An excellent article that explains exactly why great teachers are leaving the profession

Excellent article in the Texas Tribune about great teachers leaving education
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For Some Teachers, Strain Runs Deeper Than Budget Cuts

• by Morgan Smith
• October 5, 2012

When Liz Peterson became an educator 14 years ago, she thought of teaching as a form of social justice. She entered the profession because she wanted to help close the achievement gap between poor students and their peers from more affluent backgrounds.

But in August, as the new school year began, the Teach For America alumna found herself somewhere she had never imagined: a private school classroom.  

“I never ever, ever considered teaching at a private school,” Peterson said. “That was never a thought in my mind.”

Since the Legislature eliminated more than $5 billion in funding from public education in 2011 some early results are easily quantifiable — like the approximately 25,000 employees shed from the state’s schools and the more than 6,200 additional elementary school classes that have more than 22 students.

Other potential consequences of the budget cut are not as easily measured. Several organizations — some with a stated agenda, like the Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers, and one from the nonpartisan Houston-based advocacy group Children at Risk — have conducted studies that investigate the impact of budget related changes, like the loss of one-on-one time with students and teacher planning periods, in which educators have reported a loss of morale and increased stress levels within the classroom.

But anecdotes like Peterson’s point to a strain in Texas public schools that has more complex origins than 2011’s reduction in state funding. If the issues are not addressed, they could further hinder efforts to attract and keep top teachers in public schools.

Peterson taught for 10 years in the Houston Independent School District at Johnston Middle School, which serves primarily economically disadvantaged, black and Hispanic students. For much of that time, she said, she considered the district a place that rewarded good teaching and leadership in its principals. Then policies changed, she said, and raising students’ standardized test scores became the goal that overrode any other aspect of their education.

“What mattered was the test scores of the students in the classroom, not the impact that people were having on students as a teacher,” she said. “Frankly, that’s super demoralizing, spending all this extra time doing what you know is best for the kids, and no one cares.”

When it came to the point that Peterson felt like not only was she dealing with a miserable work environment but also being asked to teach in ways that did not address students’ needs, she said, she accepted a position at a private school in Houston.

“I had other options and I took them,” she said.

Gary Dworkin, a University of Houston professor, has studied teacher morale in Houston metropolitan area districts since the 1980s. He measures burnout — which he defined as a feeling of isolation that produces a sense among educators that their work does not matter — as well as the level of trust teachers have in colleagues, administrators, students and parents.

Dworkin said the factor that has had the biggest impact on teacher burnout over the years has been attempts to raise teacher quality and educational standards through the accountability system, whether through changes initiated at the state or federal level.

For example, in 2002, the first year of the No Child Left Behind Act’s application, he said burnout levels among teachers spiked. But by 2004, they drifted down because although No Child Left Behind was in place, it was not affecting teachers’ jobs in a large way because many of its measures, like forced school closures, were not happening on a large scale.

Texas is currently in the midst of such a change. In addition to the budget cuts, the 2011 school year was also the start of the state’s transition to a new accountability system based on more rigorous student assessments that for the first time will be linked to graduation requirements and students’ final grades.

Many educators welcome the higher standards and the standardized tests that are more closely aligned to state curriculum that come with the new system, but its rollout has been marked bywidespread confusion among school districts about how to apply some of its new rules, and there have been unforeseen complications of the new retake requirements. The state's implementation of the new system along with the budget cuts is also the subject of a lawsuit against the state that will go to trial in late October.

Dworkin last collected data in March. He found that teachers in 2012 were almost twice as stressed as those in 2002. Teachers’ level of trust in colleagues, parents and students has dropped from years past, he said, and for the first time, their number of years teaching or their level of trust in their principals, usually factors that would cushion against feelings of stress, had no effect.

“It’s a homogenous level of anxiety,” he said, “and especially now schools are saying it’s going to get worse.”

A lack of planning for the new system has placed unnecessary stress on teachers, said Eastman Landry, who teaches high school physics at HISD’s fine arts magnet.

He said external pressures like district and state mandates about student assessments frustrated teachers when they interfered with their ability to instruct students. But Landry, a graduate of Rice University who has been teaching for four years, said he did not sense that most of his colleagues are ready to give up on the profession just yet.

“The tone at the end of the conversation isn’t ‘I can’t wait to get out of here,’ it’s almost like this accepted feeling of being overwhelmed, and not being in control of what we want to accomplish,” he said. “Then again, we aren’t dealing with products — we are dealing with students, and there are going to be challenges.”

He said the state budget cuts had resulted in staff reductions at his school and a heightened pressure to do more with less. But he added that simply putting more money into public schools was not the answer. He said focused, effective planning, like with the institution of the accountability system, was more important.

Like Eastman, Peterson described a nerve-wracking spring as her colleagues waited to know the extent of state budget cuts. She said she did not view them as the root of issues that prompted her to leave public schools. That happened because she wanted to work with “better adults and better leaders,” she said. At the private school where she teaches now, she said, teachers are treated like professionals.

