Louisiana Teachers Use Professional-Development Day to Protest - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Louisiana Teachers Use Professional-Development Day to Protest - Teacher Beat - Education Week

This article ends with a statement about how teachers see professional development as non-essential - something subordinate to other responsibilities.  Supposedly, this is unlike what occurs in top-performing countries.

Although I am a big believer in PD and a constant examination/honing of teaching methods, I often find the professional development that I'm asked to sit through VERY non-essential.  Most of it has been very passive - exactly the opposite of great teaching.  This passive, sit-and-listen type of professional development is probably also very time-effective and inexpensive in comparison to things like lesson studies, teacher observations and debriefings, and other active forms of PD.  Another reason PD in the US is so poor is that it seems to have become just another responsibility of already-too-busy administrators.  It is an afterthought.  And it is an area that, if bettered, could substantially improve teaching and learning in the US.  (Although it's NOT an area that seems to lend itself to data collection.)

Fla. Teacher Training Routes Vary in Effectiveness, Study Shows - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Fla. Teacher Training Routes Vary in Effectiveness, Study Shows - Teacher Beat - Education Week

So.... the type of person who enters the teaching profession matters more than their teacher preparation coursework? Is that the correct way to interpret this article?

The Odd Couple: Dennis and Wendy

The_Odd_Couple: Dennis and Wendy

In the above piece, Diane Ravitch wonders how Wendy Kopp can call for better teacher preparation, given that TFA places teachers in very difficult assignments after only 5 weeks of training.

I think Wendy Kopp can rightfully call for better teacher prep. Yeah, 5 weeks is too short to get someone really ready to teach. But so is any amount of time, really. And the 5 weeks is, at least, directly focused on how to deal with the most difficult teaching assignments and is infused with actual teaching. After training, TFA also supports its teachers instead of just sending them out to sink or swim. And they collect data on how well their teachers perform and then use that data to augment their training and professional development programs. Wendy Kopp definitely has the right to call for better teacher prep. programs!

NM Charter Students Cost More

Until recently, I didn't think that district charters really took money away from public schools.  I thought that was just a myth that got thrown around in order to make charters look bad.  I figured that, if a student chose to attend a charter school, he would just take his funding with him. And since the district school had one less student to educate, it seemed fair, as long as the enrollment numbers didn't dip too low. 

It turns out that, in New Mexico, charter schools actually do receive a lot more funding, per pupil, than public schools.   Some of the details of how and why this happens can be found in today's article, posted below.  NM's Legislative Finance Committee arrived at a new funding formula that attempts to even things out for charters as well as for some other outdated funding issues.  And, under the new formula, charters tend to be allocated a lot less money than they are allocated under the current formula. 

What are my feelings?  It's really difficult to go from more to less funding.  I wish there were ways to lessen the blow, because schools get used to operating with a certain amount of money and there will have to be drastic changes made to accommodate a lower budget.  That said, I don't think it's fair for charter schools, on average, to receive more per pupil than district schools - even if they have special programs and higher overhead.  Overall, I'm for the adjustments made by the Legislative Finance Committee.  I think charters, with their greater abilities to be flexible than large districts, can make it work. 

By Ben Wieder

Stateline Staff Writer [Stateline.org]

December 12, 2011                                       

Some lawmakers in New Mexico say publicly-funded, privately-run schools are taking advantage of the state's rules to get more than their fair share of education funding.

• One of Albuquerque's charter schools, Academia de Lengua Y Cultura, offers a dual-language middle-school curriculum, with teachers in some classes giving lessons in English and Spanish on alternating days.
• Across town, the Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School, which takes students from sixth grade through high school, emphasizes seminar discussions and offers advanced international diplomas.
• The Southwest Secondary Learning Center, meanwhile, reinforces math, science and engineering lessons by allowing students to maintain and fly real airplanes.

They represent three of New Mexico's more than 80 charter schools. While some of those schools look and act like private institutions - their leaders have freedom to run them as they see fit as long as students meet state standards - they are part of the public school system, charge no tuition and receive nearly all of their funding from state monies.

But unlike other states, where average per-student funding for charters is typically lower than it is for other public schools, a legislative report released last month found that charters in New Mexico receive an average of 26 percent more funding per student than traditional public schools. The report suggested that lawmakers change how schools are funded to address that.

New Mexico is unique in that the vast majority of school funding for all public schools comes from the state. These payments can be increased based on 24 various factors.

