Chalk Talk with Sharron and Virgil Walker

What are schools about?

    K-12 schools are the universals of education for our children- the common experience of all citizens for adult life as Jefferson envisioned it.  The original goals were to assure that all participants have sufficient knowledge to share in democratic processes and values.  In colonial periods, it was to allow individual access to the Bible.  However, as the country and economy grew the goals became infused with the need for skills of the industrial workplace and consumerism.  At present, there is an emerging view that K-12 must be sufficiently rigorous to allow success in further education. State Legislators are considering college aptitude exams for all high school students and Obama has argued that a high school graduate should be ready for at least one additional year of study or training.  At the same time, Federal Law enforces a goal of meeting proficiencies for all students regardless of race or socioeconomics, although it leaves the selection of those proficiencies to individual states.  But as experienced by the child, K-12 is an experience of cultural traditions, socialization activities and organizations, group affiliations and loyalties.  For the student, accumulation of these is equal in importance and sometimes in conflict with the achievement of the Jeffersonian vision. When we lose public education, will we lose our democracy?

What this forum is about...

We offer this site as a forum to host ideas from our colleagues, supervisors and students to discuss and dismiss issues confronting the system and emerging from our past.  We offer the following organization of topics:

            1. What’s the purpose of K-12 Schools?

            2. How real is the current atmosphere of crisis?

            3. How do we really measure schools?

            4. How should teachers be selected and trained?

            5. Unions, boards, communities and departments of education- who sets the   agenda?

            6. What are the politics of curriculum?

            7. Where should we put our resources?

            8. How does research become outcomes?

            9. What’s the dialogue of real learning?

            10. Should schools be reorganized?

            11. Does evaluation stimulate progress?

Using State Test Data for School-wide Improvement

Here’s an idea I wish I had when I could have done something about it. I intend it to break down the barriers between teachers (the closed door syndrome) and promote group participation and communication. It is a rather obvious application of data to instruction, but why isn’t it already common practice?  I think the current experience with state testing (AIMS in Arizona) is that it’s done to teachers and students and principals rather than by teachers for students. AIMS is treated like a norm-referenced test but it functions as a criterion-referenced test.  It  is used to rank schools and classes with one another, but it is intended to provide an assessment of reaching adopted proficiencies. Teachers don’t have access to the questions design or administration, but are expected to teach to the skills and are held responsible for the outcomes.  Evaluation is external and instruction is coerced into the curriculum.  Teachers have to react to the results, but are not included in the evaluation design nor coordinated with the delivery. A cautionary remark- the use of individual student skill profiles prepared by the test publisher without access to actual test data on  an item by item analysis can be misleading.  Without knowing how students miss questions, a teacher can spend a lot of time correcting skills deficits that don’t accurately reflect local instructional practices or cultures. For instance, I found that the results of tests correctly reflected a math instructor’s decision not to teach division by fractions, but listed a problem in phonics familiarity as a vocabulary concern.  The math issue could have been resolved by curriculum monitoring, but the word recognition question would not be resolved by increased practicing in vocabulary quizzes.

 

Spreading the Skills- High School Levels

1. Persons who have access to AIMS results create a list of 10 or so objectives that most separate the local population from state averages.  This is information I had as a district testing coordinator.
2. Divide the skills into core areas- e.g. English, Math, Science, Social Studies
3. Submit the divided list to a teacher in the appropriate subject area. Have that teacher team up with at least one other teacher in another department selected as appropriate to the skill content.
4. Compare ideas about the application of the skill and design a pretest which can be given in any subject represented in the team.  For example the math teacher who challenged the efficacy of division by fractions might find another perspective if teamed with shop and home ec instructors.
5. Give the test and evaluate results for consistency with AIMS performance.  Are certain students far behind? Is instruction getting to those who need it most? Does the test reflect reality in the subject area?  Is the multiple choice format valid?  How much instructional time is needed to improve? Is it worth it?  How could the definition be made more valid?
6. Each teacher will design a lesson or unit appropriate to his/her subject matter which incorporates the skill and submit it to the team for evaluation and suggestions and modeling.
7. Do the units and report results for discussion to the team.
8. Based on findings clean up the lesson.
9. All participants will agree to incorporate appropriate questions of the skill in their finals.
10.  Share findings and experiences.  What seems to be the common blocks to mastery? Frankly discuss issues like allocation of staff and inservice commitments.  Where does the time come from? Given to amount of emphasis on the results of these tests in public and political perception, hopefully these areas will have highest priority in staff development.
11. Revise as necessary and incorporate the skill in the curriculum so it is common to at least 2 classes.  Should the skill be sequenced across the grades?
12. See if any others will come on board.  Can the community or parents help? Can SPED or counseling help out?  Can a pay incentive be added? 