“The number of unreasonable schedule changes or administrative tasks, or paperwork is nonexistent,” she said. “The majority of my job is teaching and providing leadership opportunities for students, and that’s really great.”

A mom's wishful thinking list of prescription for how DCPS could be top education district in the world in 10 years....

" In Washington, D.C., which has seen the same pattern,effective teachers now are leaving to teach in districts in which they feel more appreciated, to the detriment of the city's students."
                                                                    -Elaine Weiss, Huffington Post

                    I read this and thought, 'when will this madness of tests, stringent teacher evaluations and war against teachers end?'.  29,000 teachers marching, protesting this decade-old, new brand of education (D)eforms.  They are brave enough to ask for more, more for their children, more for their schools, more for our country's future. This statement above is so true and I know this because I left DCPS for a place I feel more 'appreciated'. The system in DC is broken, and as my 5 year-old daughter says every time she says something slightly hurtful, 'Sorry,but that is my opinion.'. As a parent in DCPS the argument to me is not about whether to keep schools closed or open anymore, to me the argument is whether or not as a whole the system  is set up to teach our children to be problem solvers and leaders of tomorrow. Sadly it is not. 

                   I have been wracking my brain for years now to find an easy way to explain to parents (and teachers sadly) why the testing culture hurts our kids, our future, our world. When people are reassured by schools and administrators within a testing culture, NO, in fact, they don't teach to the test, this is in essence a BIG fat lie. As an educator of 15 years, I have seen and experienced how the testing culture affects everything in education. When school cultures depend largely on testing scores to reward and punish teachers, one can't help to teach to the test, it's in the DNA of the system, it drives the system.  The testing culture's 'poison' gets into the cracks of everything we do as teachers, it affects our pace, our emotional availability to the kids, our ability to teach creatively, our ability to tap into what we know works best as professionals. In essence, teaching to the test is not so bad, but the fact that the test exists dictates so much of HOW we teach what we teach. Kids come out learning that there are right and wrong answers to everything, when in fact, in real life there are often many real answers. I liken it to being an experienced surgeon asked to operate on a heart with one hand tied behind her back. We have amazing teachers in DCPS and we ask them to be less, to teach in ways we don't believe and in essence rush our way through all of it in ways that sometimes lacks connection to the children and their lives. 
                    On the brighter side, a better way is very much possible in this generation. I am very hopeful that both teachers and parents will begin to finally speak up for what they KNOW is right and against what they know is wrong. Teaching children to be leaders and problem solvers is very much more affordable and as parents and teachers we need to continue to fight and speak up for genuine learning for our children. The kinds of learning that will truly prepare them for a very uncertain future. Below are my ramblings of what I think would fix DCPS and make us top in the world. I know, a tall order for sure, but after 15 years teaching, 2 masters in education and 2 kids of my own, I think I am way overqualified to give recommendations. We have much less experienced people than me leading whole districts across the country, so, emboldened by my fellow friends in Chicago I do dare speak!!
Here they are!! 

A DCPS mom's wishful thinking list of prescription for how DCPS could be top education district in the world in 10 years....

1. Hire Daniel Pink as consultant for DCPS when hiring the new Chancellor. This is a non-negotiable. We need a BIG picture person in this position. Someone who is not just another numbers-pusher, not just another Rhee-in-sheep's clothes. Mr. Pink will ensure that the top person in this position will be, as he calls in his book, the Type-I personality. (Too long to explain here, but read the book....will change your life). In fact, I'd let him sit in on interviews for all upper level staff positions, all principal positions, all vice principal positions.....for a decade maybe. We are lucky for he lives right here in DC and he won't even need to move here with his family to do his magic. The issue with DCPS top officials is their primary motivation has been control.  They don't necessarily need to be wise, inspirational, or experienced in education, or exceptionally dynamic, or have any common sense. No, to a teacher like me, their only job requirements now seems to be familiarity with the reward/punish system they have in place and to toe the line and follow the program. This is evidenced by the mere fact that downtown folks have their own 'downtown speech dialect'. If you've ever talked to someone from downtown (I mean the DCPS office) whose worked there for over a year or more you know what I mean. To have your own dialect, you have to be super exclusive, 'no outside thinkers allowed' is not the way to step into the future. 

2. Work with local and national colleges to hire only teachers who are highly adept at using classroom-based assessments to know where to go next with children. Ultimately, this is a very astute teacher who is willing to really get to know her students and have the internal tools to know what needs to happen to get them to the next level. 

3. End any form of reward/punish system and replace monetary rewards with RESPECT. Come on!! this is easy and free. As Daniel Pink explains, monetary rewards only make people think they are doing an undesirable task. Teachers love teaching, they do it because it's their calling. Pay them a fair amount and they won't ask for more. 