• The report says that some of those criteria, such as per-pupil funding increases based on the percentage of enrollment growth and a school's small size, benefit charters disproportionately.
• The state's funding formula has been adjusted more than 80 times since it was first created in 1973.
• The report recommends a complete overhaul of the formula to remove or give different weight to some of those factors.

State Representative Rick Miera ((D-Bernalillo], chair of the legislative education study committee, says the goal isn't to reduce the level of funding for the schools, but rather make sure that adjustments are serving the purpose they're intended to serve. "We have all these little factors that have come in over the years," the Democratic representative says. "These schools qualify for small schools, but are they small schools?"

How New Mexico compares

Nationally, there are now more than 2 million students seeking alternative education programs who are enrolled in charter schools, thanks, in part, to recent legislation in several states that lifted caps on the number of charters and made it easier for successful charters to expand. Typically, charters are funded by states in one of three ways, according to Josh Cunningham, a research analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures [NCSL].

• The most common is for states to give charters the same money for each student as they give traditional public schools in the same district.
• In other states, funding "follows" students, meaning that they are assigned the same funding as every other student in their home district, even if they choose to attend a charter in another district.
• Finally, a handful of states give the same level of per-pupil funding to each charter school in the state.

Cunningham says typical per-student funding for charters is lower than at traditional public schools, because many regular public schools make up a big part of their budgets from local property taxes and federal dollars that are harder for charters to obtain.

Traditional public schools also generally have more options for raising money to build and maintain facilities. There are some federal funds set aside for charters, and some charters also seek private support, but Cunningham says that normally doesn't make up the differences in funding between charters and their traditional peers.

• In Minnesota, where the first charter schools in the country appeared, the funding structure for charters has remained fairly constant since they were first allowed in 1991, says Tom Melcher, the state's school finance director. Charters are funded the same across the state, he says, with adjustments made to match local property taxes that other public schools receive.
• Florida is among the states with the biggest jump in charter enrollment in the past year, after it passed a law allowing high-performing charter schools to more easily expand. The state now has more than 500 charter schools serving more than 150,000 students, but funding isn't quite as equitable as in Minnesota. State money for charters flows through the school district in which a charter is located. The district can take out a small percentage of that money for administrative costs and can choose how much of its local property tax revenue to share with charters.

"There's only a few districts that do share that revenue with charter schools," says Cheryl Etters, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Education.

• In Colorado, which functions similarly to Florida, districts can take up to 5 percent in administrative fees and choose how much or little of local property tax funds to share with charter schools. But Amy Anderson of the state Department of Education, says that most districts don't take out the full 5 percent fee and that districts now give charters a more equal share of federal and local funds. "With time, more and more districts have become better at recognizing that the kids in the charter schools are kids in their district," she says.

Are funding differences fair?

Charter school advocates argue that funding discrepancies between traditional public schools and charters are unfair, but NCSL's Cunningham says that doing more with less is what charters are all about. "Part of the concept of charter schools is doing things more efficiently," he says.

• That's the view taken by Steve Mancini, a spokesman for the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, which operates a network of 109 charters in 20 states and Washington, D.C. "We're leaner," he says. "We don't have the director of right brain instruction and the director of left-brain instruction."

Still, funding differences in each of the 20 states mean that different KIPP schools have to operate differently. KIPP schools in Newark, New Jersey, he says, receive two-and-a-half times the level of funding per student as KIPP schools in San Francisco. That means the California schools need to raise more money through donations to provide a comparable education.

On average, KIPP's schools across the country receive 85 percent of their funding from public sources and make up the difference with donations and other sources of private income, he says. The goal, though, is to increase the share of public money.

• In New Mexico, some of the charter schools with the highest costs say the greater share they receive is justified. Leaders at the dual language Academia de Lengua Y Cultura say their higher costs can be attributed to the school's high percentage of bilingual students and special education students, whose education costs are eligible for higher funding in the formula.

The Southwest Learning Centers are mentioned in the report as an example of potential misapplication of the small-school label. They have students from fourth grade through high school who share the same building and the same upper-level administration, but are considered three separate charters, each of which qualifies as a small school better positioned for higher state funding.

Robert Pasztor, the schools' director of academic support, says the schools would not be able to offer the same technology-rich curriculum - with every student given access to laptops - and support a brand new gym if not for the benefits from the small-school adjustment, particularly since charter schools are on the hook for more of their facility costs. He thinks other schools in the state should follow their model, which yielded better state test results across the board last year than state and city averages.

