When More (Time On Task) is Less (Effective)

Some years ago, I enrolled in an Italian language class at Boston Language Institute. The class met for 3 hours - no break - several times each week. The instructor only spoke my "new" language, Italian, for the entirety of the three hours. We had some written materials, some listening resources, but mainly we were expected to immerse ourselves in Italian. If this sounds like what happens in a classroom, I would agree.The first thing I learned from this experience was how utterly frustrating it is for a learner to function outside of his or her native language. But one of the larger experiences for me was the chance to experience what it must feel like for a student to attempt to sustain concentration and focus for extended stretches of time without a break.By Hour 2 of my 3-hour class, I felt hopeless and defeated. I could no longer take another idea into my brain. I left the class with a dull and aching head and lots of questions as to what the goal of that instruction was. If this was my experience with sustained time-on-task learning as an adult, it wasn't hard to imagine the same sense of frustration and defeat applying to the young learners in my classroom.Regardless of whether or not the student is learning in a non-native language, as many of my former students were, extended periods of concentration does not necessarily yield higher academic achievement. Whether adult or child, the brain needs what the brain needs. And in learning new things, the brain needs some time off to make connections and absorb learning.Since the inception of education reform, standardized curriculum, and high-stakes testing, educators have been pressured to prove that students are learning. The proof has, to date, been in the form of high stakes testing. Students, teachers, and schools who do not achieve arbitrary scores indicating that the prescribed curriculum has been mastered are called out. The trickle down response to test scores that are less than stellar has been toward reducing or eliminating children's recess time.Why? Because when test scores look bad, the first response is that the students need "more time" to learn the material. That time has to come from somewhere, so shaving minutes away from recess is the first response. To me, this sounds a lot like what I did as an unprepared college student studying for a final in Western Civilization: cramming.Reducing or eliminating students' active time does not mean better test results. The brain needs some time to process and absorb new learning. Kids who fidget less, focus more.So what our kids need is similar to what my experience as a student proved for me: more recess. Don't take my word for it. Here's a statement from a recent Time Magazine article from October 23, 2017:

... a 2010 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found positive associations between recess and academic performance. “There is substantial evidence that physical activity can help improve academic achievement, including grades and standardized test scores,” the report said.

More time-on-task does not equate to more learning. 

The Elephant in the Classroom

Another mass shooting, another set of knee-jerk responses.Once again, there is a call to arm educators and school staff in an effort to thwart an active shooter in a school building. It is yet another measure that has been proposed to protect students while in school, but certainly not the first.At first we practiced soft- and hard-lockdown procedures. Which morphed into active shooter drills employing ALICE (Alert-Lockdown-Inform-Counter-Evacuate) and other options-based practices. Read more about ALICE here.While I was glad that a protocol had been worked out by people far more expert in such situations than I would ever be, these protocols can make adults and children very anxious.  ALICE and options-based responses are not a 100% guarantee of success.Schools sometimes have resource officers stationed within them. At Stoneman-Douglas in Parkland, FL, there has been wide-spread criticism of the resource officers who did not enter the building as the gunman was shooting. The officers, I believe, were armed with pistols which would have been no match for the AR-15 assault weapon the shooter was carrying.  Would a resource office shooting a pistol have saved lives and prevented injuries in the Parkland incident? Were those officers slow in assessing the situation and their response to it, or were they incompetent? Either way, the officers must now live with their decisions and the consequences for the rest of their lives.Now Mr. Trump and others are raising the idea of arming educators, or to be more precise, arming some educators. That elite group of people would be reward by a bonus for their skill and willingness to take on an active shooter within a school building using a concealed weapon. And while teachers carrying weapons is allowed in some state and schools already, this horrifying proposal - horrifying to anyone who has ever worked in an elementary, middle, or even high school classroom with impulsive children - is being touted as the magical solution to make our schools safer.I don't know why anyone would think school safety would be enhanced by an educator carrying a weapon. Here's a statistic from a 2007 NYTimes article.  In New York City, police officers, trained in weaponry and in responding to tense shooter situations:

In 2005, officers fired 472 times in the same circumstances, hitting their mark 82 times, for a 17.4 percent hit rate. They shot and killed nine people that year.

Maureen Downey reaffirms this statistic and more in this Atlanta Journal Constitution article, "Cops face hard time hitting targets in gunfire". Law enforcement officers who train extensively know that hitting the "target" in a tense situation happens less than 20% of the time. How does that translate to educators? What will the collateral damage be in such a situation?To me, it seems the path of least resistance is to come up with more protocols and reactions to armed shooters. The hard route? That would be having the courage to eliminate the types of weapons used most frequently in mass shootings: assault weapons. Is a weapon that obliterates everything in its path, that causes such massive and total damage to human life (see "What I learned from treating the victims from Parkland") necessary for civilians to protect themselves?The elephant in the classroom is that, despite all the protocols and proposals for protecting schools and churches and other venues, mass shooters, some with some very severe mental issues, continue to get access to some very powerful weapons. And unless we are willing to say that this style of weapon has no place in civilian society, until our lawmakers are willing to walk away from lobbyists who protect the manufacturers of these weapons, until access to such high-powered guns is taken away, no amount of hiding in a classroom or arming staff members will save anyone.Carrying any kind of gun would never be for me: I had no intention of using it whether in a classroom or anyplace else. But I understand that is not everyone's feeling. I think Emma Gonzalez expresses it best:

