Parents Giveth, Parents Can Taketh Away

If your kids fight you tooth and nail about bedtime, cleaning up after themselves and doing simple household chores, rest assured, they’re totally normal. Like adults, kids want to do what they want to do.

Unless there’s something in it for them.

Not that you should start showering them with lavish gifts every time they clean their rooms, but think about their favorite activities—watching TV, playing video games, using cell phones and so on. These are privileges, not rights. Instead of handing them to your kids, make it an even trade.

Parenting experts like Dr. Phil recommend setting up a system where kids earn privileges by meeting basic expectations—i.e., putting clothes away, finishing homework, getting to school on time, whatever. They won’t like it at first, but in the end, they’ll gain a healthier perspective on the give-and-take nature of reality.

They’ll argue that it’s bribery, but stay strong.

© 2008 The First Thirty Days,

Community Schools in the Pantheon of Innovation

By Claus von Zastrow on March 23, 2009

Secretary Duncan gives community schools a central place in the Pantheon of education innovations. He made that abundantly clear in his recent appearance on Charlie Rose.

He advocates for keeping schools open 12 or 13 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, and 12 months out of the year. He sees schools as centers of learning and community well-being. He calls for stronger partnerships between schools and non-profits. He supports stronger investments in students health, nutrition and safety. He champions a vision of accountability that includes "traditional educators, parents, students, the business community--all of us." And he links these strategies to student learning:

The more we open school buildings to the community, the more we work together--not just with our children but with the families--the more we create an environment where students can maximize their academic potential.

The Secretary sees community schools as a central piece of his agenda to "push innovation, push change"--words some commentators reserve for a much smaller array of reforms that seldom include very much about school/community partnerships.

For a sampling of schools that are already "pushing innovation" in this way, check out our community school success stories.

Hat tip to the Coalition for Community Schools for bringing the Charlie Rose video to our attention.

Moving Beyond Letter Grades?

By Claus von Zastrow on March 26, 2009

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story on a New York state school district that has adopted "standards-based report cards." These report cards differ from the more traditional variety in that they aim to measure mastery of knowledge and skills more faithfully:

In Pelham, the second-grade report card includes 39 separate skill scores — 10 each in math and language arts, 2 each in science and social studies, and a total of 15 in art, music, physical education, technology and “learning behaviors” — engagement, respect, responsibility, organization. The report card itself is one page, but it comes with a 14-page guide explaining the different skills and the scoring.

Dennis Lauro, Pelham’s superintendent, said that standards-based report cards helped students chart their own courses for improvement; as part of the process, they each develop individual goals, which are discussed with teachers and parents, and assemble portfolios of work.

Effort and extra credit are not part of the equation, and the report cards do not measure students against each other.

Some years ago, the Chugach, Alaska public school district took the standards-based reporting system a good deal farther. In Chugach, each student works at her own pace, advancing to the next grade level only when she can demonstrate mastery of material through portfolios and other assessments. Some students progress to the next level in the middle of a school year. Others may take considerably longer.

Chugach leaders credit their system with the district's astonishing improvement after years of dismal scores and high drop-out rates. Now, students in the district consistently score above state averages in reading, writing and mathematics, and more than two thirds of graduates go on to college. (For more information, see our story about the Chugach model or our interview with Chugach educator Lee Ann Galusha.)

Any change in how we report students' progress requires strong community support. On this point, the Times article quotes Gerald Tirozzi, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals:

I think the present grading system — A, B, C, D, F — is ingrained in us. It’s the language which college admissions officers understand; it’s the language which parents understand.

A cursory review of readers' comments on the Times story bears this out. Readers interpret the system in Pelham, New York as a shell game, a hare-brained scheme to obfuscate actual results, a cash cow for education consultants, a distraction from sound instructional practice, a bureaucratic burden on teachers, etc.

As unfair as these judgments may be, they underscore the importance of engaging parents and other community partners in any effort to change how we grade students. In her interview with Public School Insights, Chugach educator Lee Ann Galusha cites strong parent engagement as an important reason for the success of the district's efforts:

You need to let parents in on this and have it be a group decision.... The students, the parents and the school need to come together and make a commitment to this.

NCLB

Jay Mathews Yields to Persuasion

By Claus von Zastrow on April 23, 2009

You have to admire Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews for his openness to persuasion. Unlike so many education commentators, he is willing to budge an inch or two in the face of compelling arguments.

The latest example of this pliability came on Monday, when he responded to a young teacher's concerns about the effect of testing and accountability pressures on teaching and learning. He was willing to concede two problems the young teacher raised:

1. With its all-or-nothing focus on passing state tests, No Child Left Behind turns a blind eye to much excellent work in schools.
2. Current accountability policies encourage schools to focus on "bubble kids"--students just under the passing bar. Meanwhile, those schools leave other children behind.

