School Improvement Grants

I read Jonathon Kozol's book Savage Inequalities many years ago and still wonder why we have not developed programs to turn our inner cities and their schools around.  I remember talk about enterprise zones and throughout my career people have acknowledged the sad conditions people in inner cites endure, yet nothing seems to have been done to help bring dignity and humane conditions to these areas where many of most needy children grow up.  That is why I wonder why the current reform movement is so intent upon creating conditions to punish all schools for failure when we need to marshal our resources to help those who live and go to school in intolerable conditions.

Yesterday the U.S. Department of Education news releases reported that a handful of states are receiving School Improvement Grants to turn around their persistently lowest achieving schools.  This seems like a really great thing to do.  Unfortunately the states must present one of the following plans for these schools to receive the money.

• TURNAROUND MODEL: Replace the principal, screen existing school staff, and rehire no more than half the teachers; adopt a new governance structure; and improve the school through curriculum reform, professional development, extending learning time, and other strategies.
• RESTART MODEL: Convert a school or close it and re-open it as a charter school or under an education management organization.
• SCHOOL CLOSURE: Close the school and send the students to higher-achieving schools in the district.
• TRANSFORMATION MODEL: Replace the principal and improve the school through comprehensive curriculum reform, professional development, extending learning time, and other strategies. 

These steps constitute doing more of the same old thing.  The problem is not the schools nor the teachers, it is the condition in which many of these schools operate and the despair within their communities.  These grants are another opportunity to turn America's public schools over to corporations and privatize education.

I firmly believe that any child can receive the best education in the world at almost any American public school.  It is the responsibility of the adults in the community and the governments that support those communities to provide  models and the ethics of success for their children.   This can not be done if the adults, children and the community are in states of stress and disrepair.  Let us solve the problems for our children and not pander to political whims.

Illiterate America

The battle for literacy is being fought in our classrooms daily, but the true cause of illiterate America is not being addressed by endless hours of reading instruction.  Just as the innumeracy will not be defeated by hours of solving long division problems.  The problem is not our inability to read or compute algorithms, it is our inability to make meaning of the information we read.  As I follow the news about our diverse political thinking it seems as though everyone believes what they hear if the information comes to them from someone with whom they agree.

I had this problem when I was teaching online.  I taught a basic research class for college freshmen who had just finished a course in writing opinion papers.  Many of my students could not make the switch to writing an objective paper.  They were out to prove their point of view and used research from sources that agreed with them rather than searching and reporting on all points of view on their topic.

I fear this type of thinking is becoming epidemic with the Internet.  I regularly receive informative emails from people who want me to agree with their point of view.  They regularly use information that comes from unreliable sources and pass it on as if it were true.  One of the emails that sticks in my mind concerns Jane Fonda.  She is hated by many Vietnam veterans and other patriots who periodically pass on information about her behavior during her visit to N. Vietnam.  No matter how reprehensible her behavior was, most of the information has been refuted by those whom she reportedly harmed.  A quick check of different sources on the Internet shows much of the information in these emails to be false. 

It seems to me our failure in schools is not that we do not teach our students to read, it is that we do not teach them to discern propaganda and rhetoric from fact!

National Standards

There are many movements to reform education and many of them do nothing to develop creativity.  We are in a race for high scores in reading and math at the expense of creativity. Recently, Governors and state commissioners of eduction developed a common core of state standards in English-language arts and mathematics for grades k-12.  According to their website,    

These standards define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate high school able to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing academic college courses and in workforce training programs. The standards are:

• Aligned with college and work expectations;
• Clear, understandable and consistent;
• Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills;
• Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards;
• Informed by other top performing countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society; and
• Evidence-based.

Now the question is what exactly does the government want to do with these standards?  The Wall Street Journal on its editorial page sees national standards as a distraction from the work of firing teachers and handing out vouchers, but more importantly pointed out that monies from the Federal Government could end up being withheld for noncompliance

 With the Administration's blessing, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers have proposed a set of uniform K-12 math and reading standards for all states. Compliance will supposedly be voluntary, but Education Secretary Arne Duncan said states that support the effort will have a better chance of receiving Race to the Top money. And President Obama suggested that states that opt out risk losing millions of dollars in Title I grants for low-income students.

 I was raised in an Air Force family and we moved a lot.  I certainly see the sense in having national standards.  As a youngster some states were ahead of others and there was always a fear of being setback when your family moved to a new duty station.  However, as an educator I am in agreement with Tamim Anasary in Edutopias article From Education at Risk:Fallout from a Flawed Report

 Only on-site teachers can really make a broad ongoing assessment that gets at a range of achievements and takes the individual into account. By contrast, uniform standardized testing whose outcomes can be expressed as simple numbers allows someone far away to compare whole schools without ever seeing or speaking to an actual student. It facilitates the bureaucratization of education and enables politicians, not educators, to control schools more effectively.

