In Our Efforts to Avoid It, Have We Become A Nation at Risk?

My brothers and I are children of the "A Nation At Risk" report. The first of three children, born in the baby bust (1973 & 1974) and the baby boomlet (1981), we were the ones the report was "analyzing" and the report was preparing for. We have grown up. We are parents. We have taken on careers, families, and are about to carry the mantle handed down to us from "The Greatest Generation" and the "Baby Boomers." What is this legacy you hand us? In education, we are still grappling with that very question.

Lets see what has occurred after "A Nation At Risk." The calendar did not reform. Many schools are still as set on an agrarian calendar as if we needed to head to the fields each Memorial day. School funding hasn't equalized. We had great debates regarding equity and adequacy. We learned that we can find taxing mechanisms that seem more fair but less stable. Michigan still reels after it's "Proposal A" funding reform which while the auto industry boomed during the first 5 years was fine and has since had 15 years of cuts to the point in which if one wants to become a teacher more often one leaves the state. Professionalization and respect for the teaching profession has not increased. Teachers and administrators are pitted annually with false layers of "unwillingness to change," "lack of accountability," and "satiated by tenure." 

In the last 32 years, we have as a nation have added standards set after standards set, test after test, reduced professionalism in the classroom and added accountability. We are sending the children of No Child Left Behind onto college and into the career world discovering that that are really good at standardized having completed year after year of test prep and wondering why they are disenchanted and disconnected with greater society values. We have stressed accountability in the classroom and demonstrated a lack of accountability in other institutions. They are America's children. They have noticed the gridlock in the legislature, the huge corporate funding influencing their "representatives" and the bailouts of Wall Street. If we wonder why they don't go into teaching, look at their experiences. They want to create and have found that schools were a test prep academy.

In an era of statistical sampling, SABRmetrics, and advanced metrics in life and in sports, only through Federal mandate and state law would we create a system that required annual population data. The census is taken every ten years. Elections accurately predict winners prior not only to every vote being counted but rather most votes being even cast. Yet, each child, third to eighth grade and some high school years, will spend more time this year than any year prior taking standardized assessment. 

The funny thing is despite this journey through education reform after reform, test after test. Inside schools Generations X, the Millennials, and Generation Z have decided to create, to innovate, to grow flowers in the desert. For them, for us, we look at these mandates and ask, what can we do despite the legislature? How can we "right size" this assessment and our efforts to fulfill it? How quickly can we get back to the business of having children explore, create, dialogue, argue, and build? How soon can we be back to coding, genius hour, guided instruction, science exploration, and social-emotional learning? We have received the letters from the Illinois State Board of Education and US Department of Education. Letters from leaders of generations past, reminding us of our legal requirements and the penalties we will receive if we do not comply. And we will be compliant. But do we value the energies of your reform? Will families value these PARCC and SmarterBalanced test scores? Or is this simply an exercise until we get back to the good stuff. We are doing it. We will be compliant. But will we value it, what will it's impact be on this next generation of learners, and is it worth it? What is price tag of our journey? Have we become the Nation at Risk? 

Price Tag - Pitch Perfect

How Do We Measure Growth?

"Value Added" has become the focal point of the newest wave of education reform. How did your students gain when they were with you? Conceptually it makes sense. What achievement level did the students walk in at and what level did they leave at? If we were measuring the height of a student, it would be easy. Have the student stand next to the wall, mark the level they walk in as, mark the level they are at the end of the semester. Voila! The difference is how much they have grown.

When looking at student data, this is much harder. Here are two real examples using NWEA MAP data:

Group 1: Current First Grade Students in Math

        Fall Score - 171.66  RIT Mean

        Winter Score - 181.48 RIT Mean

        Mean Growth - 9.78 RIT

        68% of Students make their target growth

        19% more overall growth than a class of comparative peers in the Fall

Group 2: Current Fourth Grade Students in Math

        Fall Score - 205.73  RIT Mean

        Winter Score - 210.80 RIT Mean

        Mean Growth - 5.07 RIT

        50% of Students make their target growth

        2% more overall growth than a class of comparative peers in the Fall

From the data, it Group 1's teachers clearly out performed Group 2's teachers. They added more value. If only it were this easy. Lets add one more data point:

Group 1: Current First Grade Students in Math      

        Spring Score - 181.30 RIT Mean

        Fall Score - 171.66  RIT Mean

        Winter Score - 181.48 RIT Mean

        Mean Growth (Spring to Winter) - 0.18 RIT

Group 2: Fourth Grade Students in Math

        Spring Score - 205.50 RIT Mean

        Fall Score - 205.73  RIT Mean

        Winter Score - 210.80 RIT Mean

        Mean Growth (Spring to Winter) - 5.30 RIT

Group 1 did a great job this year with what they had. Their students lost a significant amount over the Summer (over 10 RIT points) and they brought those children back during the first semester. Who do we blame for the loss? The six-year old students? Their parents? Their Kindergarten teacher who got them that high? Lack of year round schools? None of these are realistic options. These teachers and children had significant growth but it was earn back growth.

