Chalk Dust

Revised-No Child Left Behind

2011-09-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, President Obama issued revisions to the infamous No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation from the Bush Administration. This was sold to Congress and the public as a way to force schools to teach to rigorous standards, and to pay attention to all subgroups, especially minorities and the learning disabled - both noble goals.

I have always asserted that the actual goal of NCLB was to force states to opt out of receiving all federal money, especially Title I, so that they would not be labeled as "failing" and risk takeover when scores did not reach the impossible goal of 100% proficiency in math and English for all subgroups by 2014. This mass opt-out would enable the Republicans to get rid of the department of education and shrink the federal government. I stand by that assertion today.

NCLB has forced schools to pay attention to their subgroups, and that is its one positive effect, but it has also fostered a culture of test prep mania that has pushed creativity and critical thinking (neither of which can be measured on a multiple choice test) out of public education.

Private, parochial and home-schooled students can be as creative and think as critically as their instructors want them to. They can explore larger ideas, without worrying that they will not be able to bubble the correct answers on some generic skills test, while public school students are relegated to the role of drones.

A Tale of Two Colors

2011-04-20T15:59:00.000-07:00

   The two young men enrolled within days of each other. The first wore a little blue. In any other school, that blue might not have been noticed. In mine, it was enough to make him a target. The second young man wore a profusion of red, far more than the rules permitted, but sufficient to proclaim his status in the local 'hood.

   On the day "First" arrived, a few weeks into the semester, I welcomed him to class as he handed over his program card for signature. After writing his name into my rollbook, I looked up and my eyes met his. I had read at least one account of the Holocaust in which the writer described some of the camp inmates as walking dead, men whose souls had died and who were just waiting for their bodies to catch up. This is what I saw in "First's" eyes.

   Many students in urban, inner-city schools carry an enormous amount of pain from the poverty, drug abuse, violence, and death they have witnessed. You can see it in their eyes. Not in "First's." In the few short weeks he attended my school, he came to class most days. Each day, I made a special effort to speak to him, to transmit a small amount of care and kindness.

   One day, he was gone, and I learned that he had been transferred back to his previous school, where it was safe for him to wear blue. About two weeks later, riots broke out, and on that first night, as the names of those killed scrolled down the TV screen, one name popped out: "First's." He had been standing outside, near his house, when a stray bullet killed him. His body had finally caught up.

   "Second's" eyes were even scarier. I had read a news article about a teen who killed and then went out for a hamburger. At his trial he referred to his victim as "the dude who got shot." That was "Second's" affect. Every day he came to class, I went out of my way to greet him politely. If I called on him and he did not wish to answer, I moved on to the next student.

   Finally, the day before my birthday, "Second" stopped coming to class. I would see him on campus almost every day, and each time would greet him by name, tell him how glad I was to see him, and express the hope that he would come to class later. He never did, and I did not report him to security, who finally caught him wandering around, up to no good. He was "transferred."

   I still think about both of them, how they ended up in my class at the same time, or how either would have hurt or killed the other based on the colors they each wore. It makes no sense to me, but I do not inhabit their universe. The question for the larger society remains how to pull these alienated young people back into a larger, more coherent community.

Real skills or fake praise?

2011-03-08T17:28:00.000-08:00

   John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach said, "Never mistake activity for achievement." When my students say, "But I'm doing my work," in a half or full whine, while patently not doing much if any work at all, I wonder what they must be thinking. Do they really believe that they are accomplishing the task at hand, or are they so accustomed to being praised for just showing up that they believe it to be sufficient?

   When I conferenced with one student recently to explain how her response to an essay prompt measured up against a rubric used statewide, she became agitated at even the gentlest explanation of how her work only scored 2 out of a possible 6. "Why are you hating on me," she complained loudly, even though the conference took place at my desk, out of earshot of the rest of the class.

   Earlier in my career, I taught at a high school where most entering ninth graders had a reading level that measured between third and fifth grade. A counselor explained that the students all thought they read well, because all their peers read equally badly. When the state mandated an exit exam for high school graduation, a test normed at an eighth to ninth grade skill and reading level, students complained bitterly about its difficulty, because for the first time they were faced with a reality check that they could not tune out or ignore.

   I watch the students every time the exit exam is given, and I see the frustration and the despair on their faces as they realize they are going to fail, some for the first time, some yet again. I know the solution, and tell them over and over how the kids who've completed my curriculum have all passed the big bad test. We had that reality check today. It will be interesting to see if it has any effect.

