Public Schools and Choice

       Is it true that public school kids and their public school parents don't have choices?  I'm sure that I will expose my ignorance of the "far right" and the "far left" and their respective discussion points about school choice; but isn't it the case that we already have a fair amount of choice when it comes to educating our students?

"Better Schools"

       I think I understand the issue of "better schools" in richer areas.  It goes like this:

1. Richer people (even upper-middle-class and middle class people) are more likely to have college degrees.
2. Parents with college degrees are more likely to value education.
3. People who value education are more likely to instill these values into their children.
4. Children with parents that value education (especially if their parents--themselves--are college graduates) are more likely to do well in school.
5. Hence, schools in richer areas have students who do well in school.  (I'm defining "do well in school" to mean students get good grades and (hopefully) actually learn and understand the content of the courses that they take.) 

Since teachers (generally) make the same amount of money in these "better" schools as they do in schools with lower student achievement, teachers (generally) prefer to teach in these schools.  Teachers get to spend more time on teaching and less time on disciplining.  Additionally, these schools seek to hire good, highly-able teachers to meet the demands of their students.

"Low-achieving schools"

       I think I understand some of the issues of "low-achieving schools".

1. Some kids are motivated to do well in school and some are not.  Low-achieving schools have a majority of low-motivated students.
2. Low motivations comes from a variety of factors including: 
1. Lack of parental encouragement and/or parental example.
2. Lack of engaging teachers and interesting lessons.
3. Lack of a sense of belonging to your school.
4. Lots of other reasons.
3. Low-achieving schools tend to have more discipline issues that come up.
4. This leads to stricter school rules and (sometimes) stricter consequences.

Many teachers find it difficult to have an effect on a student's education in these type of schools.  Many teachers were never trained to handle multiple discipline issues and they themselves were never part of a high school class that didn't care about learning.  Hence, teachers who begin in these schools seek to move to "better" schools.  Hence, low-achieving schools have the additional issue of (on average) having a less experienced staff year after year.

Choice

       Usually when hear conversations about school choice. the issue is, "I don't like my child's public school and I want him/her to go somewhere else."  It may be more typical for parents with kids in the low-achieving school to want other choices, but I'm sure there are parents with kids in the better schools who also want this.  So here is my (perhaps limited) knowledge of the choices that people have:

• Move.  Parents who are sufficiently unhappy with their child's public school and are quite happy with a nearby (or not so nearby) other public school can move into the district with other school.  I know that moving is a great inconvenience and it would take some mighty strong feelings for family to make this decision--but it is an option.  However, if the better school is in an area that you can't afford to live, then this isn't an option.
• Charter schools.  This option is gaining in popularity.   Twenty years ago, less than one percent of American schools were charter schools.  Today that number is over 5%.  In 2009, 40 of the 50 states in the U.S. had charter schools.  Charter schools are public schools, so they are free just like public schools.
• Homeschooling.  This option is also on the rise.  In 1999, 850,000 America students were home-schooled.  By 2011, that number rose to 1,770,000 of our nation's approximately 50 million students.  (source)  Homeschooling can occur at any level from kindergarten to grade 12.
• Online learning.  I have to say that this an area that I am less familiar with.  I know middle and high school students can take online classes, but I don't know the rules about how they count toward graduation and whether you can completely skip public school and get all of your secondary education online.  Personally, this sounds like a very lonely learning experience.  But perhaps as a supplement it is a good choice for some.

       My feeling on this issue is the same as it is on most issues: Do what you think is best for your child.  If you want to leave public schools because you're angry about one thing in one course, I would suggest looking for options for that one course--but don't leave the whole school because of it.  If you have a broader complaint about your child's public school and want to consider other options, do your research.  But be careful because something else isn't always something better.

We Protect Our Students - but we can do better

       I just finished watching the Netflix show titled 13 Reasons Why.  It is about a high school girl that commits suicide and her life in high school during the two years prior to killing herself.  It made me think of all of the efforts and policies and hours spent on keeping students safe in our schools.  We practice fire drills and code-red drills; we encourage students to talk with an adult when they see something or hear something dangerous; and we all make an effort to have good, healthy relationships with as many students as we can.

       Still, despite these efforts we are constantly faced with the reality of high school students riding into their first attempts of adult life without training wheels.  Adults can be warm and friendly and approachable, but they are still adults.  It is too easy for teenagers to view the adults in their life as completely unable to understand the issues that they face.  We can do better.

       In 2014, 1668 teenagers (13 to 18 years old) killed themselves--about 7 out of every 100,000.  We can do better.  Recognizing the warning signs for committing suicide can help to prevent a person from going through with it.  Friends matters; words matters.  One person's suicide effects many people around them.  And it can always be prevented when we work together to identify potential victims and take action.

       School is a great place for most of our students.  Friends, sports, clubs, etc.  It can be a place of solace for students who come from a difficult home life.  But it can also be a terrible place of name-calling, and social-media-humiliation, and bullying.  We want everyone to feel welcome and safe in our schools.  Most students and parents would agree that our schools are safe places.  But we can do better.

