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Less Than Honest

8/15/2018

A grandmother came to the tutoring center in which I work, needing help for her grandson. He is entering junior high school. The ask was incredible. She reported that her grandson reads at a first grade level and is unable to do simple math calculations. He has made Bs and Cs throughout his elementary school career. She was concerned that he will not be able to keep up in middle school.

Her question was simple. “How did he graduate from elementary school when he clearly could not do the work? I stood there, unable to answer her question, it was clear that there was not a good answer. It was awkward, embarrassing because there is no good explanation for the situation in which this young man finds himself.

The grandmother wanted someone that could in her words, “catch him up over the summer,” so her grandson could enter junior high school, ready to learn at the same level as his classmates. I made a few calls and found him a full time tutor. She was determined to make sure the child had every chance.

How did this young man end up in this situation? A lack of honesty is the reason. No one had the courage to tell him the truth back in first grade. He was not achieving at a level that justified passing him to second grade. He could not do the work but since he was never a discipline problem and worked hard, they made the false choice to pass him. He is lucky that his grandmother realized his situation and worked to change it. His new school will assume that he is ready for junior high school. Until he gets caught up, there is little hope that he will be successful in middle school. At best, the new tutor might be able to get him close to what he needs to know. The more likely scenario is that he will struggle in his new school because he does not have the academic background to be successful.

His new school will pass him too. This strategy makes the graduation rate look better. Schools that graduate large numbers of students are considered successful. State and local governments use this metric because it is easy to calculate. Accountability systems that use graduation rates motivate schools to pass students that should not passed. Schools use failure limits and other techniques to inflate graduation rates.

The real question is one of value. Are we focused on producing students that actually know the material? Are we challenging students to demonstrate their skills? Under the current evaluation tools, students can graduate without knowing the curriculum at even a minimal level. That must stop. We must create measures that actually measure learning.

We must be honest with students and parents. Students deserve the truth. It is their future on the line.

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Teaching Lessons: Preface

4/30/2014

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When I started to write this book, my initial thought was to write a memoir about my teaching life. Students and faculty would be discussed. The trials and joys of the teaching profession would be explored. The purpose of that book would be to inspire and to entertain readers with interesting stories about my thirty five years in the classroom.
         However, I have chosen to do something different. It is my intention to distill my teaching experience and my study of the profession into key principles that teachers, students, and other stakeholders can use to improve our schools. My goal is to challenge your thinking about how schools really work. My objective is to identify problems and offer solutions. There are many dedicated and caring teachers and administrators in our country. These professionals are working hard to teach students. I have nothing but respect for them. I am one of them. The system in which they work is profoundly flawed. My goal is to recreate the system in a way that honors their efforts.
Students are not learning. A few examples will suffice to illustrate our present failure. “25% of college bound students could not name the ocean between California and Asia. 37% of these students could not find China on a map. 89% of these college bound students did not know that India is the largest democracy. They were ranked next to last in their knowledge of Foreign Affairs.” (Stewart page136) International tests document our weakness as well. “Over the years during which No Child Left Behind has been in force, US scores on the PISA has plummeted. We are 21st out of 30 countries in Science. Reading scores place us 18th out of 30. Math scores have declined to 25th out of 30.” (Stewart page 136)   “Our Black and Hispanic students score even worse than these averages.” (Brill, page 27) This trend is a long standing problem. “US students once again scored well below those in other developed countries on tests of reading, math, and science. These mediocre results followed similar scores from previous rounds of the PISA in 2000, 2003, and 2006.” (Stewart, page 2) Our schools focus on rote memorization to score well on standardized tests, while our competitors are teaching their children to be innovators and problem solvers. “75% of jobs require specialized knowledge today compared to 5% in the 20th century.” (Hammond, page 2)    Our public schools are in profound trouble.
         The problem is simple. We are not addressing the real issue. Most conversations about improving education revolve around the political and the social environment surrounding the schools. For example, what is better a charter school or a public school? Is a private school best? Pundits discuss the pros and the cons of each type of school. Some argue that the teacher unions are the villains. Others argue that legislators are not providing enough resources. While the political organization of the school is important, it is not critical.   What matters most is the teacher/student interaction. There is not a significant difference between academic success when comparing a union and a non-union school. “Unions do not cause low performance or high performance; they give teachers a collective voice in negotiations about working conditions in their schools.” (Ravitch page 256). The point here is that the type of governance in the school is not central to its success. Steven Brill, an outspoken critic of unions in education, supports this notion. “Eliminating every union contract will not solve the problem. That would give the freedom to try. It’s a prerequisite, that’s all. Then, you would have to train 70,000 to 80,000 teachers for the charter schools and 3 million teachers for the public schools.” It still comes down to teachers in the classroom, working with students every day. While governance is important, the quality of the teachers and their ability to interact in a classroom is key to the improvement that everyone wants for our schools.
The teacher/student relationship is given a mention but is never a primary focus. The thesis of “Teaching Lessons” is that the teacher/student interaction is the central issue in improving student learning.
We should analyze the interaction between teacher and students in the classroom.   For example, we should use videotape to study how teachers and students interact.   Their interaction should be analyzed to identify behaviors that encourage learning. These are good tools, if used appropriately to evaluate teacher performance and student learning. It may not tell us, if students are learning but will tell us how engaged they are in the learning process.    Both student and teacher behaviors need intense study to understand better how students learn. In addition, we need to study which teacher behaviors work best. We know a great deal about how learning happens. We need to get much closer to identifying how learning happens and how we can organize classroom to improve learning. We   need to know a great deal more about the learning process.