In the Land of Missed Opportunities

What will it take to break through the glass ceiling of education leadership in Massachusetts? The answer to that is still to be uncovered.On Monday, the Board of Education met to make a final candidate selection for Massachusetts' next Commissioner of Education. There were three candidates: Penny Schwinn, Angelica Infante-Green, and Jeffrey Riley.  Two of the candidates, both women, were from "out-of-state"; Mr. Riley is a known quantity who has most recently been the Receiver of the Lawrence Public Schools.One would think that with two women in the final three, there would be a fairly decent chance that the next Commissioner might be a woman, but that would mean ignoring what seems to be an unspoken qualification for education commissioner: "known local quantity".  Mr. Riley currently holds the position of Receiver in Lawrence Public Schools and has since that city's schools were put under state receivership. He recently resigned the Receiver's position and one wonders if that were serendipitous or by design.By many accounts, Ms. Infante-Green's interview was quite remarkable; she is a strong advocate of both bilingual and special education. As a parent of two bilingual children, one diagnosed with autism, she understands these two important issues intimately. While I disagree with some of her positions, she would have been a formidable advocate for bilingual students and for the differently-abled. To my thinking, the BESE members' failure to select her as Masachusetts' next Commissioner of Education is a lost opportunity: the opportunity to select the first woman to head the Commonwealth's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the first Latina to head Massachusetts' education.From each board members commentary, I think many of them supported Ms. Infante-Green's candidacy, but could not, in the end make that selection. It felt as if many of the eight who selected Mr. Riley did so based on a perception of "earning" the position after his tenure in Lawrence. It was safer. So what we seem to have here is a safe, unimaginative selection; hopefully I will be proven incorrect about that last part.Instead of breaking that glass ceiling, Massachusetts' Board of Elementary and Secondary Education chose the safe, known, local candidate. In doing so, have state policy-makers missed an opportunity for greatness? I believe so. Missed opportunity indeed.

Adventures in (GIC) Health Care

If you live in Massachusetts and access health insurance through the Group Insurance Commission (GIC), you are likely aware of the swirling vortex of controversy that has surrounded the January 18 GIC decision to limit health care options for all subscriber/members whether active of retired.  I'm pretty sure the GIC didn't anticipate the outcry and reaction of members.  That is a disgrace. GIC needs to be transparent in their actions and they need to hear from each and every member about the changes they are proposing.The public hearing for the Northeast Region was hosted by the UML O'Leary Library. Chaos from the start. Although many attendees had followed GIC's direction to RSVP (and never received a promised response back), names were not on the pre-registration list. By arriving 30 minutes early, I was able to take a seat inside of the auditorium; not everyone was so lucky. Many who responded to the public hearing invite were not allowed in to the room as it was at capacity.Roberta Herman, a physician and Executive Director of GIC, made an introduction to the meeting by reading a release from GIC's board offering that the Board would add an agenda item to their regularly scheduled February 1 meeting. In sum, the item would suggest that the decision to exclude current health care providers from GIC's 2018 offerings be rescinded. Dr. Herman alluded to hearing the GIC's subscribers loud and clear and she suggested that the decision to limit providers would be reversed. I, however, would suggest members continue to pressure GIC about this issue. Please continue to contact GIC directly via mail or email AND continue to contact state representatives.Those who did speak were passionate in stating their displeasure at the current GIC decision to limit carriers and in making the case that GIC has not fulfilled its obligations to public employees OR the municipalities belonging to the group. The rates for 2018 have not yet been set nor have the plans have not been approved, so cities and towns are being asked to commit to GIC's offerings blindly. Watching GIC roll over last year to outrageous increases in pharmaceuticals by shifting the costs to members by means of doubled co-pays (retirees), decreases to formularies, and a 67% increase in deductibles doesn't leave one with much hope for 2018's plans and rate increases.Here, however, in no particular order are some points raised by speakers at the hearing last evening.  If you are upset disgusted by the middle-of-the-night attempt to pull the rug out from under GIC subscribers, don't let up the pressure. As one speaker stated last night, the only reason for GIC to backtrack on this effort to limit providers is that they got caught.

• Harvard Pilgrim and Tufts, two programs GIC proposed to eliminate account for 90,000 members each while Fallon accounts for 20,000. The membership of GIC has been reported at 420,000 (plus) - so about half of the membership has to pick something else.
• Active employees' choices are further limited by WHERE in the Commonwealth they live. Neighborhood Health Plan and Health New England are not offered in some geographic areas. Checking last year's decision-making guide, which is all that is currently available to us, Health New England (HNE) serves Worcester and west; Neighborhood Health Plan (NHP) does not serve Berkshire, Hampshire or Franklin Counties. Here's the link to last year's guide as a "loose" reference.
• Comprehensive services for transgender employees are available through two of the eliminated plans - Tufts and Harvard Pilgrim. Those services are NOT available through the plans on the consolidated list.
• Despite what Governor Baker claimed earlier in the week (MassLive story updated to reflect the Governor's more recent statement about poor rollout), subscribers may indeed be unable to access doctors (specialists and primary care) and hospitals with whom they have established a relationship. Several speakers, including medical professionals, spoke about medical entities that do not accept insurance benefits from the GIC-approved vendors (Unicare, HNE, NHP) as the reimbursement rates are unrealistically low.
• Medical professionals spoke about both questionable financial stability of at least two of the companies approved by GIC and the quality ratings for all three of them.  One speaker - and I am so sorry I didn't catch his name - had done research through Consumer's Union. The ratings for all Massachusetts insurers and the NCQA (quality rankings) can be found here.  Notice which 3 providers have exemplary ratings. I know I did.