If this process works I predict that the gains will be in defining the objective in real world terms and designing and evaluating the assessment.  The results will be shared by those who did the whole process.

Where are Teachers in This Improvement Processs?

Whether we’re losing our democracy or just forging ahead to a new consensus, the labor in school    progress comes from the teachers.  Competent administration can provide the organization, valid evaluation can assess the growth, and politicians can take the credit, but with parents and colleagues alike, teachers take the blame.  The accountability issues, the tenure debate, the evaluation processes, the public reporting all take place outside the classroom and in a vocabulary and structure external to the labor site. Joan Winderman, a long term colleague and former neighbor, writes of the discussion in these columns:

Whew!  Glad I don't have to read and think like that anymore.  Too much educationese for me.  I was only happy trying to figure out how to interest kids in getting to the next step and finding out what it was they wanted to know about.  And Whole Language was the way I thought and learned and so guessed others did too even tho  I was aware everyone had their own style of learning.  But keeping them at it in a rich environment so they could find their own way.....that is all I knew.  It worked for me and I hope some of them.

 This response opens the dialogue on the level of how teaching really happens. The teacher got in the job for reasons more humble than competing with China or preparing tomorrow's entrepreneur.  The teacher teaches from love of an experience of nurturing children and a view of how that happens with a devotion to a particular skill, content and/or instructional philosophy.  The teacher finds meaning in the students' inquiries and success in their product.  The measures of school effectiveness so prominent in our political and media debate are only tangentially related to the teacher’s experience of success.  When a student writes a great story, a team wins a tournament, the kids apply the taxonomy to local flora, or the school play is fun- that's the stuff that makes and keeps teachers in the business.  The average percentile of the class in converting fractions to decimals is not the joy of instruction.  The teacher assumes that these scores will progress incidentally as the student accumulates these sets of positive experiences.  But when the numbers and evaluation tools become the primary criteria for feedback or reward, the curricula and methodology move to formats which have the greatest score impact.. And that is teaching methods that most directly resemble the evaluation.  This is the much reviled teaching to the test. 

The resulting staff meetings, paperwork for progress reports, and parent notices and information circulars are viewed as a disruption and diversion from the true acts of education. The enthusiastic teacher is looking for students ready to learn through activities that match the teacher's most treasured interests and knowledge.  Since there is a high correlation between the "good" student in class performance  and objective test outcomes, there is a natural belief that good teaching will produce positive results along the way.  But when accountability pressures and promotional criteria align with multiple choice exams and we grow increasingly facile with growth measures and proficiency goals, there is a deep dissonance between the teacher's drive and what is reported and rewarded.

Virgil Walker

Budget Crisis Solved by Arizona’s Teachers

 

In a special session the Arizona legislature passed a budget which will make substantial cuts to education at the state universities ($142 million)  and in K-12 ($133 million).  State Superintendent Tom Horne estimates the cost will be about 2% in each district.  Attached to this is a set of policies restrictions that will change the meaning of getting hired as a teacher forever.  When considering a reduction of force dismissal or recall from same, senority  will not be allowed to be considered.  Teachers salaries will be set individually and not by experience.  Existing salaries can be reduced on a person by person basis rather than equitably across the board.  Evaluation deadlines are reduced or eliminated.