Group 2 also did a great job. At the surface it seemed simply average, but as we look deeper this group achieved all new growth. They cut into new territory and helped their children learn new things because of the lack of regression for these students. 

Growth is vital to our overall achievement but it is more than a pre-post test scenario. It is complex including multiple factors: school, home, teacher, student, parent(s), and society. We need to drive forward and help improve, but when analyzing the data we can't simply set universal bars and say go achieve. It's far more complicated than that and that's ok. Perhaps there is more to growth of a child than simple numbers.

How You've Grown

Are Our Children Learning Enough About Whales?

On Wednesday, I spent some time with one of my district's kindergarten teachers. She was spending her afternoon entering assessment data into the computer for the state. It was one moment of about 20 hours she'll spend in the next two weeks in front of her computer moving from child to child filling in ovals on a LCD. On the board was a drawing, far better than one I could have drawn. It was a drawing of a person, standing on the pier with a fishing pole and fish swimming underneath.

Since I was visiting, rather than venting about the assessment data entry, she decided to tell me about the drawing. Apparently in class, she was reading a story and the term fishing hook came up. All but two of her five-year-olds were staring blankly at her. She described putting her finger and thumb into an "L" shape and sticking her thumb mouth as if she were being hooked. The two who "got it" had laughed hysterically, but for her other 23, she was simply building background knowledge.

I think to my youngest son. He's a big second grader now. I can't think of a pier anywhere close to us. He's never been fishing, never had a fishing hook or line in his hand. I'm not sure if he knows it. I'm not sure if it matters. I do know, he needs teachers like this one. One's who make the learning come alive, generate background knowledge through creative artistry, are willing to make a fool of themselves to ensure that children learn. That teacher creates greatness, cultivates knowledge, and makes the why fun.

I look at this new generation of assessments. Long data entry rubrics. Hours in front of stale white and black computer screens answering "rigorous" questions. I wonder, what do we want for out kids. How much basic skills and how much innovation? How much genius hour and how many hours answering digital assessments? We are the only nation that requires each of our public school students to test annually grades 3-8. Our children will spend more time on standardized assessments each year than a doctor spends each decade on their medical boards or a lawyer for their bar exam. Is our goal to have innovators or automatons? Do we want great set of standard skills or a wide range of diverse capacities? Do we need to assess everyone annually or will survey assessment data provide us with the same insight?

Simply, as The Onion critically asked in 2008, "Are Our Children Learning Enough About Whales?"

The IEP (Individualized Eating Plan)

My dad likes to cook. He glances through recipe books from all sorts of cultures, ethnicities, and regions of the world. He is a dabbler, rarely following the recipe, but adding a little of this and a little of that. Each creation doesn't taste exactly like it did the last time around. He's a very good cook. He understands the chemistry and processes behind creating culinary dishes and wields this knowledge frequently in the kitchen.

The problem was he had three boys. The youngest, well to be honest, I am not sure what he ate. I think it was whatever we put in front of him, since he was 8 years younger, during the early years he probably had very little choice and when my brother and I left the house, he had nearly a decade of being the sole decision influencer. The middle child who was definitely his father's culinary son. He, anguished over the meal, and by 8 or 9, he was in charge of the major food prep in the house. He was an early developing gourmet cook long before culinary expertise was a value. He remains the "gifted and talented" chef. Finally, there was me. I was in charge of salad.

In our house, there really wasn't time to cook every night. With swim practices, religious school, Hebrew School, and other activities, someone was always coming and going. We would make a couple of stock meals for the week, a soup or a large thing of spaghetti sauce, that we would have two or three times in the week, and scatter in some other meals when we could make them. If you didn't like what was being cooked, you had a couple of choices hit the stock meal or scrounge the kitchen for another dinner.

A generation later, our house doesn't feel much different now. I am a little more experimental of a chef than 10 year-old me, my wife is an exquisite experimental baker. We have one child who is willing to try to eat most anything and one child who eats about 4 foods at any particular time of the year. We make certain staple foods, grilled items during the spring and summary with food prepped the night before. Chili during the Fall. Soups on and off during the winter. And some of us eat certain meals. Cameron's up for chili most any time, Logan has yet to ever try it. As such, each meal feels like and individualized eating plan. Who eats this, what's the alternative, can we give him a couple of yogurts and still call it dinner?