Learning Definition

Learning, in its purest sense, is not measurable. We put students into a classroom with a teacher and expect the learning to happen. Teachers are responsible to help students absorb information and perform skills. The process of encouraging students to learn is a complex process.   “What is important is not what can be taught but rather what is learned.” (Glasser, 1998) His argument is simple. Students learn. Teachers are guides that do the push/pull to bring students to the point of learning. It is not a linear process. Teacher action does not always equal student learning. Each student learns in a unique manner. No two students learn in exactly the same way. “Teachers   must be able to accommodate a variety of cognitive styles and learning rates, with activities that broaden rather than reducing the range of ways that students are taught.” (Hammond page 210) Professor Hammond is right. Each student learns in their own unique way. No teacher teaches the same way, every time. They must account for the academic level of the class, the personality of the class and the rapport they hope to build with that class. Teaching is a complicated, messy process. It is not rocket science, it is much more difficult.
The complexity increases even more when we are tying to teach higher level skills. One of the key differences between American schools and foreign schools is that we focus on rote learning and ignore higher levels of learning. The global economy is changing the job market in a profound way. “Skill jobs are quickly replacing manufacturing jobs. These jobs require problem solving, creativity and communication skills, foreign language, cultural understanding and innovation.” (Stewart, page 11) High stakes testing is destroying our ability to teach higher level knowledge because they make that type of learning unimportant. High stakes tests exert strong pressure to teach subjects only tested on a multiple choice tests at the expense of complex reasoning and performance. Teachers spend the majority of their class time, teaching to the test. The type of measurement has made higher learning invisible. On the other hand, high achieving nations model their measurement after international benchmarks like the PISA. “PISA defines literacy in math, science, and reading as students’ ability to apply what they know to solve new problems.” (Hammond page 11) It is no wonder that we are being out achieved by other countries when we have defined our goal in such a narrow way. The PISA test assess the ability of students to apply knowledge not just recite the data.   We must rethink how we define learning.
Instead of focusing on the learning process, we spend millions building facilities, in hope, that students will learn more. That is not to say that buildings are unimportant. They are but the impact is over rated. The thinking is that facilities impact learning significantly. Experience and research finds little support for that idea.
What happens in those classrooms make all the difference in the amount of learning that occurs in schools? We must create an environment for learning that focuses on problem solving and innovation not rote repetition. “In today’s interconnected world, our students are not competing with students from the state or city, next door but with Singapore, Shanghai, and Stockholm. (Stewart, page 3) We are in a battle for economic lives. Our students deserve better preparation for the contest and we are not providing them with the tools. “The competition for high-skilled jobs and high income jobs is indeed escalating, and the US can not maintain its standard of living unless in provides its citizens with a world class education.” (Stewart, page 2) Where does that battle start? It starts in classrooms in which excellent teachers challenge students to achieve at a high level. The focus needs to on what happens in classrooms, especially with the quality of our teachers.
I learned Junior English from an excellent teacher, Lois Jones. She had a remarkable sense of how to connect with us. She demanded excellence and we worked hard to please her. My senior year, the district moved us into a new building. Mrs. Jones was still excellent. It did not matter where she taught. She was amazing. If we had class in the parking lot, she would have been no less brilliant.   What made the difference was her ability to motivate us to care about her class. No one can replicate her techniques. Teaching is more art than science. Each teacher brings their individual approach to the teaching. We have to train teachers properly and turn them loose to inspire our children.