Persons arguing for this new order see it as invoking the goals and objectives of the race to the top.  The intent is to tie retention of employees to student performance without the fussiness of knowing how to do it.  The immediate impact of these changes will be faltering because all teachers have contracts in hand which are based on the forbidden length of serviced category and displaced evaluation procedures.  However, the state is already next to last in pupil expenditures and next year’s budget promises even greater funding reductions and it is impossible to see how anyone will escape the upcoming carnage.  Next year’s already predicted greater  budget collapse will cause RIFs which will exclude seniority criteria and evaluation schedules.  Teachers salaries would be set individually and by yet to be established criteria.  This is not an administrative maneuver because the professional policies that the building has followed will all need to be restructured.   Every principal will  to find out what the criteria for evaluation, retention and now salary for each teacher individually.  And each step will require board review and approval and negotiations and legal explanations.  Hopefully, the improvement will be so dramatic that the need for new lawyers could be met.

The assumption is that the new order will award contracts and salaries on the basis of results.  So will our ag specialist be held accountable for the reading, math or correctness of expression scores?  Or perhaps it would be better to withhold his pay until it’s determined what percent of his students complete a 4 year college degree.  Maybe the year’s paychecks could be passed out at high school graduation.  At all grade levels, the unmotivated student will be a direct threat to the teacher’s longevity.  Now, let’s admit that building motivation is a big part of the job and there are already schemes to provide payback to students for good grades, but this will add reverse bribery to the curriculum of teacher’s colleges.

Discussion Points in Accountability

1.      Randomization in educational research is almost impossible, even more so in international studies.

2.      Ed research should be a dialogue.  Participation should include the evaluated, the design and the process of rating.

3.      Instruction looks most effective when the curriculum and the evaluation are aligned.  Is this teaching to the test?

4.      The instruments of evaluation are predominately norm referenced in design- not criterion referenced.

5.      Evaluation of process is more possible now.

6.      Most comparative studies reflect correlations rather than cause and effect.  This is true of test scores.

7.      Education placement and decisions are predominately political.

8.      Reducing the gaps does not necessarily raise the standards.

9.      Holistic research suffers from cost overload.

10.   The most enduring instruction occurs when the teacher is learning.

11.   Do professional incentives improve instruction?

12.   Is multiple-choice accountability project-valid?

13.   The teaching profession is treated as a labor force.

14.   The educator to a man shuns national standards  and is a reluctant participant in local standards.  However only a commitment will lead to resolution of critical ed issues.

 

Why Do We Send Children to School?

It was her first day on the job as principal. Dina Macksy stood alongside a tri-colored basset hound sleeping each morning at the schoolhouse gate waiting for the scents from the cafeteria to awaken his senses.  As she entered through the gates, he looked up at her as he sniffed the air.  Perceiving that she was neither a threat to his school or breakfast, he stretched his body back against the pavement, laid his chin firmly on the ground and shut his bloodshot eyes.

“Now what do I do,” Dina asked the basset hound. “You come for breakfast everyday. Why do I come? In fact, why does society even send children to school?”

 Suddenly, Dina didn’t know the answer to her question. So she asked everyone she saw, beginning with the students.  Why does society send children to school?  Their answers flummoxed her.  “We’re here ‘cause the law sez so,” they affirmed, not looking up from their digital gadgets.  “Everybody knows that. You’re the principal. How come you don’t know that?”

Dina asked the school board members…those who anointed her principal.   “We sent them to school to be successful in life.  You mean you don’t why society sends children to school?” 

Dina wondered what success in life looked like but was too afraid to ask. She liked being principal even if she didn’t know why society sends children to school.

 Dina began to ask teachers.

“That’s your job to know...you are the principal.”

“But your input is important,” exclaimed Dina.

“We just want to be left alone.”

Dina asked the superintendent. He eyed her skeptically.  His piercing glance made her think that perhaps the school board had made a poor decision about her anointment.

Because Dina could not find an answer to her question inside the schoolhouse, she began to ask people outside it …those in front and back of her on line in Costco, or queuing up at midnight for the new blockbuster movie, or just walking by her on the street.  Why do we send children to school? These people provided many answers but upon reflection, their responses baffled her. It was not what the people she asked said, but what they didn’t say.

“We send kids to school for many reasons,” they answered. “…to provide free babysitting services; because it is the law; because it performs a socialization function; so that kids will learn how to read, write and do arithmetic; so that kids will be like the others...or not be like the others; to keep them out of jail; to pass those high stake tests; so that they will grow up to be successful.” Something was missing from these responses. What was it? Why do we send our children to school?