan without a clear target, so what are we trying to accomplish – you know, ideally?

It’s a pretty easy question until you try to limit yourself to a reasonable number.

Love of learning, of course. Critical thinking, which we define as ‘analyzing information effectively.’ Analyzing information effectively, which we define as ‘critical thinking.’ Oh – and reading. Lifelong readers. And independent learners – is that the same as ‘love of learning’? Maybe it is. But that’s it – just those.

Oh! College & Career Ready – that’s on the website, so we need that one. And citizenship. Social skills. Character. Maybe some content – just basic stuff like the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Amendments, the major Court Cases, the most important Elections and Legislation and not just Social Studies, but the Scientific Method and just basic science stuff, you know? I realize it’s Oklahoma, but SOME science wouldn’t be completely out of line…

And of course Shakespeare, the Bible, MLK, which reminds us – primary sources, understanding other cultures and points of view, charts and maps and statistics, and bias, and order of operations in math class, functional grammar and sentence structure, and – OH! Responsibility. That’s more important than all the rest except for all the others that are more important than all the rest.

But we should stop there. Those are the two or three MOST important things.

And who won the Civil War. Then we’re done.

We said ‘Reading,’ right? Oh – RIGHT! Writing – did we say writing? We MUST teach kids to write effectively. To different audiences. About different things. Things they’ve read about.

But just those. That’s not so –

Oh! Oh oh oh oh – can we add ‘media skills’? Is it too late for that? It is? Oh, but, um… it’s really… well, OK.

I can’t resolve this even in my own mind in 2014, but I can offer two rather compelling insights from nearly two centuries ago – and one’s not even directly about public education (but it so totally is). Both are edited excerpts of longer documents, the originals of which are quite Google-able (or you can just email me at [email protected]) if you’re so inclined.

Document #1: Report of the Workingman’s Committee of Philadelphia On the State of Public Instruction in Pennsylvania (1830)
[This committee was appointed September, 1829, to ascertain the state of public instruction in Pennsylvania, and to propose appropriate improvements.]
The original element of despotism is a MONOPOLY OF TALENT, which consigns the multitude to comparative ignorance, and secures the balance of knowledge on the side of the rich and the rulers.
If then the healthy existence of a free government be, as the committee believe, rooted in the WILL of the American people, it follows as a necessary consequence, of a government based upon that will, that this monopoly should be broken up, and that the means of equal knowledge, (the only security for equal liberty) should be rendered, by legal provision, the common property of all classes.
In a republic, the people constitute the government, and… [they] frame the laws and create the institutions, that promote their happiness or produce their destruction. If they be wise and intelligent, no laws but what are just and equal will receive their [approval], or be sustained by their [votes]. If they be ignorant… they will be deceived by mistaken or designing rulers, into the support of laws that are unequal and unjust.
It appears, therefore, to the committee that there can be no real liberty without a wide diffusion of real intelligence; that the members of a republic, should all be alike instructed in the nature and character of their equal rights and duties, as human beings, and as citizens…
Document #2: Horace Mann Advocates for Public Libraries (1840)
[Mann was the most influential educational reformer of his day. His influence radiated out from Massachusetts, where he did much to improve the common schools by securing better buildings, higher salaries, and superior teaching methods through teachers’ institutes and normal schools.]
A library will produce one effect upon school children, and upon the neighborhood generally, before they have read one of the books, and even if they should never read one of them.
It is in this way: The most ignorant are the most conceited. Unless a man knows that there is something more to be known, his inference is, of course, that he knows everything. Such a man always usurps the throne of universal knowledge, and assumes the right of deciding all possible questions. We all know that a conceited dunce will decide questions extemporaneously which would puzzle a college of philosophers or a bench of judges. Ignorant and shallow-minded men do not see far enough to see the difficulty.
Now those children who are reared without any advantages of intelligent company, or of travel, or of books—which are both company and travel—naturally fall into the error of supposing that they live in the center of the world, that all society is like their society, or, if different from theirs, that it must be wrong. They come, at length, to regard any part of this vast system of the works of man, and of the wisdom of God, which conflicts with their homebred notions, as baneful, or contemptible, or non-existent…
Now, when this class of persons go out into the world and mingle with their fellow men, they are found to be alike useless on account of their ignorance, and odious for their presumption…
A library, even before it is read, will teach people that there is something more to be known.