Students

Eduflack Students, teachers, turnaround, Woodrow Wilson

I’m not playing around here. Using gaming to enhance classroom instruction can be an incredibly powerful tool.

In my latest for Education World, I explore how gaming — in the hands of a great teacher — can make a huge difference in helping subjects like civics and history come alive for students. And they don’t even have to be electronic, technology-based games to be effective.

As I wrote:

Classroom instruction has evolved a tremendous amount in a relatively short period of time. Educators today clearly recognize that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to educate 21st century kids. As we learn more and more about how the human brain processes information, we knew more and more that kids learn in different ways, and instruction has to be tailored to address the learner.

Game-based instruction can be a strong approach to such tailored instruction. While delivering content in new and interesting ways – ways that today’s learners can relate to – it also teaches those 21st century skills we know our kids need to develop.

Give it a read. And I’m not playing!

 

With Schools, It All Comes Down to Local Politics

Eduflack accountability, school boards, Students, teachers

When Eduflack moved to New Jersey, he promised himself that he would never, ever get involved in local edu-politics. After serving as CEO of a state-based education reform organization in Connecticut and as a school board chairman for one of the nation’s top K-12 districts in Virginia, I had had more than my fair share of politics as it relates to local schools.

Sure, a few times I slipped off the wagon. At the beginning of the year, I felt compelled to weigh in on our local battle, which made its way to The New York Times, on parents that were pushing for more tests and higher stakes in our community. And I just can’t resist wading into Facebook discussion with parents who completely bastardize Common Core and meaningful accountability measures as they try to bully other parents into joining the opt-out movement.

But today, I completely fell off the wagon. As I watch a contingent within our local community savage our schools superintendent, going after him for anything and everything. A few months ago, he was attacked because one of our high schools didn’t have enough toilet paper. Last week, it was because nine teachers (in a school district of 10,000 students) have announced they won’t be returning for the 2016-17 academic year. And then last night, the superintendent was gutted for issuing a thorough and responsive report on lead testing in all of our schools.

Following the issues in Flint, MI (and then in Newark, NJ), our local schools acted. Last night, the superintendent reported back to the community. You can see his message here. As a parent, I felt at ease and as a citizen I felt we had the right folks at the helm of this school district.

Then the hatred started coming, with the typical accusations being thrown out without having any meaning rooted in truth. The lead report was further proof the district was being run like a business. That we have 30 central office staff (in a district with 10k kids). That we constructed a new central office (so that must be wasteful, no?). That it is clearly the end of the world as we know it, and we shouldn’t feel fine about it.

So against my better judgment (and against the wishes of the edu-wife), I again strapped on the local edu-politics helmet, and waded into the social media morass. Following is my first post:

So you want better quality toilet paper for school bathrooms, and now you want to replace all the piping in our schools (even though most kids bring their own water bottles to class). Please let me know when we are going to focus on teaching and learning in our community. That’s what I care about. 

And BTW, schools are businesses, albeit non-profit ones. They have to balance their budgets, and need to do so when nearly 90 percent of their total budgets go to people costs (salaries, healthcare, retirement, etc.). As a former school board chairman, I can tell you it is easy to attack school spending when you don’t understand it. But try to address 30% increases in health insurance as you give all teachers a step increase to keep them from leaving from other districts, while ensuring no cuts affect the classroom.

These attacks on TP and lead are downright silly. We have great schools, exemplary teachers, and our kids get one of the best public educations around. Let’s not lose sight of what is most important – our kids and the teaching they receive and the learning they accumulate.

And then I needed to follow up with:

 I’m not sure what you ask when you ask would I allow. I think our supe should be praised for how he handled the lead issue, yes. He proactively (as there were no specific issues found in our schools) conducted a comprehensive investigation, then reported it back so we all know which faucets, by room number, may have had an off result. And we saw that there was no issue for concern.