4. Of course, end all standardized tests. Don't worry, those excellent carreer teachers you have just hired that know how to asses their children in their own classrooms will make sure kids learn.  Oh, and what will we do with all that money? Valerie Strauss writes, 'In Texas, taxpayers will pay about $93 million this year to administer standardized tests to Texas students . . . or nearly ten times the cost of just nine years earlier.'  93 million in one year? How did this happen? To multiply ten times in nine years we all must have been asleep at the wheel. It's sad to me when I meet a parent, and especially a teacher, who is unaware of the policies affecting their children's education, and their own profession. We can no longer afford, literally, to keep our heads in the sand. This is absolute madness and WE are all paying for this as a society. Test scores only predict success in academics, the 21st century classroom needs to prepare kids to be leaders, outside the box problem solvers. A multiple choice test teaches kids that the answers are all out there, pre-packaged, neat and tidy. Kids today will not have neat and tidy solutions handed to them, they will need to BE the problem-solvers and come up with various answers, not one single answer! The tail is wagging the dog and we have not stopped to consider what the dog wants, what is the dog for? Testing as it exists today defines for us what education is all about, should't it be the other way around?

5. All curriculum should consists of kids solving problems. Not just any old problems, interesting ones, juicy ones, relevant ones....Ones that matter to them, problems in their own communities, problems at home, problems with friends, problems in society. Tomorrow's leaders are people who will in essence have the answers to unknown problems. Writing, math, social studies, science all come into play together and at the same time when we solve problems, they should not be taught as discreet subjects. Tomorrow's followers do best on filling in bubbles, but tomorrow's leaders do best at tackling interesting, personally relevant, local problems. School should be all about solving interesting problems, with 'interesting' being the key word here. 

6. Stop all hiring of short-term staff such as TFA. As a parent I want a teacher who finds teaching a calling, not a stepping-stone to something they consider 'better'. It's like a difference between a marriage and a one-night stand. Glaring huh? They both might be great and all, but one has promise, the other is short -lived. One was chosen with very little scrutiny, the other was chosen with lots of care. A system can't just open their teaching doors to any loosely-trained 'teachers', then rage about the quality of education those teachers provide within that system. The system as a whole needs to have a higher level of scrutiny of our teachers from the very beginning. 

7. Stop giving out bonuses. Pay teachers fairly, commensurate to other districts, but after that all the extra money does nothing for anyone. Not one teacher I know is changing what she's doing in her classroom in order to get a bonus, this is unheard of. All teachers are already doing their very best every day for that is the makeup of all teachers, the promise of doing it better tomorrow is in our blood. Pursuit of mastery is what being a great teacher is all about, you either have it or not. But you certainly can't 'carrot-and-sticks' your way into making it happen. All this ridiculous incentivizing does is create negative competition in a profession where collaboration amongst professionals should be first and foremost. 

8. Let's hear from experienced teachers when making policy that effects schools. The 'control' freaks have been making policy in DC for far too long and that is making education worse. Take the control out of the hands of these inexperienced-in-education, control-monger policymakers and hand over control to experienced teachers, who are experts at their field. If this phrase 'expert at their field' and the word 'teacher' do not sound right in your mind, it's because we have been taught to not think of teachers as experts. But yes, in fact, experienced teachers are experts at their field. When I have a child development question I go to my daughter's kindergarten teacher who has 25+ years experienced and I am sure to get a better answer than a less experienced teacher any day. Call it ageism, call it whatever you like, but every major culture in the world revere their elders for a reason, if not, we are just reinventing the wheel with each new generation. Sadly, In DCPS, experience,  is not respected, looked down up even. Younger teachers are openly given much more praise by the non-experienced policymakers, principals and leaders and consequently the whole system lacks general respect for the more experienced ones.  It's appalling to see and very sad to experience this phenomenon. 

9. Lower teacher to student ratios in areas affected by poverty. Yes, more teachers, more resources, more funding for poverty areas. Teachers are tired of being blamed for 'under-performing' schools deeply affected by poverty. I put 'underperforming' in quotes because in fact, there are amazing things that go on in these schools every single day, yet, we rarely get to hear these stories. The problem comes from the fact that policymakers think of poverty in very non-realistic terms. I have long believed that education policymakers must see poverty as sections of people who just have a lesser version of things wealthier people have. Perhaps they think people in poverty just have a lesser model of car, a smaller house, a less expensive phone than say a rich person might. In fact, the reality is much more grim than that. People in poverty don't just have lesser versions of what a rich people have, instead, they lack the very essentials that make living even possible. Some children lack food, some lack physical security, some lack emotional stability, medical care, dental care, family stability, child-friendly environments, child-friendly conversations, child-friendly entertainment and the list goes on. I have also long wondered why policymakers have not yet added more resources to impoverished areas? Perhaps, it's been easier (and cheaper) to blame teachers. 
            Where will the money come from you ask? From the money we saved from no longer testing our kids of course. 

