Size Matters

There has recently been this push toward smaller schools that really scares me. The pundits have made a plethora of arguments with any number of data points to back up their claims that smaller schools are more successful. Annually News week creates a list of the top 100 schools and  in 2008 there was notice made that there was a trend of smaller schools out ranking larger ones.(Newsweek Excerpt). Naturally in a district, which we will leave nameless, we saw a rise in the number of schools to lower the number of students per school. There were a multitude of reasons given for this; Smaller schools have less students so they are safer, the students feel less like a number, smaller class sizes are better for learning, blah , blah blah. They go on and on. No please don't mistake my irreverence for their points as nonacceptance of the points themselves. In fact I whole heartily agree with the POINTS just not what they are using them to attempt to validate. Yes smaller class sizes... Good; Safety... , Important; Students feeling cherished, loved , and welcome...,PRICELESS. But what does come at a price is RESOURCES!!!! 

So a handful of these new schools gets the support of Bill Gates. What about the rest of them? How is it the natural reaction  to lowering class sizes is to make a whole new school? Why not just get more teachers in the same school? So now you have two sets of everything, where as with one school you could have just gotten teachers in the areas needed. Of course we also now need two principals, two sets of admin staff, two set of cafeteria staff, to electricity bills, to phone bills, and for every sport for boys and girls two sets of every thing.  So, now the budget is divided amongst these mini schools and everyone is surprised that the school has no money for things like calculators, paper, or after school programs.  (My personal favorite sports teams without basic safety equipment) 

Often the response has been get rid of sports, or stop offering programs like say robotics, or theater, or teachers and coaches will have to make up the difference(because they are paid SO highly they can afford to buy supplies for all their classes or teams). It's not fair for the kids, the teachers or the community. Here's a thought, why not take some time and come up with a real solution to the issues. instead of piling on new schools. Combine two or three of these small schools. After-all; Why can't a school of 2000 students have a small school feel? Why cant they have small class sizes? Why cant it be safe? These things could all be true, with good planing and prudent action. Small schools and big schools can and must coexist. However, too much of one will create a system much like that of our nameless district with no money, tons of schools, disgruntled teachers, disappointed families, and students left to suffer.

Value-Added Scores: The Truth Behind the Numbers

           The title of this blog post would lead one to believe that I am in support of an evaluation method that utilizes student test scores. This is definitely not the case. People in favor of these value-added scores will try to defend their opinion by saying that the ratings are based on a student’s progress and not just the base score. This begs the question, how can one compare the concepts learned in a 7^th grade math class to those learned in an 8^th grade math class when the material is much more challenging? A team of fifth grade teachers in New York is currently experiencing the lack of truth behind their evaluation ratings in which 40% was determined by student standardized test scores.

            The Principal at Public School 146 describes her fifth grade team as a group of hard-working, talented teachers that are dedicated to student achievement (staying until 7 pm on many Friday evenings). From winning a Fulbright scholarship to working as an Archaeologist in France, this team of teachers has a variety of backgrounds that would be impressive for college professors. After pushing 96% of their fifth graders to proficiency in English and 89% for math, one would think that these teachers would have some of the highest ratings in the state. This is not the case. This team of teachers had value-added scores that ranged from 1 to 11, all out of 100. One of the reasons for these low ratings is the fact that 97% of the students were proficient in math as fourth graders. After briefly reading about these teachers, do you agree with their low ratings?

            Some states have already adopted the use of value-added scores for teacher evaluations. In many cases, strong teachers are getting mediocre evaluations and some who get the highest are just ending up in a good situation. It is imperative that we fight this measure and work to find a better way to evaluate teachers. 

Click here to read the full article.

School Optional?

In the wake of the recent school shooting in Ohio, columnist and Baltimore City Schools Teacher, John Clayton Young teachers has begun to take a closer look at how reasonable or realistic it is to require all students to attend school in his March 12th Baltimore Sun article. Unsafe and unwelcoming environments are prevalent, and bullying has become commonplace, but Young insists that, “no matter the case, children are still required by law to be subjected to institutionalized education, no matter the cost.” This means that even if students feel angry, upset, uncomfortable, or even unsafe there is very little room for flexibility within laws. For some students, being forced to submit to the rigid structure of a school day could feel like prison, and the pressures of the social experience and unwelcome bullying could also feel unbearable. In a recent case the CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, Dr. Alonzo wrote to the parent of an allegedly bullied child and insisted that the district would not take action against her as a parent for the student’s truancy because the issue of bullying had not been resolved. If we do require students to attend school, what measurable actions are we taking to ensure their safety? And should parents who fear for their student’s safety and wellbeing not be able to keep student’s home?

There are many policies about bullying, but in reality there is very little that has improved within the culture of our schools to demonstrate their effectiveness. Students still feel unsafe, violence in the name of “self-defense” still occurs, and students are still absent from school out of fear. Baltimore City has verbally asserted the anti-bullying stance, but there must be a critical change in the culture and the environments of our schools in order to make schools institutions of learning and collaboration, instead of places breeding fear, negativity, and violence.

