This is our finest hour

    Do you remember the scene in the movie Apollo 13 when guy said "It would be the worst disaster NASA's ever experienced." and the Ed Harris character said, "With all due respect sir, I believe this is going to be our finest hour."?

       After all of the problems that had taken place over the past few days, he believed in his team at NASA and he believed that the astronauts would return safely to earth.  He knew that it would be the hearts and minds of the dedicated professionals at NASA that would ensure this outcome.

       Have you ever looked at your school or school district and said "This is our time to shine.", "We could be the best school district in the country.", "This is our finest hour."?

       Dedicated professional educators working together can do amazing things in the most difficult of situations.  We live in a world with answers to the most difficult educational questions.  Where we don't have clear answers, we have years of experience and mountains of desire to help all of our students to succeed within our staffs.  The daily decisions and the year-long goals of every teacher have the potential to achieve world-class results with every student body in every school in our country.

       Teachers live in a world that sometimes makes it easy to see the obstacles and hard to triumphs.  In the same way that students who are motivated to do well can overcome limitations in ability; so too can schools and school systems achieve great things when they believe that great things can happen.

       Of course it takes hard work and lots of collaboration.  Nothing in life worth doing comes easy.  But it can certainly happen.  Do you believe it?

       Is this your finest hour?

We Must Do Better - Part 3

       This post is part three 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 3 - Continuous, high-quality professional development for teachers

       The subjects of the first two parts of this series--the achievement of poor children and the need to increase high school graduation rates--dealt with issues of which many people are aware.  They are discussed in journals and newspapers often.  The subject of this part is considerably less well discussed in the mainstream press and much less well known among the general public.

       When discussing elements of the education that influence student achievement, researchers agree that the ability of the teacher is among the most important factors.  The Center for Public Education has stated:

A growing body of research shows that student achievement is more heavily influenced by teacher quality than by students’ race, class, prior academic record, or school a student attends. This effect is particularly strong among students from low-income families and African American students.

Of course, just about any person who has ever had the experience of being a student can tell you that good teachers have helped them to learn much better than poor teachers that they have had.  Hence, there is very little debate that high-quality teachers in the classroom will lead to higher student achievement.  And so the next logical question is, How do we ensure that every teacher will be highly-able and highly-effective in every classroom?

       A good place to start is the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards.  In January of 2013, the NBPTS celebrated its 100,000th National Board Certified Teacher.  After 25 years of looking at the teaching profession and looking at research on developing high-ability teachers, the NBPTS has established five core propositions that represent what "all accomplished teachers share in their expertise and dedication to advance student achievement."

       We know that the best teachers are constantly learning and constantly improving.  They build on past successes and even learn from past mistakes.  They constantly search for better ways to reach every student.

       Teachers need regular opportunities to meet with other teachers to talk about what they do with other teachers.  This professional learning community helps to build teacher ability--which, in turn, leads to higher student achievement.  Its hard work to constantly improve.  You can't merely give a teacher a book or article to read.  They have to think about students; think about classroom strategies; think about questions to ask students; anticipate answers and areas where students will struggle.  They have to try new things and make mistakes and try again and make new mistakes...and try again.

       As a nation, we need to help to provide all teachers with high-quality professional development.  And it needs to occur on a regular and ongoing basis.  It can't be one or two days a year.  It must be ongoing if we really intend to see improvement over time.  Its hard.  It costs money.  It can look different for different teachers or for schools that teach to different student communities.  As with so many things in life, professional development is understood to be necessary, but delivering it in a meaningful way is a challenge.

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.

Should we abolish Grades in our schools?

       Why do schools assign grades?

       Grades and grading are such natural parts of our educational system, it seems almost silly to ask this question.  It's like asking, Why do people walk?, or Why do have eyes?  Still, if we think about the meaning and purpose of grades, I would say that most people have an answer to this question.

       Grades provide a measure of success in a student's learning.

       Grades tell us our ability in a particular academic area.

       Well...maybe that is what grades are supposed to do, but (in reality) do grades serve other purposes?  If you are a teacher, have you ever given a student a bad grade because the assignment was handed in late?  Have you ever taken points off of a test because a student was talking during the test?  In these instances, the grade was determined (at least partially) based on a student's behavior and not on the student's ability.

       As a student, have you ever received a good grade and learned nothing about the thing you were graded on?  Have you ever received an "A" on a test based on what you were able to memorize?  In these instances, the grade didn't represent ability; it represented compliance.  You did what you were told to do.

       As a parent, do you ever question the good grades that you children earn?  Do you encourage your children to get good grades, or do you encourage your children to learn?  Do you view grades as a sort of competition...Your kid vs. the other kids...Who is going to win?

     I think about grades and grading a lot.  A quick Google search found other people who think about grades and grading in our schools.  One of my favorite people on Twitter Starr Sackstein. Also Alfie Kohn, Jen Rubino, and Education Stormfront.  I worry that grading is taking over our education system.  I worry that learning--the joy of learning; the desire to learn--has fallen into a (far) second place.

       There is so much pressure on students to get good grades.  Do grades mean what they used to mean?  Do grades reflect a student's ability?  Does anyone care if grades reflect a student's ability?  Grades don't have to be the enemy; but (I think) the desire to seek good grades over the desire to learn is dangerous.  We give students a false sense accomplishment when we say that they have "earned" grades and they didn't.  We give parents a false sense of their child's ability too.  How many students get great grades in high school and then cannot make it to their sophomore year in college?  Surely, this isn't our goal.