What happens next is still in flux.  While the GIC is making a motion to rescind their decision, there is no guarantee that the motion will carry, unless of course, public pressure continues to make it difficult for GIC to make decisions without being thoroughly transparent. Bigger issues also need to be addressed. GIC plans/benefits have deteriorated greatly over the last years, as have private sector insurance benefits. With a group as large as GIC's though, there is opportunity to push back at out-of-control health care costs, particularly the outrageous profiteering from drug companies.The GIC also needs to fix the decision-making process to be more transparent. Stakeholders should never be blind-sided by news that impacts such personal decision-making as healthcare. Public Hearings should happen well in advance of decision-making. Participants - cities, towns, public agencies, subscribers - should hear at least a year in advance when plan consolidation or any other major changes to health benefits are under consideration. What happened in this case was that cities and towns were required to commit to belonging to GIC a month prior to the consolidation decision. That's bad enough, but the impact of plan changes to deductibles, copays, and premiums are still to be developed and are unknown.Representation on the GIC board must include more members from stakeholder groups. Currently the health economist position is vacant. Is there proportional representation from public service unions, or is the "quasi-appointed" (the GIC's term, not mine) group so heavily populated by folks with no skin in the game?Stay awake people. The January 18 move to consolidate and change health care for more than half of us was accomplished under cover. It could happen again. Don't let it. 

Keeping Things Real

The Group Insurance Commission or GIC here in Massachusetts is at it again. Fellow public employees, active and retired, will recall last year's efforts by the commission to bring health costs under control. I'd like to think attention was paid to questioning spiraling health care increases, particularly from pharmaceuticals, when the GIC set last year's rates and policies. However,  the cost controlling aspect of last year's adventures in rate setting became less about holding-the-line on increased costs,  and more about shifting all the increases to the subscribers.Last year, subscribers found deductible increases doubling, retirees had co-pays in medi-gap insurances doubling, and some drugs were removed from formularies.  We survived that one, although as a retiree, I noticed my health insurance premium increased 13% over 2016. That cost change does not include increases from raising the deductibles (a 67% increase for individuals last time around) or increases to co-pays, particularly targeted toward retired members last year.The GIC held a meeting last year and seemed shocked that GIC members from across the Commonwealth were upset by these increases.Now before anyone goes all "you should be glad you have health insurance at all" on me, yes I am glad to have this benefit. I too, have experienced private sector insurance increases and realize that health coverage increases are pretty steep no matter whom you work for. Unless of course, you happen to be a member of Congress and get something pretty sweet for practically no cost - but that's another story for another day.So fast forward to 2018. In fact, let's go right to January 19, 2018 and the GIC Commissioner's regular monthly meeting.  This time, the Commissioners decided to eliminate some of the plans and offer fewer health care choices.  Read about which ones here, but interestingly three plans that were eliminated from the GIC's offerings are ones that serve half of the GIC's 442,000 members (that would be Harvard Pilgrim, Tufts, and Fallon). Read the Boston Business Journal article to get more specifics on which plans made the cut and which did not. If you believe Governor Baker, "practically everybody" will be able to keep the same trusted doctors and hospitals with whom they have an established relationship. On behalf of the 50% of us who are going to need to change plans, I say we shall see.GIC members may have an opportunity to find out more as the Commission takes this information on the road around the Commonwealth. In Lowell, that opportunity presents itself this Thursday evening, January 25 (5 pm) at UML's O'Leary Library on South Campus (Rom 222). That address isUMass LowellO’Leary Library*, Room 222 (South Campus)61 Wilder StreetLowell, MA 01854Parking: Wilder Lot/Visitor Metered Parking LotYou must RSVP to attend the meeting. Please be sure to do that by emailing the GIC at gic.events@massmail.state.ma.us. The link below should take you to the GIC's flyer for other venues across the state.

GIC PUBLIC HEARING - 2018_FLYER

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"We are the ones we've been waiting for."

Day four's Meditation from the Mat really resonated with me. That is so not only because of the simple truth, but also because what happens on a daily - or is it hourly - basis in these unprecedented times calls us to do something.When legislative leaders in the United States can't find money to fund the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), but can find a (very) sizeable tax give-away to very rich and powerful donors, it is time to act.When the Congress of the United States entertains an offset to the deficits that will result from said give-aways by reducing Medicare and Social Security benefits, it is time to act.When state aid to schools is based upon 24 year old (plus) formulas that result in underfunded public schools, it is time to act.When our unique differences are a flashpoint for senseless violence and discrimination, it is time to act.We must act, we need to speak our truth when we witness or experience those things that harm not only our personal selves, but our collective self. Because we are the ones we've been waiting for.

The whole of this quote from a Hopi Elder

can be found on p 7-8 of Meditations from the Mat:

"There is a river flowing now, very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and suffer greatly. Know that the river has its destination. The elders say we must push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above the water. See who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves, for the moment we do that, our spiritual growth comes to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves; banish the word 'struggle' from your attitude and vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred way and in celebration. We are the ones we've been waiting for."

Teacher

I started reading Meditations from the Mat this weekend. The writings are daily practices in mindful meditation written by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison and had come highly recommended by a group of yogis I've encountered in an online group.In explaining his own yoga journey, from a weekend retreat at Kripalu to yoga teacher training, Rolf Gates relayed a story about an encounter with Baron Baptiste, renowned yoga teacher and author.

..."Are you a teacher?" I said I was, but the words didn't ring true. I taught classes, but I was not a teacher.

For a while I puzzled over how that could be true; if one taught, one must be a teacher, right?As Rolf explained, the act of teaching is the act of drawing out. In yoga, that means drawing out what the student may already know about breath, alignments, and postures.In education today, do we have the flexibility to draw out of our students what they already know and can connect to? Can we lead them to knowledge without having to force it in before the students are ready for it?Standards in a general sense, are good end-goals for education and educators. Where standards and standards-based education go awry is when those end points are unreasonable or developmentally inappropriate or, in some cases, designed to foster failure. The purpose of early childhood education should not be a dress rehearsal for intermediate grade level standardized testing. Yet it sometimes is.As an example, I have heard from participants in the graduate level literacy class I led tell of kindergarten students writing or keyboarding.  This is wrong. Forcing young learners toward skills that are outside what is developmentally appropriate for them is a disservice to them.Teachers want to teach, to draw out, what their students know to make connections. We want learning to be relevant, to spark curiosity and to stay with our students. We want to teach. 

