teachers

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.

 

 

Chaos, Coherence, Better #TeacherEd

Eduflack 21CS, assessment, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

If we want our children to be critical and creative thinkers, individuals who possess a true love of learning and a deeper ability to demonstrate it, we must ensure they have like-minded educators guiding them through the process. They need teachers who both know and do, instructional leaders who are able to adapt to the individual learner and specific lesson. They demand educators who personify the balance of both inputs and outcomes.

From “Out of ‘Chaos,’ A Call for Improved Teacher Education,” Eduflack’s latest on Medium

Teacher Education’s “Black Box”

Eduflack higher ed, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

Over at Real Clear Education, I have a new piece that looks at two recent research studies on innovation in teacher education, one of which proclaims significant research is needed when it comes to understanding what good teaching is. As I write, such data really isn’t needed. The real challenge is how we get the research we do know into classrooms, both at the K-12 and at the postsecondary levels.

In my essay, I issue a call to focus teacher preparation efforts both on what is known and what a prospective teacher is able to do with it. We need to move beyond teaching “at” someone and instead ensure the student — or the prospective teacher — is able to take that new knowledge and apply it. Even more simply, we need a competency-based approach to teacher education.

As I write:

There is nothing magical about 36 credit hours of graduate education that ensures one will be an effective teacher. Instead, it is about understanding content and pedagogy, as well as being able to put that understanding to use in a classroom of your own.

That means that teacher preparation must begin to shift from a “time served” model to competency-based one. It means more time spent demonstrating skills in a K-12 classroom than sitting in a lecture hall. It means recognizing that the prospective teacher takes priority over the process, appreciating what an educator is bringing to the process and then building personalized approaches to complete preparation. And it means continually acquiring competencies well after the initial licensure is completed.

Some may say the concept of throwing out the clock and the credit hour is controversial. But it is an idea that is both needed and proven. And it is an effort I am proud to be focusing on as part of my work at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.

Happy reading!

 

BAM! EdWords

Eduflack BAM, CCSS, Science, teachers

Eduflack readers know that I co-host a regular radio program on the BAM! Radio Network about Common Core and successful implementation efforts around the country. I’ve been doing those segments for about two years now, and greatly enjoy the opportunity to talk with educators and education leaders about what is actually working in our classrooms.

Recently, BAM! decided to launch a new platform called EdWords, providing commentaries that complement the content on its radio programs. I’m proud that Eduflack has been asked to contribute the written word to that platform, writing about Common Core implementation.

The first piece I have up on EdWords is a familiar one to Eduflack readers. Late last year, I wrote of a terrific third grade teacher who was using science and astronomy and non-fiction texts to help teach Common Core standards. That piece is now up at EdWords, focusing on how Common Core and content can get along.

I hope you’ll give it a read and give it a share. And check out all of the fabulous written content that BAM! is now making available to the education community. It is definitely worth the time.

 

Data Literacy and Teacher Ed

Eduflack 21CS, accountability, assessment, Teacher Education, teachers

When one thinks about the pieces that go into effective teaching and effective teaching education, much comes to mind. Content knowledge. An understanding of effective teaching techniques. Classroom management skills. Teamwork. The ability to wear about a zillion different hats, depending on the situation, the student, and the desired outcome.

Yes, we expect classroom teachers today to be educators and guidance counselors. Nurses and social workers. Juvenile justice surrogates and substitute parents. And now, of course, with such an emphasis on student testing and the use of assessment data in the classroom, we now look to educators to also serve as psychometricians.

Unfortunately, too few teacher preparation programs really do an adequate job in preparing aspiring educators with the knowledge and abilities to both understand the data provided to them by the school district and then put it to use in their classrooms. And even when a teacher is data literate, too often they are given student achievement data too late in the term (or after the term is completed) for them to even attempt to tailor instruction to meet the needs of their particular classes or students.