10. Cultivate our teacher population.  Every year DCPS fires hundreds of teachers under the guise of making schools better, but in fact, schools are not getting better and their own data proves that. These fired teachers, victims of the 'manhunt', are people who want to help and work with children we need their energy and stability in our schools. Yes, there will always be teachers that were not cut out to be teachers, as there will always be doctors who were not cut out to be doctors, and cashiers who suck at what they do, as there will be unhelpful receptionists....and on and on and on. But to have a yearly system primarily run on this insane manhunt to identify and fire these supposedly ineffective teachers is a huge waste of energy and money. At what point will this firing pace begin to slow down? When will the system become more concerned with primarily cultivating the ones we have left? When will it begin to primarily focus its efforts in further inspiring our effective teachers to reach even higher? 

My dream job, Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose

         What a wonderful few weeks it's been. I started a new job this month teaching visual arts in Spanish to young children in K, 2nd and 4th grades.  I am beyond happy with my new responsibilities and for once in my life I actually see myself staying in one place for the long-term. In trying to piece together that exactly makes this job so special I keep turning back to the ideas and words of Daniel Pink, author of Drive. Every word in his book is like a soothing balm, validating what I have always already known about optimal working environments and the human need for autonomy, mastery and purpose. 

            I have autonomy in the way I teach. I am given comprehensive and systemic support to help me meet my goals, but ultimately trusted and left alone to reach these common goals. I am treated like a professional by the mere fact that I am trusted to know her content and in that way I have a sense of autonomy as well. The school district I work for also drastically loosens the amounts of evaluations teachers get after the first 3 probational years; that alone communicates trust and respect for experience. 

            On Mastery. Daniel Pink writes about flow.  In flow, "people lived so deeply in the moment, and felt so utterly in control, that their sense of time, place, and even self melted away. They were autonomous, of course. But more than that, they were engaged.” I am in the flow all day long at my current work and it feels amazing to set and meet my own personally set goals towards my own idea of mastery. In previous jobs, there were constant systemic battles to undertake that it was next to impossible to experience flow for any amount of time. There would be scheduling issues, frustrating communication gaps, unequal distribution of labor, lack of transparency from Downtown, as well as absurd District decisions that would constantly take up mental realty. I got tired of fighting for common sense and chose a more pleasing road and I could not be more grateful being brave enough to wish for greener pastures. 

              Purpose. Daniel Pink also describes in his book how people that feel personally invested in their work describe their job environment using the pronoun, 'we', while people who do not see themselves as part of the system describe their work environment using the pronoun 'them'. I feel very deeply now that I have a sense of purpose here. I know I am an essential part of a larger picture and that feels spectacular.  

            In raising my own two children I hope to encourage them to seek fulfilling, soul replenishing work with people, groups and organizations that dole out plenty of autonomy, allow personally-set goals towards mastery and involve them in a sense of purpose. 

Books I am reading Right NOW....

The importance of 'meaning it'

                       I just finished reading the book, Linchpin by Seth Godin and in it he has so many incredibly useful and life-changing ideas. But the one I especially keep coming back to this week is the one about the importance of being genuine, of 'meaning it.' He explains that human beings are very astute at being able to 'read' each other and if you're not going to genuine in your expressions and communications then why bother for all of us can read right through the facade anyway. He further explains that if you're at a place of work, for example, where the culture is not conducive for you or others to being genuinely friendly and courteous and respectful as a whole, that perhaps, this is not the place for you. 

                       The reason I keep coming back to this idea of 'meaning it' is that, as many of you may know, I got a new art teaching job this year, at a different district than last year. This school system, Arlington Public Schools in Northern Virginia, has really done a great job inspiring me beyond what I had expected; I mean, they have taken this 15-year teacher off her feet! Aside from their impeccable organization of orientation week so far, the people are just so, so friendly, almost old-world gracious. Myself being somewhat of a cynic due to past circumstances and a critic by nature, I all week long trying to literally 'assess' the genuineness of every new person I met. I asked myself, "Could they possibly be this happy?", "Could they possibly be this helpful to me?",  "Could they possibly love their job this much?" I pride myself at being able to read people, and yes, slowly I'm starting to believe that these new friendly, smiling people may actually be as friendly, happy and content as they present themselves to be!! I feel this will be an amazing journey and happy to be on this path. 

                         So why does 'meaning it' matter anyway? Here's why. Godin, in his book, explains how we've all experienced the human automatons on customer service calls who respond a canned, 'I am so sorry you're experiencing difficulties' as you call for help. When you hear these dry remarks we immediately know why meaning it matters. The canned response does not alleviate our situation, or soothe us in any way because we know it's not genuine. 

                   This same dilemma repeats itself in the state of education in this country today, especially in the inner cities. The overburdening of our teachers with scripted lessons, scripted morning responses, scripted set of behaviors only takes away from our kids for 'scripted-ness', by its very nature, is limiting, a dead-on inspiration killer. Inspiration matters because all great ideas come from inspiration. I'd go as far as to say that the solution to our educational system lies right here in this issue of 'being allowed to be genuine.' It's simple......If only, as a country-wide initiative we would from now on ONLY hire teachers we trust to teach (for life), we could then 'loosen the noose' and allow our teachers to be who they are, to critically develop her own ideas and teach without all the scripting. Inspiration does not and will not stem from inside a cage.  Just like in gardening, all the conditions must be met for flowering to happen. 
                       
