You can read the post, “Using Technology to Model Lifelong Learning Beyond the Bell,” here.

I am always happy to lend my voice and words to support the Writing Project.  Don’t know what I”m talking about? Looking for the best, life and practice-changing professional development out there?  Get thee to a Writing Project near you!

Happy Digital Learning Day.

-Heather

aka Tweenteacher

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Post tags: digital writing day, educational technology, virtual classroom, writing project

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Guess what?  I’m going to be facilitating a class for Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach’s Powerful Learning Practice.  The six-week course is on Project Based Writing, a strategic way to bring in authentic assessments and meaningful learning into any Language Arts program, elementary through secondary.

If you know anything about my teaching style, it’s about reciprocal learning, engaging instruction, and breaking down the walls between school life and real life.  But it’s always easier to jump start into a new unit if someone has tried strategies out already, which is where this class comes in.  Throughout the six-week series, I share what’s worked, provide downloadables, and help guide the participants to create Project Based Writing units that cater to their own classroom.  By the end of the class, the participants will come away with lessons created by and shared by everyone to adapt and use in their own practice.

To find out more about this new class, you can read here for an interview I gave to online awesome guru, Sir John Norton Esq.

What I like about PLP is how they combine both asynchronous discussions using ning with synchronous weekly webinars using Elluminate.  It gives a texture to virtual professional development that I’m proud to be a part of.

So check it out, and I hope to see some of my readers there!

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Post tags: authentic assessments, authentic learning, education, PLP, professional development, project based learning, project based writing

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Life is persuasive. A lawyer persuades a jury. A job applicant pitches oneself as a potential employee. A scientist competes for a grant. A writer sells her idea in her query letter. Persuasive writing is a key that unlocks a world of possibilities. It is a skill that we see at every stage of life from writing the inevitable cover letter to one day hopefully writing a letter of recommendation.

School must reflect the world around it, and writing persuasively is a key skill for college and career readiness regardless of the path a student takes.

My question to all my readers is Should all teachers be held accountable for the quality of a student’s writing?  Is it the burden of ELA teachers alone or do other content area teachers have a role to play in this new CCS world of Persuasive writing?

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Argumentation, Common Core Assessments, common core standards, education, edutopia, k12, middle school, Persuasive Writing

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Wonka has left us with questions about his miraculous factory and the wonders he has taken with him.

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Post tags: apple, education, huffington post, k12, middle school, steve jobs

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Need advice?  Check out my post at Edutopia titled, “20 Ways to Model Technology.”

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Post tags: Ed Tech, education, edutopia, k12. middle school

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Anyway, back in reality, in this case, everyone from Los Angeles to New York has been told to clear off the streets of LA for an entire weekend. This one closure, this apparent vein to civilization, will also affect the final shuttle launch, as well as any Wildebeest exodus across East Africa. Perhaps in the future, depending on one all important highway, one system alone, would be considered imprudent.

Which got me thinking about education.

Online education, homeschooling, private schools, charter schools, unschooling: are these all mere sidestreets to public school’s grand thoroughfare; or are they true and viable alternatives for our country that can serve instead of the brick-and-mortar public schools? After all, if there’s anything we can learn from the 405 closure, it’s that we can’t rely on one pathway through schooling alone.

To further that topic: as teachers, we also need sidestreets through the profession of teaching itself. Our current 405 is to get our credential, plow through 30 years of teaching or more, and retire. But as anyone knows who has driven the 405 over the over, you must find ways around it sometimes, even under the best of circumstances, or you’ll never want to get into your car again. It’s enough to drive you crazy. In other words, we need options through our profession. We need to be able to use our expertise as teachers in different ways. The 405 and the 30-year teacher still exist, but not in the way that it did 10, 15, 20 years ago. The teacher credential graduate will most likely not remain in the classroom that long, so how do we retain this institutional knowledge?

We create sidestreets that permit them to travel along the profession’s path and avoid the burn-out that comes with sitting in the car all day long for days and years on end.

Anyway, will this weekend end up as “Stormwatch, ‘11?” (As anyone in LA knows, a weatherman-branded “stormwatch” generally ends up as a mere drizzle promoted to hurricane proportions). Or, will it truly be the end of the world as we know it? It’s hard to say, but in the promotional, getting-the-word-out battle of “things to be concerned about,” it is truly tragic that carmageddon has beaten education, hands down.

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Post tags: carmageddon, closure of the 405, education, k12 schools, middle school

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So here I sit, in bed rest, waiting for the birth of son #2 (I can’t tell you the name yet or my husband will freak out that I let the cat out of the bag before telling his own folks.) It hasn’t been the smoothest of pregnancies, and I can’t wait to meet the little guy, which will be tomorrow because we’ll be inducing at that time.