Step one in the process is understanding what it means to be “data literate.” What do we expect teachers to both know and be able to do with student assessment data? And how do we make sure that today’s classroom educators have the preservice and inservice supports to actually do what so many of us are asking of them?

The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation recently released a series of case studies that look specifically at this topic. In partnership with WestEd, the Dell Foundation examined what teacher preparation programs like those at Western Oregon University, Relay Graduate School of Education, Boston Teacher Residency, and Urban Teachers are doing to key in on the data literacy need. (Full disclosure, Eduflack has worked with Urban Teachers in the past, and just thinks the world of the program they have built.)

Coming out of these case studies, Dell — along with WestEd and the Data Quality Campaign — offered a set of nine skills that 21st century educators must possess to be “data literate” in today’s classrooms. They must:

  1. Define “data” broadly to include standardized test data as well as broader academic, socioeconomic, situational, behavioral and environmental data that affect student performance.
  2. Understand how to identify and apply critical grade-level standards in the context of individual students’ needs.
  3. Prioritize and validate relevant student data as it relates to learning and standards mastery.
  4. Develop high-quality informal and formal assessments in order to collect usable data on students’ progress against those standards.
  5. Administer assessments on an ongoing basis to monitor student understanding.
  6. Develop responsive lesson plans and differentiate instruction based on assessment and other contextual data.
  7. Use data-informed insights to communicate student achievement and needs to students and their families.
  8. Use data appropriately, knowing what conclusions can be drawn from what types of assessments.
  9. Understand that, although data is important, data alone does not define a student. Empathy and relationships matter.

Without question, this is asking an awful lot from teachers, particularly from those who never signed up for such “data-literate” priorities when they themselves first went through their own ed school experiences. But it isn’t too much to ask when one thinks of the students in their classrooms, what we expect of them, and the aspirations they may have for their own futures.

One can question the Common Core and its assessments and still believe in the need for data literacy. One can support the opt-out movement and still believe in data literacy. And one can demand the most stringent of student data safeguards and protections and still believe in data literacy for teachers.

At its core, data literacy is about improved teaching and improved learning. It is about further empowering teachers to do all they can to connect with that student or students who are struggling. It is about getting the most out of the classroom setting, and being able to demonstrate that the most has been achieved.

Testing has always been and will always be a key component of the K-12 learning experience. Regardless of what happens to a particular assessment instrument, assessments in the general sense will always be part of the learning process. It is the responsible thing to do to make sure those assessments are put to good use.

No, we don’t test kids for testing’s sake. We assess so we can improve the instructional process for a given class or child. And we can’t do that — or at least can’t do it well — if educators are not data literate.

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.

 

 

Doing What “Works” In the Classroom

Eduflack accountability, ESEA, high-stakes testing, NCLB, teachers, Uncategorized

Last week, educators across Florida went to the state capitol in what has become a common refrain. Florida teachers demanded more respect for their profession. They asked for a reduction in testing and its emphasis. They took on the perceived “profiteering” in public education, whether it be seen in charter school operators or textbook publishers.

There is no question that the education profession has been under attack for many years, and there is similarly no question that educators deserve greater respect than they largely get. Teaching is an incredibly difficult job, and it has only gotten more challenging in recent years. We look to teachers to be everything from guidance counselors to social workers to parole officers, and then we expect them to get every child under their care into Harvard. (sure, a little hyperbole, but what would an education debate be without it?)

Eduflack was struck, though, by a comment made by a Florida school district’s head of employee relations. Obviously responding to a question about why 3,000 teachers descended on Tallahassee to speak their minds, this school official said, teachers “want to get back to doing things in the classroom that they know work.”

This is a common refrain in the post-NCLB world. But what does it really mean? Does it mean we want to empower teachers to do what is most effective in teaching the kids in their care? Or does it mean to let teachers do what they want, when levels of accountability were low?