                     

THIS is what learning should look like!!!

Finally getting some reading time this summer. Reading all about teaching second-language learners and about strengths-based teaching...very inspiring

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Stregths-Based School.....brilliant ideas by Author Jenifer Fox

                Thsi morning I listened to an hour-long live online interview with Jenifer Fox on a Stregths-Based School. http://www.stevehargadon.com/2012/04/live-tuesday-april-9th-jenifer-fox-on.html Very inspiring!

Here what is says online about her:

Jenifer Fox is the author of Your Child's Strengths, and now Head of School at The Clariden School of Southlake.  We'll be talking about what it's like to start a 21st-Century high school program, blended and project-based learning, and her relentless pursuit of getting people to stop teaching traditional content.

Jenifer Fox is a turnaround and strategic advancement expert. Her work includes expanding enrollments, boosting sustainability through rigorous and successful fund raising and taking independent schools to the next level through coordinated strategic plans focused on the organization's strengths. She is the author of the bestselling education book, Your Child's Strengths (Viking 2008; Penguin, 2009), Stories of Excellence: Case Studies of Exemplary Teaching and Learning with Technology. (NAIS, 2008) and the Differentiated Instruction Book of Lists (Jossey-Bass, 2011). Fox is widely considered the international leader in developing strengths-based curriculum for youth. Fox is also an expert at integrating curriculum and technology and is creating online, project-based platforms for youth.

                      I got a very important idea listening to this interview: Fox states that good education is about preparing you for a good life. What is a good life but meaningful work and meaningful relationships and she strongly believes that there is not one cookie-cutter type of education that could get us there. Brilliant!
                       She also had some incredibly neat ideas about teachers of the future. Teachers no longer need to know all content there is to know, they need to be master researcher, and who understands the questions. Teachers of the future, Jenifer Fox states, are going to be teachers that are NOT specialists but generalists, who can help kids find their own information!!! She believes all high school students should know how to use Excell, photoshop and have some basic movie-making skills. 
                     She also addresses parents' nervousness about the de-emphasis on testing and high school kids being bored in school and a growing need for school to actually be ENGAGING. What a concept, what a breath of shed air!! I am ordering her book this minute. 

Systems. How they can inspire or burn us....

                Systems. We exist within them, we work in them, we send our children to them. There are systems all around us. School systems, government systems, economic systems, food systems. After my experience working in DCPS for 3 years, I have become ultra sensitive to systems and how they have the potential to make its participants either thrive or wilt. This is one of the reasons I am resigning from DCPS. 


                Currently, I work for DCPS, a system notorious for being highly disorganized, top-down, and distrusting of its teachers. Most of its teacher-directed policies are created with the premise that,  'there are some really bad teachers out there who are not doing their job right and we must weed them out". This was all fine at the beginning of the process, but every year we have what Washingtonians now call, "Churn and burn". Most currently, I have been appalled to see the very open and heavy recruitment and hiring of non-DCPS employees. All the while, some 333 effective DCPS teachers wait to get rehired by any school after being displaced due to funding reductions to their schools. Hundreds of new teachers coming in, hundreds going out. 


                 The morale-busting continues with the excessive 5-times a year obligatory observations of which only one is scheduled, the rest are pop-ins. In a 10-month period that means we get observed every 2 months. No matter how effective and experienced the teacher, they still get this many observations. One could be 2 years from retirement and have been a great teacher all their life yet still getting 5 observations in a 10-months period. Next, the increasing number of enormously costly, two-week long, standardized tests. Every child, beginning in 2nd grade, goes through this grueling 2-week process yearly. Each year, there are more and more subjects added to be tested. At the expense of our kids' education and time, the results are then used primarily to help fire teachers and to promote unhealthy competition amongst teachers. I don't have an issue with evaluation of children's education, yet the use of the scores to grade the teacher (called, "value-added") has been proven to have a corrupting affects on education overall.  


                  Next, the mandatory and over-collection of data. This requirement to collect and report data back downtown has become so time consuming in the last few years that classroom teachers are out of the classroom for hours on end collecting data from individual kids. Where are the rest of the kids while this is taking place? with substitutes, who are not teachers.  
              
                    In comparison, I would like to give you a sense of my experience interviewing with Arlington Public Schools. I feel a comparison is needed here to get parents, especially, to understand why this systemic problem is also our problem. A teacher beat down by a system is less likely to be emotionally available to our children, and when they are not emotionally available they are less likely to inspire, connect and enrich the lives of our children. In Arlington, after three years, the observation count drops dramatically and teachers get to have a say about how they will improve their own practice and even asked declare ways they will address any weaknesses as part of their yearly evaluations.  These type of teacher-related policies communicate trust. Trust then allows great teachers the freedom to do what they do best, teach, inspire and connect with our children. As incentives, teachers get incentivize through professional development opportunities as a way to advance in their field. This communicates respect. DCPS, by handing out monetary bonuses to their highly effective teachers, promotes favoritism; this negative practice foments unhealthy competition with the same peers with whom collaboration is required for a good working relationship.  Having been with this system for three years now, I have been feeling my morale, my energy and my creativity quickly wilting and it was time I listened to my body. I am an excellent teacher, but DCPS as a system, got me down. DCPS made me feel paranoid and made me feel ineffective most days. After each observation I would feel helpless for days on end. 
                     