In addition, I’m awaiting the metaphorical birth of my first book. It’s title is, drumroll please, ‘Tween Crayons and Curfews: Tips for Middle School Teachers, and it’s due out March 1 courtesy of Eye On Education Publishing. It has been a very interesting process from beginning to end, and they’ve proven to be a great publishing house, very nurturing of a new author, permitting me input every step of the way.

I’ll be publishing some excerpts from the book over the course of the next few weeks over here at Tweenteacher, on my Edutopia blog, and my column at The Huffington Post- nothing too weighty, but just enough to give my readers a taste of the book and truncated advice from some of its different chapters.

Meanwhile, back at my school site, it seems that they are gearing up for more possible lay-offs. I received a scary letter in the mail earlier this week with a checklist of criteria to break ties in the event of seniority list conflicts. The checklist itself is missing so many pieces, I can’t help but wonder who had a hand in its creation. Were there teachers involved, just admin, or is it perhaps from a state template of some kind? Anyway, I dutifully checked, documented, sent it off, and will now focus on the more pressing matters at hand until there’s a more concrete bridge to cross later this semester. Besides, I spent time examining tenure and the seniority list in my 2010 Teacher Magazine article, “Does Last Hired, First Fired Really Make Sense,” so I’m not looking to spend more time and energy on it now.

Nevertheless, the issue of my number on the seniority list won’t be far from my thoughts. Last year, after lay-offs, I was left at only 3 from the bottom, so we’ll see where this all shakes down in the end. Hopefully, due to my years as a teacher and in my current district, I will have a position to return to in the fall after my maternity leave of absence.

In the meantime, I’m off to the hospital to begin a new chapter as a mom of two sons, and I’m off on a journey as a first time author. I’ll be back on the blogging horse in no time, as well, with new news, new perspectives, and new information about the educational world at large.

I’ll be in touch soon, everyone, and update you as things progress on all fronts!

Sincerely,

Heather

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Post tags: author, blogging, edutopia, eye on education publishing, huffington post, k12, middle school, public school, seniority list, tenure

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Family + Student + School + Policymakers/Voters = Student Achievement

Each variable is co-dependent on the other. Each link in the chain must do its part, pulling its weight for the goal to be achieved. To tackle this polynomial equation takes deconstructing its parts. Therefore, much like a Top Chef contestant deconstructs a grilled cheese sandwich to analyze its ingredients, I am going to break down our education equation into parts and analyze what each must contribute for a student to succeed.

So I’ve posted three articles simultaneously, a webquest of sorts through my blogs, covering the following:

• At The Huffington Post, you’ll find my take on what the family and home life must contribute to the equation.
• At The George Lucas Educational Foundation’s Edutopia site, I’ve written on what the student must bring to the table.
• Here, you can read about the responsibilities of the schools, specifically those of the teachers.

Stop by each site and look at each of the variables. For without any of them, the equation will undoubtedly fail.

The Teacher’s Responsibilities

What’s rough about defining a teachers’ necessary contribution to the equation is that it has become an evolving job description, with obligations added to our plates without appropriate increase in compensation or the necessary ongoing training. Nevertheless, there are still responsibilities which make up the foundation of our profession and ones that we must be willing to adopt as the world around us changes if we are to really hold our own in the equation of student success.

1. Be experts at our content. This means continuing to invest in updating our knowledge.

2. Be experts in communicating our content. A good math teacher not only knows math, but can transmit their knowledge to students in a way that the clientele understand. A good history teacher not only appreciates the past, but can pass on their passion in a way that makes students appreciate it too.

3. Be up to date on skills students will need to know for their future. I’ve written about this in the past. Teachers must find ways to teach forwards, to teach in a way that helps prepare students for their future, and that often means moving beyond the methods in which we ourselves were taught.

4. Collaborate and model collaboration, for the future world in which they will live will not be an isolated one. It will be a global community that requires adults to work together in ways we cannot begin to predict. Cut the losses that go hand-in-hand with our inability to see the future, and teach an openness to collaboration.

5. Be a role model. Yes, you signed up for that.

6. Communicate with the student and the family in multiple ways, in methods that work for them and for you. You have email but they don’t? Find a way. You have given a paper to the student and it never reached home? Call until you reach someone or wait at the curb for an inescapable meeting at drop-off.

7. Continue being a student yourself, and model being a lifelong learner.

8. Make lessons applicable. Don’t be a part of the disconnect between school life what real life. Take time to explain the relationship and why what kids are learning now is important later on.