Teaching Lessons is about unleashing teachers to do their job.

Learning is a complicated process that can’t be reduced to a pen and a paper test.   We need to discover which procedures and or behaviors encourage student learning. What training do teachers need? How can we setup the classroom to encourage learning? What attitudes should students bring to the interaction? How does the teacher’s ability to communicate affect the learning process? We need to focus on the interaction that occurs within the classroom.

Distractions

         We spend too much time focused on minor issues. They affect the learning process but not in a significant way. As an educator, it is immaterial to me, if the school private, public, and charter. What matters most is how my students relate to me as a teacher. Students come to the classroom with a set of attitudes, beliefs, and values that limit or enhance their learning potential. George Will, in a July 5, 2012 column published in the Washington Post identifies some of these variables. “Abundant data demonstrate that the vast majority of the differences in school performance can be explained by the qualities of the families from which they come to school: amount of homework done at home, quantity and quality of reading done at home, amount of television watched at home, and the number of parents in the home.” The kind of connection the teacher builds depends to a large degree on the students’ background. If the teacher’s background is profoundly different than their students, it is going to be harder to make those connections with students. That is not an excuse but a fact. Do these potential demographic differences mean that teachers don’t have an obligation to teach? Of course, they do not.
“Learning depends upon students have some priori knowledge or experience.” (Soltis, 1991) Building a positive working relationship with students is the first step in teaching success. Their field of experience may be different than mine but that is not an excuse for failing to teach. We can not allow people to teach that do not have the proper training. “California, Florida, Texas, and North Carolina provide “alternative certification, which allows teacher with a few weeks training to teach students. These teachers end up in our weakest schools, increasing the achievement gap in the poorer schools.” (Hammond, page 81) Teachers can’t bridge those demographic differences without real training. These programs speak the message “that anyone can teach.” It’s not true. Teachers like Mrs. Jones did the proper training and through many years of experience learned how to reach students. Getting top students to teach has to our number one priority.
We need to start with the student/teacher interaction and build outward from there. Presently, we start from the outside and work toward the student/teacher interaction. These tangential issues distract us the classroom interaction. The fundamental discussion about the classroom never happens. The point of this book is to refocus our attention on what really matters, the classroom.