Wisconsin

2011-02-19T16:16:00.000-08:00

Teachers in Wisconsin are in open revolt, trying to prevent the governor and his minions from stripping away in one bill all the rights that public employees have won over the past 50 years. Why are they under attack by the Republicans? Now that the Supremes have ruled that corporations are people and can donate unlimited sums of secret money to political causes, those who stand to benefit most from those corporate donations are trying to shut off any funds that might be donated in opposition to corporate PACs.

It seems unlikely that the voters of Wisconsin knew what they were voting for when they handed over the entire state government to the Republicans. Or perhaps this election turned on the apathy of those who could not be bothered to get out and vote, and who are now shocked, shocked that their government has shown itself to be so radical and vindictive towards teachers and other public employees.

One of the provisions of the bill strips teachers of any participation in the decision making process in local schools. As practitioners, they will have no say in curriculum or anything else. They will be relegated to the role of factory workers.

As a comparison, consider an example cited in the film "Food, Inc." which looks at the meat packing industry over the history of this country. Meat packing was at first an extremely dangerous occupation, but through organizing and unionization became much safer and well paid - a true step into the middle class. Now, due to union busting by the meat cartels, it is once again horrifically dangerous, with low-wage workers risking life and limb while cutting meat on a fast moving line.

Before unions, teachers had no rights, could be dismissed for no reason, and did not earn much in salary or benefits. Today, teachers have protection from arbitrary dismissal, due process rights, better compensation, and health and retirement benefits.

Why are teachers targets now? One reason may be that we are dangerous because we try to teach children to think. How does one eliminate that type of teaching? Put in place a testing system that labels schools as failures if their students do not do well on exams that have nothing to do with creative or analytical thinking. Brilliant. Then target teachers, keeping them in such fear for their jobs that they will fall in line.

How is this good for education? It's not, but perhaps those who are engineering these changes in public education do not have open or honest agendas. Which children in this country attend public schools? Which ones are home schooled or attend private schools? Is there some correlation between the latter two and those who wrote the punitive testing laws and who now want to attack teachers? I think the answers might be surprising, and not in a good way.

Thoughts on Testing

2011-02-05T19:38:00.000-08:00

The state test scores arrive, and most correlate to the level of work I've seen from the students who took the test. Three very low scores seem out of whack. I check the state exit exam results and find that all three students have easily passed, so I decide to investigate. After discussing the discrepancies with my administrator, we decide to call the students in one by one to find out why they scored at the lowest level on a test that politicians want to use to evaluate teacher effectiveness.

The first student arrives in a foul mood, admits to "being bored" and deliberately tanking the test, bubbling whatever, then taking a nap. Since her score will have no impact whatsoever on her ability to pass her classes and graduate, she feels no need to make any effort during the annoying state testing season.

The second student had been out sick before the test, but dragged herself in to take it, with negative results. Schools can be punished if not enough students show up for testing, but can also be punished if students that come to school ill score poorly, a lose/lose situation.

The third student breaks down in tears, saying her mom had thrown her out of the house right before the test and refused to speak to her. She had been an emotional wreck, and unable to focus on the test. Nor had her life improved, as she was still staying with relatives.

Now if I were being judged on test scores, theirs would have lowered my ranking considerably, no matter how hard I worked or what curriculum I used. Did I have even an ounce of control here? Obviously not, but neither the press nor the educrats are looking at students as individuals with problems to match, so the cold hard data rules.

I'm all about the story. If a teacher can raise scores, despite the hidden hells that overwhelm some students' lives, then good for that teacher. If not, we need to take the time and make the effort to truly understand why that student or those students did not or could not succeed on that test before we plaster labels on their teachers.

Hold me responsible for that which is within my control, but do not vilify or demonize me for what is not. Yes, teachers need to be evaluated, but there has to be a better way, one that does not treat students like widgets, but which honors their individuality.

Think You Can Teach?