9. Be willing to adapt. We are in the business of teaching the group that is before us at any given year, and as times change, so must our methods and lessons.

10. Enjoy your job and your clientele. The minute you find yourself not looking forward to spending your day with those kids, find another profession.

For some teachers, this may seem obvious. For others it may be more than you bargained for when you signed up for teaching. But it’s the basic fundamentals of what we need to do if we are to keep up our end of the equation. And I’ll be honest; I think we should be evaluated on how we accomplish these steps. We should be held accountable for how we uphold our end of the social bargain. Even though I believe teachers and schools can’t be held accountable for other variable’s failures, we cannot allow that discrepancy to dictate our own contributions and efforts.

The Final Variable in the Equation of Success

Of course, the last vital variable is what we all, the voters and the policymakers who work for us, must do for education to succeed.

It’s important enough that I want to end each of my three posts with this challenge: make education a priority in the voting booths and the campaigns. Retired baby boomers can’t dismiss educational issues as no longer their problem to solve. Younger families coming up through the system can’t cut-and run from our public schools in their indecision of how to educate their own children. The problems that plague some of our schools belong to us all.

Public schools are a miracle of this country. The mission, to educate all for free, is one that anyone on any side of the political fence should be fighting for as a top priority. But it’s up to voters to send the message that it is important, and its up to policymakers to do the right thing despite party politics and lobbyists.

Cutting education will only cut the future of this country, and that hurts us all. With every vote that does not pass and with every “nay” on the floor, our voters and policymakers condemn our system to further failure.

The equation of student success isn’t about who is to blame. Rather, it forces us to ask the question: how can each variable that involves us all, better do its part?

In regards to what teachers can do to contribute to the equation, what would you add to this Top 10 list to avoid student failure?

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: education, edutopia, equation of student success, huffinton post, k-12, student achievement

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The first can be read at Edutopia and is called “My Love Affair with TED (.com).  It’s about the miracle of the   democratization of ideas.  Are you a teacher looking for some great links that grant your class access to some of the greatest minds of our time?  This post can lead you in the right directions.

The next post I want to mention today is my second post to go live at The Huffington Post.  This one questions the methods of policy makers to bash teachers as a means to lure new teachers into the profession.  Is this really the best way to go about it?  See, I think that by promoting what’s magnificent about teaching, we’ll be better off not only pulling great candidates into the classrooms but also reminding those of us already there why we are the quality of teacher this country needs.  I share a little about what I love about teaching and ask you why you love it enough to risk ducking the bullets of disrespect.

Check into my other posts, rate them, become a fan, and check back here for some original pieces on Tweenteacher.

-Heather

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Post tags: democratization of ideas, edutopia, huffington post, teacher quality

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My first post is up at The Huffington Post. I now find myself wondering where my-little-website-that-could really stands in this edublogosphere. I mean, I post a lot about practice on Edutopia. Now, I’m posting for HP. Where does my precious tweenteacher stand? Is it to be a signpost to other sites or will I find that it has a purpose and voice I have yet to discover?

Any thoughts readers?

-Heather Wolpert-Gawron

aka Tweenteacher

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Post tags: edutopia, huffington post, tweenteacher

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Post tags: 21st Century assessments, 21st Century skills, teacher professional sourcebook

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The tragedy is that we’re only going to get one shot at such a powerful cooperative wave towards systemic educational change, and when this current wave fails, I fear the public will finally throw up their hands in exasperation and cut-and-run in their interest and support. Some would even say the charter movement is the beginning of such an exodus of effort.

However, never before, that I can recall, have the mainstream and media rallied in such forces to try to help education. This should be a time of hope. Yet whom do they listen to? What standard does the public rally behind? They look for answers from those farthest from our schools, the politicians and philanthropists looking for an easy solution and an easy target.

And teachers have become that target.

Even though we were the ones who first began calling out for help and attention to our schools, even though we are the ones who have been yelling into the darkness for support and reform and changes in the system, even though we are the ones who recognized the failures of this system first, we never received a call back.

Teachers have been the ones keeping education’s head above water while politicians from both sides of the fence slashed and cut our needs to ribbons. And now we are to blame?

How do you blame a boxer for coming out of the ring bruised? How do you blame the doctor on the airplane, the hero who uses a pen to save a suffocating man, for not using the resources given the doctor at Cedars-Sinai?

So to solve the problem of education, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and politicians have banded together to discuss education’s woes and salvation. But where are the true stakeholders in the discussion: the parents, the teachers and even the students? The invites to be a part of a national discussion on education have been sent out, yet all of our mailboxes remain empty.