Data Digging

This article, found in the December 5, 2017 New York Times and titled How Effective Is Your School District, should trigger some more in-depth thought about test results and effective schools. The assumed narrative hyped by press and edu-crats, is that urban school systems, more particularly public urban schools systems, are failing to educate students.My experience with standardized testing and assessment of children based solely on such measurements has not been all that informative or enlightening. As an example, the last class of fourth grade students I taught before retiring regularly wrote reflective responses to their reading. Their writing was (developmentally) appropriate and most were meeting grade level standards based on the rubrics and inter-rater discussions my colleagues and I used as an assessment guide. Yet the results of their state standardized testing did not reflect that.One could certainly make the case that, in knowing my students, there could have been a layer of subjectivity which I applied during my assessment, but I don't think that was true very often. In fact, when my grade level colleagues and I looked at student work, my assessments were most often in alignment with theirs.So what does this anecdote have to do with school effectiveness?For most if not all of the years when I was teaching in urban and high poverty schools, I felt as if there were more factors influencing students' tests and my school's educational effectiveness. And, as Emily Badger and Kevin Quealy point out in the Times article, by looking more deeply at test results and tracking student growth over time, the rest of the universe just may discover what educators have known in their gut: that when students begin education from trauma and poverty, it may take a bit of time - years actually - to catch up and many students do.Badger and Quealy refer to third grade students in Chicago Public Schools. Collectively those students are a year or more behind when tested in Grade 3; however, by Grade 8, many of these same children have grown 6 years and are nearly at Eighth Grade performance expectation. To me, that shows a school system that despite being nearly starved to death financially, is able to provide effective education to students, many of whom come from situations of poverty and trauma.Looking more analytically at standardized test results over time might actually show urban (and southern) schools are actually working. Using a measurement of student growth alongside those performance results shows some remarkable results. Be sure to utilize the graphic further into the article where a reader can add the name of a local district to view that district's result on the scatter plot. Could it be that our urban districts are models for effective education?  Here's some solid data that shows that effective schools are not only found in wealthier communities. And it's a good place to ask how our urban schools are effectively fostering student growth in educational achievement.

Happy or Proficient?

Our good friend and UTL president Paul Georges shared this article with me this morning: "Is a good teacher one who makes kids happy or one who raises test scores". If you read nothing else in this post, migrate to EdWeek and read that article.For educators, this is the question above all questions because doing one thing does not necessarily compliment the other.  According to the EdWeek article, a recent study found that, on average, a teacher who managed to raise test scores was worse at making students happy. Here's the study from David Blazar in MIT Press- read it and weep.Over the course of my career, I have been an MCAS test administrator (admittedly only for the "legacy" version - whatever that descriptor means). I've felt the dichotomy of creating a positive and joyful learning environment for 3rd and 4th grade students and the pressure of removing high stakes testing monkey from our backs. Don't forget the weeks of "preparation".I have no great love or respect for high stakes testing nor for the value of high stakes testing. It did not inform my teaching in a timely manner as the results from the Spring arrive on a teacher's desk in October. How helpful is that?What testing in the era of No Child Left Behind and its successors does accomplish is the creation of a toxic and stressful environment for everyone. The joy of learning and exploring is sucked right out of the room; curricula are narrowed and teachable moments left in the dust.Of course in a perfect world teachers could just not worry about test scores. The reality, however, is far more harsh and possibly devastating.  Agree with it or not, state Departments of Education (including our own here  in Massachusetts), periodically attempt to tie student high-stakes test results to teacher evaluations. So far, thankfully, that effort in Massachusetts has failed.Kids and teachers are more than a number. Isn't it time schools used other measures beyond a test to evaluate learning and schools?

Adventures in Web-meetings

Here in the Northeast, we've endured some whacky weather - high winds and plenty of rain. Not exactly a hurricane, but a giant inconvenience, particularly for those without power since Sunday night. The wind damage and power outages resulted in school cancellations throughout the Merrimack Valley; some school districts are now left with just 2 of the allocated 5-day calendar allowance for snow days before snow season actually starts. Buckle those seat belts, it is going to be a bumpy ride this winter.So what does the weather have to do with web meetings?  One of the off-shoots of a no-school day is that all activities after school are cancelled. For me, and the trusty group of participants in the graduate literacy course I am leading, that meant our All-Hallows-Eve session of EDUC 7226 was postponed and would need to be made up.So, in a semi-panic (okay, that was a full-blown panic), I offered the possibility of doing a conference call based lecture to the participants in lieu of a face-to-face class. Making up the class would be a scheduling problem in that the class sessions needed for the full course already occupy every Tuesday between mid-September and December 19. I was pretty certain no one would be enthusiastic about pushing out the end date to the first Tuesday after the holiday break, January 2.  We needed to hold the Halloween class now somehow.Anticipating that with 2 days out of school, some people might actually want to try to hold this session even if it was held off-site, I started to wonder about having a conference call where participants could access the slides that I use to accompany our class session. It turned out that quite a few participants were willing to give this a go, even those who were without WIFI and electricity.  The problem solvers in the group found ways to overcome those challenges, some even heading over to local coffee shops where WIFI and electricity could still be had.So, my task yesterday morning was to quickly get up-to-speed with webinars and conference calls.  Never having hosted such a thing, I Googled "webinars" and discovered  hosting an online web-meeting was indeed possible... at a cost of $89/month to $429/month. I was pretty sure the bookkeeper in this family would veto that. Next search was "free+webinar+software" and BINGO! The product I serendipitously discovered was Free Conference Calls.When something is free, there shouldn't be any expectation for easy use or full functionality.  Free usually means there will be some pain for the user, because... free, what do you expect?This product, however, is the real deal.  Since I had to come up to speed with the product in about 3 hours, I keep my wishlist simple:  a) ability for access to audio only (for those listening in on cellphones) or for audio+shared screen b) easy (for me) to negotiate invites and manage participation, and c) free.  Free Conference Calls was all of that - and I was able to record myself for participants who may need this class session on instant replay. Other functions that I didn't use (yet) included Q&A boards, break-out sessions, and using pointers and highlighters on my shared screen.At the appointed hour for our class to start, nearly all of the 22 participants in this course were logged in either as either full meeting participants or audio only.  The audio recording resides on my Conference Call account as a weblink which will allow anyone who was unable to attend our live meeting to listen in later.  And, considering that I'm not the most technology-saavy person on this planet, the fact that all of this went off without a disaster, is totally gratifying.Sometimes the stars do line up in our favor.  We are Technology Warriors - every single one of us!