If I were on the board, would I have supported a new central office? Yes to that too. For prospective educators in our district, that is the first building they see in our community. It should reflect our commitment to teaching and learning. And for a district offering a world-class education to all kids, we should have facilities for ALL employees that reflect that. In the long run, amortized over the years, that building will be a strong investment. Otherwise, we’d be making regular, ongoing repairs to old buildings that will never be up to snuff.

Investments in physical plant are always hard. You are spending taxpayer dollars to do so. Those decisions are made very carefully, and should never be made at the expense of the classroom. And I don’t believe they have.

I speak from experience. Serving on a school board is a tough, thankless job. Those who do it well do it for the right reasons. Constructive criticism is valuable, but misguided and unfounded attacks just aren’t. We have a great district, excellent teachers, and one of the top superintendents in the country. We need a board – and a community – that supports them all.

The edu-wife cringes. I’ve now wasted two hours of my life I’m not getting back. But hopefully, based on some of the responses, it is showing the silent majority of parents they are not alone in their thinking.

 

 

From Opting Out to Opting In

Eduflack accountability, high-stakes testing, Parents, Students, teachers, technology

While the testing opt-out movement is incredibly hot, and is now credited with being far better organized this year, Eduflack gets personally frustrated with those parents who are opting their kids out of testing to make a political point. Forget the impact it might have on their school district, their school, or even their child’s personal education. It seems its is far better to “damn the man” and amplify the urban legends about those dreaded “high-stakes tests.”

Such a position may not come as a surprise from someone who has long advocated for the Common Core, for stronger state tests, and for greater accountability. But it may be a shock that Eduflack was an opt-out parent during the 2014-15 school year. We did so for very personal and real reasons, that I wrote about for Education Post. And now we are opting back in, with that same child taking the PARCC last year after sitting it out the previous.

As I opine:

Yes, this opt-out parent is now opting his child back in.

The reasons for this are simple. Our son has worked very hard over the last year and a half, and it is important for his teachers and his parents to see how he is progressing. PARCC is the best tool available to know where our son falls when it comes to fourth-graders in his school, our state and across the country. And it helps his fifth-grade teacher best know the knowledge and skills he is coming in with next school year.

His IEP is not an excuse, it was merely a new compass. It is also not an opt-out from accountability.

A week into the 2016 PARCC and I can report that both of my kiddos are proclaiming that the state test is “easy.” No stress. No vomiting on keyboards. No emotional breakdowns in the computer lab. Just another test in the course of regular quizzes, tests, and assignments the average elementary school student experiences.

Give the piece a read. Let me know what you think. Just don’t opt out of reading it.

 

 

For Students’ Sake, Let’s Look to Student Data

Eduflack 21CS, assessment, eddata, Parents, Students

Over at Education World, I have a new piece that looks at the important role student research and data can play when gathered and utilized properly. From Data Quality Campaign to ACT to NWEA to Project Tomorrow to ERCA, we can see the value data plays, particularly in understanding student perceptions on key issues, including their college and career aspirations.

As I wrote:

For years, we have grappled with the notion of “assessment literacy,” where educators, families, and policymakers can better learn the importance of data collection and the ability to distinguish a valuable data-gathering tool from a lousy one. At the same time, educators have demanded that any student data collected needs to be used to help the student, and not just as the impetus for punitive action.

Teachers are right. We probably don’t focus on what is helpful to the student nearly as often as we should, particularly when it comes to student data. And that’s a cryin’ shame. The student perception information coming from organizations like Project Tomorrow and NWEA is incredibly important. It provides a glimpse at how what is taught in the classroom aligns with student interests and passions. It helps us better understand the path today’s young learners are on as we encourage them toward college and career success.

I hope you’ll give it a read.

 

 

Going Back to College, College, College …

Eduflack higher ed, Online Education, Presidential campaign, Students

Tributes to LL Cool J (back when he was a rapper) aside, earlier this week Eduflack has the honor and privilege to spend a little time up at Williams College to guest talk at Williams’ Political Leadership course.