When preparing lessons for guided math or guided reading, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking I have 25 individualized learning plans, this will never work. However, just like cooking at our house, each plan is often a small variant from the staple dinner. Sometimes each group has different levels of problems, but the staple idea is linear expressions. Sometimes each group gets the same teacher-led session like adding negative numbers yet the supporting centers vary based on concepts they need to practice. The trick is to get certain learning experiences that our staples, the ones which we consistently build off of, and add the variety based on the needs of the group.

My bride is an amazing baker. Her "banana bread" is something that people will give up season tickets for. It's a creation of bananas, chocolate, toffee, and other sensations that excite a household. It comes from scratch and when it is created all of the house becomes a happier place. She doesn't cook it every time, but just enough that the world is a better place. She also has a book, semi-homemade baking. In this set of recipes, desserts are built of a cake-box base. She adds a little of this or a little of that to take a Betty Crocker dessert in a box and turn it into something special. At times she also gets the breakable cookie dough from the aisle in the store. Every once in a while when the kids have friends over she turns on the oven, throws them in, and ten minutes later fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. And, every once in a while the kids eat the cookie dough before its been cooked.

Planning for instruction is like cooking at our house or my wife's baking. Sometimes we have time to create the most magnificent dishes, often we build off of a base by adding a little of this or a little of that, and every once in a while we just take a serving of something straight from the store and say "here you go." It's the combination of each of these techniques that allows us to make an Individualized Education (Eating) Plan for all of our students (children).

Popcorn Shrimp

Teach Like Yoda

   It was July 21st, 1999. My wife and I stood in the Eastern Michigan University Bookstore. I was nervously wasting time waiting to defend my dissertation later that afternoon and I purchased a poster that still sits behind my desk. This poster has guided me as much or more as the work I did on the dissertation. It is a poster of the Wisdom of Yoda. Now, I enjoyed the original Star Wars trilogy as a kid. I truly have a hard time watching any of the prequels and for some odd reason I am excited about the new movie coming in December. In real life, however I am not a fanboy. I do watch it once a year or every other year with my boys, but I watch a lot of movies annually with my kids. Often it's better than what's out in the theater or on television. I can quote Star Wars, but I can also quote Star Trek IV, Forest Gump, Field of Dreams, Armageddon, and many other films I haven't seen in a decade. The Wisdom of Yoda has guided me far more than any class, any book, or any professor.
   In the original movies, Yoda rarely did anything. He was funny. He was odd. He gimped around slowly. He didn't actually do anything because he was a Muppet. Instead, he made Luke do almost everything. Yoda setup problems for Luke to solve. He was a companion, supporter, and cheerleader as Luke explored the Force. He reminds us that there are times we need to commit, to "do or do not, there is no try." He creates opportunities for Luke to learn and provides minimal guidance as he explores. When  Luke senses something in the cave, he asks Yoda what is in there and Yoda vaguely reveals "only what you bring with you." It is only when the student quits, that Yoda disappointedly demonstrates that the work is possible.
   Teaching like Yoda is about facilitating learning. So often in our world, teaching means "I do. We do. You do." We perseverate on modeling as opposed to discovery. This is great if we are teaching safety features on a device. It's far less effective for inspiring problem solving, new solutions, and innovative results. In the modeling based education world, we get reproducible results. In Yoda's innovative world we get new solutions because the learner must create them. If we want to teach like Yoda, we need to realize that we already graduated from school. We have already learned it. This is their time. We must pass the mantle of learning to the younger generation and let them figure out the problem.
   Last night, I sat at dinner next to a 13 year-old student. The child is bright, articulate, and a hard worker. The child hates math. For her math experience is often one of simply repeating problems that have been modeled on the board. She can follow the rules and do the algorithms, but math has no applicable meaning in her world. For eight years it has been drilled into her. Teachers have stood in front of her, "I do. We do. You do." She is simply at "who cares?" I wish for her to have a teacher like Jon Heldmann at Downers North or Paul Stevenson at Downers South. A teacher who will occasionally put a single problem up on the board for a day or two and ask the students to figure it out. A teacher that realizes it's not simply the number of problems that we can reproduce but how we approach a situation, use our resources, access our colleagues, discover new routes, and find the solutions. A teacher who answers our questions not with "the answer" but with guidance to find the answer ourselves. This is what it means to teach like Yoda. It is to facilitate practice and learning so that when the time comes, the student is able to take this mantle and run with it. That is the goal, for them to become Jedi, because we already have had our time.