       We have to work together; we have to be a society that looks out for each other.  See something, say something.  In the same way that police need the assistance of the public to solve crimes, schools need the eyes and ears of every student.  We want to help; we want you to feel welcome and wanted and special.  We want everyone to feel that their school is a place where they belong.

       Help us.  Do your part.  We can do better.

Education Without Grades

 
       Imagine P - 12 schooling without grades.

       Learning?  Yes.
       Art?  Yes.
       Clubs?  Yes.
       Teachers, friends, computers, classes, classrooms?  Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
       Grades?  No.

       The idea of an educational landscape without grades is not so new and (in fact) there are a significant number of schools that are experimenting this idea right now.  New York High School English teacher, Starr Sackstein, has been talking about this for years.  We still teach and we still assess.  We just don't use the traditional grading system of attaching a number or a letter to that assessment.

       The problem with "grading" is that it has grown to be a monster that we can't control.  Parents and students alike will tell you that they care more about "getting-a-good-grade" than they do about "learning".  As with so many other aspects of American life, grading has become a competition to be won, rather than a method for measuring learning and understanding of academic content.  Add to this that grading systems vary widely from school to school and even from teacher to teacher (sometimes) in the same school to the point that it is hard to say what a particular grade actually means; or if the same "grade" means the same thing from one class to another.

       Still, it can be hard to convince a generation that (whether they like it or don't like it) has grown up with the letter grade system, that a no grades system is a better way to conduct our middle and high schools.  Here is a great article that contains students' thoughts about living through a "no-grades" experiment.  (Spoiler alert: One-third liked the idea, one-third didn't like it, and one-third didn't care.)

       I often say that the goal of education is learning.  If something hampers our efforts to help students to learn, I think we should do something about that.  Grades and grading have (in many cases) become the new goal or the more prominent goal of education in the minds of many students and parents.  That's a problem.  If we are preparing students for the world of work, what will be their motivation if without grades in the workplace?

       Colleges regularly get rid of students that can't keep up academically.  It doesn't matter what their grades were in high school.  What matters is what they know and are able to do.  Same thing with employers.  Good grades might get you the job, but only true ability will enable you to keep the job.  We need to teach students the value of learning exceeds the value of earning good grades.  Maybe the way to do this is to get rid of the grades.

       What do you think?

What is Blended Learning?

              Blended learning is an education program (formal or informal) that combines online digital media with traditional classroom methods. It requires the physical presence of both teacher and student, with some element of student control over time, place, path, or pace.

       My school district has begun the journey into Blended Learning over the past couple of years.  As an educator approaching his 30th year in the business, I view Blended Learning as an effort to bridge all of the positive and effective teaching and learning strategies that the educational and research communities have learned over the past few decades.

       Like any new initiative, Blended Learning will take some time for teachers and students and parents to learn and understand.  We will have to discover new and better ways to implement it in a way that is most beneficial to our students.  This effort will be well worth it.  Blended Learning--as I see it--addresses the following educational beliefs:

1. Learning at your own pace.  In a traditional classroom, 30 students learn the same thing at the same time.  If you pick up on the topic quickly, you have to wait for your classmates to catch up.  If you struggle to understand the topic, you have to move to something else before you fully understand.  Blended Learning allows students to move at their pace.  Everyone is learning the same topic, but fast learners are given more challenging work and struggling learners are given more assistance.
2. Multiple ways to show what you know.  In the traditional class, students can only demonstrate their understanding through classwork and homework and tests.  While this isn't a terrible method for measuring student knowledge, we certainly know that this method can lead to the appearance of learning when (in reality) little learning occurred.  Classwork can be graded on completion instead of quality.  Homework completion can come from lots of parental help for some and no parental help for others.  And tests can earn high grades due to cramming and memorizing rather than due to actual learning.  In the Blended classroom, students work with each other and help each other; teachers can spend more time one-on-one with their students (or in small groups).  Students can demonstrate their understanding through informal assessments and assignments in addition to more formal and traditional testing.
3. Multiple attempts to learn.  We know that learning is a process.  Few students can sit in six or seven classes a day and learn six or seven different things strictly from listening and taking notes.  Learning requires listening and thinking and doing and sometimes failing the first couple of attempts.  Blended Learning recognizes the learning process and students understand that it is OK if they don't get it right away.  Blended Learning also provides different modalities for student learning.  These include: small group work, individual work, using online resources, using paper and pencil resources, and allowing students to verbalize their understanding.

       Blended Learning recognizes that students learn in different ways and at different rates--and this is not only OK, it is expected that all students learn in different ways.  The goal is learning.  Blended Learning permits students to be students and to learn in a way that works for them.  Learning isn't a competition.  Learning faster isn't better than learning slower.  Everyone that reaches the finish line is a winner.  Blended Learning helps students to see the value of learning.