                     I have become convinced through this experience with DCPS that in order for any system to be sustainable, run effectively and smoothly for years to come, its leaders need to insure that its big, overriding ideas become the driving force behind all its policies. In addition, its big, overriding ideas need to have respect and trust embedded. All policies, no matter how benign they seem, communicate assumptions about a group of people. That assumption, however subtle and nuanced, will work its way to the inner psyche of all its participants and either inspire and energize or wilt and harden them from the inside out. 


                      I have chosen not to become hardened and wilted and sought shelter in a less harsh waters. To be an effective teacher I need to remain open, fresh and inspired myself. If my blood-pressure is to the roof, and I am losing sleep over increasing the percentage of higher level questions I am asking in any given lesson, I have lost all focus. As Einstein said, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." I needed to be someplace where the stuff that can't be counted, like inspiration, still counts. 


                      

THIS is what kindergarten should look like.....

                               I am making a point this summer to show all the magic of what education COULD be without all the testing that is currently dumbing it down. I have this teacher, Sally, whom I follow through her blog and she does amazing, creative and magical things with young kids. Imagine all kindergarten classes looked and felt this wonderful. Below is a sampling of what she does.....here is the LINK to her site too....

A few weeks ago I was walking around the neighborhood with my husband when I spotted this wonderful dead tree sitting on the curb -- it still had the roots!!  "Honey, pick up that tree for me."  My husband grimaced.  He knew all too well - another art project!

Trees are one of my favorite art forms!  Here is how I took a dead tree and had the children transform it into a Fairy Tree.  (It was a part of my recycling unit - we recycled a dead tree!! LOL!)

How the simple act of noticing saves, betters and changes lives

                               The theme of my life lately has been the act of noticing. It sounds benign enough, but oh boy! does it have huge implications in our lives. It began with a movie I watched called, Twelve and Landing. In this amazing movie all the characters made life changing decisions based on whether or not they were noticed as human beings. Why does it have such an effect on people's lives? 
                                Noticing, in my experience has an anti-wilting affect on the human soul. Having worked with kids for many years, I have always experienced the joy kids feel when you see that something unique in them, and let them know it, make them aware that you know about this 'diamond nugget' you see in them. It's no wonder then, that we as adults too need this soul feeding experience.  It's human nature to have this need to not only be loved and valued, but also to be noticed and acknowledged for the our more unique and more subtle qualities. 
                                This new theme and focus on the value of attention and noticing has even made me reconsider the way I raise my own children. For example, for the past three years I have been involved in DC's education policy battle to bring back common sense into the District. Right now we have more and more testing each year, a churn of new inexperienced teachers being hired yearly despite hundreds of effective, experienced teachers being displaced by budget changes. In addition there is less and less emphasis in the arts and project-based learning due to this obsession with raising a tests score. This 'battle', as I call it, has taken me away from my own children due to countless meetings and added responsibilities. Yet, even if I were to be 'successful' in my advocacy work, I figured the ultimate return on my kids' education would have been minimal. I began this policy work as a way to better my children's education, yet, meanwhile they would have lost all this valuable and irreplaceable quality time with me. I have therefore chosen to refocus my energies on a much more sure-return on my efforts, quality time with my kids as a priority. In the act of noticing them, listening to them and valuing them beyond just because they are mine will make more of a difference in their lives than 1000 hours of education advocacy work in the District. 
                              

               I feel like I finally have more time again to be able to write. I have been actively involved in the last 3 years in informing myself and in many ways battling the crazy 'de'form agenda taking over our schools across the nation. But lately, I have wanted to simply exists outside of these battles in my head and focus more on what works in education rather than always trying to expose how currently we are headed the OTHER direction. The shift in focus is a much needed on. I am ultimately a teacher and a parent first, not an organizer, or a politician. So look for posts more about schools and teachers that are doing wonderful things in education. My need to get renewed inspiration in my calling as a teacher has me needing these more positive narratives swimming around in my head. Ultimately, we teachers need to be inspired too. 

The Importance of Art Education in a 21st Century Education

Below are the 8 habits of mind I use in my art studio. As an art teacher and a teacher of 15 years I deeply believe that the arts help prepare our children for 21st Century learning, thinking and work-related skills. It's one thing to teach a child concepts, vocabulary, and historical facts, but it's quite another form of learning to teach a child to think, work with their mistakes, persist, envision, express, observe, reflect, explore and understand. In teaching with the habits of mind as the 'umbrella' that guides all lessons and units we ensure that children will always embrace all situations with these helpful habits of thinking. In the art room, I don't teach the kids to be 'artists', I teach them to be independent thinkers and explorers of answers by following their own questions.