NCLB has left a bad taste in my mouth for federal education mandates and I am fearful that the common core standards could become another mandate.  Just as we are a mobile society and need some standards across state lines, we are certainly a republic and our states and communities have aligned their education product nationally by adopting common curriculum created by educational organizations and through state development of benchmarks and standards.  Education corporations, specifically textbook companies have  gathered that information and created curriculum for our country.  Seems to me that is free market capitalism at work.

My  true fear is that as we work to create educational reform we are taking away the strength of our country.  The ability to create and innovate are not being encouraged in our schools.  Teachers should have the ability to create lessons based upon the needs of their students and local situations.  Children should be encouraged to explore and learn what interest them without being stuck in a timeline of instruction.  Unfortunately all of the reform to date is really based around the philosophy that teachers do not know what they are doing and the national standards are another method to undermine their authority and expertise.

Is ADD truly a disorder?

Take a look at the website Born To Explore, if we are going to create a culture of kindness and inclusion perhaps it is time that we think about all children in a positive way.

"I'm alarmed that to think than modern science may be turning creativity into a medical disorder" - Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D., from "The Myth of the ADD Child."

 Excerpts from an "Are you ADD" list,
from "Driven to Distraction" by Hallowell & Ratey.

1. Are you more creative or imaginative than most people?
2. Are you particularly intuitive?
3. Even if you are easily distracted, do you find that there are times when your power of concentration is laser-beam intense?
4. Are you usually eager to try something new?
5. Do you laugh a lot?
6. Do you get the gist of things very quickly?
7. Are you much more effective when you are your own boss?
8. Are you a maverick?
9. Do you tend to approach problems intuitively?
10. Do you often get excited by projects and then not follow through?

Book Review

Disrupting Class:  How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson

The basic thesis of Disrupting Class is that we all learn differently and technology can help to capitalize on that neurological fact to improve education systems.  This is not as simple as it seems because schools have gathered students into heterogenous groups which present a knowledge base in a step by step process that benefit some learners but not all learners. Stakeholders in this  process are entrenched in this paradigm and reluctant to change.   How to break through this traditional learning paradigm is the focus of the book.

The argument that schools are designed for standardization and can not meet the needs of all learners leads to the discussion of student-centric schools where learning is customized for each student.  Which fits nicely into the concept of differentiation.  The authors believe that if schools are to educate every student then they must begin moving toward the student centric model and away from the monolithic batch process with all its interdependencies.  They further believe that computer based learning is an emerging disruptive force that will accelerate this movement.

The theory of disruptive innovation is that innovations improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by lowering price or designing for a different set of consumers.  This is opposed to sustaining innovations which in the case of education is the monolithic standardized system that exists today. 

The authors believe that as in the private sector, schools have continually had their goals changed.  But unlike the private sector they must create new products from within the existing paradigm because they are a monopoly making it difficult for new models to compete on the changing goals.  Schools, according to the authors, have been given four primary aims over the history of the United States. These arep preserve the democracy and inculcate Democratic values, provide something for every students, keep America competitive, and more recently eliminate Poverty  Traces of all of the goals can be found in our current system and each goal has been met by teachers and administrators who want to improve the system.  Today, however, the game has changed.  Computers are the change agent and learners are different because of their familiarity with the digital world of knowledge.

Schools have been purchasing computers and using them to sustain and marginally improve the way they already teach and run schools. This has not led to significant change in how education systems work and can not do so until computer based learning disrupts the instructional job of teachers in a positive way by creating student-centric learning systems allowing teachers opportunities to give more individual attention to those they teach.

The example from industry that illustrates how this can be done is Apple computers.  When Apple came on the scene computers were large, specialized, expensive machines that were beyond the understanding and budgets of most individuals.  The sustaining innovation was for large corporations to continue making money selling these machines to large businesses.  Apple disrupted this paradigm by marketing the computer as a toy for children.  The main rule of disruptive innovation is that to succeed it must be applied to applications where the alternative is nothing.  Just like Apple, they provided computers to people who would never have been able to afford any of the computers on the market prior to Apple.