When we push children to learn before they are ready...

There is a cost for pushing readers! We don’t just TEACH readers – we help them to BECOME readers.

Dr. Mary Howard

As an educator, I find more often than not that I have conflicting emotions about the current state of curricula. The narrative, at least from much of the press and definitely from state and federal education agencies, is that our schools are failing. And while I think that education can always find ways to improve instruction and to reach all learners, I do not believe our schools are dismally inept at education.Consider the current climate in reading instruction for example. There is almost an atmosphere of panic in making sure students are reading with rigor. Kindergarten children are expected to leave that grade level as five- and six-year old readers on F&P Level D. Did you leave Kindergarten reading?What exactly does that designation "Level D" mean? Let me quote the introduction to Readers at Level D from Fountas & Pinnell's Continuum (2016, p 428):

At Level D, readers process and understand simple fiction and fantasy stories and easy informational texts. They can track print with their eyes over two to six lines per page without pointing, and they can process texts with more varied and more complex language patterns. They notice and use a range of punctuation and read dialogue, reflecting the meaning through phrasing, intonation, and appropriate word stress. Readers can solve many easy, regular two-syllable words - usually words with inflectional endings such as ing and simple compound words. Pointing may occasionally be used at difficulty, but readers drop the finger when they are confident and are reading easily. The core of know high-frequency words is expanding. Readers consistently monitor their reading, cross-check one source of information with another, and often use multiple sources of information. Readers use text and pictures to construct the meaning of stores and nonfiction texts. They infer meaning from pictures and connect the meaning of texts to their own experiences. At level D, readers process and understand simple and some split dialogue.

Yes, these are the expectations for ALL KINDERGARTENERS as they leave to transition to Grade 1. In the beginning days of my teaching career, many of these characteristics were quite normally found in typical mid-first and early-second grade students.So I ask again, were you reading in Kindergarten? I was not.  I don't think I fell behind in my education because I wasn't reading in Kindergarten. I do know that I have cultivated a love of print that has lasted a lifetime. I believe I was fortunate that when I was learning to read, my teachers worked not only on how to read, but also on development of a love of reading.Because I was taught the skill of reading when I was developmentally ready to not only word-solve (decode), but also to comprehend, I learned to become a reader - exactly what Mary Howard speaks about in the quotation above.The demands being placed on our youngest learners are unrealistic and oftentimes unattainable. My opinion? Children who are in Kindergarten need to learn to love learning: they need to practice social skills through play. They need to get used to school and learning.Squeezing all children, ready or not into the same curriculum funnel makes me think that education policy makers need to realign their focus. When the goal of reading instruction is so skewed toward the mechanics of reading at a developmentally inappropriate age, is the opportunity to help a child become a reader sacrificed?

Adventures in Oxymorons

Say what you will about living in these political times, snaps go to the marketeers coming up with the names. Why if you didn't actually spend a large portion of your reading time being skeptical and following up with questions and queries, you might just miss out on some really fun oxymorons.Let's take the group, Families for Excellent Schools as an example. Or Students First. Or Great Schools or Building Excellent Schools.Is there a single person on the planet who is NOT for excellent schools or excellent opportunities for students and children?Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy (FESA), a close cousin of Families for Excellent Schools, recently was fined more than $450K and banned from campaigning in Massachusetts for 4 years. Why? Because in an effort to win over a ballot question that would expand charter school networks unnecessarily, the FESA group attempted to hide large donors, including Paul Sagan (Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in 2015)  from campaign finance reporting.  Not cool, FESA. Not cool Mr. Sagan. Link to Maurice Cunningham's piece on this published on the WGBH website here.What these names, knee-deep in oxymoronic descriptors, demonstrates to me is the never-ending need to question and check on "advocacy" groups for their true mission and purpose. Marketers are expert manipulators of vocabulary. They know which word combinations may cause unsuspecting audiences to be lulled into endorsement of groups which may, or may not, be supportive of their own beliefs. Exhibit A: Democrats for Ed. Reform (DFER) which endorses expanded charter schools, rigorous high-stakes testing, and top-down school structures particularly in the areas of "accountability".  Building Excellent Schools apparently believes the only way to make a school "excellent" is to partner with a charter group.It always is a good policy to learn about groups purporting to advocate, especially those involved in or attempting to be involved in public education. What you may find out can be surprising.  