The course is taught each year by Jane Swift, the former governor of Massachusetts and the CEO of the terrific Middlebury Interactive Languages. I’ll go on the record and declare I am a HUUGE fan of Governor Swift. That might surprise some, who remember that back in the day I ran a congressional campaign where she was the opponent and I did and said things in the heat of the campaign that I wish I could do over, but it is true. The good governor and I reconnected about a decade ago, after she transitioned from being chief executive of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and was focusing her enormous energies on her passions of education and education technology.

For all the folks who bemoan edtech and how online learning has stripped all meaning from classroom instruction and has kids focused on rote memorization of math and English items for the state test, take a look at what Swift has built up at Middlebury. She and her team have been able to harness the power of interactive technologies to teach foreign language to students across the nation. And they have done it in ways that better prepares the learners for the 21st century, both in their language fluency and in their approach to learning in general.

But I digress. Back to Williamstown and the textbook New England college campus at Williams. As part of Political Leadership (LEAD 250/PSCI 205), this week’s class was focused on trends and tactics when it comes to establishing a political narrative. I was fortunate enough to spend nearly four hours with students in the class. And I was amazed by what I learned from the students.

We can be so quick to stereotype students, particularly in the context of politics. It doesn’t help when it is on a campus like Williams, that carries a long-standing reputation for liberalism. But I found students who represented the political spectrum. More importantly, I engaged with students who had deep reasons for their political beliefs. Those who could distinguish the different forms of feminism when explaining why they may be for or against Hillary Clinton. Those who didn’t share the distain for the fly-over states that we hear from so many political prognosticators. Those who had looked through the talking points of all of the viable candidates to really drill down on how they would lead, who was advising them, and who would be at their sides in a new presidential administration.

What I heard was what “educated voters” continue to say is absent — a new generation of voters who are passionate about issues, inquisitive about candidates, and determined to be informed as to both how politics and policy work. And it helped that these students were also interested in education policy, particularly how it should impact politics but rarely does.

It’s very easy to voice frustration with “today’s college students.” Demands for free college, safe spaces, and the like make it very easy to caricature those on our college campuses. But my visit to Williams gave me hope. I saw the sort of students I wished I had been during my own postsecondary experience. I saw them questioning and pushing back on convention. I saw them seeking to better understand a political system that has largely either taken them for granted or written them off. I saw the future.

 

Can’t We Give Summers Back to Our Kids?

Eduflack changemakers, Parents, Students

I’ll admit it. I’m growing weary of hearing fellow parents brag about all of the academic acceleration they have planned for their kids this summer. Of the additional math they can get in summer boot camps. Of the foreign language immersion or the year ahead they can get in another academic subject by spending their summer months in a dark concrete box with no windows and no distractions.

The edu-wife hates me for saying it, but I want my kids to get “free-range” summers, a short part of their year where they can just enjoy being kids. I yearn to go back to a time when the summers were for bike riding and swimming and whiffle ball and all of those activities that are now seen as “distractions” by the very helicopter parents who once enjoyed them.

Over at Medium, my latest piece for the Ashoka Foundation’s Changemakers series focuses on the need to just let our kids be kids, particularly during the summers. As I write:

I look at my own kids, and their classmates, and feel great empathy for their generation. Too many are denied a real childhood. Too many are told, at the youngest of ages, that if an activity doesn’t help them get into a top-tier college, then it isn’t worth doing. Too many are given a warped sense of priorities at far too young an age.

Happy reading!

 

 

 

The Ghosts of Reading First

Eduflack Achievement gap, NAEP, reading, Reading First, SBRR, Students

This week, the Center for American Progress released a new report, “A Look at the Education Crisis: Tests, Standards, and the Future of of American Education.” In it, the researchers at CAP take a look at recent NAEP data to see if the state of public education is as bad as some say or on a rocketing upward trajectory as others say (guess it really depends on who your friends or online trolls are).

USA Today’s Greg Toppo has a great summary of the report here. We’ve all seen that high school graduation rates are at all-time highs. But it is hard to celebrate such a statistic when we still see that only one in five low-income fourth graders achieved reading proficiency on NAEP. Or that only 52 percent of “nonpoor” fourth graders were able to hit that proficient mark.