“Doing the things that they know works” would seem a tip of the hat to research-based instruction, where we have qualitative data showing the instruction boosts student learning. It speaks to longitudinal studies that seek to pinpoint what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to instructional practice. And it is almost lifted directly from the NCLB law itself, particularly as we talked about scientifically based reading when it came to Reading First and the creation of the What Works Clearinghouse over at IES.

If that’s what going back to doing what teachers know works, then sign me up now. Give me a placard and a megaphone and let me shout loud and proud for using evidence-based instruction in the classroom.

But please don’t tell me it is code for letting us go back to the way things used to be in the 1990s, when it was the Wild West when it came to both instructional practice, student expectations, and accountability. Please don’t suggest we go back to the good ol’ days when inputs ruled the day and outcomes were horrible things that were just whispered about.

When a third of fourth graders are unable to read at grade level, we don’t know what works (and if we do, we certainly aren’t using it). When that same percentage of fourth graders are unable to earn a college diploma eight years later, we sure don’t know what works.

Yes, we need to empower teachers. They need to be equipped with the skills, knowledge, and pedagogy to succeed in the classroom. They need to be supported – by financial and human resource – to lead their classrooms and reach their students. They need to be give real-time student data (and know what to do with it) so they can adjust and tailor instruction to meet the needs of this year’s class of students.

Yes, all educators should be using what works in their classrooms. Alas, we still have a long way to go before we can agree on what those research-effective practices are, and where evidence trumps philosophy.

 

A Surprising Backer of “Fair Share”

Eduflack AFT, NEA, reform, teachers, Uncategorized

As just about everyone engaged in education policy knows, today the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing Friedrichs v California Teachers Association. For those who need the Cliffnotes, the case is about whether a public union (California’s NEA affiliate) can require those who choose not to be union members to still pay agency fees for the collective bargaining benefits they receive.

Or even more simply, if you are a school teacher who chooses not be part of the teachers union, should you have to help pay some of the costs for all of the work that goes into negotiating your salary and benefits and that provides you the job guarantees you expect, whether you hold a union card or not?

Longtime readers of Eduflack would probably assume that I come down on the side of Friedrichs, joining with many other reformers in a supposed effort to stand up to the unions. But you’d be wrong.

I believe in the “fair share” arguments that the CTA and their supporters are making. I believe in the editorial stance that the Los Angeles Times took this morning. I believe that since Friedrichs benefits, she should pay her fair share for the collective bargaining rights she enjoys. She doesn’t have to pay the full freight of being a union member if she doesn’t want to, but we have to acknowledge that fair is fair.

My reasoning for such is simple, and quite personal. Twenty five years or so ago, I watched as my mother, and NEA member and high school teacher in West Virginia, walked the picket lines for better pay and better rights for teachers. Most of her fellow educators walked with her, as did most of the educators across the entire state. They did so against great threat. Striking teachers were told they would not be paid. They were told they would be punished for their actions. They were sued in court.

In my mother’s school, there were two or three teachers who chose not to strike, as is their right. They went into school each day during the strike, sitting in empty classrooms and drinking coffee. These teachers would be paid. And then they would receive the pay increases, improved benefits, and greater protections that the striking teachers fought so hard for.

None of the risk, all of the reward. Those teachers who chose to cross the picket lines of their fellow teachers were in a win-win. They didn’t jeopardize their careers, nor did they have to wonder how they were going to pay their rent that month. And then they received all of the benefits that they themselves refused to ask for. They got it because the teachers union negotiated it. Everyone benefits or no one does. That’s what a union and collective bargaining is all about.

At the time, my mother explained to my younger sisters the importance of unions and of collective bargaining. Her father was a lifelong member of the Teamsters. After dropping out of high school, he joined the Army. The Army taught him to drive a truck. And the Teamsters turned that skill into a profession. Because of his union, he was able to provide for his family of seven. When he cast a vote as a Teamster, it was always what was best for the group, not what may be best for him personally. They were a brotherhood, believing a rising tide lifted all boats.