Feel the Force

January, a Natural Opportunity for Renewal and Risks

Have you ever wondered, "I wish I had tried that"? This might have been interesting, but I wish I had been able to start it at the beginning of the year with that group of kids, they would have done really well with it. So often in education we are hesitant to try new things at the beginning of the school year because we are afraid that this cohort of students may not have the skills, capacities, or personalities of our previously successful groups. Moreover, we are hesitant to change things during the middle of the year because we are hesitant to disrupt the routine and flow of the class. As such, frequently we end up in a natural cycle of making minimal adjustments rather than leaps forward.

Interestingly enough, although we don't often recognize it, schools are blessed with two beginnings each year. In August, we come back to school, we begin the cycle with a new group of kids and do the dance of getting to know each other again. We learn, we grow, we make mistakes, we rub each other the wrong way at times, and we grow closer together. In January, we have a second beginning. The students return from a two-week break. The calendar year has changed and everyone is expecting some "New Year resolutions" to be changes in our practice. Unlike in September, during this second beginning, we know the children, their strengths, their needs, their personalities, and their quirks. We have had time to reflect on our gains. And now, we have the natural opportunity to take a risk and leap forward. All of the items that are barriers to risk in September are gone now in January.

Yes, change will cause ripples. There will be children confused as the routine and structure change slightly with these new risks. However, there is trust now between teacher and student. There is understanding of who we are and what we are trying to accomplish. And there is renewal, a natural time of year in which we all have reflected and work to make our next opportunities better. Take the risk, jump in, there truly is no better time than now.

Jeffster Movie Trailer

The Wand Chooses the Wizard

As parents of seven and eleven year old children, we are preparing for a great adventure. Soon we will be venturing to see the Harry Potter exhibits at Universal Studios. While Star Wars was the great adventure of my youth, Harry Potter is the quest of my children's. Preparations for this journey have included watching the movies as my youngest has not seen them all nor is ready to read the books. Whereas Star Wars provided great examples of constructivist learning, Harry Potter takes us straight to Hogwarts Academy where we discover the truest learning comes from doing.

Why do kids flock to Harry Potter, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Rings? Simple, the unlikely hero finds themselves in unexpected circumstances and learns to do things previously thought impossible. It is the hero who does the doing. Not the mentor, not the teacher, but rather the unlikely moisture farm boy from Tattooine destroying the Death Star. In school, we have traditionally sought opportunities for learning that prepared us by transferring content knowledge. In a world where knowledge was scarce, the skills for quickly remembering knowledge, transferring knowledge, and finding knowledge were paramount. What you knew could quite frankly save your live and those around you. If you were bitten by a brown recluse spider, recognizing that it was a spider bite and getting to the hospital as fast as possible made a difference. Now, we simply take a picture of the infected area, compare it to Web MD, and seek support necessary. In our prior experiences, much like the children of Harry Potter, learning could and needed to look like this:

Preparing for OWLS

However, we don't live in a knowledge economy any more. We live in an innovation and creation economy. The value is not in what we know but what we can do. This is a benefit to both us and the children. No longer do we need to be the guardian of the facts but rather the issuers of challenges. It is more effective for us to use the content as the springboard for the creative and collaborative things that the children can do. The experiences and explorations we create can be ones in which children are passionate. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the children learn a series of basic spells. These spells become the groundings in which they are able to collaboratively stop Lord Voldemort from returning. Their learnings and background knowledge, such as Ron's understanding of chess, become effective tools in solving the film's challenge.

In film, much as life, heroes don't save the day as solo acts, but rather collaborative entities. Where would Luke Skywalker be without Han, Leia, Chewie, Lando, C3PO, and R2D2? Frodo Baggins would have never fulfilled the quest without Sam Gamgee next to him. In Harry Potter, like Ender's Game, the true solutions only come from information and skills the children can develop themselves:

Children Organizing Themselves

Student Led Learning

Our children crave the opportunities to lead in their learning. Content is important, but what one does with it is more important. Children being given problems, resources, and the challenge to create great things is more powerful than any grounding in rigorous knowledge of our current time.

My youngest has been running around for two weeks with a stuffed owl in one hand shouting, the wand chooses the wizard. For him, the wand is the tool that would allow him to do great things. For our kids, whether it be a tablet or a netbook, the digital tools open the world for them to learn about great wonder and create the unimaginable. I wonder how Harry, Ron, and Hermione might feel if Google and Wolfram Alpha were available in the wizarding world.

School Books