I have often been asked why I don't have kids make Picasso-like work, or Matisse-like work. While we still look at these artists and their work, we rarely waste time trying to merely emulate them or their style. In emulating another artist's work we dispossess the children of their own innovative abilities to find their own unique style. Instead, we discover what inspired these artists to do what they did and similarly look for our own inspirations in our own lives. In following our own inspirations we place value in our own ideas, our own stories, our own unique capabilities. When all else in school is simply telling kids what they should know, in the art studio kids learn to value their own voice and to verbalize, through art, their own expression of this world. The idea that you can only be exceptional at what you love is huge in the art studio. To simply create a Picasso-like face, we might make a pretty picture to take home, but kids will never walk away truly feeling like creators or innovators of their own ideas or concepts.

The arts, in fact, give children an enormous advantage in the future, when they hit the job market. Children who can follow these habits of mind (see below) can take everyday obstacles, in any field, and turn them into opportunities. When I hear people downplay the importance of my role as an art teacher in education, I immediately know they've never had a hands-on studio art experience. When I hear about art and music being cut from budgets to only be replaced with more seemingly academically-focused courses, I am saddened for those children, for they will only be further crippled by this lack of arts education in their lives. I am not creating artists, I am teaching an essential 'language' of seeing, creating and expressing that will undoubtedly enhance all forms of human interactions. Art is a life-changing experience.....and no education should be without it....

Studio Thinking Framework Eight Habits of Mind
	Develop Craft Learning to use and care for tools (e.g., viewfinders, brushes), materials (e.g., charcoal, paint). Learning artistic conventions (e.g., perspective, color mixing).
	Engage & Persist Learning to embrace problems of relevance within the art world and/or of personal importance, to develop focus and other mental states conducive to working and persevering at art tasks.
	Envision Learning to picture mentally what cannot be directly observed and imagine possible next steps in making a piece.
	Express Learning to create works that convey an idea, a feeling, or a personal meaning.
	Observe Learning to attend to visual contexts more closely than ordinary "looking" requires, and thereby to see things that otherwise might not be seen.
	Reflect Question & Explain: Learning to think and talk with others about an aspect of one’s work or working process. Evaluate: Learning to judge one’s own work and working process and the work of others in relation to standards of the: field.
	Stretch & Explore Learning to reach beyond one's capacities, to explore playfully without a preconceived plan, and to embrace the opportunity to learn from mistakes and accidents.
	Understand Art World Domain: Learning about art history and current practice. Communities: Learning to interact as an artist with other artists (i.e., in classrooms, in local arts organizations, and across the art field) and within the broader society.

NCLB waivers explained

Posted in the Washington Post at 03:00 AM ET, 01/21/2012

NCLB waivers: The devil is in the details

By Valerie Strauss

This was written by Jack Hassard, professor emeritus of science education at Georgia State University and a former high school teacher. He is the author of these books: The Whole Cosmos Catalog of Science , Science Experiences , Adventures in Geology , The Art of Teaching Science (2009), and most recently, Science As Inquiry . Specialities include science teaching & learning, global thinking & education, geology, web publishing, blogging, writing, and antiquing. This essay was originally posted at his blog, The Art of Teaching Science, and on Anthony Cody’s Living in Dialogue blog at Education Week Teacher.

By Jack Hassard

The U.S. Department of Education wants to insure that every teacher in the United States is evaluated on the basis on student progress on high-stakes achievement tests. To achieve this, the DOE will issues waivers on some aspects of No Child Left Behind in exchange for a state-wide system to evaluate teachers using tests.
In this post I provide details and opinions on this development.

Waivers In the News 
The NCLB waivers have become a newsworthy item. Here are links to a few articles published recently.

Waiver ties teacher evaluation to test scores, was the title of an article in Atlanta Journal-Constitution on January 10.

In Education Week, James Cavanagh wrote a piece entitled Some States Skeptical of NCLB Waivers.

Will NCLB Waivers Reverse Narrowing of the Curriculum? an article in Education Week

Huffington Post reported: No Child Left Behind Waivers may be too expensive, State officials say

ESEA Flexibility Requests

This all started when 11 states had asked for waivers, after the DOE announced they would offer a "flexibility package" from some provisions of No Child Left Behind, especially ones the states felt they couldn't reach by the target dates set by NCLB. States submitted what is called an ESEA Flexibility Request. This link will take you to a Word document which spells out exactly what should be in the request, and how it should be organized. It's really a template that all states must use to get the waiver.

Here are links to ESEA Flexibility Requests received so far:
Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana , Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Tennessee each submitted a request for ESEA Flexibility on November 14, 2011. You can read the entire request for each of these states by following the links to the states.

Flexibility is asking and spelling out the waivers that each state requests, and then assuring that they will meet the principles identified by the DOE.