"We in a sense have created this sort of 21st-century school house," he says. "No single school could afford this facility."

But John Arthur Smith, chair of the state legislative finance committee, says that isn't the intention of the small school adjustment. It was originally designed for small, rural districts, the Democratic senator says. "The bottom line is they're still gaming the formula."

Do You Believe in Miracles?

Do You Believe in Miracles?

I was recently mulling over my abilities as a parent to prepare my kids academically. I've noticed that, since my oldest went to preschool, I've begun to rely on his teachers to provide practice with letters and numbers. Then yesterday I sat down with my oldest to write a letter to Santa. And it appears that his letter writing skills haven't advanced much at all since he enrolled in pre-school. Things may have even deteriorated a bit since this summer, when we were doing more at home.

What does this mean and what does it have to do with the above post? First, while school is an important place where kids can learn a lot - particularly about socializing - there is NO REPLACEMENT for the specific attention and direction that a parent can provide a child. I write a lot about effective teaching, but do I really think even the most effective teaching can make up for a lack of parental attention to academic skills? No.... I don't really think so. A great deal of learning happens when a parent sits down with a child to read, write, review homework, etc. Even the best teachers have limited ability to instruct 20 kids at once and make sure they're forming good habits. It's my responsibility as a parent to turn off the TV and make sure my child knows the difference between a 3 and an E.

Does this mean it's hopeless to try and improve schools and teachers? No... far from it. What I truly believe is that schools and teachers could be a lot more efficient, effective, innovative, and successful than they currently are. But, it would be a mistake to rely entirely on schools getting better to improve the existing achievement gap. I guess, if we needed to choose between improving schools and improving parenting, improving schools might be easier. But why do we need to choose? We can certainly improve the status quo of public education from both sides of the issue and would probably be more successful for it. It's time to stop ignoring the 16 hours per day when kids aren't in school and find ways to better engage parents and communities.

Setting a Higher Standard for Teacher Entry in Iowa

Setting a Higher Standard for Teacher Entry in Iowa

I am all for raising the bar. I think this plan has the flaw that it relies on colleges of education to recruit more qualified teacher candidates without changing the incentives attached to choosing teaching as a profession.

Teachers Get Paid Less to Teach in Poor Schools

Teachers Get Paid Less to Teach in Poor Schools


I don't actually think this is true in New Mexico, but I'm not happy to see a study confirm that teachers get paid less anywhere in the nation to teach in poor schools.  It isn't surprising.  Jobs meant to provide services to poor people, in general, probably don't pay well.

I believe that there are a number of people out there who seek to do something meaningful with their lives - and teaching in a "poor" school certainly fills that need.  But it's certainly not enough for state and federal governments to trust the good-will of humankind to fix our nation's worst schools.  It won't happen.  There need to be monetary incentives or at least more respect and prestige attached to the most difficult teaching jobs.

Despite all of the talk about improving education, I suspect that the people at the top, or the people who fund the people at the top don't really care very much about improving rural or low-performing schools.  Definitely not at the expense of the resources and salaries enjoyed by the nation's highest-performing schools.

Overcoming the bad teaching days...

I had an awful day today.  I taught a 1-day lesson for the second day, and my students still didn't get the point.  The lesson was not over a new concept, and - in my opinion - they should have done fine.  I gave a few students ineffective "talking to's" outside... blah blah blah.

And I left school wanting to blame something or someone other than myself for what happened and what has been happening - lack of parental support, lax school discipline, not enough special education services, etc. Anyone but myself.  Of course - I'm mainly to blame.  I didn't scaffold the lesson enough.  I stepped out of the room to talk with a student and wasn't there to help/supervise my students. I didn't call any of my students' parents.  I wasn't enthusiastic enough.

In a way, I can thank my students for keeping me on my toes.  In another school, with higher performing students, a poorly planned lesson might be just fine.  But not at my school and not in many of the high-needs schools across the nation.  I think effective teaching and classroom management CAN overcome many of the gaps in other areas of students' schooling.  But is it also true that effective school structures can help minimize types of days like I had today?  Because even though a teacher may be very effective - there's no way to completely avoid bad teaching days.