How much Parental Involvement is 'Just Right'?

       Parents are an important part of the educational process.  But some parental involvement is too little and some is too much.  What is the "sweet spot" of parental involvement; What would you consider to be (as Goldilocks would say) "just right" when it comes to parental involvement?

       No one would dispute the value of a strong connection between the home and the school when it comes to better outcomes for education.  We (educators) want parents to be involved.  We want parents to celebrate with us the academic successes of their children, and we want parents to support and to assist us when struggles and obstacles occur along the way.  As teachers, what do you consider to the right amount of parental support?  Is it possible to have too much involvement from the home? What do you consider to be too little support?  As a parent, how do you approach your involvement in your child's education?  Do you leave it all to the schools and the teachers?  Do you check on homework and that's it?  Are you comfortable talking to your child's teacher?

       How much parental involvement falls into the "Just Right" category?  This question may have a different answer for elementary teachers than for high school teachers.  Parents with more education may feel different than parents with less education.  Parents of younger children may answer this question differently than parents of older children.

       As a high school teacher, whenever we had parent-teacher conferences, the parents of students with high grades often came and the parents of students with low grades usually didn't come.  I also saw many parents who (themselves) had a college education and few parents who never went to college.  As a school we would often discuss the issue of finding ways to involve parents and finding ways to invite parents to different school events.  Whenever I reached out to a parent (due to both positive and negative events that occurred with their child in my classroom), I always found a parent who was willing to help and who was appreciative of the contact.

       On the other hand, I've also experienced parents who wanted weekly updates (phone calls or emails); parents who would constantly contact me and other teachers about the smallest issues that occurred in the school relative to their child.  Sometimes these folks were very anti-public-school and they were anxious to share their alternate opinion about what was happening and what (instead) should be the job of the schools.  But most of the time these parents were supportive of the school and certainly supportive of their child--but I worried that the child (in high school) was not given the opportunity to make even the smallest decision on his own about his education.  Still, I felt that more parental involvement was better than no parental involvement and it wasn't my place as a teacher to tell a parent how to help their child.

       What does your school do to encourage more parental involvement?  What can a school do to encourage overly involved parents to allow their children to take more ownership of their education? How much parental involvement is 'just right'?  Is too much involvement a nice problem to have?  

Three Simple Steps to School Success

       Every parent wants their child to do well in school.  When kids are in elementary school, parental influence and assistance is usually plentiful.  Parents generally understand the content well enough to help their children during homework time.  And elementary children are more likely to do as they're told to do, and to respect the authority of adults in the school.  They generally want to please their parents and their teachers.  When elementary students struggle academically, public schools provide lots of help and assistance in a caring and nurturing way.

       As children move on to middle school and then to high school some of those attributes that helped students to be successful in elementary school tend to lessen.  The school work is more rigorous, children are more concerned with pleasing their friends, and parents who may feel that their children should be more responsible for their school work may take a step back when it comes to reminding them of due dates.  Also, parents may find that they can no longer help their children with homework due to the level of the content.

       Still, all students can do well in school and here are five simple steps that can help:

1.  Do your best

       I know this sounds trite and cliche, but I'm going to define "doing your best" in a way that may sound different from what most would think.  It doesn't mean getting an "A" or even necessarily striving for an "A" all of the time.  In fact, "doing your best" has little to do with the way your child's school assesses students.  Instead, it has everything to do with your child looking into the mirror at the end of the unit or a marking period or the school year and being able to say that he/she did everything they could to be successful.  Sometimes students really, honestly don't have time to everything that are asked to do.  Sometimes they ask for help and stay up late to study and take on the responsibility for their learning and end up with a "C".  That's OK.  But if the child feels that he/she didn't do their best, then this is the time for self-reflection about what can be done differently the next time.  Everyone (including adults) fall short of doing their best sometimes.  Striving to do better is part of what we want students to learn in school.

2.   Adult support outside of school

       Middle and high school students are not too old to need support from a caring adult outside of the school building.  Students today have lots of distractions and when given the choice between school work and social media it can be hard to plan time for both unless someone is there to help.  In 2006 there was a study of high school dropouts.  Many high school dropouts in this study said that they would have tried harder if someone insisted that they try harder.

"Nearly 7 in 10 respondents (69 percent) said they were not motivated or inspired to work hard, 80 percent did one hour or less of homework each day in high school, two-thirds would have worked harder if more was demanded of them (higher academic standards and more studying and homework), ..."

3.  Get involved

       Students that are involved clubs and sports and other school activities discover that "school" is more than a place with teachers and homework.  Involvement in activities helps students to connect with other students who have similar interests and these connections can be positive in and out of the classroom.

       School success should not be all about grades.  We want students to graduate with lots of skills that can be hard to measure with the standard "grade".  These include:  communication skills, computer and technological literary, adaptability, research skills, problem solving skills, strong work ethic, and conflict resolution skills--to name a few.