Principles Exchanged for Waivers 
I downloaded the 249 page Georgia Flexibility Report to find out what really is in these reports, and why some states are all for them, and why some states are very skeptical of the NCLB waivers. My comments in this section are based on an examination of the Georgia report. I live in Georgia, and am professor emeritus of science education at Georgia State University, and have had more than 30 years of experience in education in Georgia.

Georgia was a Race to the Top (RttT) winner, and has had a head start on the principles that are described below that they must implement and meet in order to get waivers on NCLB.

There are three principles that all states who request a waiver must adopt. They must detail how they will develop, and implement each of these principles in all schools by 2017. Examination of the principles exposes the sheer weight of bureaucratic rules, high-stakes tests, teacher evaluation measures, and the inordinate number of officials controlling public education far from the day-to-day lives of students and teachers.

Principle 1: Adopt College and Career Ready Standards 
College and career ready standards means that the state will adopt the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and reading/language arts. In Georgia's case the GaDOE is partnering with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support the "transition" to the Common Core State Standards. The state agrees to develop and administer annual, statewide, aligned, high-quality assessments that measure student growth.

The Common Core State Standards, which were written by Achieve, Inc., have been adopted by most states. Achieve is busy at work writing the new Science Standards, and they no doubt will be adopted by all states. But, keep in mind that Achieve is also writing the tests based on these sets of national standards, and so down the road, we will see a set of national tests. And, it doesn't matter where students live, they all must live up to this single of standards in each curriculum area.


Principle 2: State-Developed Differentiated Recognition, Accountability and Support 
This is a big one. The state agrees to provide meaningful information about school performance, student achievement and graduation rates, closes gaps for all schools across the state, and targets schools that need help. Priority schools (the lowest performing), and Focus schools (schools that contribute to the achievement gap) will be targeted. Reward school — you guessed it, a school that has exceptional performance. There is even a plan to compensate high performing schools.

One of the sub-principles driving each state is setting performance standards for high school and elementary/middle schools. To do this, the states (at least as shown in the Georgia proposal) use a prescribed formula to get to the Performance Targets in 2017. Here is the formula or algorithm that Georgia uses to determine annual growth that school must meet in each subject area.

Annual Growth = (100% - 2011 Proficiency Rate)/6

As an example in high school biology in Georgia, the annual growth would be: 100% - 69.1 = 30.9/6 = 5.15. 69.1 was the 2011 proficiency rate. So, if you are teaching biology in Georgia, proficiency rates must increase by 5.15 so that by 2017, the rate will be 84. It seems to me that this kind of thinking urges teachers to teach to the test to make sure that their students can answer correctly the questions on the high-stakes bubble tests. There is no theory underlying the notion of annual growth, and how these scores relate to the research in the learning sciences.

Go to any state department of education website in the United States and you will find a treasure trove of data on student test scores by year, content area, grade level and school. At the Assessment page on the Georgia Department of Education website you will find endless Excel data tables by grade level, subject area, and school which you can download.

Principle 3: Supporting Effective Instruction and Leadership (Guidelines for Principal and Teacher Evaluation)

This principle is the one that is being picked up in newspapers, and on blogs around the country. Fundamentally, it means that teacher and administrator evaluation will be tied in some way to student progress on achievement tests. Using student progress on achievement test scores as a measure of teacher effectiveness is riddled with problems, and inconsistencies. The tests themselves are developed by testing corporations that have little or no vested interest in the local school and its curriculum, students, teachers, or parents. The decisions being made are far removed from communities that make up the school districts, and collectively are the building blocks of the state education system. Everything that is being done is from the top-down by bureaucrats who once were part of local schools, but have moved to central command centers in the state capitals of the U.S., and from their vantage points, look out, and make decisions for thousands of students and teachers.

Here is a multiple choice question for you to consider: DEM, LEM, and TEM are:

a. Nicknames for the latest X-Box game superheroes

b. Abbreviations for newly discovered planets outside the solar system

c. Names of three new political parties in the State of Georgia

d. Acronyms for Georgia's system wide approach to effectiveness and accountability

Well. How did you do? The answer is "d," and you can find these terms in charts and discussions in the State of Georgia's first proposal for the Race to the Top competitionand in the Georgia ESEA Flexibility Request. A DEM is the acronym for District Effectiveness Measure; LEM is the acronym for Leader Effectiveness Measure; and TEM — you guessed it, is the acronym for Teacher Effectiveness Measure. All of these measures will have a significant student growth component, and of course the state will develop a "establish a clear and transparent approach to measuring student growth." Now, if you believe this, I'll sell you a bridge! You can read more about this here.

Summing Up 
I have read Georgia's Race to the Top grant proposal and the Flexibility Request. What have we done? We've lost our way in the world of reform led by people who know very little about the lived world of students and teachers. To improve schooling, reform has to be led from the ground up by educators working at local levels.

I rigorously object to the Race to the Top, to the notion of college and career ready standards, and the use of high-stakes tests for making life changing decisions about students, teachers and administrators. I've written much on this, and I have summarized research and analysis in two eBooks that are available here:
Achieving a New Generation of Science Standards 
The Enigma of High-Stakes Testing in Science

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