Good Teachers are Great Learners

       I think everyone has had the experience of teaching something to someone.

       Parents teach their children to walk or to ride a bike or to drive.  Friends teach their friends about cool stuff they find online or cool stuff they read about.  Colleagues teach their co-workers trade skills on the job.

       Sometimes, as a teacher, we are very attentive to the way our learner is "catching on" to what we are trying to show them.  Sometimes, as a teacher, we just go through the steps and explanations with no regard whatsoever as to whether or not the learner is following us.  And sometimes, as the teacher, we get very upset when the learner does "learn" what we just taught them.

       "I just said that."  "Weren't you listening?"  How is possible for them to not understand when I did such a good job of explaining it?

       Teacher know that "teaching" is only half of their job--maybe even less than half.  Their main job is to ensure that students are learning.  Lots of people are very knowledgeable about something; but that doesn't mean that they are good teachers.

       Teachers excel at understanding their students and (to the best of their ability) at understanding how their students are thinking and what it is that is keeping their students from fully understanding the objectives of the lesson.  Good teachers are great learners.  They discover common errors that their students make and use that understanding to help their students to understand.

       Good teachers learn about their students through questioning, discussions in class, notes on classwork, email messages or other electronic resources, meetings with parents, and sometimes facial expressions.  Teachers who care about student learning do whatever they need to do to help their students to learn.

       This is one reason why experienced teachers tend to have more success with student achievement than less experienced teachers.  This sort of learning and understanding of students comes almost exclusively from experience.  It is hard to gain this professional ability strictly from a teacher preparatory program.  Teachers that continually strive to get to know their students and to learn how they think build an ability to anticipate problems in learning and to act on these anticipated problems as part of their lesson planning.

       Teaching is a difficult job.  Students are different and student backgrounds are different; and student abilities are different.  Good teachers strive to understand these differences and to find ways to overcome these differences to help all of their students to learn.

Students with Learning Disabilities Learn

     

       There was a time when students with learning disabilities were labeled dumb or weak or unmotivated or any one of a multitude of other names from people who didn't understand anything about learning disabilities.  Over my lifetime (I'm 51 years old), that has dramatically changed.

       I'm not a Special Educator, but today every educator knows something about students with disabilities.  This is because every single teacher in our public schools receives some training in working with students who have learning disabilities.  Over the past decade, schools have made an extra special effort to improve the achievement of students with learning disabilities because (under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001) schools were partially "graded" on their ability to educate students with learning disabilities.

       Today most schools have teachers who are specially trained to work with students who have learning disabilities.  These students are given Individual Education Plans that are backed up by federal law.  We now know how to diagnose specific learning disabilities and we are constantly getting better at addressing the educational needs of these special students.

       When we say, "All students can learn.", we mean "all students".  It is still a struggle for these students and a struggle for schools to find the best way to help them; but the successes of today are tremendous compared to the extremely few successes public schools saw decades ago.

       As a mathematics supervisor, I often say that it sometimes seems that we spend 90% of our time on 10% of our students.  And that "10%" is largely made up of students with learning disabilities.  Schools and school systems are always talking about strategies to help these students.  And when smart people get together and think together and share experiences, we usually end up with ideas that benefit students.

       The U.S. Department of Education has an office dedicated to helping students with learning disabilities.  In 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was passed by congress.  This law told our schools that students with learning disabilities are our students and it is our responsibility to teach them and to help them as much as we can.

     

       What's so good about public education in America?  Students with learning disabilities learn.  Everyday.

We Must Do Better - Part 2

       This post is part two of a three-part series titled We Must Do Better.

       I love public schools; and there is a lot to cheer about when it comes to the ability of public schools to prepare students for their futures.  But there are three major areas in which public schools must improve if we want to see ourselves as providing a world-class education to our nation's children.

       1) We must raise the achievement of poor children.

       2) We must increase graduation rates.

       3) We must provide continuous, high-quality professional development to our teachers.

       It isn't that there aren't other areas that can and should improve in our public schools.  But improvement in these three areas are absolutely critical if we truly want our school system to be exceptional and of the highest quality for all of our students.