Now, I will say this: despite the sneers of some in education, I don’t blame philanthropists for their involvement or passion for our schools. And I actually want the input of those who have the ability to fund some of the necessary changes. But money does not an educational expert make. In addition, teachers also have some ownership in this recent development. I’ve spoken before that I believe the minority of teachers who give this profession a bad name have long controlled the reputation of our profession, and that teachers and unions have not moved fast enough to help clean their own house. Unfortunately, I believe that that this wave of anti-teacher sentiment, this “teacher-ism” is, in part, due to the result of that inertia.

However, just as it remains unfathomable to me to have major discussions about law and not invite lawyers to the table, or to have a meeting about medicine and not invite doctors, so does it remain unacceptable to block teachers out of the discussions about our schools.

Why does everyone think they are an expert in education? Is it because everyone went through school and so they believe that they are experts in schooling? Isn’t that like saying that since everyone’s been born, that must make them experts in being an OBGYN?

Finally the media and the public have woken up to the needs of our schools. However, rather than look to the lists of reforms teachers have long been researching and suggesting, they have instead rushed by our corner booth, racing to buzz in and offer the silver bullet answer themselves.

For we all live in a game show society where we want to be the ones to get the Daily Double, to give the answers, and we want them now, no excuses. After all, as the Nike ad said, “Just do it.”

And this ad drives our politics and decision-making even today. For this MTV generation of reformists wants things done yesterday, and as they discover the complexity of the problem that we teachers have always lived in, they use the strategy of Blame in order to deflect the delay in getting the hungry public the solutions they promised would come so quickly. In so doing, they have created a lynch mob out to rob teachers of their voice and their professionalism.

Those who are new to the conversation don’t want to think that the answers have been here all along, having been thought of long ago and ignored. They don’t want to think that there is this indigenous tribe here on the planet surface that already has the knowledge of what plants to eat and what not to eat and of what traps and sandy pits exist beyond the falls. Instead the tribe has been quarantined. And in so doing, our survival as an educational planet is in serious jeopardy.

Interested in reading more about our current Teacher Quarantine from the educational debate? Check out these recent blogs:

http://learningismessy.com/blog/?p=929

http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/teachmoore/2010/09/teachers_on_sidelines.html

http://walkingtoschool.blogspot.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alfie-kohn/what-passes-for-school-re_b_710696.html

http://accomplishedcaliforniateachers.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/the-danger-of-a-single-story-part-one/#comment-533David

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: education, k12, NBC Education Nation Summit, Teacher Townhall

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I am hoping that the power of social media can help a gal out.  I’m in the need of a catchy title for my new book that is due out in early 2011.  The working title is Tips for Tweenteachers, but it just doesn’t light my fire, nor has is resonated with early reviewers.  It reflects what the book is about, but not my voice.

So here’s the deal.  If you can help out and come up with a title that my publisher selects, he will send you a free copy of my book when it’s published as well as two more titles of your choice from the Eye On Education library.

So what do have to lose?  I could use the help, since my wall already has a head-sized hole in it from where I’ve been banging my noggin for the last few months trying to solve this problem.

Just leave any suggestions here, and I’ll get back to you if your title is selected.  Thanks so much for your help!

Sincerely,

Heather Wolpert-Gawron

aka Tweenteacher

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Post tags: book, education, eye on education, k12, middle school

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And, sure, there are test scores of sorts used in any number of other professions. My father used to come home talking about game show Nielson Ratings, my brother in-law looks to see the totals for his opening weekends. (Can you tell I come from a family of entertainment?) But somehow our test scores are different.

Our test scores reflect far more than our efforts and performance. They reflect how much sleep a kid got the night before. They reflect the recent divorce, the boyfriend’s breakup during passing period, the number of days the kid wasn’t at school, apathy, yesterday’s enrollment into the school, and yes, content knowledge.

But test scores are the American way, a game to those who succeed in them, aren’t they? And like any competitive sport, there is the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” And, after all, we can’t all be winners, right?

But that’s just why teachers and schools have begun to circle their wagons and arm themselves with their voices loud against this threat of test scores running the show. Students should not begin their lives in the agony of defeat. We should be equipping them with what it takes to be victorious.

I think the reason why politicians tend to favor the need for competition in school is because it’s a language that’s worked for them, so they are confused about schools’ lack of buy-in. And while I’m all fine with a good healthy dose of financial incentive, we cannot compete unless we are all given the same resources. I mean, in the Olympics, does any swimmer in an antiquated swimsuit really stand a chance against someone decked out in the newfangled sharkskin suit? So is it for the inequity in school funding.