2009-03-30T20:18:00.000-07:00

All you bloggers, pundits and talking heads out there prescribing solutions for teacher evaluation or pay, this story is for you. You may not have set foot in a classroom since you left school and you may or may not have ever attended public school, so let me remind you first that all public schools are required by law to educate any child who wishes to attend school and who qualifies by age and residence to do so. Here's some real life at a previous school:

It's after lunch, and just like every day, my fifth period students begin to arrive after the bell rings to end lunch. They're all wearing their backpacks in front, and clutching them tightly, as they look around the room to see if "Klepto" is in attendance. He saunters into the room, and the students grip their packs more tightly. I move swiftly to the file cabinets in the rear of the classroom and punch the locks, keeping an eye on Klepto to make sure he does not drift anywhere near my desk. A little extreme? Not even close. This kid has pinched cell phones from teachers, most of the special pencils I ordered for prizes (from the back cabinet), and numerous items from classmates. He's like a well-trained pick pocket; no one ever sees him pinch the stuff, but somehow it ends up in his possession.

I look behind me to make sure I remembered to post the special class rules that go up each day just for this one class. These are not your normal class rules, and include an outright ban on cafeteria tools (straws for blowing spitballs, sporks for catapulting gum across the room), and various other rules more likely to be found in a lower elementary school classroom.

Consequences for disobedience are severe: first offense earns a referral to the dean and suspension from that day's class, second earns a referral and a parent conference, and for the third, "your mom has to come to class and sit with you."

One student asks, "What if my mom can't come?"

To which a classmate replies, in a jaded voice, "Don't get thrown out three times, pendejo." Duh.

Why? This is no "normal" class. On any given day we could have a stink bomb release to start class, a fight, an eruption from one of the kids with anger issues, and any other imaginable type of disruption. I've never had a group like this one, hence the special rules, just for them.

One day, as the students come in, they begin running around the room, cafeteria tools readily visible - no one sits. I call out to them. No response. I stand there, flabbergasted, absorbed by the sheer chaos. Turning around, I notice I have forgotten to post the special rules for that class. I grab the poster and pull out two tacks. As I raise my arms to post the rules on the board, I hear a voice above the din, "She's putting up the rules!" Plonk. The entire class sits in unison, dead quiet, hands on the desk in front of them. I manage not to laugh.

So all of you commentators, here's the reality. This is your class, because you're a new teacher and most of the veterans (unlike yours truly who actually likes these kids) don't want to have anything to do with this lot. Could you handle them? Could you teach them anything? Unsure? You should be.

On Being Furniture

2009-03-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

Most people have seen some version of the cartoon where a man is talking to his dog. One panel says "What humans say" followed by actual phrases like "Bad dog." The second panel says, "What dogs hear: blah, blah, blah, etc."

Yesterday after school I was sitting at my desk talking to a student, F, who was there serving detention for coming to school late - again - even though he lives maybe three blocks from the campus and commutes by skateboard. Just as I was beginning to answer a question he had asked me, another student, B, came rushing into the room and began rapidly talking to F, while I sat there, stunned, mouth open, words dribbling down my chin. It was like I was part of the furniture, invisible, or not worth noticing. To his credit, F actually pointed out that B had interrupted me, eliciting a "my bad," but the incident set me to thinking.

What do teenagers hear when we talk to them? Even when I sit with students individually, I wonder how much of what I say actually enters their heads, without exiting the other side or slithering back out while they sleep.

For a while I became the queen of checklists, checking off who got what handouts, so that no one could come back in a day or two and say, "YOU never gave me that paper" in that accusatory tone teenagers use to indicate their disdain for our age-addled brains. It gave me a one-up, "The checklist says you got that paper, so I'm not totally senile yet, but if you need another one sweetie I do have some extras," (yeah, like around 20 at least).

I remember one student I had at a previous school who had an effective retention level of around zero for anything related to school. Students had to carry time cards to class, and every period of every day for the whole school year I stood near the classroom door with my hand out to collect their time cards as they entered. Every day, even in June, this student would enter the room, observe me with my hand extended and in genuine bewilderment whine, "Whaaat?!?!?"

Once teens grow out of being teens and into the amnesia of adulthood and parenting, they look at the young people around them and proclaim "I was never like that!" Maybe, but you might want to go back and visit some of your teachers and ask them.

Success and Consequences

2009-03-26T18:23:00.000-07:00

What happens to students who need an environment where they can attempt to rectify past academic and social mistakes? If they're fortunate, they get transferred to an alternative school that will meet their needs. Many go on to catch up and graduate from one of these lifeboat schools.

The problem with success is that if those who make the big decisions don't know or understand what you're doing, you run the risk of being annihilated for arbitrary reasons, like money. Take my school.