Measuring Learning

I reject the idea that a single test can measure learning. There has been a great deal of discussion about these tests. We need accountability based on research not political paradigms. (Ravitch, page 152) “The problem with using tests to make important decisions about people’s lives is that standardized tests are not precise instruments. Most elected officials do not realize this, nor does the public. The public thinks the tests have scientific validity, like that of a barometer, and that they are objective, not tainted by human judgment. The tests do not have the precision of a doctor’s scale or a yardstick.” These tests are a result of a political desire to place a measurement on the educational process. (Ravitch, page 29) “No Child Left Behind ignored the importance of knowledge. It promoted a cramped, mechanistic, profoundly anti-intellectual definition of education. In the age of NCLB, knowledge was irrelevant.” Using the tests seemed an objective and a precise way to measure learning. It is a simple and completely incorrect definition of learning.
The tests lack the specificity to tease out what part of the increasing or dropping test score are the teacher’s responsibility. If a student failed the test, what part of that failure belonged to the teacher? No one thought to ask those questions. Test scores are down, therefore, students did not learn. Learning is a much more complicated than a single test. (Ravitch, page 150) “The problem was the misuse of testing for high stakes purposes; the belief that tests could identify with certainty which students should be held back, which teachers and principals should be fired, and which schools should be closed and the idea that these changes would inevitably produce better education.”
These tests are not useful. Multiple measures are required. Educators need to look at a school and make reasoned judgments about how a particular teacher or cohort of students is doing.   “Test scores matter, but they are an indicator, not the definition of learning.” (Ravitch, page 90). These tests do transfer to the real world. “Our schools must therefore, prepare our students for a world where the opportunities for success require the ability to compete, connect, and cooperate on a global scale. Our students will need to be able to relate effectively to citizens of other nations and other cultures.” (Stewart page 136) Standardized tests focus on none of these attributes and reduce learning to rote recitation of facts on a test. The real world is not so black and white.   “Multiple measures of student learning, school practices, and school performance are need to assess progress and to determine the investments needed to serve students at all levels.” (Hammond, page 280) Multiple choice tests popular in the US today are too narrow a measure of what students learn.   We need measures that actually reflect the skills and knowledge students need to compete in the world economy.
We will discuss more about measuring learning and teaching later. It is futile, as the above discussion illustrates, to use a linear measurement for such a complex process as learning and teaching. We must not allow political and cultural pressure to force unrealistic measurements on the learning process. We need a comprehensive solution to improving education for all students. It is destructive to put a measurement tool at the end of the teaching process, without considering how using that evaluation tool will effect how teachers teach. The test defines learning as your best guess on a multiple choice test. It narrows the curriculum to the subjects tested and motivates teachers and administrators to move do whatever it takes to pass a test that they know is flawed.
We must define what learning is and develop multiple ways to measure such a complex concept. Learning has many levels and a measure must have multiple levels to better reflect real learning.   Our definition must reflect the reality of the learning process. For too long, we have defined learning and teaching in a political context as opposed to an educational context. Testing, as it is presently done, is political measurement not an educational measure. Our first step is to define what it means to learn and to teach students.

Purpose

         The book’s purpose is to expose what makes an excellent classroom. We must start at the beginning. The current discussion is focused on issues that are not central to the learning process. I want to change the agenda to focus on the internal processes of the classroom.   For example, the attack on teacher unions is more about political ideology than about learning improvement. Politics must stop at the schoolhouse door. We must look rationally at how to make schools more effective.
Each classroom, school and district is unique. A successful technique in one classroom may not work in the class next door. Much time and effort has been wasted on trying to find “best practices” that will apply to every classroom. While there are some things that all good teachers have in common, each teacher applies these techniques uniquely in each classroom. Therefore, it is not possible to have teachers all do the same thing at the same time in a school. It is in the application that makes teaching complex and difficult.
Once, we understand what makes a successful classroom; we can begin to restructure the political and social expectations to maximize student achievement. “Other countries are demonstrating that large scale acceleration is possible, even as our performance has been flat for decades.” (Stewart, page 4) Many countries around the world have learned the lesson. We will examine successful teaching systems around the world to learn from their success. Give teachers the autonomy to teach and hold them accountable for the results.
         The first part of the book describes how the schools are presently structured and how that organization affects learning. Once we have completed that analysis, we will propose solutions to improve the schools from the classroom to the larger school and the community as well. We must evaluate all we do in the context of how our actions affect the learning process inside the classroom. We can not impose our will on the classroom process but we must respect the classroom interaction as it naturally occurs.
We can have great schools in America. Are we willing to do the tough things to make all of our schools excellent? Teaching Lessons is about discovering exactly what it will take to have great schools.