So clearly I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that soon our jobs may be identified and retained in large part to my students’ ability to take standardized tests, a variable which, in my opinion, is only one step up from hire date as a means to retain a position (see my article for Teacher Magazine, “Does Last Hired, First Fired Really Make Sense”). And having just ended our own standardized testing, that good ‘ole CST, I am reminded yet again that one of those factors that affect achievement is the lack of quality of the tests themselves.

So as my students bubbled away earlier this May , I looked at the test booklet to get an idea of what the testing gods felt were important enough to assess this year. The quality of what I saw was truly tragic, and I thought I’d share a little of the asinine quality of these tests as a means to answer the question:

How can my job quality be based on THESE tests?

My recollection of the questions (we aren’t allowed to write them down from the book) is also compounded by the feedback from the students. But just to protect the sanctity of the actual questions which are top secret and must not be discussed at all costs, I’ve replaced all the actual terms with similar ones that hopefully get my point across.) Here are the kinds of questions we observed:

1. They were randomly asked to define the word “yachting” (remember, the actual word is disguised to protect its true identity for fear of offending the original word.) Now my Title I minority students (the majority of my school) had never encountered that word. And I was proctoring the advanced math group. You know, those kids who started Algebra as zygotes? Now, I’m not knocking the students. I’m knocking the test makers who clearly can’t seem to avoid culturally elitist questions.

2. The informational reading selections were, how do I say it? Dated. One was on reading the instructions on how to use an old crank Phonograph.

3. How ’bout the fact that there is a percentage of questions on the test which will be dumped if over a certain percent of students get it right? The fact is that the test makers assume that if a high majority of the students get the question right, (reflecting of course that a high majority of teachers actually taught that standard well) the question is trashed as being too easy.

4. How ’bout the fact that there are questions meant to just be “piloted” during the actual test, with the intention of being too hard for most kids? How does that make a kid feel while testing? Why are they using high-stakes tests to assess the quality of the questions on the tests? How nice that the test makers get to use the tests formatively, but the schools don’t.

5. I also couldn’t help but notice that there was at least one question which asked students to pick a synonym for a word, let’s say it was “brick,” and the choices to choose from weren’t even nouns like giving them “run”, “jump”, “laugh”, “cry.”

Assessments are meant to reflect what has been taught, not how to out-think a tricky question. That is not critical thinking. But in this day and age, tests are actually driving the curriculum itself. That being the case, why can’t our standardized assessments at least reflect the lessons we know are the ones that truly need be taught? (See my recent post here on College and Career Readiness in Assessments.)

If the tail must wag the dog, why can’t the tail at least be well informed about what might be knocked off the table with each swing? If tests have become instructional guides in their own right, should they not at least be good ones?

And most importantly for the topic of this post: if tests are to judge my performance as a teacher, or the quality of my students and their community, should they not at least ask questions that are applicable? There are many reasons why tests are not great ways to evaluate performance. Yes, there are students not putting in the effort or families not doing what they need to help students achieve. But it is also the quality of the very tests that is also setting up our teachers and students for failure.

Bottom line is this: good test scores does not a good teacher make, just as bad test scores does not a bad teacher make.

Care to share any of the bizarre or poorly constructed questions that you saw on the tests this year? Please share below.

____________________________________________________________________________________

And here’s a little Test Score blogroll so you can follow this topic from other edubloggers who comprise our Fellowship of the Ning (Otherwise known as Those-who-spoke-with-Arne-Duncan). Throughout June we will all be involved in discussions and webinars focused on the issues we raise in our series of posts on this topic. Remember, policy affects our practice. And all our voices need to be at the table. Check these out for further reading. Feel free to comment and participate on any of our sites:

Marsha Ratzel – “Reflections of a Techie”

Renee Moore – “TeachMoore”

Mary Tedrow – “Leaving No Multiple Choice Footprint Behind”

Anthony Cody – “Summer of Discontent”

Teacher Letters to Obama -

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=166176941518&v=app_2373072738&ref=ts

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: assessments, education, merit pay, standardized tests, Teachers Letters to Obama, test scores, TLO

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There is definitely a common theme among them all: disappointment. But there’s another common theme as well: hope. We hope this is the start of something. We hope that the door remains cracked open. We hope that our voices can one day be joined with others in offering suggestions, not in asking questions.

Well, it seems that in light of the evidence from the last 24 hours, Arne Duncan and the DOE felt disappointment too and reached out to us in what can only be defined as hope after a very awkward call for us all.