Our test scores went up significantly. Our students completed more classes as a whole and per student than any other comparable school in our area. Two groups of students competed in a regional urban planning competition last year and one of the two groups went to the finals - the only alternative school to do so. We have a team in the competition again this year, and the students are working hard to get the win. The school won a grant to fund a student horticulture class and plant a vegetable and flower garden that would delight Alice Waters and the slow food movement.

Our reward? Almost certain closure. Students who failed spectacularly at their large high schools get stuffed back into the same school just as class sizes are set to increase - or they can drop out. Either way, they're expendable. How is that logical or even cost effective? How much will that unfulfilled potential end up costing society over time?

Her Way

2009-03-21T19:35:00.000-07:00

The first year that students had to take the high school exit exam, the state gave the exam to 9th graders to beta test it. If they passed, they would not have to take the exam again the following year, when the permanent testing of all 10th graders began. I was teaching two double-period sections of 9th grade English, both "honors," which at my school meant any student who came to school almost every day, didn't cause trouble and was willing to do some work. It did not mean that the students actually functioned at grade level. The reading range in the two sections ranged from 5th to 12+.

The students worked hard, read hundreds of pages each semester, wrote every day, and generally did a great deal of deep thinking. When it came time to respond to practice prompts, I taught them a sort of formula that they could use to give the evaluators what they wanted on the essay. If it worked, the students could be done with the test and be able to move on to more interesting work in 10th grade.

Everyone bought into the idea that they could "do the box" without "becoming the box." Everyone except C, who had to do everything her way. Everyone took the test, and when the results came out, everyone had passed, everyone except C, because doing it her own way had turned out not to be the best choice.

One year later I transferred to an alternative school, and used the story of C as a cautionary tale to "do it Ms. G's way." At my new school, the pass rate on the exit exam was 100% for the students who did it my way. Only one student in four years outright refused to do any of the work I gave her to help her prepare; she failed to pass the test, and did not graduate as a result.

Last year, I was shopping in Best Buy one day after work when I heard someone call my name. "Ms. G, you used to teach at JHS. I'm C..." and I said, "C" plus her last name, "You're famous. I tell everyone about you." Then I told her why, and how her story had helped me to convince students to give my methods a chance.

The epilogue is actually sweet. She did graduate on time, and completed an AA degree at the community college. She's transferred to a four-year to become .... (drumroll)..... an elementary school teacher!

"I always felt I'd failed you, because I couldn't get you to 'buy' doing it my way. Now I don't have to worry about you anymore, and my story has a better ending." Big hug. "Please tell your students your story." I think she will.

Get Into the Box

2009-03-21T19:11:00.000-07:00

What do standardized tests actually measure? Do they measure reading skills, the ability to reason or analyze? Maybe, but I'm starting to think that what they actually measure is the test taker's ability to function inside the proverbial box.

Case in point would be the state high school exit exam, which students statewide took last week. Part of the exam is an essay. Students are given a prompt for which they have to write a response. Failure to follow instructions, no matter how well written the essay may be, results in a score that indicates the student is not proficient as a writer. For example, if the prompt asks students to write about a significant historical person that they studied in elementary or middle school and they write about Obama, they get dinged because he's too recent to qualify.

The student may well have written a wonderful essay, with a definite point of view, voice, interesting ideas, excellent grammar and spelling - as one of my students did (to a different question) on this week's test. He did, however, write from the point of view of an X, instead of the point of view of a Y, so when the graders read his essay, he will be given a score of non-proficient, not because he is not a proficient writer, but because he was not able to get into the box.

Ironically, I think that this very student, who remained true to his own voice even at the risk of failing a test that is a graduation requirement, may well become a writer one day - precisely because of his determination to adhere to that very voice.

A Work in Progress

2009-03-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

How many times have you heard stories of successful people who just wanted to let that teacher who told them they'd never amount to anything know that he or she was wrong? They'd made it. They were successful, and even happy, but the hurt from the put down all those years before still lingered.

I wonder what E is thinking tonight, after I laid into him today after school, but from an opposite perspective: "You have skills and insight. You've demonstrated you can think deeply and critically. But you're not respecting your ability. From what I've seen, you can do or be anything you want to do or be - if you polish those skills and talent while the doors are open to you."