September 11, 2017

When one reaches un certain âge, the realization dawns on you that the past is measured in events; the moment you meet your true love, graduation, your child's birth, a parent's death.But time is also measured by events of such great historic proportion that you can remember with clarity where you were and what you were doing. We mark time by the events of historic proportions. The events mark us with changes too.On November 22, 1963, I was in sixth grade at Huron Junior High. We had an "honors" study hall which was about anything but studying. If you can imagine it, a group of sixth grade students were allowed to sit in a classroom alone and without supervision for the purpose of doing homework. I suppose this was considered a privilege, but, as junior high students are wont to do, we spent most of the time being noisy and silly and, I believe just before we heard the news about the President, we had been threatened with loss of privilege by a teacher who was passing by the room and recognized the sounds of "un-studying".I cannot recall the particulars of how we found out about the events in Dallas, but I do remember snippets of the rest of that day. It was unnaturally quiet. After that, things felt a little less safe, as if the world had made a seismic shift and we weren't quite sure how to react. But time blurs those feelings and puts them into a back corner of our memory until the next time.And there are so many "next times". RFK, MLK, Newtown, Oklahoma City, and closer to home, the Boston Marathon. And September 11, 2001. On that morning, I was testing second grade reading out in a hallway. With each tragic event of that day, one of my colleagues came out to whisper what had happened. We were directed not to discuss anything in front of our students; however, given the eery quiet with which the staff went about the day, I would not be surprised to learn from former students that they knew something bad had happened that would impact their world, as the Kennedy assassination had for me.Over the past sixteen years, we observe a moment of silence to remember the people and events of 9-11. And each year when that moment of silence is broken by the playing of taps, the magnitude of that day is with me and many others.  The memory of the circumstances, the events of September 11 is renewed. May we never forget.  

Speak up. It is important.

Last Tuesday, I was able to attend the Joint Committee on Education's hearing in Boston. I say "able" because, while I am sure the legislation before the Committee would have garnered interest and testimony from many active educators, they largely would not have been able to attend as the hearing took place the day after Labor Day, a school day. As a teacher retiree, I was not in my first (or fourth) day of a new school year and could attend, so I did.There were many proposed pieces of legislation under discussion last Tuesday; however, two bills, S.279 and H.304, aroused my curiosity and alarm. These two pieces of legislation appear to target teachers and students in gateway cities and,  if you are a Massachusetts parent, teacher, or administrator and your student attends school in one of these districts, you should pay attention. Your voice in what happens in your local school is being threatened.Bill, S. 279 unnecessarily singles out and targets urban and gateway districts. How do I know this? Because the "opportunity" to become an innovation partnership zone is based on a the results of a single high-stakes test, the MCAS and consequently the assigned school level that stems from that test. To base the worth or value of a school - or a district - on how students perform on a single high-stakes exam is w.r.o.n.g.  It is bad educational practice. No teacher would ever give a student a final mark based on one measure and the Commonwealth shouldn't be doing this with schools and school districts either.Those who favored moving H.304 and S.279 forward spoke frequently about the power of looking at students' (test) results and collaborating to determine school budget priorities, schedule/time allocations, and coordination of student needs with curriculum. My reaction to that is NO KIDDING. Why, why, why, do some in the Commonwealth feel that a piece of Legislation would make this a) any different from current practice, or b) necessary to mandate?Those in favor also spoke about the empowerment zone created in Springfield. The Springfield schools working in the empowerment zone are all middle schools and have done so for two years. Even James Peyser, Secretary of Education, had to admit the "data" on the success of these schools was rather green and not established. Others from this panel (two teachers and a principal) spoke about their experience meeting as teacher teams to think about what the students need.Sorry kids this is not a new concept or practice, nor is it one that requires a mandate from the Commonwealth. Lowell teachers, and I suspect teachers in most districts throughout Massachusetts, routinely meet to do this very same thing regularly. We call these collaborations PLCs (professional learning communities) or CPTs (common planning time). We do these things because a) we are there to figure out how to help students go from learning point A to B and b) we are professionals.Here's another thought: if a school is considered lower performing according to MCAS results, H.304 and S.279 would allow the Commissioner of Education (appointed, not elected) to begin the process of designating the schools for empowerment or innovation zone status. In the case of H.304, if the local teachers' union and the school committee cannot agree to concessions to the collective bargaining agreement, the Commissioner can just make the school a lower Level 4, and in effect, start the process of diluting local control anyway.Under S.279, the legislations proposes to "support" struggling schools through the creation of an innovation partnership zone. From what I can tell, the "partnership" is that the Commissioner of Education and DESE has a large stake in how the school is run. Schools are eligible to be in an innovation zone if their MCAS scores put them in Level 4 or Level 5 status. But - and this is key - in order to create an innovation zone, there needs to be at least 2 schools participating.Just to put that into local perspective, if Lowell has a Level 4 school (and it does) and the decision was made to create an innovation partnership zone for that school, the Commissioner of Education could pair that Level 4 school with another higher performing school - a Level 3, a Level 2 or a Level 1. So don't breathe easy if your school's MCAS results are great, you too could be part of this education magic show.When a school is "in the zone" (sorry Vygotsky fans, I couldn't resist that), an appointed  Board of Directors has autonomous control over personnel, budget, curriculum and hours. This unelected board with possibly no connection to the community could decide to do anything, including conversion of the public school to a charter school through a charter management company.Just for comparison, if a school is not in the zone, the elected School Committee and a combination of school administration/school site councils (theoretically) make these decisions and if you, a parent or voter, don't agree with those decisions, you can voice that in person or you can make your feelings known at the ballot box.Wait. Who is missing from those groups? If you said "teachers", you go right to the bullseye of the Zone of Proximal Development. At least on this topic. Despite the Springfield testimony highlighting empowering teachers and teacher teams, the decision-making for what takes place in a classroom is still top-down.The act of creating empowerment or innovation zones is different from what has happened in a few districts in Massachusetts, namely Lawrence. In those districts the state has outright put the entire district into receivership, meaning, the local governance of the public schools is given over to the Commonwealth. There is no local control over the education of the students and an un-elected "receiver" makes all the decisions. It also includes a favorable environment for education management organizations (EMO) to set up a network of charter schools. If you are interested in the track record of the charter school industry in Michigan and in particular Detroit where entire public school districts were replaced by charter school entities, read this article from the NY Times. Chilling.The full text of S.279 is found here, and the full text of H.304 is found here.  For now, both of these bills warrant a close watch. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education seem to be ready to dismantle traditional public education one school at a time.