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We Must Do Better

Part 2 - Increasing Graduation Rates

       Part 1 of this series was about the need to increase achievement among poor students.  I am going to begin this part by looking at the differences in high school graduation rates between poor students and non-poor students.  Take a look at this graphic from the organization America's Promise Alliance:

       This graphic shows that (in 2012) low-income students had a graduation rate below 80 percent in 41 states while non-low income students had a graduation rate below 80 percent in only 7 states.  As a nation, our graduation rate in 2012 was 81 percent.  (source: National Center for Education Statistics - The Condition of Education)  

       Our national graduation rate has been rising since the 1995 - 1996 school year when it was 71%. We are moving in the right direction as a nation, but we still have a long way to go.  Allowing 1 of every 5 students to leave school without a diploma has real and serious consequences.  These include:

• Higher unemployment rates
• Lower pay compared to people with high school diplomas
• Greater need for public assistance
• Greater chance of incarceration
• Less effective parenting skills

(sources: here and here and here)

       Public schools clearly have many responsibilities.  We must do everything we possibly can to get more students to graduate from high school--especially poor students.  In decades past, completing high school was arguably less important than it is today.  However, in today's world and in the world that our students will inherit, people without a high school diploma have a greatly enhanced risk of lifelong struggles to avoid poverty and to experience a middle-class lifestyle.

     As a graduate student, I questioned the difference between students who dropout of high school and students who graduate in the bottom 10% of their class.  I hypothesized that such students who barely graduate were no better off than students who didn't graduate.  Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, I discovered that weak high school graduates were still better off than high school dropouts.  That's right; even students who struggle to pass all of their courses in high school and eventually graduate are better off than people who never earn a high school diploma.  Why?  I think it is because there is something within these weak students that says, "This (schoolwork) is hard, and everyday I come to school I know that I am going to struggle.  But I am going to continue to come and to work and to finish high school."  I believe that students who (perhaps) hate school and always struggle academically AND still graduate have had a life experience that they carry with them in their futures struggles.

       This message of the importance of graduating from high school is logical and sensible to everyone working in education and probably to just about everyone outside of education.  But despite our best efforts, this message is not getting through to 19% of our youth.  And it is hitting particular groups of students worse than others.  Once again, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (see top of page 13):

Group                  Graduation Rate (2012)
Amer. Indian/
Alaskan Native                68%

Hispanic                           76%

Black                                68%

Poor students              well below the national average (see America's Promise)

     These focus areas will help to improve graduation rates among our most vulnerable groups of students:

1. Adress chronic absenteeism
2. Improve middle schools
3. Re-engage youth who have left school
4. Provide more and better adult and peer supports

       We must do better at raising the high school graduation rates of our students.  It is important to our nation; it is important to every young man and woman in our high schools.

We Must Do Better - Part 1

       This post starts a three-part series titled We Must Do Better.  I love public schools; and there is a lot to cheer about when it comes to the ability of public schools to prepare students for their futures.  But there are three major areas in which public schools must improve if we want to see ourselves as providing a world-class education to our nation's children.

       1) We must raise the achievement of poor children.

       2) We must increase graduation rates.

       3) We must provide continuous, high-quality professional development to our teachers.

       It isn't that there aren't other areas that can and should improve in our public schools.  But improvement in these three areas are absolutely critical if we truly want our school system to be exceptional and of the highest quality for all of our students.

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We Must Do Better

Part 1 - Achievement of Poor Children

       It's easy to find data and information on the topic of Low Achievement Among Poor Students.  (see Jensen, Honey, dosomething.org)  Few professional educators and very few education researchers disagree about the effects of poverty on a child's education.  And children living in poverty in the U.S. will soon become the majority of our public school students.

       The list of obstacles for children living in poverty is long and difficult to overcome.  (Which is why school system continue to struggle to solve this problem.)  Here's the short list:

• higher absenteeism
• when poor kids get sick, they tend not to go to the doctor; then they get sicker and it takes longer for them to get well
• higher dropout rates
• poor kids need to work to make money for the family
• poor kids see school as "not for them"
• academically behind from the start
• poor kids tend to have parents that didn't go to college or didn't finish high school
• poor kids have less books in their home and parents read to them less than their non-poor peers
• poor kids also tend to actually hear less words prior to entering school which adds to their academic shortcomings
• less than 30% of students in the bottom quarter of incomes enroll in college and less than 50% of them graduate.