It doesn’t get better for eighth graders in reading. Only a third of them are proficient in cities like Charlotte, Austin, Miami, and San Diego. Boston comes it at only 28 percent proficient. NYC 27 percent. Chicago 24 percent. Philly 16 percent. Cleveland 11 percent. And Detroit at only 7 percent.

So why do these eighth grade numbers matter so much? Most of the students in the eighth grade NAEP sample never attended school when Reading First was law of the land. Sure, they may have benefited from textbooks that were developed to meet RF requirements years prior. And some of their teachers may have utilized the PD and supports they received during the height of RF. But each of these kids has now gone through eight or so years of public school where scientifically based reading instruction was not demanded nor expected.

These latest NAEP numbers, and the analysis from CAP make one thing very clear. We need scientifically based reading instruction in the classroom. Our teachers need to be prepared for it. Our elementary schools need to be based around it. Our students need to be instructed in it. And our families need to know it when they see it (and know when they aren’t seeing it in their community schools).

Yes, Reading First had implementation issues. Yes, at times it was more steel hammer than velvet glove. But can we really say we shouldn’t be using what is known to be effective in teaching kids to read? Can we really say, with all the data that we have, that early reading instruction based on phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension isn’t the correct path? Can we really say a a philosophical approach to reading trumps and research-based instructional approach? And can we really say we should’t be using what is proven effective in the classroom?

For those who condemn the Common Core’s emphasis on non-fiction texts, it is ridiculous to assume that a low-income eighth grader can read the rich literature sought when only a third of them are reading proficient in the first place.

When scientifically based reading instruction became the law of the land in 2002, it was an approach that was embraced by all comers. The teachers unions. The principals groups. The superintendents. The teacher education community. The business community. All saw the value in using proven-effective approaches to instruction. All saw the need to do something to improve literacy, particularly with low-income learners. All embraced SBRR.

We need to find that solidarity again. The most recent eighth grade NAEP scores show us that taking a different path has failed too many kids … again. We need to remember that literacy is not, or at least shouldn’t be, a political issue. Whether we want all kids to pass a high-stakes, state-based, standards-aligned exam or we want all children to find a love for learning and literature, the ability to read is a non-negotiable.

While Reading First has now been relegated to the history books for the past decade, we cannot and should not ignore the hundreds of thousands of research studies that showed the effectiveness of scientifically based instruction. We cannot and should not ignore the reality that, when SBRR was in full effect in the early to mid 2000s, reading proficiency rates were on the rise, both with the low-income students the program targeted and other learners who benefited from the focus on SBRR-based instructional materials and PD. And we cannot and should not ignore that far too many kids — particularly those that are black, brown, or low-income — are struggling when it comes to reading … and we know just what should be done to help them.

 

Moldy Classrooms and Charter Hatred

Eduflack charter schools, Students, teachers, Uncategorized

Today, Eduflack is going back to the very roots of this blog, when we first wrote on the intersection of education and communications. Where we looked at how effective (or ineffective) we were in talking about and advocating for real school improvement.

In recent weeks, Eduflack has been absolutely sickened to see the articles about the facilities atrocities at the Detroit Public Schools. One can see a Detroit educator offer a guided tour of the problems here.  One can read more about it here in a great Medium piece.

No educator should have to teach in conditions like this. No students can be expected to learn in conditions like this. And in a city that has some of the highest per-pupil expenditures in the nation, it is just unconscionable that this is considered by some as an acceptable 21st century teaching and learning environment.

So it is understandable when we hear of massive teacher “sick outs” in Detroit, where schools are forced to close because not enough teachers come in and subs either can’t be found or can’t be paid. It is even more understandable when one learns that teaching in modern-day Detroit can mean missed paychecks and no job security (despite a collectively bargained contract). The only way many educators can ensure their voices are heard with regard to teaching conditions is by exercising their First Amendment rights – speaking out and then assembling anywhere but their place of employment.