I realize that many believe the Court will side with Friedrichs and determine that “fair share” is unfair for those not wanting to be in the union. I hope that isn’t the case. Yes, it is the right of every worker to determine whether they want to be full members of a public union or not. Yes, it is the right of a teacher to not want to pay for lobbying or political activities if they choose so. But it is also the obligation of that teacher, if he or she benefits from collective bargaining, to pay their fair share of the costs of said bargaining.

 

Can We Have a Little Prez Dialogue on Education Issues?

Eduflack accountability, assessment, CCSS, higher ed, Parents, Presidential campaign, Teacher Education, teachers

While it may be fun to some to watch the current cross between kabuki theater and Keeping Up With the Kardashians (otherwise known as the presidential campaigns), it is an understatement to say that the current crew of candidates seem to be a little light on policies and big issue discussions (unless you count walls and guns).

Over at Education Post, I make my plea for the candidates to get serious about a little education policy speak. In fact, I urge them to move beyond the low-hanging fruit of being anti-Common Core and pro-free college and instead offer a little insight into some deeper edu-issues that demonstrate what they really think of the role of instruction and learning in our society and our democracy.

After highlighting topics (and offering some specific questions) on topics such as the federal/state role in education, competency-based education, the true meaning of accountability, and the future of educator preparation, I conclude:

It is not enough to simply seek to “disrupt” current systems or to shift authority from one entity to another. Instead, the nation needs a clear vision of accountability, teacher preparation, modes of learning and expectations for all.

Collectively, we must work to identify those areas of significant agreement, while highlighting those topics that may require additional discussion and exploration. This work is not limited to local communities or states or Congress. It requires leadership at all levels, particularly from those seeking the presidency.

For more than a decade, we’ve seen the power of presidents who offer those strong visions. Whether through the bully pulpit or legislative action, whether we agree or disagree, presidents can impact policy at both the highest and most grassroots of levels. With public education affecting everything from home prices to tax coffers to social program costs, don’t voters deserve more than just knowing if a candidate is against common standards and for college education?

Give the whole piece a read. What am I missing? What edu-discussions will help us look beyond the talking point and more toward the true thinking (and priorities) of the future leader of the free world?

 

Non-Fiction, #CommonCore, and Deep Learning

Eduflack 21CS, CCSS, Science, STEM, Students, teachers, Uncategorized

Not a day can go by without someone criticizing the Common Core State Standards or blaming the Common Core for all that ails our public education system. And while assessments are usually the prime target for Common Core haters, the standards’ emphasis on non-fiction texts have drawn greater scrutiny in recent months.

No, Eduflack isn’t going to (AGAIN) rise the defense of Common Core and all that it stands for. Instead, I’d just like to provide a terrific example of how an exemplary educator can use the expectations under Common Core, mix it with a non-fiction topic, couple it with student collaboration and teamwork, and produce a final learning experience that is a winner for all those involved.

Full disclosure here, I am completely bias. The teacher in question is my daughter’s third grade teacher. Earlier this year, she had students work in pairs to develop “marketing” brochures for each of the planets in our solar system. Students did research and identified key facts. They organized those facts to make a compelling argument. They were then asked to present their findings as if they were travel agents, trying to convince families to visit a particular planet. Bunches and bunches of Common Core standards and expectations, all wrapped up in a project-based science lesson that demanded teamwork and critical thinking.

Here’s the brochure my daughter and her partner came up with. They were tasked with marketing Uranus, and played up the terrific aspects that a cold, ice planet could offer a little kid.

This was one of the most engaging lessons I’ve seen in either of my kids’ classes in recent years. And it is a great example of how the Common Core should be taught and can be taught by a great teacher. It demonstrates that Common Core isn’t about memorizing facts or relying on worksheets or boring children into submission.

No, Common Core can be about real, deep learning. And in the hands of good teachers who are empowered to use it right, Common Core can be a wonderful guidebook for meaningful student learning.