In education the computer is disruptive when it provides opportunities for students for whom there was no alternative.  If a student wants to take Chinese and there is not a teacher at the school to teach it, disruptive innovation can create a product for that student.  This is already happening throughout our schools.  It is up to the policy makers and administrators to encourage this growth as in Florida and Minnesota where virtual schools are growing much faster than anticipated and providing opportunties for students whose individual needs are not being met by the standardized operations of the typical school.

The reason that a large investment in computers in schools has not created a better education system is because we are using computers to do more of the same type teaching, didactic instruction.  Computers will become disruptive as they begin to replace this type of instruction.  That means finding places in the standardized model for which there is a demand but limited opportunities to meed that demand.  School administrators and teachers must be looking for opportunities to provide computer based learning to students who want to take classes that schools can not provide.  AP, specialized courses like language, recovery credit, and small and rural districts with limited resources are some of the ways technology have begun meeting the needs of students.

As the model of sudent centric learning takes hold in schools it will lead to better software.  At first the software will be expensive and mirror the dominant learning styles in the classrooms.  The authors believe that experience in industry and business demonstrates that a second stage will follow where software will be developed by teachers to meet individual learning needs.  There is a vast untapped area of non consumption or needs with no alternative that computer learning technology will fill and create a student-centric project based learning models that will cause the technolgoy to disrupt the standardized education models of today.

Experience in industry and business show that four factors will drive this disruption and change education.
1.  Computer based learning will keep improving
2.  The ability of computer based learning to create differentiated learning pathways.
3.  The upcoming teacher shortage.
4.  Costs will fall as the market accelerates.

The outcome of this change will alter the dynamic of teaching and change the pedagogy.  As students engage the knowledge base in computer based programs, teacher will have become learning coaches and tutors spending most of their time moving from student to student encouraging and helping learning rather than delivering one-size-fits-all lectures.  Teachers will need to be more cognizant of student needs and learning styles than they are today.  Assessment will become instant and instructive.  Students will know exactly what they need to do to be successful using computer learning technology.  Mastery learning will become the accepted model of learning and there student will repeat lessons in different ways in order to master the information.  Teachers will also know exactly what students need in order to help them.  This type of teaching will be much closer to the 19th century model of the one-room school house than the enormous learning institutions that have developed during the 20th century.  Under this system students can be evaluated by how far they have moved through a body of knowledge rather than what per centage of the knowledge they have mastered.

The authors call for a transformation of education through disruptive technoloty.  They envision chartered schools as laboratories where needed changes can begin and spread throughout the system.  This is an important book that educators must read and consider.  It is a warning to public schools that if they are to survive they must adopt a different way of doing business.

Throw the Bums Out! There are more players than just teachers

I like to listen to talk radio and frequently tune in different station to hear all sides of the daily whine.  The car radio was tuned to a local station and a moderator and guest were discussing various societal problems.  When they discussed education, the guest began the rhetoric of scapegoating teachers.  The message this man sent out was that our schools are in ruins and it is the fault of the teachers, so we have to create vouchers, and charters to move improve education.

There is a persistent drumbeat in the media causing us to believe all our schools are failing and the way to solve the problem is to get rid of the teachers.  My experiences as an educator leads me to believe that this is a very simplistic solution.  Certainly there are bad schools and certainly there are bad teachers but to label all students as poorly educated and all teachers as bad misses the mark at the heart of the problem.

My experience is that most teachers are dedicated professionals trying to help as many students as they can.  Most students want to succeed and usually behave like adolescents in pursuit of that goal. What I find interesting about the debate is that since I began teaching in 1975 nothing has substantially changed.  At that time schools were failing, students were not going to be able to succeed in life, other countries were ahead of us in test scores,  and teachers were the problem.  It is hard to believe that adults today have the thinking skills to evaluate the problems  of education, that they do is a testament to the fact that somehow they were able to make meaning of their educations despite the fact it was so bad.

I believe that part of the problem is that most children did not like being told what they had to do and blamed their teachers for their unhappiness at having to go to school.  I think that is the root of the problem.  Many people remember their education from negative emotional memories.  This can be solved by making schools a happier environment.  I believe that being kind and respectful to all students can go a long way toward achieving the goal of children being happy about going to school.  When they first started school that is how they felt.  Educational institutions should strive to create environments of wonder and awe.

What about the bad teachers?  There are some, but I do not believe that you can find them by looking at their student test scores.  Education is a cooperative, collaborative process with many stakeholders and they all have a hand in the success or failure of each child.  Parents,  administrators, teachers, education aides, school boards, unions, substitute teachers, state legislators, and federal administrators are some of the stakeholders in this process.  How do we evaluate their responsibility for the system failures and successes?