If school were an environment were the students’ minds were consistently being pushed to their limits with new ideas and stretched with creativity, I would support our current laws. If schools focused on building culture and embraced difference among students while creating well-rounded citizens, I would completely understand why every student was required to attend, but the reality is that our schools are far from great institutions of learning. Our schools are struggling to produce proficient readers, writers, and mathematicians, so safety and educating the whole child has become secondary. Until we are able to recreate the structure of schools so that all students feel safe, welcome, and supported in learning we will continue to see a culture of violence and indifference towards learning. It is time that we rethink our constructs of education and the requirements we currently ask students to meet and the environments in which we ask them to do so. For now, parents should have every right to pull their children from school and explore other options if their needs are not being met because as a society we have yet to prove that our method of educating is effective.

Falling Behind

As testing starts and the school year comes to a close, the most frequently asked question by my students is whether every test, grade, or project will hinder or improve their chances of proceeding to the eighth grade. I typically tell my students that if they are passing all of their classes they will be promoted. However, my response to students who are struggling to pass isn’t as concrete. In a NPR segment, Tovia Smith narrates the debate concerning the effectiveness of retaining students to improve their reading scores.

During the segment, Tim Taylor, president of Colorado Succeeds, maintains that retention benefits students by preventing them from having a false sense of academic achievement. In contrast, teachers discuss how retaining students is detrimental to a child’s social development and lowers academic expectations. Additionally, many anti-retention advocates argue that states should focus more on the issue of illiteracy by allocating funds to provide more tutoring opportunities instead of stigmatizing struggling readers. In Baltimore, the debate about holding students back remains blurry. A Baltimore Sun article describes how social promotion and “summer learning packets” were commonplace in 2003.

While Baltimore City Schools have taken greater strides to include more summer school opportunities and grade level interventions, teachers continue to discuss how students are promoted without knowing essential skills for the next grade level. My students have also voiced concerns about students being promoted despite their academic shortcomings, which in their perception lowers the academic expectations for the entire school. I agree that students receive mixed messages about academic expectations, and I question whether our present use of summer school and teacher accountability initiatives hold students responsible for their role in education. How can we ensure that we encourage taking ownership and foster confidence in our children while maintaining clear academic expectations?

Evaluation Based Pay with a TWIST!

In Iowa a bill is being proposed which would require teacher evaluations to include student performance. The value added measures the bill proposes take into account a student’s background and demographics when determining whether that child is making expected annual growth. This in effect doesn’t penalize a teacher for students who come in to their class already grade levels behind, which is the criticism of some other systems. Student performance information would be used as a “validating factor” when rating teacher effectiveness. A teacher who is exceptional during their observations should also have matching student achievement data. This however does call for a little faith in the observation tool and the observer.  According to this system when the observation data and student achievement data don’t match, administrators are called to evaluate the teacher’s practices. The main goal of this proposal is to identify and remove ineffective teachers from the system.

There are several challenges that I can already see with this system knowing our administrators in Baltimore. One, I have a feeling that if such a system were to be put into place in Baltimore there would be a lot of discrepancies between the observation data and the student achievement data.  Leaving administrators with a lot of paper work when re-evaluations of teacher practices have to be done. Also administrators aren’t the most objective people in the district and so teacher rankings end up being subjective measures based on how well a teacher is able to kiss that place where the sun don’t shine. This was evident with a similar value added measures implemented in New York, teachers were ranked as "high-quality educators one year only to be rated as poor the following year.” This doesn’t make much sense! I don't believe we should all jump into this band wagon. Our problem is we are all looking for that silver bullet so when a new system come out we all load up our guns thinking 'there we have it our cure to the education mess.' Well none exists! Problems in education require us to create a dynamic solutions for our dynamic classrooms. If you have ever stepped foot into an educational institution you will come to see every single classroom is unique, every school is unique, and so every school district is unique. Other challenges for the value added system include how to account for transfer students, team-taught classes or non-tested subjects like art or music.

Now back to the point on main purpose of the value added system. It seems very noble; teachers who are less than high qualified won't teach any of our children. There problem solved, remove bad teachers and our students will learn. This could be feasible goal… in high performing, high resource schools districts, which can recruit and retain highly effective teachers. However, in a school district like Baltimore city where teacher turn over rate is about 3 to 4 years it will be hard to keep highly qualified teachers in the system. And what happens after a round of evaluations and a district finds out that it needs to replace a significant number of their teachers. What does a district do especially when people aren’t lining up at the hiring fair to apply for a teaching position? 

I see many things wrong with the proposed system or maybe I am just too critical! Find out more below.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120311/NEWS/303110027/-1/groupblogs/Education-reform-plan-places-focus-quality-teachers