       Our public schools along with home support help our students to succeed.

High School Should Not be a GPA Competition

       You may need good grades to get accepted to college.  But what you really need is good learning (and a good ability to learn) to graduate from college.  Lots of people go to college, but not a lot of people graduate from college.  A study completed in 2015 found that only 52.9% of students who began college in 2009 had earned a college degree by 2015.  This means that even if we allow students an additional two years to complete a 4-year degree, we are still have only barely half of the students graduating from college.  (Imagine the outcry if the high school graduation rate was 50%!)

       Another study has found that one reason for this dismal college graduation rate is a lack of preparation in secondary schools.  As a educator with 30 years of secondary school experience, I would suggest that it isn't so much that we don't prepare students well, but instead (perhaps) we struggle in our communication with students (and with their parents) when we talk about their actual academic ability.

       First of all, our grading system probably doesn't tell the whole story.  Grades are often the primary communication tool that a school has with its students (and their parents) about how well they are doing.  High grades imply high ability and low grades imply low ability.  But is this always true?  And what to medium grades imply?  We don't have a uniform method for determining grades from school district to school district, so does a "B" mean the same thing in every high school in America?

       Secondly, we have high school graduation requirements that are developed in each state in the United States.  Different states have different requirements; although there may be similarities.  But the bigger issue (to me) is:  Is "Graduating from high school" the same as "Being prepared for college"?  Should we have one set of criteria that says "This is sufficient for high school graduation." and another set of (higher level) criteria that says "This is sufficient for good preparation for college."  I think a lot of people feel that if they graduate from high school, then they are prepared for college-level work.  But this isn't always true.

       Hence, high school should not be a place where we only care about getting good grades and getting a high Grade Point Average (GPA).  That might be good enough to get you recognized in high school; and good enough to get accepted to college.  But students who only know how to get good grades without an accompanying ability to learn, will struggle in college.

       Everything in life isn't a competition.  Your education is one of these things.  It doesn't matter if you come in first place.  What matters is that you learn well.

Is It Possible to Help Students Too Much?

       How much is too much?


       Can you care too much?  Can you love too much?  Can you help too much?  When it comes to students and learning, sometimes teachers and parents help too much.

       Their hearts in the right place, but goals are short sighted.  Teachers and parents help too much when they tell students the answers in an effort for them to complete the classwork or the homework.  They seek the short-term goal of compliance with an assignment.  But they don't see the longer-term goal of helping students to learn how to learn.

       Educators have an expression for the results of too much help.  We call it, "Learned Helplessness".  It's when students learn to purposefully not try too hard because they know that a parent or a teacher or someone will eventually give them the answer or do the work for them.

       Since most students (and some adults) don't see or understand the benefits of learning, they believe that school is only a series of assignments that they have to complete because they are told to do so; or because they get a grade for completing it.  Therefore, they don't see the need to try hard and fail sometimes and learn from these failings and try again.  "Learning" isn't their goal; compliance is their goal.  Therefore they only seek to complete the worksheet, or answer the questions, or write the paper; because they only seek to get the grade.  And if the student can find someone else to do this--and the students basically gets the same reward (the same grade) either way--then the easy route is to let someone else do it.

       Of course teachers and parents want their students (and children) to succeed, so sometimes they provide this help in an effort to help them to get success.  But there is a terrible downside to too much help.  When the parent isn't there and the too-much-helping teacher isn't there, the child (maybe now a young adult) isn't able to solve problems on their own.  Since there was always someone there to do the hard stuff, the young adult is now either helpless or forced to learn how to learn new things at point in life when mistakes are more costly.  One area where this is often seen is the first year of college.  Students who haven't learned how to struggle to learn something new and expect someone else to do all of the hard stuff for them, fail and drop out of college.

       School is about learning; and it's about learning how to learn.  We aren't helping our kids by doing the work for them.  As teachers and as parents, we have to try to worry less about "the grade" and much, much more about the learning.  There is no benefit to children who graduate from high school but aren't able to think for themselves and make decisions by themselves and solve their own problems.

       Yes, you can help too much.

Thank You For the People That Helped Me Along the Way

       Now in my 29th year of education, I'm so thankful for the people who have helped me to improve and to grow into the educator I've become so far.