My real question is how do bad teachers get to the classroom?  Maybe we should evaluate that system as opposed to scapegoating the teachers.  How does a bad teacher get a degree in education?  What role does the hiring process play in putting bad teachers in the classroom?  Why can't certification processes be better filters of good and bad teachers? Why aren't "bad" teachers identified early in the evaluation process, given guidance, and mentored?  Certainly a contract can be negotiated with teacher's unions that recognizes the importance of working together for the best interests of the children.

Our adversarial, competitiveness drives the school systems.  These are not 21st skills, they are 19th century skills.  Today it is more important than ever that we show our children how collaboration and cooperation drive teams to win.  The United States is a team and if we truly believe that our children are important we need to demonstrate the best traits of competition, not the worst.  Throwing out teachers is not the answer to reforming education!

What would happen if schools encouraged kindness?

Information about Kindness in Education
Teacher's Guide for Teaching Kindness
A to Z Teacher Stuff - Teacher Tips: Promoting Kindness
Random Acts of Kindness Lesson Plan for Teachers
Acts of Kindness | In Your Classroom

Thoughts from Yrisarri
Bella said, “They can make me come to school, but they can’t make me learn anything.”  This was 1994 and Bella was a 16 year old girl responding to my question of what her parents would think when I told them she did absolutely no work in my class.  Bella taught me about motivation, I had to work very hard and be very nice to Bella.  She wasn’t a problem student, she was very quiet, she just sat at her desk and reflected all period long.  In the end I won Bella over and she began to work, but only because I did not write her off and treated her decision not to work with respect, kindness finally won her over. 

I remember a third grade grade teacher in an elementary school where 1/2 of the students had to take her class.  She was always punishing children by isolating and belittling them.  Her message was that these bad little boys and girls have to be taught how to behave.  Yet, when treated with respect these same students responded with excellent behavior.

What brings these stories to mind was the news a couple weeks ago about an elementary principal who had written a letter mocking a second grade student’s ability to learn.  It was meant as a letter to his staff, but this kind of leadership encourages truly poor teachers.  Rather than discrediting an entire profession for failing test scores, let’s look beyond superficial evaluation methods and find out why our children are not motivated to get an education in a country that provides unlimited opportunities for those who succeed in our school systems.  The teachers I would like to see leave the profession are the ones who cause the Bellas to hate school, maybe she had the 3rd grade teacher who thought little boys and girls need to be taught how to behave!

Society seems to have become a place where calling names and discrediting others is more important that solving problems .  The data we are gathering in education is being used for finger pointing and punishment rather than evaluation and improvement.(Diane Ravitch: Education has become search and destroy mission and teachers are often the targets | Get Schooled )  It seems to me that rather than acquiesce to the lack of civility and inability to get along with others education should view this as a problem to tackle by treating students in a respectful manner. 

The competitive and punitive nature of our education system causes young children to behave in ways we can not fully appreciate.  One unkind word can change the course of a child’s thinking about how people should treat each other.  I would like to share a Chinese story that I think addresses this problem.

Chang Kung and the Golden Secret

Chang Kung was a good and kind grandfather with a very large family. He had so many children, grandchildren and great -grandchildren, that his house was full of people all of the time. His house had to grow larger to hold everyone, and so it became a collection of houses, side by side, in a big circle around a yard.

The unusual thing about Chang Kung's huge family wa s that nobody ever quarreled! The children never teased each other, or got into fights. The grown-ups never got mad at each other. They never scolded the children, or spanked them.

Stories about this family that never quarreled spread over all the countryside until even the Emperor heard about them. He said “I wonder is these stories are really true. I shall go find out.

The Emperor rode to Chang Kung's house in his sedan chair, carried on the shoulders of four men dressed in red. His guards carried long bows and arrows, and other attendants followed, pIaying flutes and harps.

The Emperor visited all the houses of the family of Chang Kung, going from room to room, talking to everyone he met. Finally, he said to Chang Kung, "It is true that no cross words are spoken within your walls. You must have a golden secret in order to keep so many people living together in such peace. I would like to know your secret. "

Old Chang Kung took a brush and ink and a bamboo tablet. He carefully wrote one word. Then he wrote the same word over and over, until he had written it a hundred times. This is the word he wrote.

The Emperor said, "You have written many words, but at the same time you have written only one word. "

Chang Kung said, "That one word is my golden secret. That one word is kindness, over and over without any ending. "

The Emperor was so pleased that he said, "Let all the families in China learn the golden secret of Chang Kung and his family!" The Emperor had pictures of Chang Kung painted so that people could hang them on their kitchen walls to remind them to keep the golden secret.