In a high-achieving school, students might overcome obstacles and find ways to complete a difficult assignment anyway - because they want the good grade.  Or because their parents force them to.  But in a low-performing school, a day with a lesson that doesn't provide enough access (like my day today) is just lost.  So... I will try to be a better teacher tomorrow.  And I will keep in mind that the stakes are high for me to be an effective teacher every day.  But what can I advocate for my school to put in place to help minimize the time lost by my mistakes? Or by other teachers' bad days?

Study hall? Tutoring? Strict discipline policies? Rewards for good behavior/grades? None of the above?

It's that time of year...

I'm not really talking about the holidays, in particular.  I'm talking about the slump I find myself in, thinking about what changes I can make in my teaching practice to really turn things around for my students who are struggling.

Today I'm in a fight with myself about whether it's worth teaching the lesson I'd planned for, even though we go on break tomorrow and only 2/3 of my students showed up.  Should I send them the message that today is an important day to be here, and that we will work hard right up until the end?  If I send that message, will they get it? Or will I just spend the next 2 weeks after break trying to convince the students who missed today that they need to come in during lunch to make up the lesson they missed?

With the 2nd semester coming up, it is time to step back and think about the big picture rather than each individual lesson.  And I've got to figure out how to do that without simply feeling weighted down with despair over my failures as a teacher.  I can't sit around and wait for parents to force their kids to come to school, for kids who are behind to take the initiative to improve their skills, or even for my colleagues to be the ones to call home regarding classroom misbehavior.  It has to be me.  I can be better.

What Do We Mean by 'Public'?

What Do We Mean by 'Public'?

Hmmm. Charter schools.... I've written about this before. I work at a charter school, so I am obviously not anti-charter. And, in the case of my school and others organized a common interest, purpose, or culture, I think a charter fills a previously unfilled need. Then there are charters like KIPP or Yes Prep, that are places meant for high achieving kids in low-performing school districts. Yeah, it'd be better if public schools could rise to the challenge of educating high-achievers to the level of higher income schools. Yet, it's not happening. A charter school does seem to be a good option in the interim... a way for a highly motivated kid or family to more likely get into a good college. OK. That's my theory. I don't really know about the regularity with which charter schools are helping high performers that would otherwise attend low performing schools.

I guess, like everything, there's a large gray area. Of course there are both good and bad charter schools. And mostly schools that are neither good nor bad. And since we don't really have any trusted ways to measure which schools are "good" and "bad," there aren't really clear steps to in improving the "bad" schools.

In Action

Today I go to take New Mexico's Reading Teacher Assessment.  Historically, I am a math and science teacher with a degree in biochemistry and most of my teaching experience in middle school science.  This year, I was asked to teach a reading class to students more than 2 years behind in reading.  I have mixed feelings, and I know a number of my colleagues blatantly disagree (for my sake as well as for my students' sake) that I teach reading.

My mixed feelings come from the reality that small schools serving primarily low-performing students have an unworkable number of constraints.  Special education - including gifted education, intervention classes, and even electives are extremely difficult to successfully provide when 50% or so of your students aren't on grade level.  This exact same thing happened in my last school.  Based on test data, we were required to provide extra interventions to something like 1/3 of our students.  We had to have all these teachers squeeze intervention math and reading classes into their schedules - qualified or not.  And I think schools work better when teachers come together to "make it work," even when circumstances are difficult.  I hate having colleagues who refuse to put in the extra work, because I often end up being the person who does agree to take on more for the good of the school and the students.  I might be making the wrong decision.... me teaching reading might not be for the good of the school or the students.  Maybe if I'd said "no," the school would have had to come up with a different, better solution. 

I also think that, if someone is a good teacher, they will very likely be a good teacher of any subject.  There is always some lag time when building a new curriculum - I'm not on top of my game like I was after teaching and perfecting 8th grade science for 5 years.  But I'm also not as bad as some other teachers who allow their students "free time" all the time and don't provide clear instructions or engaging tasks with meaningful objectives.  I know how to do all of those things for math and science, and therefore I'm not totally lost when it comes to doing them in reading.

There is more to being "highly qualified" than just taking a test or even taking college courses.  It really takes observing a teacher's classroom and the work that students are actually producing in that class.... 

If I ran a school....