• Thank you to my colleagues who have taught me through the experiences that they have been willing to share.
• Thank you to my students who have smiled with me and frowned with me; questioned me and responded to my questions.
• Thank you to the parents who have worked with me and worked against me.  I've adjusted my actions with every contact I've ever made with a parent.  And (I hope) I've become a better parent to my own children through these interactions as well.
• Thank you to my superiors that have guided along the way.  Some were strong leaders and some were less strong.  I appreciate your efforts and continue to appreciate the difficult job you have had and continue to have.
• Thank you to those who have complimented me for my efforts.  Sometimes I deserved it and sometimes I didn't.  Compliments are never necessary or required; so I particularly appreciate it when people have gone out of their way to do so; be it in person, via a written note, or via email or a phone call.
• Thank you to the people who have disagreed with me; sometimes kindly and sometimes with great anger.  You made me think about my decisions and you helped me to be well prepared for future decisions.  You'll never know how long I've thought about these exchanges; long after they ended.
• Thank you for my family who are not educators.  It is so very helpful for me to hear the thoughts and ideas of non-educators.  You've been influenced by your experiences and the people you are surrounded by; and your opinions help me to think about my opinions.
• Thank you to the speakers I've heard at venues great and small.  Your willingness to share your expertise is a valuable part of the learning process for me as an educator.
• Thank you to my Twitter educator contacts that I have come to know via the miracle of the computer who live all over the world.  It's amazing how a few words can lead me to an hour of research on a topic.
• Thank you to the dedicated professionals and to the folks that have been counting down the days until retirement for the past ten years.  Every voice is valuable; every point of view is a piece to the puzzle.  Every idea helps to shape my thinking.

Students, Teachers, and Parents: Working Together to Improve Education

       Education, as with most things in life, works best when everyone works together.

       Of course, parents and students and teachers don't always agree about what's best for education.  So I've devised a plan for systemic improvement:

Concentrate solely on the school that your children attend.

      You see, we view education in the entire United States differently than we view education in the schools our children attend.  For years Gallop has polled parents about their views of education; and for years they have received essentially the same results:

1. We are not happy with the state of schools in the United States.
2. We are happy with the state of the school in our community.

       It happened again this year.  In 2016, only 43% of those polled said that they are Completely Satisfied or Very Satisfied with quality of education in the United States.  Of these same people (same poll; same year), 76% said that they are Completely Satisfied or Very Satisfied with quality of education that their children are receiving.

       So here's my plan:  

Let's just do everything we can do improve the school(s) our children attend.

       The U.S. is too big.  17,000 school districts. 100,000 schools.  50,000,000 students.  Who can even comprehend the immensity of such a huge system???

       If we all just concentrate our energies on the schools in our community, we have a much better chance of seeing real improvement.  Better teachers, better students, better learning.  It can be done if we all do our part for our own schools.  And when the community disagrees on something, let's listen to each other and compromise on a solution that is best for our students and best for our community.  Every wins when we work together.

       (And isn't "working together" a lesson that we want all of our children to learn?)

The Struggle for Change in Our Schools

       This sign hung at the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts this week during the annual MassCUE conference.  "MassCUE" stands for the Massachusetts Computer Using Educators.  The conference was also sponsored by the M.A.S.S. (that is, the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents).  The sign begs the question, Why is it that schools (education) is not changing if everything around the schools are changing?  I think I know the answer...

       The sign reminds us that the world is changing.  Indeed it is.  The changes that have occurred in the world have been driven by market forces such as efficiencies in manufacturing.  They have been driven by technology such as computers and cell phones and the capacity of these technologies (and others) to accomplish tasks much faster and easier.  The sign says the workforce is changing.  One big factor is the lower demand for low-skill jobs.  Less workers are needed to do a job that took more workers a few decades ago.  This (again) is largely due to the creation of machines and equipment that have been built to do jobs faster and better than human workers ever could.


       The sign says that technology is changing.  Few would need any strong justification to argue this point.  Computer chips are constantly being made to be smaller and faster.  (Although this scenario may come to an end soon.)  Computers are smaller and more powerful.  And the applications of this great processing speed appear to be endless.  Finally, the sign suggests that students are changing.  Different clothes, different music, and (once again) technology available at every turn.  Of course, these "different" students are also living in this "different" world; so of course since they are living a different experience than their parents, it makes sense that students of today are different from students of 20 or 40 years ago.

       So why are we surrounded by change and yet we are stuck with relatively little change in our schools?  By "little change", I mean high school classes of about 30 students with one teacher doing most of the talking.  Course requirements nearly the same for all students, even though we have students with different needs and different abilities.  The school day has basically the same start and stop time as 50 years ago.  The school year is basically the same as 50 years ago.  (And not because of farming needs 100 years ago.)  I would argue that the changes to the world, the workforce, technology, and students occurred as a sort of evolution.  No one person or group of people orchestrated these changes.  They happened as a natural phenomenon of humans living on earth and trying to better their situation.  As a species, we are always looking for ways to improve our life and our surroundings.  So we develop better tables and better chairs and better cars and better watches and so on.  Each generation is a little better than the one before it for all of these things.  But a change in schools requires that we conscientiously do something.

       School change requires a community that wants the schools to change.  Someone has to propose the change (or changes).  Someone has to agree.  Then someone has to convince the school board.  And so on and so on.  In the end, while educators may see the need for change in our schools (and not all educators see this change), non-educators often don't see the need for this change.  The common expression is, "This is the way school was when I was a kid.  It was good enough for me, so it will be good enough for you."  The general public is weary of major changes.  Change is disruptive and unsettling.  It is uncomfortable.  People (as a group) don't generally want things to change.  They may accept changes that are forced upon them (such as a new cable company because the old one merged with the new one), but when given the choice it seems that most would vote against change.  This is why (in my opinion) schools are so slow to change.