Yesterday afternoon, the phone rang in two classrooms in two different parts of the country: one in California and one in Kansas. And the voice on the other line introduced himself as Arne Duncan. Anthony Cody (read his account of the conversation here) and Marsha Ratzel (read her really beautiful beat-for-beat post here), two educators who have been the executive producers of our recent campaign to get teachers to the policy table, both spoke to Duncan who apologized for uncomfortable and technologically strained call.

He went on to ask about their experiences, he sought input about some key issues, and insisted that he was interested in this being the beginning of a conversation with our group, not the end of one.

We are still at the table, fellow teachers. And it is clear that we have both parties trying to make this dialog work. Sometimes it feels like a Tower of Babel, yes, with two groups trying to speak the same language, but maybe the disappointment of an awkward call becomes our Rosetta Stone.

It is clear that the door is not closed. In fact, it has creaked open ever wider.

I will, of course, update you as I learn more.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, department of education, DOE, education, ESEA Blueprint, k12

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From there, the 12 of us flushed out each topic, bringing in what we know about the ESEA Blueprint and other reports, bringing in our own experiences as well as those from fellow educators, and bringing in what has worked and what has not. We have been focusing more on solution then complaint, though it’s been a bumpy path. After all, our strength as a group is in our diversity of thought, tone, and philosophy. But if you work with a group of people who are all like yourself, you forget that you have room to grow in your own ideas. And we all have a few stretch marks to show for it. But we also have produced a great baby of a script for introducing our ideas to the Secretary of Education and members of the Department of Education.

I am encouraged that the door is open to us. But I admit that I will be disappointed if this does not bloom into something other than this call. After all, we are bringing them a platter of topics and possible solutions, but this is by no means a buffet of procedures. Sure we can list solutions, but for true change to take place, we must scaffold reform. Reform is a step-by-step process and one that teachers must be a part of.

Our topics which we will be covering are as follows:

College and Career Readiness

Great Teachers and Leaders

Diverse Learners

Safe and Successful Schools

Complete Education

Innovation

The one I am specifically working on with the wise and awesome Marsha Ratzel is Topic #1, College and Career Readiness. Now, I think this is an important topic (as they all are, of course) because it is something that we can agree on with the DOE’s Blueprint. Our job is and always has been to help our students be prepared for college or career, whatever that career may be. But our argument is that current assessments do not test the very skills that leaders in either business nor higher education are looking for. And the reality is that, in education, assessments drive instruction.

So in a way, we are working in a system where the tail is wagging the dog. Therefore, we need to make sure that the tail is applicable or the dog gets fleas. OK, that metaphor didn’t work at all, but I think you get my drift.

So Marsha and I looked at the Partnership of 21st Century Skills, which provided the results of a poll of over 2000 business leaders who all believed that the following skills are needed for a 21st Century employee:

* Critical Thinking

* Problem Solving

* Communication

* Collaboration

* Creativity

* Innovation

We also looked at such studies as those from the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges who polled professors, many of whom work with freshmen and in introductory courses in the Cal State, UC, and California community college systems who also just happen to mention the same skills as being necessary for entering freshmen to have upon the start of their higher ed careers.

Therefore, if we are to provide a real curriculum of college and career readiness, we must also be assessing those skills and not the drill and kill content that is currently being tested. We also say that there are thousands upon thousands of talented teachers out there who have already been developing better assessments and more critical thinking curriculum, and who are just waiting to have their talents tapped.

By the way, Marsha and I both agree that our current curriculum is engaging or rigorous; it’s just not what we should be testing. Let’s use the content, the rich history, the math, the science. But let’s assess how a student communicates a response to an inquiry or contributes collaboratively to a wiki. Let’s assess how a student performs in a mock job interview complete with cover letter and resume. Let’s assess the growth of a student by looking at a growing portfolio that reflects the best of that student’s work throughout the year or, better, yet, throughout a number of years. Let’s assess a students contributions to a public service project. Let’s assess a student’s executive summary of the results of solving a local community problem.

Additionally, we argue, we cannot make high stakes decisions based on the results of our current assessments because they aren’t testing the very skills the scores are supposed to indicate. How can we call a student NOT college and career ready based on test results that don’t assess those very skills?

Anyway, that’s the gist. And yet, for many of us in our little group, this call is only the B-Story as we try to wrap up this very hard and tiring school year, a year plagued by pink slips and budget cuts. We all still work to make these kids ready for colleges that are becoming increasingly unaffordable and career ready for jobs that are now in drought. But our job remains the same, to help our students towards their futures.