Two Tales in Education

Two stories from the education world caught my attention this week, and I feel that both are worth the time to read. The first story, Why Teachers Quit by Liz Riggs, is a cautionary tale from 2013 about teachers and burn-out. The second, Silicon Valley Courts Brand-Name Teachers, Raising Ethics Issues is by Natasha Singer of the New York Times. It is a warning for anyone who worries about the possible effects of corporate America's influence in schools and school materials.The Atlantic recently reposted Liz Riggs' 2013 article Why Teachers Quit which was originally printed in October 2013. Even with a 4-year time gap, this is an article that is relevant and worth reading for anyone interested in retaining educators. The turn-over rate cited in the article, 40-50%, refers to the numbers of teachers leaving the education profession within the first five years of their career.  While I believe this attrition rate to be lower in 2017 thanks to strong induction and mentoring programs available to beginning educators, many beginning teachers continue to leave education for other fields.Although many of the teachers Ms. Riggs interviewed were from charter schools, the conditions which lead to decisions to leave education are often some of the same expressions of discontent heard now from both novices and experienced teachers. The responsibilities of educators don't end at the dismissal bell. Planning, assessing, writing reports - those workloads are often overwhelming and makes for an unhealthy and out-of-balance life.Even when one goes into education for all the best reasons, the reality of the profession can become overwhelming. With all of the emphasis on teacher quality, there continues to be a need to ensure that the extracurricular demands on talented educators are not overpowering.The second article, Silicon Valley Courts Brand-Name Teachers, Raising Ethics Issues, was recently published in the New York Times and describes a new trend in education: recruiting teachers to promote edu-products. While understanding that obtaining "free stuff" is a way for classrooms and educators to afford enhancements and the latest in bells and whistles, I think this pathway is a very slippery slope. It makes me more than a bit skeptical about the motives of corporate American forming relationships with educators to obtain favorable product placements.As a retired educator, I can still recall the disproportionate amounts of time spent each evening writing plans, pulling together materials, researching, contacting parents, and grading student work. I am not quite sure how Kayla Delzer, the third grade teacher chronicled in the Times article finds enough time to attend to teacher responsibilities; blog, tweet, and post on Facebook; and sleep. I wonder about the cost to her students.  Is her objectivity in evaluating appropriate materials compromised? Are her students missing out when their expert teacher is away to promote these materials?Two tales for the week, both cautionary. Anyone out there listening? 

The courage to be imperfect

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.

Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

~Scott Adams

Educators and staff in my community start the new school year tomorrow. And as they do, there will be the usual pressure to be perfect. Perfect in pedagogy, perfect in understanding students, perfect in everything that has to do with school, in the finger-pointing education environment under which we teach and learn.Does it seem as if somehow no one in public education is allowed a misstep?  I think so; and I think that toxic expectation of perfection can interfere with the art of teaching.In teaching, there is an underlying expectation that all should go according to plan without stumbling or error. This is an unrealistic expectation, and it creates an environment of canned, scripted and safe lessons that do not necessarily serve students. Unrealistic expectations of flawless lessons create an impediment to teaching creatively.  As any experienced educator can attest, every day there will be moments when all goes smoothly, and moments when nothing does. This is to be expected. Teaching is an art filled with glorious highs and magnificent lows; sometimes this takes place within the same 60 minutes.As you all return to school and to the important work of creating a community of learners, I urge you to embrace both creativity and the mistakes that are inevitable.Do the research. Read professionally. Participate in discussions with colleagues. Take chances. Take advantage of opportunities for creativity in teaching and learning. Teaching is an art and you, my friends, are the creatives. 

Lost in the shuffle

The Lowell High School project is, without a doubt, the biggest thing going in Lowell. I mainly stay out of the discussions about siting this project, mainly because, aside from being a taxpayer, I have very little skin in the game - no children/grandchildren in the school system. I do have an opinion, however, that is not based on tradition or the often-cited "that's the way we've always done it". That is one of the advantages of being a Blowellian.In my opinion, soliciting community support for this massive project has been ass-backwards from the start. My recollection is that, until there was some blowback from community groups like CBA and CMAA, there was very little effort to include all the stake-holders in the decision-making.  Did the rush to get the project in front of Mass. School Building for project approval preclude the necessity for a referendum vote on where to put the school? I think it has.But while decisions and debate about where to put a new high school have become the focus point, there are other equally important issues that are getting pushed aside.  One of those issues is the inadequate school funding support coming from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.Thanks to cuts in the state budget and cuts coming from the Federal government, Lowell Public Schools needs to cut the previously approved 2018 budget by nearly $1 million.  At the last School Committee meeting, there was plenty of debate surrounding the cutting of positions. Some of those proposed cuts are positions that directly impact students.  The loss of anticipated Chapter 70 funding is somewhat complicated, but in my mind, these are the issues:

• The lowering of  tax revenues at the State level has resulted in the need to make last second reductions in school budget line items.
• The state's budget and funding formula for Chapter 70 has not been fully funded (currently presumed to be underfunded by over $1 Billion) for many years.
• Education funding formulae are based on 23-year old calculations. The Foundation Budget is is dire need of updating (see TracyN Foundation Analysis).
• The continually increasing expenditures for charter schools.

Brockton, Worcester, and other gateway cities, those who are impacted most critically by Chapter 70 underfunding and under-calculations, have joined together in an attempt to force the Commonwealth to rectify Chapter 70 funding issues through a lawsuit to address the inequities of funding. Because of Lowell's focus on the high school, the effort to fix the funding, and possibly get some relief for our local school budgeting, isn't even a blip on the radar.Yes, the high school facility and a building that will serve the students in this community is important, but it is not the only thing.

