Friday, February 24, 2012

Common Core Standards Research

I just want to give a quick follow up to my blog about the Common Core Standards.  The Brookings Institute released a report found here that questions whether or not the standards will have any positive impact on student achievement. Interestingly enough, the report does not talk about student learning; rather the conversation revolves around student achievement. I believe achievement and learning are two separate entities.  A student may learn a lot but achieve very little if they cannot translate their learning to a test. I assume that the author is using "achievement" and "learning" interchangeably and that the Common Core will not increase either one.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Standardized Tests


I will talk today briefly about standardized tests.  Currently, test scores are used to judge States, school districts and schools.  Increasingly, there is pressure to use test scores to evaluate teachers.
The standardized testing movement is another facet of the market-driven education reforms that I discussed in a previous blog.  Test scores are viewed as necessary because they “measure” what a student has learned in a school year.  Again, to measure students from different States all of the students must be taught the same curriculum. Furthermore, under-girding the belief that standardized tests are good is a theory that schools are factories that produce test scores.  Those test scores are produced by teachers teaching a certain curriculum.  Notice that there is no mention of students.  Although proponents of testing claim to have the best interest of the children at heart, the very fact of the matter is that test scores are their #1 priority not what the children learn (which are two separate issues) .  The children are simply the container to produce the test results.  

Standardized testing proponents also are encouraging the use of the scores to judge individual teachers.  They believe that teachers can prove their “worth” by how students perform on standardized tests.  Although this may sound intuitive on the face of it, research indicates that merit pay for teachers based on student test scores simply does not work.  Market-driven education reformers also believe that test scores can be used to measure the “value” a teacher adds to the student each year.  In other words, if a student “grows” and improves on their test scores then the teacher will be viewed as a success.  

I believe that test scores can serve as a valuable piece of information when judging a teacher’s performance, but it cannot be the only measure.  On a factory floor you may be able to measure a the performance of a widget maker by the amount of widget’s they produce.  However, students are not widgets and we must use an approach to teacher evaluation that is more in-depth.  To that point, Penn-Trafford has developed a teacher evaluation tool that is ver.  y comprehensive and in-depth.  A group of teachers and administrators developed the evaluation tool that will increase support for teachers while also increasing the focus to student learning and achievement

Thursday, February 16, 2012

2012-2013 School Calendar


At the meeting on Monday night the School Board also tentatively approved the 2012-2013 school calendar.  The approved calendar has the students starting on Thursday, August 23rd and getting out on Friday, May 24th.  This is a slight change from what is traditionally approved for the school calendar.  If the district were to adopt a more traditional calendar the students would start on Monday, August 27th and get out on Wednesday, May 29th.  You can find a copy of the tentative calendar here.  Another change in the calendar that I believe will help our school district is that there are more professional development days for the teachers.  These days are vital for the students as the school district moves toward customizing educational experiences for our students.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Administration Reorganization

I want to share some news that the school board approved at their meeting on Monday night.  There has been a reorganization of the administrative staff in the school district.  This reorganization is a result of the decision made not to replace the position held by the retirement of Mr. Harry Smith. As a result of not replacing Mr. Smith, the school district is still realizing a savings in overall administrative salaries even after the reorganization.

The first news is that beginning on July 1st, 2012 Dr. Harris will become an assistant superintendent. Currently, he is an assistant to the superintendent.  By changing job titles, Dr. Harris becomes  commissioned by the State as an assistant superintendent in the school district.  Dr. Harris has picked up the majority of Mr. Smith's duties as related to instruction, curriculum and mandatory information gathering for the State.

Also at the meeting, Mr. Lago (our business manager) received a new five year contract.  Mr. Lago's contract was due to expire soon and the Board signed him to a new 5 year contract. Besides his existing duties, Mr. Lago has picked up Mr. Smith's old duties as the administrator in charge of buildings and grounds.  In this capacity he works closely with Mr. Leonard our supervisor of buildings and grounds.  This is a large responsibility for Mr. Lago. 

The Board also approved moving the school district's two elementary assistant principals to full  principals starting on July 1st, 2012.  Mrs. Coiner will become the principal at Sunrise Estates and Mr. Dinapoli will become principal at Level Green.  The reasons for this change are threfold:
  1. As the school district moves toward customizing educational experiences for students, the schools need a full time educational leader who is dedicating 100% of their energy to help students, families and staff  at their building.
  2. The school district is moving toward a new teacher evaluation system that will require much more time and energy by the principals.  The new evaluation system (developed by teachers and administrators within the school district) is a research-based approach to teacher evaluation that is very rigorous.
  3. Principals across the district will be dedicating much more time working with teachers to support them in their jobs.  As teachers customize educational experiences for children, principals will help teachers customize their own professional learning plans centered on improving student learning.
It is important to remember that the school district is still spending less on administrators this year (and in years to come) because there is one less administrator in the central administrative office. The changes made by the school district will set the stage for improved educational experiences for all students in the years to come.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Follow up to the November 30th Blog Post

I am following up on my blog post of November 30th.  In that post I congratulated Joey Basista for creating the winning slogan to showcase the importance of music in schools (and in children's lives).  Joey, and his slogan, will be on a roadside billboard celebrating music in the schools.  I am pleased to show off the billboard draft.  The billboard will be painted in a short while.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Common Core Standards


As promised, I will offer a very brief background of the Common Core Standards initiatives and present you with my opinion.   The Common Core Standards are an attempt to have all schools in the United States teach the same curriculum by developing standards in English and Math.   The National Governors Association and the Council for Chief State School Officers are responsible for creating the standards and encouraging every State to adopt the Common Core Standards. By adopting the standards, each State will have agreed to teach the same curriculum to all of the children in the United States.  Their mission is:
“The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.”
Pennsylvania has adopted the Common Core Standards.  You can find them here.