This kid is a work in progress. He has done well on any low-stakes assignment, but has frozen on high-stakes assignments like timed writing prompts. Why? Ever read Stanford professor Carol Dweck's book Mindset? I had, and made E read the first four chapters, about the fixed and growth mindsets. Growth mindset people are cool with "failure" because they know that they will learn and grow from their mistakes. Fixed mindset people are terrified of failure because they think that others will discover that they are really not "smart." They'd rather not try at all than risk trying and failing.That's E.

So I've called his bluff. Nothing he can do will make me think he's not smart, so he has no choice but to live up to his potential in my class. "When you complete this class, I want you to still hear my voice in your head telling you that yes, you are smart enough. No more excuses." I'm putting a request out to the universe to run into him in about 10 years, and keeping my fingers crossed.

Post Script: About two months after I wrote this, E was jumped by some gangbangers one night and beaten within an inch of his life. After several weeks of being kept in an induced coma to help reduce brain swelling, he was gradually brought back to consciousness, but the loss in cognition did not become fully evident for a few months. He no longer knows how to read or write, and will never function normally. Some will blame him for being out at night. He will be a burden on his family and/or society for the rest of his life, his potential shattered.

Choices and Consequences

2009-03-07T20:34:00.000-08:00

The first thing I think when I see him is that he's so short. He looks like a sixth or seventh grader, not a kid who's been in high school for two years: little bald head, wearing the "uniform" favored by the local neighborhood male bonding associations, as I call them, but with a smile that could light up any grandmother's heart.

Then I see the hands. Damn. Here he is, still in school, still holding out hope for himself and his future, but with his past etched in huge old English letters on the back of each hand. They're like billboards advertising bad choices. Not surprisingly, the kid has skills, writing a decent essay in response to a practice prompt.

I say not surprisingly because I've seen dozens of kids like him over the years, and I've been part of concerted efforts to pull some of them away from their dangerous extracurricular activities. Yet I know that on any given day, I might get a call or arrive at school to find out that this young man has been relieved of his existence because the past he could not quite leave behind has not quite unexpectedly caught up with him.

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Epilogue: A few days after I wrote this, I noticed a police car parked outside our postage stamp campus. About 15 minutes later, the young man walked into my room, one of his tattooed hands wrapped in a bloody bandage. He'd been spotted by unfriendlies on his way to catch a bus to school, and had had to run for his life, hopping fences, slicing up his hand in the process. Somehow the police had gotten hold of him and taken him to the big school next door, where the nurse had cleaned and bandaged his hand. Then they delivered him to us.

Towards the end of class, I sat down with him, "I wrote about you on my blog."

He was stunned, but curious. "Do you want to read it?" He did, so I pulled it up.

"Do you want a copy?" I printed it out for him.

"Did you understand what I was trying to say in the last sentence?" He read it again and nodded gravely.

"Thank you," he said. That was the last time I saw him.

Political Rant

2009-03-01T16:35:00.000-08:00

I've been observing another effect of the know-nothing governing style of junior Bush. For years, it was rare, even among the at-risk kids I work with, to encounter a pregnant student. Now, the pregnancy high schools are so packed that they have waiting lists, and regular and alternative schools are experiencing a baby boom.

I think Bristol Palin put it best when she said in an interview, holding her baby, that abstinence only education just doesn't work. Research indicates that when babies are born to teen mothers who then have to cut short their educations, the chances that that baby and four succeeding generations will remain in poverty are high.

The question is whether those who supported this ridiculous policy even care. It's like the Republican congressman who did not want AZT given to pregnant women to prevent HIV infections in their children. His thesis was that if the child got AIDS, "people" would see the consequences of their promiscuity and change their behavior. Some logic.

What I know

2008-10-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

How much hope do I have left for the "system"? How much do I think it's so totally broken or f#@*ed that it should be dismantled? Good questions. After what seems like an eternity seeing teen lives transformed for better and/or worse by the adults in the ed biz for the best and worst of motives (and all variety of motives in between), I've come to the conclusion that the only thing that matters are the stories, because they are real evidence of real lives. Everything else is irrelevant.

The supervisory suits and the political types focus on data, which can be used, like everything else, to support or to punish. But students, no matter how challenging they may be for the adults who have to work with them, are individuals, not ciphers. Each has a story, and that story is as valid as any quantitative data about grades or test scores. It is my view that until educators learn how to tap, to use, and to value those stories, students will continue to "abandon all hope, ye who enter here."