Oh, yeah, and just to keep you guys in the loop, amongst it all, the teacher I was paying to ride the bus with my middle school speech team had to back out so I had to find another willing teacher to take my place in a bus full of excited, yelling debate students. It’s become a photograph of teaching really: A bus of students traveling in front of me, as I drive my CR-V down the 605 with one hand and dial the number for the DOE with the other. But at least my superintendent and principal have agreed to allow me to pay this audio-tolerant, bus-riding teacher out of my Speech funds. Some of the teachers in our advocacy group of 12 have to call in sick tomorrow just to participate in the call.

I’ll update my readers soon of what befalls our little troop of educational reformers.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…” And that includes you, dear reader.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, college and career readiness, department of education, education, ESEA Blueprint, k12

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© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, college and career readiness, department of education, ESEA Blueprint, k12

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Here’s my letter I just posted this morning:

Dear Arne Duncan,

I am a teacher, a blogger, an author, a wife, and a mother. Before I go into what I think we need to do to help education, I want to acknowledge what you have inherited and how difficult it must be to fix a machine where so many cogs are broken. I know too that education feels like a black hole, an inherited problem for your administration, but it has been a culminating failure of multiple administrations, of a society who consistently votes against their own children, as well as a failure of the educational system, which has led us to where we are today.

But I need you to turn your face to us, the teachers in the crowd now, for advice. We need you and our leaders to listen to those of us who have been fighting alongside our children all along. For too long have we been left out of the rooms and away from the tables, and look where we are today. We are the ones you have to focus your attention on now: not the test-makers, not the textbook companies, us.

To simplify my thoughts so that perhaps they might be heard, I have honed in on four main components that I believe are deeply important for educational reform:

1. There is an equation of success for education. It is simple and it can only work with all variables intact and supported:

Student effort + teacher guidance + government funding + family support = school and student achievement

No longer can schools or teachers be solely held accountable for the failures of a broken system. Yes, I see in your blueprint that you are trying to acknowledge that there are elements outside of education that must be addressed, but this must be more aggressive and targeted for true change to begin.

2. Yes, teacher quality is an issue, but it is one that can be solved without villain-ising teachers as a whole. You cannot cut down an apple tree because of one diseased fruit. The systems you criticize: tenure, the seniority list, etc…we all understand your criticisms of them. But they do not define the majority of hard-working, talented, and self-sacrificing troops of experienced and new teachers out there who are dedicated to this profession.

Each of them talk about the complexities of these issues, complexities that you are overlooking, I assume, to appear strong to those who want to see a Democratic bicep. But just because many of your constituents do not understand the subtleties does not mean you need to cater to them, swinging an axe over your head, beating your shield. Change will show strength, Mr. Duncan. And change can only happen with teachers at your side and at your table.

3. The National Standards do not reflect enough the skills our students need for their future. Educational Technology is vital. A student cannot apply for a job without understanding some degree of Internet Literacy. Yet funding for Ed tech has been cut. You claim that students must be “College and Career Ready” but vocational funding has been cut, electives have been cut, student choice has been cut. And student choice and sampling of interests has long been the basis for professional taste testing in the K-12 system. A student who hasn’t tasted Speech and Debate or Woodshop, who hasn’t tried Home Ec or Orchestra, who cannot see through the sea of students in their AP class or cannot get remedial help in Reading will not be “college and career ready.”

4. Teachers, great ones, are always training. Just as students evolve, so must teachers. I understand somehow that education is unique in that you see teachers as the authorities who go through their prep programs and should, somehow, come out (cue microwave ding!) done with our own education. But to maintain the skills of our students’ futures, we ourselves must be proficient in an ever-evolving skill set as well as be brilliant and engaging communicators. Yet funding for our own training continues to be cut time and time again. There must be a shift in how society feels about what it means to desire current training. It is not a weakness, but a strength to be constantly learning. And while I don’t expect society as a whole to believe it, I do expect my Secretary of Education to believe it and support it.

The bottom line is this, Mr. Duncan: the very principals in your blueprint are degraded by the recent cuts and lack of funding. We need you to swivel your gaze back to those who know best. We are here, right in front of you. Our intentions are for the good of the student. We know our missive and we are living it every day. Listen to the teachers.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, budget cuts, education, Facebooks, letters to Obama, Social networking

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In it, I explore the history of the classic seniority list, and why we need to keep our experienced veteran teachers, promoting the need for a generational balance in our schools. I also explore why we must reform a system that might end up causing our profession to lose an entire generation of young teachers of great potential to this current pink slip plague. I then muse about what possibilities exist for reform of this deeply embedded but broken process.

Frankly, how can we keep what works and change what doesn’t?