Mathews' instinctive reaction to the "bubble kids" phenomenon is fairly common: "A good principal...would put an end to such nonsense." This response certainly carries genuine emotional weight. Still, it puzzles me that so many DC policy wonks invoke it in defense of No Child Left Behind in its current form.

What, after all, is the point of a policy that creates poor incentives and encourages perverse behavior? If we can rely on everyone to do the right thing regardless of consequences, then we hardly need accountability systems in the first place.

As Mathews realizes, even good principals succumb to pressures to focus on "bubble kids" when the stakes are so high. When he learns that the founder of DC's much-admired Cesar Chavez charter school does it, he concludes that it is "a bigger problem than I thought."

Sure, many schools offer all children rich instruction in the liberal arts and still manage to reach their performance targets on state assessments. This website celebrates many such schools. But is such courage always or even often rewarded? Are impressive achievement gains always recognized in AYP determinations?

Mathews recommends broader, fairer and more accurate measures of school and student success. Like many, he calls for measures that gauge students' academic improvement over time. He also seconds his young teacher's call for a more comprehensive vision of success:

It would be better to credit the school for important successes outside of testing, Fine wrote, such as "when a teacher energizes a reluctant reader to tackle a novel, when a struggling math student starts coming after school for tutoring, when an administrator finally gets a troublemaker to reflect on her actions."

...

There should also be a way to honor Fine's request for an extra dimension, such as reporting a rise in students doing scientific experiments or writing analytical papers. Some monitoring systems, such as those used by International Baccalaureate programs, do that. It is part of good teaching and should be available to everybody.

Using richer and more accurate measures for accountability purposes won't be easy. But many more people now agree that it's important.

In Honor of Dr. Seuss and Budget Cuts

The author of this is unknown. Enjoy!

I am Sam,

Sam-I-Am,

Do you like budget cuts with a slam?

I do not like budget cuts with a slam,

I do not like them Sam-I-Am,

Would you, forego a raise?

Would you, could you work for praise?

I would not, could not forego a raise,

My creditors want money, they don’t accept praise,

I do not like budget cuts with a slam,

I do not like them Sam-I-Am,

Would you, could you suggest a position cut?

Would you, could you – we want YOUR in-put!

I would not, could not cut a soul,

That is not the way to plug this hole,

I do not like budget cuts with a slam,

I do not like them Sam-I-Am,

Would you, could you take a cut in pay?

Would you, could you work a little longer each day?

I would not, could not take a cut in pay, I already work 25 hours a day!

I do not like budget cuts with a slam,

I do not like them Sam-I-Am,

Would you, could you work for free?

We’re short 102 million dollars you see, I would not, I could not work for free, I’m broke and tired, please let me be,

I do not like budge cuts with a slam,

I do not like them Sam-I-Am!

Why Schools Can't Be Run Like Businesses

Larry Cuban's book, The Blackboard and the Bottom Line: Why Schools Can't Be Run Like Businesses starts off with an anecdote that can't be told too many times. It's about an ice-cream tycoon, who makes the best blueberry dessert in the country, exhorting teachers to do better. "If I ran my business the way you people run your schools, I wouldn't be in business very long!" He scoffs. Then a teacher stands up and asks him what he does when bad blueberries arrive on his loading dock. He sends them back, of course. But you can send back students, can you? And that's just one reason public schools can't be run like businesses. (NEA Today, October 2008)

Teachers vs Moms in Parenting Magazine

I'm a little behind in my reading since being a new mom and full time school teacher. I was reading your September 2008 issue and there was a small poll on page 55 asking who had it harder, teachers or moms. I was disappointed that so many moms felt that teachers have it easier and stop worrying about their students when they go home. Being a teacher and a mom I can say this is very untrue. Many teachers work past their contract hours to prepare for their students the next day. Teachers take home papers to grade, write-up lessons on their computers at home, create posters and worksheets, buy supplies at the store on their time off, and some teachers even make phone calls home in the evening to accommodate parent's work schedules. I know many jobs allow parents to go home and leave their work behind, but the majority of teachers do not have the same luxury.

Eduction Outside of School

Finally, someone who understands! I cannot follow my students home and make them do their work, the parents need to make sure they are doing their part at home too.

She Said What?
An interesting point by Susan Neuman, a former education official in the Bush Administration, in a new book, Changing the Odds for Children At Risk. Research shows low-income children learn as fast in school as wealthier children. It's outside of school that poor children fall behind. Says Neuman, "Most teachers are highly capable of successfully educating" children who get a strong foundation at home. Now at the University of Michigan, she joined 62 other education leaders ast June to urge the nation to improve the lives of low-income children across the board rather than continuing to point the finger at schools.