The miracle that wasn't

I am just so disappointed.  Here all along I was believing our leaders who assured me that in 2014 all children would be doing reading and math on grade level.  Of course, it was never clear at what point in 2014 that would be- New Year's Eve, start of the school year, end of the school year, but no matter, we would be there.
Now I am told that the various states may have waivers; and thereby, not have to meet this deadline.  I am crushed.  Let me be clear, all along I thought this was an impossible dream, even a foolish one.  But our leaders told me I had little faith and with good teaching this would happen.
It seems that good politics has triumphed over good sense.  Governors were running for re-election.  All  governors want to point to great schools as a point of success.  But with 2014 approaching and the adequate yearly progress scores coming out every year showing more and more failing schools, well schools were not going to be a very good talking point.
Enter the waiver.
Schools can develop plans to overcome the discrepancies between lower socio-economic kids, students at risk, children for whom English is a second language and even those few children who need special ed services.  Of course the outcomes for those plans are not specified so we are sort of back to where we were.  We may just have to acknowledge that some kids don't have the ability to be on grade level, at least not at this time in their lives.
But that acknowledgement is very bad politics, even though it is good common sense.

Making dumb choices

Why do we keep making dumb choices and foolish decisions that are contrary to what we know to be right.  Some examples, all students will be reading at grade level by 2014.  the fact is that all students do not have the capacity to be at grade level, not by 2014 and not by 2054.  Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that.
Another foolish idea.  Everyone should go to college.  Everyone should have the skills necessary to earn a decent living.  that does not equate to everyone going to college.  Some people will use technical skills and work in manufacturing, or the human service sector or the service repair sector- many of these jobs do not require a college education.  Many of the people who do these jobs are very skilled, earn a decent living and do not have the ability to go to college.
There is ample research that tells us that kids with learning challenges need require and benefit from intensive individualized education.  Yet our whole society is pushing full inclusion for the social skills that students with disabilities will supposedly get from plain kids.  First of all, general ed teachers have neither the time nor the skills to teach students with learning challenges.  Second of all, plain kids do not experience themselves as social peers with students with disabilities.  Most of the interactions between plain kids and students with disabilities are either forced by adults or bullying by plain kids.  Students with disabilities seldom get invited by plain to outside social events.  Yet we persist in saying full inclusion is a good idea.
High stakes testing is another naive idea.  We all know some very bright people who are doing well as adults who are terrible test takers.  We also all know people who are good test takers but have little knowledge of the content or the ability to problem solve.  Still we are insisting that everyone takes a test to prove what they know and that teachers be punished with poor ratings for having students who do not do well in the tests.
Dumb ideas make dumb choices

Political Fire Prevention

Oophs, who didn't know that it was impossible to get all the children in our country on grade level by 2014.  I, for one, was just thrilled at the notion.  It was going to be a miracle and I would be there.  Of course, any school that was not making adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward that goal would be labeled a failing school.  The school systems that back loaded the expectations for big gains closer to the goal line were banking on either miracles happening or the political weight of all those failing schools crushing the life out of the goal.  And the latter is just what has happened.

Secretary Duncan has recently said that "the current law drives down standards, weakens accountability, causes narrowing of the curriculum and labels too many schools as failing."  It is that last one that has caught the attention of governors around the country.  These people need to run for office and they can't do it on a record of failing schools.

So now as the deadline is practically here, school systems may ask for and be granted a waiver.  Basically the requirement for the waiver is simply that school systems come up with another plan to close the gap between high and low achievers in the system.  What people have seemed to come up with is blaming the teachers.

Now teachers will be evaluated on how well their students do on tests.  Get ready for people to be REALLY surprised when 1) the curriculum continues to narrow as teachers of tested subjects just emphasize the test content and 2) become increasingly unhappy in their jobs.  Oh and the instances of cheating of both students and teachers will increase.  That will surprise people too.

The problem is not the we are all going to achieve goal, nor the quality of our teachers.  The problem is using standardized tests to measure learning.  It really is simple.  We do not all need to learn the same stuff.  We do not all learn any stuff in the same way.  And we do not learn any stuff at the same rate.  If we could just admit that universal truth, we might have a prayer of providing an appropriate education for all of our children.

Stress not required

With all the new pressures of measuring teacher's competence it is no wonder that stress is at an all time high among teachers.  Race to the top winners have been required to partially evaluate teachers based on the test scores of their students.  This new demand can only add to the already stressful job of being in the classroom in today's atmosphere where student parents often do not support teachers.

There are things that a teacher can do to reduce the stress.  First of all manage your life and your health.  That means eating properly and at regular intervals.  Start with a healthy breakfast that is not primarily sugar and caffeine.  Donuts and coffee are one of the worst breakfast choices.  So is skipping breakfast and just having the coffee.  Breakfast may include a wake up cup of coffee but it should also include a healthy abundance of some good protein and fiber.  A decent breakfast will arm you for the day.

You can't change other people you can only change yourself.  So if a student or co-worker or supervisor is creating stress, put that person in perspective.  How much will this matter tomorrow or next week or next month.  Don't take anything too seriously.  The old saying about death and taxes is true.  My grandmother used to say "this too shall pass" and she was 100% correct.