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: education, seniority list, smartbrief, Teacher Magazine, union

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The definition of hybrid teaching varies, and I guess that’s the point. It defines a flexible career which allows teachers to explore different percentages of their job in the classroom and in other forms of education. For instance, a teacher can be paid to be in the classroom in the morning, but be a mentor teacher or district liaison in the afternoon. A teacher can, therefore, keep one foot in the classroom with the clientèle that are our students and also be paid to work outside the classroom to make the structure of school run at a higher quality.

I’ve heard any number of part-time education positions bantered about: curriculum coach, department head, grade level chair, technology coordinator, author, field researcher, publicist, teacher mentor, master teacher, literacy coach, district liaison, teacher trainer, professional development coach, distance learning educator, online tutor…the list goes on. It’s as infinite as the needs are of the individual district and school site.

The point is, that rather than get a meager stipend to do work in addition to being a full-time classroom teacher (which puts a strain on the quality of workmanship in both areas), a school can create a salaried “Frankenjob” of sorts for a teacher that addresses the needs of the school or district.

You need to train new teachers? Don’t hire an outside resource. Ms. So-and-so is already presenting at conferences on some weekends and has experience in teaching teachers. Let’s put her part-time in the classroom and part-time developing applicable professional development for teachers. Or let’s have her working as a mentor teacher with the newbies at the district. She can observe, guide, help them reflect and better their practice. Working one-on-one over a period of time, she might even have some influence on the teacher evaluation process rather than just leave it to the once-a-year-principal-pop-in observation. (Note to self: while I’ve briefly written on the topic here, a revamped teacher evaluation process is for a different post.)

And when you consider that according to the survey more than 56% percent of teachers agree that there are second career teachers in the classroom, don’t we have to allow for the fact that these people have skills that must be allowed further outlet in education?

But wait, let’s go back. Put aside the second career teachers. What about all teachers? Haven’t we all had skills put on the back burner of usage due to the rigid structure of our current educational paths? Don’t we all have talents we wish could be fully utilized?

I mean, one of the things that I love so much about teaching is the fact that it allows me to use some many of my passions: talking, reading,writing, drawing, etc…But after a few years of teaching, I soon found that I really longed for other outlets for my other interests.

For instance, I like talking to adults, and I long for it sometimes. I enjoy mentoring teachers, passing on what I’ve learned and helping them with their own practice. And, in so doing, I improve my own. For based on my own experience, I’ve noticed how recharged my own batteries get after touching education outside of the classroom in some way. And, as a consequence, I return to my students stronger.

In fact, I beg to differ with the study’s worry that hybrid teaching might lead to burnout. I, for one, see myself as leaving the classroom if I don’t one day find a hybrid role to fulfill me, to keep me stimulated. According to the study, I might fall under their 42% of teachers who want combination roles in education who are “less than very satisfied teachers.” But it’s not that teaching in the classroom isn’t satisfying or fulfilling. It’s just that I’m like my students. Sometimes I need to mix it up to be at my best.

I also have to take issue with this fact that there are “less than very satisfied teachers” and “very satisfied teachers.” What teacher who is reflective, growing in his or her own practice, challenging themselves and their students, working towards bridging that achievement gap and teaching toward the students’ futures is very satisfied right now? In fact, in my experience, the teachers who are totally happy with the way things are are not the ones we should be applauding as success stories. Sure there are the 30-year teachers out there who love teaching with their heart and soul. And I am in awe of them. But even they don’t seem so satisfied these days. So I question the variables used to determine this ambiguous state of mind and the fact that they implicate dissatisfied teachers as somehow wanting out.

In fact, I think that the mere fact that a “less than very satisfied teacher” is still looking for ways to remain in education in a positive way despite their frustrations says a lot about their dedication to the profession. The structure of ed needs to work with us to retain the best in each of us.

There are needs in education that aren’t being filled by those outside of education. We’ve all been to professional development that is empty and meaningless. We’ve all had teachers and trainers, many in our own teacher prep programs, who have distanced themselves from the classroom so much so that their teachings have become antiquated and lite in their message. (You can read about teacher prep program staffing in my Part 2 post on the topic here.)

But there must be an evolution in our profession. The Metlife Survey claims that a percent of teachers are happy with their job. But how long will that last when schools become more and more like prisons for both student and teacher alike? How long will that satisfaction last when we are all expected to be lock-step in our progression through our lessons, our units, and our careers? What will happen if we aren’t proactive and aggressive in styling our profession on the abilities and strengths of those within the profession?

What will happen if we don’t differentiate our professional paths?

If teaching is about the best and the brightest, it must provide an outlet for that which makes a person unique in their abilities. After all, only the best and the brightest can help produce the same.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ed Tech, education, hybrid teaching, metlife survey

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