       As an educator, it is frustrating because I sometimes wonder if we are preparing our students for anything more than higher-level coursework.  Are they learning the skills they need to succeed in the workforce of the 21st century?  Are they able to cope with the world that they will inherit?  Is a high GPA enough?  How do we help the public to embrace the sort of change that will benefit their children?

       Can we allow our schools to change?

Parent's Role in Improving Student Achievement

       If you have a child in elementary, middle, or high school, then your main concern is helping your child to do well in school.  You have a person or persons in your household that is a member of the most important cliental in the educational community--the students.  And as a parent, you have influence over your children.  Your attitudes and actions toward school matter.

       We need your help!

       So here is my short list of the three top things that parents can do to help their children to do well in school.

1. Healthy relationships all around.  

Help your child to make friends with classmates and to get to know the teacher or teachers.  You (the parent) should try to get to know your child's teacher(s) too.  Communication is the key to all healthy relationships.  So try to discover the best way to contact the teacher.  Make sure that your child knows that you have a relationship with the teacher and a way to make contact on an as-needed basis.  This shows that you care about your child's education.  

   2.  Emphasize "learning" over "getting-a-good-grade".

The point of school is learning, not getting a good grade.  There are lots of ways to get good grades without learning much.  We want students to learn how to learn; to read; to study; to try and fail and try again; and ask for help.  Your child's grade should reflect his or her ability; but sometimes it just reflects his or her ability to do what they're told.  Remember that the goal of school is learning.  It's the "Do you best." philosophy (that your parents probably said to you).

    3. Don't help your children too much.

Let's face it...nobody likes to see their children struggling.  But if everything is easy and can be obtained without effort then you have to ask, "Is my child really learning anything?"  Real learning comes from a little struggle from time to time.  Just because your child doesn't "get it" the first time doesn't mean they will never get it.  They just haven't gotten it yet.  If you tell them the answer or do the work for them, they will get the right answer, but they haven't learned anything.  Remember, the goal of school is learning.  Instead of telling them the answer, ask questions.  "What do you know?"  "What don't you know?"  "What do you need to know?"  "What questions should you ask the teacher?"  We want students to learn how to deal with struggle; we want them to problem solve when the problem is difficult.

       School means a lot of things to a lot of people.  Clubs, sports, friends, activities, requirements, homework, pens, paper, teachers,....  It can be hard to remember that it is all about learning.  As the parent, you can help your child to focus on the important parts of school.

       Have a great school year!

Preparing Our Students for College and/or Careers

       "College and Career" has become the new buzzword in American high schools.  We want to prepare students to be ready for the social and academic demands of college; and--for students who go to college and don't go to college--we want to prepare our students for the demands of being in a working environment.  This has become a rallying cry for our P-12 school system because of so many surveys, studies (also see this study) and articles that have touted how unsuccessful our schools have been at accomplishing this goal.

       Certainly many recent high school graduates (and their parents) can speak from personal experience.  They completed high school and received their diploma, but they couldn't do the same in college.  Among students that began college in 2007, less than 40% completed their Bachelor's degree by 2011.  Even if you give them another two years the college graduation rate is still very low--59.4% (source).  Employment rates for high school graduates may (certainly) be affected by general conditions of employment in society, however employers often have serious concerns about the readiness that recent high school (and college) graduates have for the workplace.  So what should be done to better prepare students for college and careers?

       First let's define the problem that is faced by our public schools.  In a (very) broad sense, we need to be everything for everyone.  We need to prepare the rich kids and the poor kids, the learning disabled and the academic superstars, the sports kids and the theatre kids and the band kids.  And we need to prepare them for community college, for 4-year colleges, for selective and ivy-league colleges, as well as for certification in cosmetology and welding and mechanics.  Additionally, we want them to be able to express themselves in writing, verbally, and online.  We want them to know that it is important to be on-time, to be polite, to be a learner (for jobs and for college), to be wise with money and credit, to make good decisions.

       Hence, our public schools are tasks to develop rules and policies and requirements for everyone even though everyone isn't following the same path after high school.  So we have to find a balance between what's necessary for most or all students with what's probably really, really helpful for some of the students.  For instance, mathematics is important, but should we require all students to take and pass (and know) Algebra 2?  Financial Literacy is important, but do middle school students need to learn about home mortgages?  Finding the right balance can be tough.


       The other issue is that too many students (and parents) view high school as just a list of requirements to complete.  The idea of "learning" is too far removed from the idea of "getting-a-grade".  How do we help students to see the value of what they are learning in the midst of a system that constantly "rates" students with grades?  Too many people feel that school is merely another one of life's competitions in which there are few winners.  How does this prepare students for their life after high school.  Therefore, our P-12 schools are also tasked with helping students to appreciate the learning and to increase their understanding of their abilities to learn.