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A Partial Vision

10/15/2013

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The district has done a good job of laying out the need for facilities and the board has been open to new ideas. It has been a good process. The question is what more do we know after the town halls that we did not know before these events. First, enrollments are projected to increase. As long as the boom continues, there seems to be an upward momentum to these numbers. Secondly, the district wants a reset for true middle schools (6-8) and high schools to include (9-12). This idea seems reasonable and makes academic sense. Third, the projections tell us that even with a third high school, our long term growth is so strong that after a dip to 4A immediately after the expansion, the high schools will move back to the 5A level within a couple of UIL alignment cycles. The bond will not meet our enrollment needs for the long term. It seems clear that based on the board’s analysis that Midland’s population may require periodic bond issues to keep up with the growth. Fourth, our current debt, including the recent elementary bond is 260 million dollars. There are no costs set to the secondary facility needs but it seems clear that if we build two high schools, one to replace the current Midland High School and a new High School, the secondary bond could double that 260 million debt. Fifth, there was some discussion of creating magnet schools, like Early College High School, for science, math, vocational or perhaps fine arts. The board has a clear vision for facilities.
What they lack is a clear academic vision for our schools. It is clear that the board has not integrated our achievement strategy with our facilities plan.
First, we need to invest money in the teachers. We need to provide teachers the highest salaries as possible. The district’s salary proposal is a step in the right direction but with need a long term commitment to building teacher salaries. Not only salaries but we need to create the best benefit packages possible to recruit the best teachers available. Develop the best health insurance available anywhere to send the clear message that we value teaching. Offer teachers money for getting into a house. In our overheated housing market, housing is going to have a huge impact on getting quality people here. In addition, we should offer current teachers abatement for their property taxes. The purpose is to reward teachers that have stayed with the district, over the long term.
The second thing is to create a teaching climate that values teachers. Give teachers freedom to teach their classes their way. Involve them in curriculum development and eliminate the use of any program that tries to “make all teachers teach the same way” or “tries to standardize daily instruction.” We should either trust teachers to teach or we should not hire them. Create a teaching environment that demands innovation and values feedback. We should cultivate a management style that demands excellence but provides training and mentoring to all teachers but especially to new teachers or struggling teachers. Teachers should be given the freedom to create inservice and training programs on skills and knowledge that teachers see as needed. Administrators must be seen as partners and I am sure that many principals do this right now. However, it must be a district wide emphasis focused by the school board and superintendent.
The third thing is to create the best evaluation system anywhere. We must hold teachers accountable and, most important, provide specific changes in preparation, in behavior, and in knowledge that teachers need to improve. Time must be carved out to do this vital task. Administrators need time to do complete evaluations and communicate that evaluation to the teachers. Each teacher should be evaluated by three different people to confirm the analysis. It will provide credibility to the evaluation when there is more than one pair of eyes doing the analysis. It will not do to say to a teacher, “Joe, you are doing great.” Or “Wow, you need to communicate better with students.” The critique must be specific and demanding. It must set clear expectations. Nationwide, half of all teachers leave the profession within the first five years. One reason is that young teachers get little mentoring during the initial part of their career. Our goal should be to create an expectation for excellence and then follow through as needed.
The fourth thing is to involve parents and other stakeholders in the school to support high expectations for all schools. Parents should be focused on the need for high standards, especially when it directly affects their child. Students take their cues from Mom and Dad. If parents value learning and have high expectations for both their child and their school, achievement is improved. MISD has to sell parents on the idea that rigor in class is important. The message must clear that learning is our first and only priority. I want my superintendent selling that message.
Fifth, we must provide facilities and resources as they are needed. The passage of the recent elementary bond is a good start. The district does a great job of providing resources to teachers but we can always do better.
Each classroom is unique and each set of students is unique. We must ask teachers what they need to do their job and provide those tools.
Many of the things that I have mentioned, the district are already doing to some degree. All these elements must be present to create the best possible teaching environment for our students. We have many great teachers in MISD. Both my sons graduated from district schools and have benefited greatly from their education from MISD. The focus must be on teachers and teaching. We must listen to parents and students to help them succeed. I know that many schools do a great job of that today. We can not be happy until every child learns at their full potential and I know that you believe that too. Many people may argue that MISD can go on a half billion dollar building project and build a cadre of great teachers too. I don’t agree. The time and the energy are just not there to do both.
We need a complete vision for our educational system, one that includes facilities but that the primary focus is on the instructional infrastructure that really makes a difference in the lives of students.