But those well-meaning educators and the demands to fix some deplorable learning conditions are done a grave disservice when the protests are lumped into the white noise of the current education debates.

Yesterday, as 85 Detroit schools were closed by sick-out at a time when President Barack Obama was visiting the Motor City, a teacher and teacher activist was asked about the educator protests. Instead of talking about crumbling buildings or overstaffed classrooms, issues that any parent would immediately embrace, he had to make it political. Instead, of facilities, this was about taking on the Governor and trying to block charter schools.

Or more specifically, ““We have got to stop this whole business by [Governor] Snyder, which is an attempt just further the charters and further, really, the destruction of education in the city.”

And with that, it becomes just another day in edu-politics. Instead of maintaining the moral high ground, of protesting moldy classrooms, unsafe buildings, and killer drinking water, this becomes just another attempt to stick a thumb in the eye of charter schools and those families that have found a better path through school choice.

That’s a cryin’ shame. In 2012, we saw the Chicago public stand with Chicago teachers in what was an ugly city-wide strike. There, the teachers held the high ground and had public sympathy with them. And they received many of the concessions they were looking for.

For a moment, Detroit was on a similar path. What parent wants to send a child to a school where you can see more mold than drywall? Who wants their kids learning in a building where vermin race through the halls? Even parents frustrated with schools being closed at a late date and having to scramble for childcare could sympathize with those teachers because of those conditions.

Then some activist teachers had to get greedy. They had to play the charter schools card. And it a city where public school enrollment had dramatically shrunk over the past decade, and where charter enrollments have increased, that was the wrong card to play. As empathetic parents were horrified by school conditions, those same parents were then again told they were wrong for seeking a better path for their kids and hoping they get of the charter wait lists.

Another example of losing the rhetorical high ground in an attempt to score a cheap political hit that only muddied the debate you were already winning.

 

 

“Compete Against Yourself”

Eduflack accountability, arts, assessment, AYP, Students

Over the weekend, the edu-wife and I had the good fortune of seeing Kristen Chenoweth perform with the Philadelphia Symphony. If you don’t know who Chenoweth is, you might as well stop reading now … or start listening to the original Broadway cast recording of Wicked. Your choice.

At any rate, Chenoweth paused from her incredible performance to talk about her experiences, both as an artist and as a pageant performer. She spoke of how competing for both the Miss Oklahoma and Miss Pennsylvania crowns helped her develop her life motto.

When the four-foot-11-inch vocalist and actress realized was that she couldn’t compete — at least on the pageant circuit — against the six-foot statues she was standing next to. So she decided there was only one solution. She needed to focus on competing against herself.

Chenoweth offered that life lesson to a number of young women in the audience in Philadelphia that night, women who aspired to be like Chenoweth and wanted to pursue their passions in singing and performance. But it is a lesson that can and should apply to all students. And it is a lesson that isn’t all that foreign in our education debates.

For all the criticism of HOW it was measured, at the heart of adequate yearly progress (or AYP) was schools competing against themselves. Could they do better this year than they did in the previous? Could they build on previous years’ gains and continue to show improvement?

In the coming months, we will again hear a great deal about state tests and opting out and the proper role of state benchmarks in the learning process. Maybe we can take Kristen Chenoweth’s life motto and apply it to student assessment. Maybe, just maybe, we can use annual state assessments to help young learners see the progress over the course of the last year. Maybe we can use tests as the benchmarks they are supposed to be, helping students see all that time and hard work has paid off, and there is quantitative proof they know more this year than they did the previous.

Yes, the adults in the room often put too much weight into the “competitive” aspects of education. Let there be no mistake. Competition is OK. It’s not the end all/be all of life. But it is good to set a goal and achieve it. It is good to show growth and accomplishment. And is certainly is good to compete against yourself. It’s true for artists and performers, and it is certainly true for most children.