I'd rethink the structure of the school day and school year to allow time for collaboration
I'd put a structure in place for teachers to discuss, collaborate, and share out
I'd have as many meetings that directly relate to effective teaching as meetings about other topics
I'd make sure my school had a teachers' lounge and would go out of my way to encourage teachers to get to know one another in and outside of school hours
I'd observe teachers and ask them to reflect back to me on what they're doing to improve their practice
I'd recognize teachers for effective teaching and for hard work as mentors, committee leaders, etc.
I'd hold community events at the school
I'd ask students to take surveys evaluating their teachers and ask teachers to take surveys evaluating me

Easier Said than Done

This morning's musings:
A few weeks ago, I observed a 1st year teacher and colleague of mine as a part of an alternative licensure program through a local community college. I had high hopes about how I would work with my colleague to give pertinent feedback as well as some expectations about changes I thought he should make in his classroom. Then it came time to debrief the observation - for me to deliver my powerful feedback and teaching tips.

The first roadblock was that my colleague and I could barely schedule a time to meet. We had to reschedule a number of times, and in between my observation and our meeting he actually went away to Boston for a conference and came back. When we did eventually meet, it was crammed into the last few minutes before he had to sub for a third colleague's class. Students were in and out of the room, the bell was ringing, I was thinking about the things I still needed to get done in order to teach for the day.

The second roadblock was that I choked. I spent quite a bit of time observing, taking notes, and formulating these notes into an observation form as well as a digestible set of ideas that I thought would help my colleague improve his teaching. But when I sat down, I started flipping through papers and hastily explaining why I hadn't just awarded all "exceeds" scores on the rubric. I hastily ran through my recommendations, and the debrief session ended without my colleague ever talking about what he might actually do to improve his teaching practice.

And now it's over. And now nothing will probably ever come of the time I spent observing, writing, and talking with my colleague. Refining one's teaching practice is a slow, difficult, personal process. It's not that I expected major changes after 1 observation. But I didn't expect to feel like the observation cycle was completely futile either. Maybe it wasn't.

Despite my debacle, there are a few positives that might come out of this situation. I'll do better next time - by scheduling a debrief session in advance of the observation, by carving out at least 30 minutes of time, and by inviting my colleague to reflect on what I've said rather than just listen to me talk in circles. I'm also glad for the experience because I've written before about observations and teacher evaluation as if it would be so easy to do things differently or better than they're currently being done. It's important to remind my self that that simply isn't true. Things could change, but it will require more than a minimal effort from a know-it-all teacher (me) to make that happen - even just in my 1 small school. 

APS Students Say School Grades Fail to Capture what Matters Most

I agree with the SuperSAC!  School is, after all, to engage and prepare students.  Doesn't it matter if they want to be there and if they feel that they're getting a good education?  I guess it's difficult to say how you're school is doing if it's the only school you've ever attended... but still... school culture matters!  If kids want to be in school, then socioeconomic status and parental support will matter less.

ABQ/ OPINION: Students Should Be Given a Voice in Schools' Policy

By Jenna Hagengruber, Team Member, SuperSAC

ABQ Journal

November 6, 2011  

On Oct. 17 a group of students from Albuquerque Public Schools met with the superintendent to discuss the school grading system.

This group is known as SuperSAC, an acronym standing for the Superintendent's Student Advisory Council.

We are a group consisting of two students from each high school in APS chosen to meet with the superintendent once a month to discuss important issues and decisions affecting education from a student's perspective.

One assignment for the students of SuperSAC was to give our schools a grade and to elaborate on why that grade was given. The students took this task very seriously, and during our past two meetings, we shared and discussed our ideas with the superintendent.

As a group of students varying vastly in personality, school, ethnicity and background, we came to some similar conclusions about the way we believe our schools should be graded. These criteria included grading on safety, college preparation, dual enrollment, teacher/administration involvement, parent involvement, attendance and extracurricular activities.

After considering how we would grade our schools, SuperSAC was presented with the Public Education Department's ideas of how they intend to assign grades. As a group, we feel that the PED's point system does not represent the most important aspects about high school.

Test scores, improvement of test scores and graduation rates are all highly relative and change as quickly as students in a class change. Although test scores can play a role in determining the knowledge one student has, testing is not always the most accurate way to determine a student's progress and preparation for the future.

This is due to the fact that students aren't always tested on what they've learned, and also tests often are aimed at a certain group of students rather than testing each student at his or her own level.

• One measure of success in high school that we feel was overlooked by the proposed grading system is extracurricular activities such as athletics, drama, music and JROTC that help create a sense of community within a school. Without activities such as these, myriad students would no longer be motivated to work hard in school, making things such as attendance, graduation rates and test success decrease.