(source for all of these bullet points is here)

       In the past decade, public schools have shone a light on the academic achievement of poor students--which is a good start.  We cannot address a problem unless we recognize it as a problem.  But the next step--improving the achievement of poor students--is still a struggle for most schools and school systems.

       The Educational Testing Service (ETS) Center for Research on Human Capital and Education put out a report in July 2013 that laid out seven strategies that education policymakers can address that would have an effect on the problem of increasing achievement among poor children.  There strategies are:

1. Increasing awareness of the incidence of poverty and its consequences 
2. Equitably and adequately funding our schools
3. Broadening access to high-quality preschool education
4. Reducing segregation and isolation
5. Adopting effective school practices
6. Recognizing the importance of a high-quality teacher workforce
7. Improving the measurement of poverty

       These strategies require a national response. This is something that can happen in America.  I know this because it has happened before.  Civil Rights for African Americans; Women's Right to Vote; Reduction of the Prevalence of Smokers; wearing seat belts.  All of these things were (at one time in America) considered impossible dreams.  Yet a national effort that lasted decades led to each of them becoming a reality.

       We can do the same thing with the education of children living in poverty.  We can and we must.  We have a moral responsibility to help our most vulnerable citizens.  We must do better than we are doing now.  For us as a country; and for every individual citizen.  We can begin to see the reduction of this problem in our lifetime; and the elimination of this problem in our children's lifetimes.  

       This is a huge problem that can be fixed.

       We must do better.

Meeting the Needs of All Students

     One thing that I have always been proud of about public schools is our desire and efforts to meet the needs of all students.  This seems like a natural thing for schools to do; but when we say "All", we mean "All".  While most students fall in the average category, some students are very strong academically and some struggle a lot with academics.  Public schools strive to help all of these students wherever they may fall on this spectrum.

     Probably the most difficult part of achieving this goal is reaching the students on the extremes.  For students who have severe learning disabilities, public schools have personnel trained in Special Education who work with teachers to help our weakest students to achieve.  Improvements in the education of our weakest students have been great over the past generation; and these improvements continue.

     For students who are significantly strong academically (able to understand work that is two and three--or more--grade levels above their current grade level) public schools look to make special arrangements.  This can be done via online courses, grade acceleration, and help from outside organizations.  Keeping these students challenged year after year is a challenge for our schools.  But we do our best to make it happen.

     As always, a good working relationship between parents and schools is the key to great outcomes for students.

We Teach All Students

     A business executive comes to a high school to say that students graduate without the skills they need to succeed in the business world--the World of Work.  He says, "If I had employees that didn't do their job, I would fire them."  "In fact," he says, "I would only hire the best people in the first place."  And the school responds, "That's the difference between public school and business; We take all students; We teach all students."

     Public schools don't pick the best students or the students with the most potential to enroll in their schools.  Public schools take all students.  As the old commercial used to say:

Big kids,

Little kids,

Kids who climb on rocks.

Tough kids,

Sissy kids,

Even kids with Chicken Pox.

And public schools are proud that they teach all students.  We are not a business.  And while we often compare our student achievement data against other schools and other school districts, as a national public school system we are united in our efforts to teach all students.

     Of course, allowing unlimited access to our schools comes with challenges.  Most notably, a recent report has informed us that half of the students in our nation's public schools are poor.  Poor students (as a group) often struggle to succeed in their academics due to limited supports at home compared to non-poor students (and many other factors).  Also, students with identified learning disabilities are often below grade level in reading and mathematics.  Finally, even students without the handicaps of low socio-economics or learning disabilities sometimes graduate with low skills by only striving to do the minimum that is required of them.

     There is no question that public schools can do better in graduating a higher percentage of students that process the skills they need to succeed in the world of work.  But we are not going to artificially raise graduation rate by only enrolling the brightest students.  We take all students; we teach all students; we help all students.  And if some students require more of an effort on our part, we are glad to take on that challenge.

     What's so good about public education in America?  We teach ALL students.