"Doing" Justice: More than just forms

Donalyn Miller recently tweeted about a recording sheet she uses for the 40 Book Challenge she not only "invented" but practices with her students in her classroom.  As I've recently added her book "The Book Whisperer" to the book study portion of a course I've developed, Donalyn's tweet caught my attention:

My curiosity over why Donalyn Miller would feel compelled to tweet an endorsement of  Debbie Ohi's collection of forms led me to read this post from August 2014:  The 40 book Challenge Revisited.Her point this:

... the original thinking behind an instructional idea becomes lost when it’s passed along like a game of Telephone. You heard about it from a 60-minute conference session. Your teammate attended a book study and she gave you the highlight reel. The teacher down the hall is doing something innovative. You should try it. We’ve all seen the quick adoption of shiny, new ideas without a full picture of how these concepts fit into best practices (or don’t).

I've frequently heard fellow educators reference that they are "doing" the Daily Five or the Daily CAFE. However, digging in a little deeper, misinformed yet well-intentioned educator's idea of the "doing" is more likely to be incorporating some of the "centers" (sorry Gail and Joan, I know that's not what you intended) or using some printable for students downloaded from one of the educator enterprise sites.The Daily Five practice is based on developing a trusting relationship between learners and teacher. The development of this trusting relationship is every bit as important as the student activities.  A gradual release of responsibility leads to developing students independence and accountability.  Joan and Gail's commitment to research and development of their own practice is the powerful glue that, in my opinion, holds the Daily Five and CAFE together. This becomes the basis for educator changes that lead to best practice.Shiny new ideas are terrific, of course. That is the basis of being "green and growing", as one of my former administrators used to say.  However, without fully understanding a method for management of teacher, the practice become so simplified that it often becomes just another tedious fill-in-the-blank task to keep students occupied. And that, is not a best practice of any kind. 

This wasn't Mozart, and it ain't no jungle

My favorite weekend of the year is always the last weekend in July. The Lowell Folk Festival - a free (!) and frenetic amalgam of music, food, and culture - is worth planning around, which is, exactly what we do.Over the 31 years that the festival has been here, it seems to me it has developed into a better and better version of itself. This year, with stellar weather, not too hot and most definitely not too humid, was one of the best.The music is naturally one of the biggest draws. Where else can you go to sample everything from Armenian to Zydeco? I mean that literally.  When we first started coming to the Festival, we would carefully plan out which bands to listen to, and that's not a bad strategy, really. But what we've done in recent times is move from place to place listening to music that is not necessarily in our cultural comfort zone. Doing so has been a great way to get some exposure to music we wouldn't necessarily listen to on Pandora or iTunes.  Great stuff. Over the years, we've also come to appreciate Friday nights, the first night of Folk Festival. While the crowds and excitement of Saturday and Sunday of Festival weekend are energetic, there is a different kind of vibe to Friday. There is a goodly amount of community pride when the 6:30 parade kicks off. Representing many - not all - of the cultures of Lowell, it causes this Blowellian to realize what a special community we have here in Lowell. The diverse cultures making up our community fabric is a great source of pride for all of us. Long-established cultures that immigrated here during the hey days of the mills or newer immigrant groups establishing homes - all were represented in the kick-off to the weekend. But there was a little something more this past Friday: there was a feeling of kind togetherness and consideration. A festival-goer, a stranger to me, insisted I take a cushion as I knelt down on the grass of Boarding House Park to photograph the parade. Random concert goers started up and carried on conversations, enjoying the music and the collegiality.  I think this shift in attitudes must have become contagious. One of the Park Rangers we spoke with on Sunday was delighted to point out his radio had been very quiet all weekend because, in spite of large crowds, everyone was well-behaved.An event of this size takes lots of organization and many, many dedicated volunteers - from fundraisers to recyclers to people who run the cameras for broadcast.  If you were at this year's festival, you may have run into a few of them from the Bucket Brigade. In order to put on a festival of this size, there is a huge financial commitment from community partnerships to donations large and small.  You can continue to donate to the Lowell Festival Foundation's fundraising efforts and, in doing so, get ready for the next festival.Next summer, on the last weekend of July, the dedicated volunteers and sponsors who organize Lowell Folk Festival will do it all again for the 32nd time.  I know where I will be, and I hope you'll join in the fun too. 

Is STEM the only thing?

Is STEM the only thing? I'm asking for a friend.It occurs to me that in the rush to turn out worker bees for business sectors, the focus in education is more than a little skewed in favor of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Yes, these are all important studies and part of a well-rounded balanced education. However, I am questioning that the focus on STEM has over-shadowed other content and curricula that, in my biased opinion, should be equally important.Because I see education in terms of an avenue toward a pursuit, observing the march of the bureaucrats toward the next great crisis in education is equally frustrating and alarming. Our educational goal should be to "hook" students into becoming life-long students, to foster curiosity and questioning and the drive to know more.And maybe that pathway toward becoming lifetime learners is through a STEM discipline, and perhaps it is not.As a student, my personal pathway into learning was through something quite different. I was a more-than-adequate reader, not a particularly skilled writer, and a horribly incompetent math student.  What fired me up to become more disciplined about learning and more successful as a student, was a love and pursuit of music. The irony of this statement is that, as an adult, music has taken a backseat to the very disciplines that catch all the attention today - technology and mathematics.To me, it is more important to teach students to think critically, to process logically and, yes, even scientifically. Science, math, and technology are important and great ways to get to those problem-solving and thinking skills. But other disciplines can be a means to this end - and toward the goal of fostering and enduring desire to learn - too. And for the student whose interest in learning lies in arts and humanities, exclusion of such pursuits leave them flat.So while our education policy makers direct a refocus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, I hope there might also be a similar pursuit of arts and humanities. Because, in my opinion, there is a need to balance educational pursuits across all disciplines.