These activities bring individuals together, which helps create a sense of confidence and security within the student population. Furthermore, most activities have strict grade requirements that motivate students to be proactive in their learning, so they can continue to participate in the activity. They also build character, help with time management and are enjoyed by participants.

• As the students of public education, we strongly believe several improvements could be made to the proposed school grading system. When decisions are being made about education, students should be asked for their opinion; when ideas on how to grade schools are being proposed, students' input should be considered; when a decision is being made about a school or a district, students should be involved in the process. As students, we are affected directly by these decisions and should be allowed to have a say in the outcome.

We are proposing that the Public Education Department create a student advisory committee made up of students from across the state that would meet on a regular basis to discuss any plans for education. We do not want to learn about bills and decisions only once they are in effect in our schools. We want to help create them and try to make New Mexico education the best it can be.

We are the students of public education. We are the now, and we are the future.

Paperwork

Today was a paperwork deadline day at my school.  And I didn't make it.  I am sick and took the day off, and I just finished writing an email to my boss about how I hope it's OK if I turn in my lesson plans a day later than planned.

It got me thinking about how that would not have been OK in college and got me wondering about whether it would be OK in most other jobs.  My friends have things "due" for their jobs - presentations, reports, etc. - and I'm guessing they would never be able to turn them in as poorly done, as late, or as infrequently as teaching typically allows.  On the other hand, perhaps the types of paperwork that are "due" in other jobs are more meaningful than a lot of the paperwork that teachers end up completing.  Lesson plans are useful, but they aren't - in and of themselves - an indication that student learning is actually happening.

Do I have any good ideas for what would be better?  Perhaps some artifacts of student learning, or surveys taken by students in addition to lesson plans.When I had to do those things as part of my master's degree, I always talked about how they distracted me from my real job - getting up in front of the students and teaching.  I don't really believe that's true.  I think teachers do need to be forced to step back and look at the bigger picture of where they are going with their teaching and then, when a unit is over, how it went. 

  

Receiving Advice

I've written a lot about how teachers can improve their practice after their first few years on the job.  In particular, something I've wondered is how teachers could hold one another accountable for improving their teaching.  Today something happened that reminded me how hard it can be to receive advice from a colleague, when all you really want is sympathy/empathy for something that's going wrong in your classroom.

Some students recently transferred into my math class and I am having trouble making the math accessible/getting them to work up to my expectations. Today I tried getting tough with the students about their performance, and it didn't go well.  I expressed my frustration to my colleague and basically got rebuked for going about the situation incorrectly. Of course, she was right. I did handle the situation poorly.  But, it was still really uncomfortable to hear it from a colleague.  It's fine now, but I don't think I'd scale up my situation as a model for helping teachers become more effective.  Making someone feel bad usually doesn't make her want to change.  It just makes her angry and defensive (like I did with my students today...).   I don't think our nation will get anywhere by making teachers feel bad about the jobs their currently doing.  Evaluation needs to be more productive than that.

What are my take aways? 1. There are situations where colleagues can critique one another.  They include weaknesses that a teacher has asked for help in addressing...in situations where help is being solicited.  They probably don't include teachers simply going into one another's classrooms and giving suggestions on how to improve.  They could very well include honestly recognizing one another for things we're doing well.

2.  Sometimes evaluation has to be uncomfortable.  Teachers have weaknesses that they themselves can't easily identify, and there need to be situations where it's OK to broach the subject and expect that teachers make changes in their practice.  It's very possible that such criticism could come from a principal or other administrator - as long as the teacher respects and trusts the administrator's knowledge of instructional delivery.

3. Changes in teaching - the thought process and the creation of new resources - actually happen outside of teaching hours.  For this reason, I don't think that teachers' contracted hours of work (given the current structure of a school day) are sufficient for really improving teaching.  Teachers need structured time to talk to one another and to meaningfully reflect on their teaching.  The best teachers most likely put in a lot of extra hours doing this on their own time.  But, if the nation hopes for more effective teaching in general, teachers need more time and greater expectations for examining and improving their teaching practice.