       Some of this can be done with requirements from school districts and from state education agencies.  But, it seems to me, that some of this requires a societal view of school as preparing students for after school.  We need parents to support this view; we need television to support this view; we need law-makers to support this view.  College and career readiness is a big job and it requires a big response from all of us.

Is Your Child Advanced in Mathematics?

       It seems that, more than in other subjects, the placement of students in advanced mathematics is often a contentious issue. Elementary schools have different policies about placing students in classes that teach math at grade levels that are above the student's current grade.  Middle schools often offer high school mathematics classes, but some stop at Algebra 1 and some go beyond Algebra 1.

       The ability of a school or school system to determine a student's math ability (or "advanced" math ability) can be hard to do with great accuracy--especially when we are trying to make this determination with eight and nine year old children.  It's not enough that they are getting good grades in their math work; math is more than mere calculation.  And higher-level math is all about reasoning and thinking and understanding.  The kid that is good at memorizing, isn't always good at (say) the abstraction that comes with manipulating variables and graphing a line.

      Yet, I think that (too often) we get a false impression of a student's math abilities from merely looking at their elementary grades on the report card.  Sometime students are placed in advanced classes and at some point in middle school they start to struggle because they were pushed to learn higher and higher levels of math too fast.  On the other hand, there are certainly students who are highly able in mathematics and they should be encouraged to take more challenging classes that are commensurate with their abilities. So goes the dilemma of trying to identify the truly highly-able students from those that only appear to be highly-able.

       One method that helps is using multiple data points.  When students breeze through their multiplication tables and get "A's" on their report cards, but do poorly on standardize tests or on unit tests, this should be a cause for concern.  Maybe this student is good at memorizing facts and procedures and not good at understanding concepts.  This student is successful at procedural assignments (such as long division with whole numbers), but may struggle with more abstract assignments (such as a math task with multiple answers).

       Of course, we know that it is OK for students to struggle as they learn new concepts (see previous blog post), but many students view this struggle as a sign that they aren't good at math; or a sign that the teacher is doing something wrong.  We don't want students to struggle because they have been inappropriately placed.  Truly able students (and Growth Mindset students) don't mind the struggle because they enjoy the journey toward learning.  Also they understand that it is OK if they don't get it the first time.  Continual effort will eventually pay off.  Students who never tried hard to do well in math and then are placed in an advanced math class and then are upset when they don't get it the first time...these may be the students that we are pushing too quickly.

       Is your child advanced in mathematics?  How do you know?

Reflecting on the School Year

       Did I do all I could to help my students to learn?
       Did I improve as an educator this year?
       Did I encourage my quietest students to participate?
       Did I emphasize "learning" over "getting-a-good-grade"?
       Did I communicate my expectations clearly?
       Did I establish good relationships with my students?
       Did I call on every students everyday?
       Did I help my reluctant learners to do their best?
       Did I work with parents to help my struggling learners?
       Did I push my highly-able students to do better?
       Did I model a growth mindset for my students?
       Did I provide appropriate and timely feedback?
       Did I demand the best from all of my students?
       Did I engage my students in their learning?
       Did I collaborate with my colleagues?
       Did I try something new in the classroom this year?
       Did I share my knowledge with other teachers?


       Teaching is an imperfect profession.  We get better every year; but we always have room to improve.  We connect with our students, but there are always some students that we can't reach.  We learn new strategies to address different learners, but we struggle to succeed with everyone.  Since we work with people (students) and not robots, every year is different--every day is different.  What worked last year doesn't work this year.  The lesson we spent two hours preparing usually leads to good student understanding, but not always and not with every student.

       The need to reflect on our practice and to improve every year is necessary.  Students change, principals change, resources change, the world changes.  We can't do the same thing for ten or twenty years.  We have to change too.  And when our results are less than we desire, we can't expect better results unless we change.  I often hear people say that there is no manual for being a good parent; the same is true for teachers.  But there are lots of books and courses and journals and EdCamps and conferences and colleagues for teachers to turn to get ideas and suggestions.  Experience helps; and our best teachers are those people who consistently seek to improve--those that reflect on their successes and failures of the past and yearn to improve.

Is There Too Much Testing?

       Testing.  

       The very word conjures up emotions in students and parents and school officials alike.  Within the educational community, this word conjures up other words like: measuring, accountability, fairness, purpose, practice, instructional time, online, paper/pencil, formative, and summative.  Your connection to these feelings and issues probably shapes your views about testing in our public schools.  Part of what makes this such a big issue is that there are no simple "right" and "wrong" solutions.  It is a complex problem that requires thought and discussion among many stakeholders.