Growth is a good thing. Progress is a good thing. And competition, in the right frame, is a good thing. We should all be competing against ourselves,  whether as children or as adults.

Thank you, Kristen Chenoweth, for reminding me this. And it doesn’t matter if such competition makes one Popular or not.

“Easing Student Pressure” Starts With Letting Educators Lead

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, assessment, high-stakes testing, Parents, Students

Over the holiday break, Kyle Spencer of The New York Times reported on how testing and a school district’s effort to ease student pressures has led to an “ethnic divide” in the community. It is an interesting read, a read that taps into many of the issues and concerns that have been rippling through public education in recent years.

But Spencer’s piece only tells a part of the story. How does Eduflack know? Because the edu-kids are students in the New Jersey district profiled by the Times. Currently, I have a fourth grader in an upper elementary school and a third grader in a lower elementary school. I wish it were as simple as the Times tried to make it seem.

For instance:

  • Spencer reports on how a gifted and talented math program has been moved from a fourth grade start to a sixth grade start. But there is no mention of parents lobbying hard to get their kids in that fourth grade program. Or of families that put their third graders through hours and hours and months and months of test prep so they would do well enough on the program entry exam to be accepted into the fourth grade class.
  • Spencer cites a researcher on how hard it is for Chinese and Indian immigrant young people to boost their way into the middle class. But there is no mention that the vast majority of these parents pushing for more are already 1-percenters (median family income in the district tops $150k), immigrants with advanced degrees, working on Wall Street or for one of New Jersey’s many pharmaceutical companies. In many of these families, middle class is far back in the rear-view mirror.
  • The article makes passing mention to “homework free” nights, but should include that there are four of those a year. And as a reference point, last year my then-second grader was doing nearly two hours of homework a night.
  • In drawing the fault lines between white parents and Asian parents in the district, the Times completely overlooks the local elections that were held this past November, where the candidate (a graduating high school student, actually) who was demanding higher standards and higher quality lost to the candidate urging a more holistic approach (exactly what the superintendent is now enacting).
  • And it certainly doesn’t mention the experience the edu-family had last year at back to school night, where a sea of parents surrounded the special education teacher, not because their children were special education, but because if it was a service the district offered, an offshoot of G&T they thought, then they were going to make sure their child got full access to it. The sea only parted when the sped teacher had the courage to point to a parent across the room and inform the throng that “there is a parent that I actually need to talk to about her child.”

In criticizing the district superintendent’s efforts to address the “whole child,” one parent is quoted by the Times as saying, “if children are to learn and grow, they need experiences.”

She is absolutely right. But those experiences require more than six hours in a classroom and three hours a homework a day, coupled with test prep and some time for extra-curricular foreign language classes and an instrument. (and for those who think I am exaggerating, let me introduce you to a girl who was in my daughter’s second grade last year). They need experiences that address both academic development and social-emotional learning. They need experiences that allow them to be kids, before they have to get into the cut-throat world of adulthood so many of their parents are pushing them into.

Since The New York Times article has come out, there has been a lot of criticism of Superintendent Aderhold and his focus on the “whole child.” Some have attacked him for dumbing down the district and denying students an opportunity to succeed. Others are appalled that he would impose his own vision for the district over the will of the parents. But maybe, just maybe, the supe is doing exactly what he should be doing, and exactly what we need from those leading our schools.

Dr. Aderhold is putting the needs of the children first. He is ensuring that educators have a voice, a real voice, in the direction of the public schools. He is showing there is more to student development and growth that reading, writing, and arithmetic. And he is working to demonstrate that the quality of a public education is about more than how many AP classes one takes, now many community college courses a high schooler enrolls in over the summers, and how many extra hours of math a fourth grader “earns” by getting a slot in a prized G&T program.

In the process, he might just be ensuring that elementary school kids get a little more time to ride their bikes and play a video game or two. He might just help a few more kids find the time to play baseball or take gymnastics.  And he may even help more families spend evening time together around a dinner table, talking and exploring, rather than just working through the hours of homework expected of a middle schooler these days.