Even No Child Left Behind will get amended and be changed.  Of course, it will leave a lot of stress in its wake but it will still be gone.  So keep that in perspective.  Another thing to realize is that since merit pay isn't coming in anytime soon, what real difference does a bad evaluation make.  The way things are now you pay is determined by how long you have been teaching not by how well you do the job whether that decision is based on test scores or your student's ability to learn.

Why are kids dropping out of school?

Two big newspaper stories were very intriguing of late.  One discussed the number of students who had been suspended and how that was keeping children from learning.  One follower of the obvious is more school of thought suggested that students who missed school were not there to learn!  Brilliant commentary.  Most of the comments were about whether or not students should be suspended at all and if they were for what offenses.  The question of zero tolerance for misbehavior was reviewed.  Some people noted that children who were frequently suspended were more likely to drop out of school.  Seems kids that are suspended a lot not only miss learning opportunities but they also lose a connection with the school.  Makes you wonder how much research that took to figure out and who paid the bill for it.

While it is interesting to speculate on whether or not suspension helps with discipline, it is a whole other issue to consider WHY kids do the behaviors that cause them to be suspended in the first place.  The vast majority of children who are suspended are also not successful in academic subjects.   Children usually being people of relatively good mental health would rather be bad than dumb.  Why?  The answer is simple kids who misbehave in school are often seen as brave by their contemporaries who would not do such things.  Kids who do poorly in academics are thought of as being dumb by their peers.  So the average kid would rather be thought of as brave and tough as opposed to being dumb.  Also when you misbehave you draw the fire away from the teacher noticing that you are not doing the academic work because she is too busy trying to reestablish the class order.

Another issue that is getting a lot of ink right now is the issue of bullying.  So far this year 25% of the kids who are bullied are kids with special needs.  They are vulnerable and make a handy target.  They often lack the skills to fight back either verbally or physically.  And many children with disabilities have characteristics that are atypical, they look different, talk different or just don't catch on to stuff.  The other surprising statistic is that 28% of the bullies are themselves disabled.  They bully the kids they perceive as being the next notch down in the pecking order.  Kids bully other kids because grown ups don't intervene strongly enough, parents don't stress character development and because the bully gets to be on a higher rung of the ladder than the person being bullied.

I suggest that the root cause of both problems is the same thing.  No Child Left Behind has left every child behind when it comes to individual programing.  In order to ensure the highest test scores possible so that your school/class is not a failing school the so called "soft" courses are being cut left and right.  Those art, phys ed, music and other so-called non-academic courses have been scrapped to make way for more instruction in reading and math.  And to make sure that kids are exposed (and believe me it is exposure and not instruction) to all the content that will be tested, school systems have instituted pacing guides so every day teachers need to be on specific pages in the curriculum guide.  Ready or not, the teacher turns the page every day.  Smart kids have to slow down and wait, slower kids have to race to try to keep up and frequently they don't.  So kids who needed that extended instruction to catch on, or perhaps an alternative method of instruction, have now turned into the dumb kids who can't keep up or can't learn the lesson.

It doesn't take very long to go from that spot to misbehaving and/or bullying.  Both behaviors serve a similar purpose for the perpetrator.  If I am bad enough people might not notice I can't do the school work.  Or if I bully someone else it makes me feel that I may not be good at school work but at least I am  "bigger" than the kid I am bullying.

We would all be a great deal better off if we just taught kids they way they learn best and not worry if the calendar says we should be on page 156 if a child is back at page 98.

Teachers Please stand for something

Well here we go again!  Now No Child Left Behind is going to be modified and amended-we think.  For years we have known the law was mightily flawed.  But we got the law because the teachers and their unions were asleep at the switch.  If the change comes to be, it will be known as ESEA as amended, so we will go back to the original Elementary and Secondary School Act.
Why is the law being amended now?  Because the 2013-14 school year is coming and that is the year all of God's children were supposed to be on grade level in reading and math.  Any person with a grain of common sense knew that wouldn't happen but it sure made for great press.  As the time approaches the various governors are realizing that they will be saddled with many failing schools that have not made adequate yearly progress.  And they will be giving their electoral rivals a great issue to run on.  So the way to fix that is to remove the requirement for adequate yearly progress (AYP).  Finally a bi-partisian issue we can all live with.  Of course this is all for politics and has nothing to do with good education.

Where are those all powerful teachers unions now that they have a chance for a second bite at the apple?  Probably out worrying about some health and welfare issue.  They, too, are not interested in quality education.

Senator Isakson, a Republican from Georgia, wants to add an amendment that would remove more students with disabilities from the assessment process.  That may turn out not to be an issue if all the states are allowed to do what they want and pick and chose as to who will be included in the assessment.  Some special education interests are upset.  They think this change could take us back to the time when students in special education were barely challenged academically because there was no expectation for academic success.  That would be terrible.  By the same token, it is equally terrible for children with limited academic abilities to be repeated failures by expecting them to achieve that which they are unable to do.  We might be able to find a middle ground if we had professional rather than political leadership on the issue.  But we do not.

I continue to dispair that of all the professional groups, mine is the only one that has chosen to be more like a blue collar union and less like a professional group.  Then we jump and shout when we are not treated as professionals.

Looks like my miracle of all children being on grade level by 2014 isn't going to happen because the requirement will be gone by then.  Yet another miracle that didn't come to pass.