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Cultural Infrastucture

8/12/2013

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Excerpt from Teaching Lessons
Physical infrastructure is highly prized in educational settings. It is critical to the success of our schools. Clean, well developed spaces, with the latest technology, are central to improving our schools. It is a tangible, visible way in which communities can express their support of learning. It provides the opportunity for teachers to teach and for students to learn. However, the quality of instruction is based on the aspects of teaching and learning that are invisible. It is the quality of the relationships that are expressed in the classrooms that impact directly the effectiveness of learning and teaching.
         This “Cultural Infrastructure” is what elevates learning. When schools use these factors effectively, achievement happens. Students learn. Relationships that create positive learning environments are the key to achievement. Negative perceptions and poor attitudes destroy the opportunity to learn, no matter how wonderful the facilities may be. Without tending to these factors, there will be no improvement in learning. I want to look at several manifestations of this need for cultural infrastructure.
         The first relationship is between the parents and the school. Do parents support the school? The term support implies two things. First, are the parents committed to the importance of school in their lives and the lives of their children? Do they enforce homework first as a primary value in the home? All parents should be required to participate in their child’s school. Many students will not doubt resist limitations on their freedom but are parents committed enough to hold true to their value of learning? If parents have high expectations and reinforce those expectations with consequences, learning has a chance. When parents support teachers that give the grades that students deserve, learning has a chance. When parents expect their children to respect the teacher, they are building the infrastructure for success. Secondly, support means that parents have high expectations of the school. They expect excellent teaching and want to reward that excellence. Parents that express their disagreements with the teacher in a professional way, out of the hearing of the student, are moving the process forward. Parents that focus on finding causes of their child’s failure, not blaming others for their child’s lack of achievement are supporting the learning process.
         A second key relationship is the rapport between teacher and student. Learning is a process. That journey requires that students and teachers work in an environment of mutual respect. Law and custom are clear about this relationship. Your teacher is not your friend. There must be common agreement on basics like taking turns, when we speak. Using language that respects our classmates is an essential step toward a positive environment. We must protect the classroom from physical abuse. Each classroom has its unique character based on the personalities in the room. Each person’s life experiences affect how they interact in the classroom setting. Teachers must build a connection with the students and the students have an equal responsibility to connect with the teacher. Teachers must be trained to find the common ground with students.
         Teachers must be taught to lead students not boss them. There must be mentoring for young teachers, helping them to learn how to choose the right words to communicate clearly with students. We must make sure that we have a diverse group of teachers to teach an increasingly diverse student population. Our best and brightest college students must become teachers. Today, most of our teachers come from the bottom quartile of college students. We must develop classroom structures that provide alternative approaches from which teachers can choose to use in connecting with students.
         Another aspect of “Cultural Infrastructure” is the relationship between the teacher and the school leadership. Unfortunately, in many schools, teachers are not trusted to teach students. They have become the equivalent to button pushers. Super structured “teaching” programs for math or reading ask teachers to do exactly the same thing at exactly the same thing in every classroom in the school. These programs have become popular as a response to standardized testing. This situation reduces the status of the teacher as a hired hand not a true professional. Teachers are paid less than other professionals. It makes teaching a less valuable option for our top college graduates.
         High achieving countries use another approach. Without exception, these countries pay their teachers on a par with lawyers, doctors, and other professionals. They encourage teachers to develop their own style of teaching. For example, Finland provides scholarships for their teachers that eliminate the need for students to take out loans. What a lure that would be for potential teachers! Teachers could graduate without loans to repay as they start their teaching career. Teachers must have the freedom to teach their students with methods that fit their particular situation and their unique set of students. We should turn teachers loose to build relationships with students and create innovative ways of teaching their students. Each community is different and each classroom is different. Therefore, these one approach fits all students teaching programs, are certainly not going to create innovative thinkers that will develop new technologies for our economy.
         I hear people say all the time that ‘teaching isn’t rocket science” implying that teaching is really not that hard. They are right that teaching is not rocket science. It is much harder. When you deal with students each day, with all the other pressures that society places on the schools, it should demonstrate clearly the difficulty of the teaching process. The chemical reactions that lift a rocket off the ground are predictable. The reaction of a junior high school student is never certain. Moreover, what you say in response can cause an explosion that rivals the explosions that lift that rocket into space.
         This cultural infrastructure is where the real battle is to teach students is joined. Too often, we focus on the visible as opposed to the invisible. Let’s focus on these vital relationships to assist students in learning more effectively. Teachers, parents, students, and others have a responsibility to do the hard work of creating the “Cultural Infrastructure” for great schools.

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Less Than Honest

Teaching Lessons: Preface

A Partial Vision

Cultural Infrastucture

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