There is a robust discussion concerning the purpose and potential unintended effects of adopting the Common Core Standards.  In other words, not everyone thinks it is a great idea to have a national curriculum.   The Common Core is an educational reform effort rooted in the premise of free-market competition.  The core belief among free-market educational reformers is that competition in the educational sector will improve public schools.  Competition, according to this view, will force public education (a legal monopoly in the eyes of free-market reformers) to compete against each other and other private schools.  A big piece to the free-market reformers efforts to inject competition in the public education sector is standardized testing of children so the public can compare test results from school district to school district.  According to this philosophy of testing, children must be tested on similar material so the public can compare schools easier.  By comparing schools against schools, so the theory goes, parents will be able to choose the most effective schools to send their children. Before giving my view of the Common Core, please take time to read this report that critiques the free-market education reform movement.  I strive to be “fair and balanced”!

How do I feel about the Common Core Standards?  I am very skeptical of market driven reform efforts.  After all, public education does deal with widgets, we deal with kids.  I am also very worried about the effects of a standardized curriculum on our children.  The biggest concern is that local control of the school system is being taken away in the name of educational reform.  A school’s curriculum should reflect the lives and experiences of the children.  How can a group of people develop a curriculum that is relevant for every community in the United States?  Anyone that has tried to teach a child (whether in a school setting or not) can attest to the fact that you must make the lesson relevant to their lives.  What easier way to accomplish that task then to create a lesson or curriculum centered on the place the child lives? Finally, the fact that a national curriculum is being implemented begs two questions:  First, what is being taught and second (and maybe more importantly) what is not being taught.  Whichever way you look at those questions, there is virtually no input from local communities and schools and that (in my humble opinion) is a problem.  

I also want to note that the reasons there are different reform efforts being bantered about is that there were (and are) public schools that were not educating children the way that they should have been educated.  Allowing students to graduate functionally illiterate or allowing 30%-40% of the children not to graduate is unacceptable.  I am of the belief that not all of the responsibility is on the school system for these faults (society allows families to live in squalor whether in the cities or in the country); all of us must take a collective responsibility for the education of all students.  However, education was a part of the system that simply did not educate some children and politicians and other advocacy groups stepped in with their ideas. 

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The State of Education Today (An Introduction)

I have been contemplating writing a blog series for a few months. I want to try to articulate my beliefs on the current state of education in America and offer a road map for future action in education. This simply cannot be accomplished in one post, so I will spread it out over three posts this week.  The series will end on Friday with an outline of how I believe education should proceed in the upcoming years. 

I first would like to establish some foundational principles that ground everything that I believe in education.  First, everyone in education must do what is in the best interests of the students.  That sounds like a simple, and easy, statement to make.  After all, I have yet to hear from an educator or an education reformer who claims that their policy suggestion is not in the best interest of the students. Our schools exist because of the students and we cannot forget this simple truth. Second, the vast majority of educators working today are committed and passionate about providing the best education for their students.  With that being said, all of us involved in education must also consider how different policy suggestions (or reform ideas) will affect the students and schools that we are so intimately involved in.   I want you to understand that I can only offer my opinion, but in so doing, I hope to help you understand the consequences of some of the reform ideas being bantered about in the public discourse.  I will discuss four of the bigger reform ideas dominating education circles right now, and then I will finish the series with my road map for success in education.  The four reform ideas are:
  1. The Common Core Curriculum
  2. Charter schools, vouchers
  3. Cyber (virtual) schools
  4. Standardized tests
These topics are what I know are setting the agenda in every school district in the United States today.  I believe that you will be surprised at just how fundamentally they can (and will) change the way our children our educated. Finally, I hope that you will be encouraged and inspired by vision for public education.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Board Retreat

Last night the Board held a retreat where they started to work on a school district vision and create non-negotiable goals for instruction and achievement.  This is a first step in a larger project to align all of the schools within the district around common a mission  goals, and values. The work the Board did last night will impact almost every aspect of the district.  Decisions made on curriculum, instruction and even the budget will be filtered through our mission, goals and values. I will devote much more time to the outcome of this retreat when the work gets finalized over the next few weeks.  I believe this is an important step in the development of a world-class educational system for students and the community of Penn-Trafford.  The school board is the community's voice in the most important undertaking in the nation (the education of our children) and they will set the tone for the work within the district over the next two years.  I was incredibly impressed with the judgement and foresight of the Board last night and cannot wait to share with you the results of their work. when we get it finalized.