       The goal of schooling is learning.  There may be other benefits such as socializing, joining a club or team, earning a diploma; but the goal is learning.  Our ability to measure learning has grown significantly over the past twenty years as educators come to understand the value of frequent formative assessments in combination with teaching strategies that engage students.  In the past, the school classroom was a very dictatorial place:  Teacher in the front doing most of the talking; students sitting in rows listening to the teacher and taking notes; test or quiz every Friday.  This system worked fine for the student who was able to learn by listening, but if you needed to ask questions, or clear up any confusion with the content prior to the test you probably struggled to learn in this environment.  And if you weren't able to concentrate on the teacher's words for two or three hours, you might have missed your first and only chance to get that precious information from the teacher.


       Today we know that learning requires doing and talking and questioning in addition to listening (and note taking).  We also know that we want to get a sense of the learning that is taking place on a daily basis and not just once a week or whenever the "Big Test" occurs.  This "measuring of daily learning" is what we call Formative Assessment.  It could be a game, a series of verbal questions from the teacher, an activity during class, a exit ticket (or exit pass),  Anything that gives the teacher and the student information as to their level of understanding the content or the objective for the day.  Usually when we argue about "Testing", this isn't the sort of testing that we are arguing about.

       The discussion over testing usually centers around what educators call summative tests.  These are chapter or unit tests, final exams, end-of-course tests, and major state tests.  These tests might be required to graduate from high school; or they may command a large portion of a final grade in a course; or they may be used to determine if you are ready for college (or if you will be accepted to college).  These are the tests whose results have some sort of consequence.

       A common issue that arises is a student who appears to be learning very well based on class grades and report card grades, but then this same student demonstrates a lower level of learning on one of these big tests.  I think that I worry when there is a public outcry over testing because of this scenario.  I feel that rather than arguing against giving the test, we should question why the discrepancy happened in the first place.  Clearly a student who fails an end-of-course test and earns an "A" or a "B" as a course grade cannot (both) be very knowledgeable about this content AND be very weak with this material.  Something is going on.  Perhaps both the course grade and the test are not true reflections of the student's ability.  Perhaps it is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.

       Since the goal of school is learning, there should be accurate and valid methods for determining the extent of this learning.  It isn't enough for a student to come to school everyday and do what he's told to do and then walk out of school without some measure his learning.  Getting grades isn't enough.  What does it benefit a child to get good grades in school and not be able to read or do math at an acceptable level when he leaves school?  This is one of the reasons for instituting summative and state testing in the first place.  Also far too many students begin college but never finish college.  If more people took the results of these big tests seriously, they might be less in a rush to go to college until their abilities were more in-line with college-level expectations.

       Is there too much testing?  Why are you asking this question?  If it is because you don't like to see your child getting poor results on this test, than you should question the discrepancy between the course grades and the big test.  If it is because the results are not used for any useful purpose, then you should discuss this with you child's teacher or school.  Everything done in public schools should have a purpose; this includes testing.

It's OK To Struggle When You're Learning Something New

       Years ago I knew of a little boy whom I never heard speak a word until he was nearly ten years old.  It wasn't that he couldn't talk; his disability was more serious than that...he was born with two older siblings and a mother who wanted the world to view her son as "Always Correct".  To ensure this perception, whenever anyone asked him a question, she would answer the question.  The older siblings did the same thing--but not for the same reason.  They just thought of him as a child that didn't talk much.  Clearly my nephew got the message (at a very early age) that other people would do things for him--even speak for him.  There was no reason to speak or even to think very much.  Of course, his mother loved him and she wanted the best for her son.  She didn't like to see him struggle to learn how to do things and didn't like to see him cry, so she did just about everything for him.

       Sometimes teachers are like this mother.  We want the best for our students and we want them to succeed.  So, sometimes we give them hints to nudge them toward the right answer; we compliment them for minor things (like repeating what we say); and we never want to suggest that they might be wrong about something.  Teachers are caring people and it makes sense that we want the best for our students.  But allowing students to have a false sense of achievement is not a caring thing to do.  And if this sort of (false) encouragement continues for a whole school year, and then the next year, and then the next year, we end up teaching students that learning is just memorizing stuff and repeating what the teacher says, and following directions.  That's not learning.

       Learning anything that is worth learning requires a certain amount of struggle.  No one expects you to learn something complex the first time you hear it.  You have to think about it, and practice with it, and make some mistakes, and learn from the mistakes, and make more mistakes, and then (maybe) you can claim success at learning.  It's OK to struggle and it's OK to allow your children to struggle.  We want students to know that learning is full of challenges and effort is required to overcome these challenges.  We want students to believe that they can do anything if they have the will to work at it until it is done.

       This is a difficult message for most parents to hear.  A lot of people have a fixed mindset about their children's abilities.  This means that they believe that their children are capable of doing some things and incapable of doing other things--and no amount of effort will change that.  This mindset leads to statements such as, "It's OK if you're not good at math because I was never good at math and some people just can't do math."  (Feel free to substitute other words in place of the word "math".)  This is a terrible message for students.  Instead, the message should be that hard work pays off and struggle leads to learning.