When Governors Talk Education, It's About the Economy, Stupid

When Governors Talk Education, It's About the Economy, Stupid

Although I'd noticed the talk about how we are hurting our future economy by having poorly educated youth, I'd never thought about the implications of framing education in that way. It makes sense, though, that we should be talking about education as much more than creating a skilled workforce. Isn't that part of the current Occupy Wall street movement? That the only value society places on people, things, endeavors, has to do with their literal, dollar amount values? Including public education. I guess it's a means to an end. In a capitalist society, you have to find ways to make things profitable in order to make them happen. So, I see why politicians are talking about the future monetary benefits of a strong public education system. Yet, it does seem wrong..... Public education is NOT a business and does not have a bottom line or profits (strictly speaking). How can we shift the conversation? Personally, I can be more careful with my words from now on. Other ideas?

Unions Still Mulling Harkin ESEA Bill

Unions Still Mulling Harkin ESEA Bill

Evaluations seem to be the hot topic in my state as well as on Capitol Hill lately. Is it useful to talk about evaluations without asking what happens to teachers who receive poor evaluations? Or without asking whom will be evaluating teachers and how highly trained are they in this area? I don't really think so. I guess it speaks to the fact that I've been in education for a while now that I'm thinking, "this won't really change things in my classroom." Unless my district and school supervisors take these evaluations very seriously and put a plan in place that goes far beyond what this bill says, things will continue to proceed as they are now. I guess the idea is that data doesn't lie; that having data will preclude principals from simply checking "satisfactory" for every teacher. I'm not sure, though. If teachers and administrators don't really trust the data, then it doesn't matter.

That said, I've been given the opportunity to do some evaluations/observations for one of my colleagues. I found out yesterday, and I've really been mulling over how to make my evaluations meaningful. Potentially, I think that teachers could evaluate and help one another in ways that administrators couldn't, since they are out of the classroom. I am sure that I'll be able to give some valid feedback, but if the person being evaluated is not asked to immediately act on that feedback, it will fall to the wayside. That's at least what happens to me. I've been observed, had a debrief session, nodded my head about the ways that I could improve my practice, and then not done anything about it - because I was too busy to actually make a change. It's only when I was asked to demonstrate something that I'd done differently as a result of my observation, that I actually changed my practice. But how can I pull that off with a colleague? I guess we'll see. I'm going to try.

What Can We Learn From Finland?

What Can We Learn From Finland?

I don't know anything but the basics on Finland: highest PISA scores, virtually no high stakes testing, low poverty rate, low racial diversity, selective teaching profession, etc.

According to me, what is the biggest difference between education in Finland and education in America? I think the selectivity of the teaching profession makes a big difference. I don't usually walk around insulting the intelligence of teachers - overall I think teachers are a creative, dedicated, smart group of people - but I have been in classes with or worked with a fair number of people who are exceptions. I suppose doctors or people of any profession might feel the same way - that there are people about whom you wonder, "how did they make it into this profession?" Having taken the entrance exams and college courses required to obtain a teaching lisence, I don't really wonder. Just about anyone who wants to become a teacher can. I mean, there are ads on the side of my facebook account that say "get a teaching license." Come on now.

Finland is selective and then gives its teachers opportunities to feed their ambition, their creativity, and their desire for respect. The United States does none of those things. So, not only are we not selective - but we make the profession unattractive to those driven, high-achieving people who manage to find their way into the profession on their own.

I also think the vast difference in poverty level impacts student achievement. I come from an upper-middle class family and experienced very few obstacles to making it to school on time, every day, with nothing to worry about aside from doing well in school. Not only am I faced with very different realities for my students, but I actually experience them within my own family. I am a teacher, for goodness sake, and have had to take days off of school for the types of "family emergencies" that I believe higher income students rarely experience. I have spent days at school (in my teacher role) unable to concentrate because of a "family emergency." I have been unsure about how to afford child care, how to maintain reliable transportation, etc. My situation is not dire by any means, but I have had a taste of some of the barriers that must be overcome by some of my students. And I know that my peers and I typically didn't face those type of situations while growing up in our suburban neighborhoods. For the 22% of American students who live in poverty and the countless more who live just above the poverty line - every day may provide a new obstacle to achieving their potential. Overcoming these obstacles will take more than emulating Finland's public education system.

Overall, I'm of the mindset that it's inappropriate to take something that works in 1 situation and assume that it will also work in all other situations. This is true for canned curricula, education legislation, and public school structures. That's not to say there aren't lessons to be learned, but I believe Americans will have to figure out a system of education that works for us and our unique situation. Just because Finland doesn't use high stakes testing doesn't mean we shouldn't. It's important to note that public schools can be successful without high stakes tests, but it's also important to remember that we didn't even really know the extent of America's achievement gap until we examined our high stakes test scores.