       Why do schools assign grades?  Why (should) schools assign grades?  And, can we lessen the importance of grades and increase the importance of learning?

       I hope we can.

Great Learners make Great Teachers

       In education, collaboration is powerful.  Teachers who seek out advice and ideas from multiple sources--within their school, within their school district, on twitter, via journal articles, etc.--probably have the most engaging classrooms.  Teaching is not a profession that expects perfection in the first year.  Indeed, it takes three to five years to develop the skills necessary to become a truly effective teacher.

       Hence, schools that allow for and encourage time for teachers to meet, are really encouraging teachers to constantly improve.  Our best teachers are always looking to improve and always searching for better ways to reach their students.  That's why teachers who love learning become great teachers.  They study how students develop ideas and they help students to build on what they know.

       The TEACH100 website has recently developed the Teach100Mentors.  They have honored me by allowing me to be part of this special group.  I am always glad to impart whatever wisdom I may have collected over the past 20+ years that I have been in education.  But I truly appreciate hearing and learning from others that are part of this group.  My learning will never end--there's so much to know.

     Similarly, our best teachers know that they have so much to gain by hearing from others.  As a younger person, I used to think that only people older and more experienced than me could help me to improve.  But today (at 50), I know that professionals of all ages help me to learn and to grow.

       Thank you to all of our teachers.  And thank you for continuing to teach each other.  It's more than important; it's necessary as we build a community of professionals who will lead the next generation of students who will (in turn) live and work in our futures.

Common Standards

     Well, I've held out this long.  I've tried to stay away from politics in this blog.  But I've talked about grades and grading; I've talked about national testing; and I've actually talked about Common Core before.  However, this time I want to share my thoughts about Common Core and address some of the counter-arguments that (in my opinion) are not sufficient to justify a school district or a state to refuse to use them.

      I support the use of the Common Core standards for English/Language Arts and for Mathematics.  I also support the common standards for Science that are coming to our public schools.  I support these standards because they were created by experts; they were vetted by experts; and they give all 50 million U.S. students a fair and equitable education.  We all know that education throughout the U.S. is not uniform because individual state standards vary widely.  Common Core sets a level playing field for all.  Additionally, these common standards are consistent with those from countries that produce students with the highest academic abilities.  We all love competition and we all love to win; so I would think that we would all want our students to be able to fairly compete with anyone in the world for 21st century jobs.  Common standards allow us to do this.

     So here are some bad reasons for turning away from common educational standards:

1) I'm a Republican and Common Core is a Democrat thing--so I'm against it.

     We live in a partisan country.  Some people are strongly Republican and some are strongly Democrat.  If a cause aligns to a particular political party, then the loyal will support it no matter the cause and no matter the details.  But Common Core is not a Democrat thing and it is not a Republican thing.  It came from the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers.  Just as No Child Left Behind was not a Republican thing (Edward Kennedy co-wrote NCLB), Common Core is not a Democrat thing.

2) Common Core is too hard.

     Compared to the academic standards in some states, Common Core will appear to be more rigorous, less rigorous, or about the same.  Since different states had different standards in the past, this comparison will look different to people in different parts of the country.  But the goal of school is to teach and prepare students for the world that they will inherit.  The goal is not for students to get good grades.  We want our students to be successful, but too many of our students have been very successful in high school only to fail in college.  That is a national shame on our nation.  Common Core is trying to prepare students for both higher education and for the word of work.  If it is hard, then students are being well prepared for their future.  Isn't that something we all want?

3) It was implemented too fast.

     States were given four years between state adoption of the Common Core standards and the actual implementation of the Common Core standards.  I think that a lot of people feel that the Common Core came all of sudden--one year we didn't have it, and the next year we did.  There was a lot of planning behind the scenes that the general public may not have seen.  This is why it seems to be so sudden to some.  If there were ten years between adoption and implementation, some people would feel the same way.  Why should we wait to give our students a world-class education?  And why give up on it just because it was fast?

     Also, public education is often accused of moving too slow.  Fifty million students and three million teachers comprise a very large group; and it is often slow for this group to change.  If we drag out the change and take our time, it might never happen.  We have to "rip off the band-aid".  Now is the time

4) (This bad reason hasn't occurred yet, but it will towards the end of this school year.)  See, everyone did poorly on the test.

     This year, for the first time, the PARCC and Smarter Balanced tests will be administered to students in grades 3 to high school.  In all likelihood, overall student scores will be low
compared to their class grades in math and English/Language Arts; or compared to past standardized test grades.  And there will be all sorts of renewed calls to cancel Common Core.

     In fact, whenever a new standardized test is administered, scores are often low at first and then increase over time.  Remember, the content of the courses are more difficult, so naturally the tests will be more difficult and some students won't be able to rise to that challenge as well as other students.  Once again, the goal of school is to teach and help students to be prepared for their future.  We are not helping students by giving them easy tests and then telling their parents that they are smart and then having these same students struggle after high school.  Colleges will recognize these new tests that same way they recognize the SAT and ACT tests.  They have to be the sort of tests that really prepare our students for college.

     We have a real chance to improve the education of millions.  And it could happen to this current generation of students.  We can say that we were there when U.S. public schools took a bold new step toward becoming the new standard in world-class education.  This is education's "moon shot".  Let's make a real difference; let's give our kids the best!