Archive for the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ Category

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Teach, Teacher, Teachers Union

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Newspapers have stopped writing about Race to the Top (RTTT) “winners and losers.”  TV news has been showing off New Orleans schools resurrected from the water-logged marshes.

Only Newsweek, August 23/30, 2010, p. 25 talked about the Achievement Gap, reminding readers of what works not only in the U.S. but in Europe, South America, and Singapore.  Anyone in the education world who teaches can name the first factor-family circumstances.  Those not fortunate enough to have a family that makes sure of mastery in reading and math skills by age 10 are most likely to fail in school from then on.

Most in the education world can name the strategies to overcome those factors which affect low-performing students.  That’s right.  Pre-schools galore.  Rigorous standards followed through with tutoring from the early grades on.  More time in school-the number of hours and days.  Effort in teacher training in college and during the school year, i.e. don’t cut professional development in order to balance the school district budget.

Of course, in California instead of balancing a state budget so there are enough funds for student education which is the California Teachers Association (CTA) position no matter what the issue, the legislature sits back and lets the teachers unions fight it out with school districts about teacher evaluation, seniority, and layoffs that still are looming for some.

Along came President Pro Tem Darrel Steinberg to propose SB1285 which assures that urban schools with the newest teachers “would not lose a greater proportion of teachers than the districtwide average in layoff.” San Francisco Chronicle, “Seniority vs. civil rights” August 31, 2010.  Sounds like a good change, teachers having struggled with the idea of seniority vs. students’ rights to have strong teachers for a long while.

Few are happy with CTA on the issue of evaluation and seniority, but doesn’t this bill throw one more stone at the wall, given the lack of a balanced state budget and funds from RTTT.  Who is the bad guy and who is the good guy in this standoff?

Now a radio program produced by American Radio Works examined how Chattanooga Public Schools in 2000, well before No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and RTTT was available, looked at achievement in reading and math and took steps.

Be aware, from the start the school district was lucky to have the Benwood Foundation and The Public Education Foundation with lots of money to support steps taken.  The school district was fortunate to have an abundance of test data from the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System to answer why 9 of 20 Chattanooga public schools were so low on the achievement scale.  Yes, it is similar to the system used by the Los Angeles Times recently that is causing a huge ruckus and that is analyzed on the front page of The New York Times, September 1, 2010, “Formula to Grade Teachers’ Skill Gains Acceptance, and Critics” by Sam Dillon.

To make change happen, there was a long fight with the teachers union, but eventually it came out that firing poor teachers didn’t help students do better, increasing the professional development and standards for good teachers did help.  In the documentary the strategies that improved student success were learned right away, e.g. pacing of lessons, knowing the material and how to teach it; and long term, e.g. working as a team, analyzing what helps students learn, teaching each other, using mentors.

Though not as strong as the Chattanooga Public Schools on the hill where family circumstances help, student success continues to improve in the valley, the whole point of “turn around.”

Which tells anyone in the education world to beware of the cost of resistance to change.

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Posted in American Radio Works, No Child Left Behind Act, Race to Top, public schools |
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How They Do It

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Argument after argument is tossed back and forth at conferences, in the newspapers and magazines about low-income, high ethnic population public schools that aren’t making it.

Then, lo and behold, three more great public schools and school districts pop up in the news.  In April 2010 at the National Association of School Boards convention in Chicago, Illinois, a presentation was made by Matteson School District (SD 162) near Chicago with 7 Pre-K to 8 schools. Three-fourths or more African-American students, second language, reduced price or free lunch, are all part of the list that indicates poor performance.

But, no, the district has won awards for meeting and exceeding proficiency on the state exams that are the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) benchmarks of success.

Not only Matteson public school district, but Marshall Elementary in budget deficit San Francisco, California, and Public School 172 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, have overcome the odds.  Comparable schools-low-income neighborhoods, high number of minority students, second language issues.  How does it happen?

When reading the articles, it makes sense.  The factors that education studies have said make good schools were gripped by each school and the school district.  And it was done before the state superintendent or government came down with hands on hips, insisting on change.

Although specific programs may differ, four main traits identify the success of these schools.

* The school board, district superintendent, and principal have high expectations to do all possible to help students learn.  They have developed a long-range plan and stuck to it.  The faculty and staff are informed collaborators in the decisions to reach the achievement goals for the district and school.  The school community celebrates success.

* All members of the school community focus on providing the strategies to improve student achievement.  Teachers employ continuous assessment using multiple data sources which are analyzed and evaluated to improve instruction.  Teachers are given time outside of teaching for analysis and talk about how to improve instruction.  In addition, even with tight, tight budgets, resources are found to include speech therapists, nurses, tutors, social workers, and most important aggressive staff development.

*Parents are included in the school community.  For instance, at Marshall Elementary, the principal has hired a parent liaison who works on attendance, nutrition, transience-whatever impedes student success.  At PS 172 money was found for a dental hygienist who has dealt with the poor health issues that impede speech and energy to learn. At all schools, Matteson School district has trained parents to use the website in order to be knowledgeable about the programs going on at the schools.  Parent-school participation is encouraged at all schools.

* These good public schools report that art and music instruction has not been abandoned in order to improve test scores. Instead, the day is structured to use support staff during class time to reach the students with special needs. More than one teacher may be working with a group in the classroom. You can imagine that students are intent on learning, not “zoning out.” Money for after-school and Saturday instruction has been authorized.

Here’s the follow-up question. How was money found for the extra resources? So far we know only that principals scrounged for the funds and didn’t give up.

To ask about the report on Matteson School District (SD 162) in Illinois contact Dr. Blondean Y. Davis, Superintendent.  The article on PS 172 (aka Beacon School of Excellence) is found in The New York Times, April 26, 2010, “Poor Families, Rich Test Scores: A School Defies Odds” by Sharon Otterman.  Marshal  Elementary School’s story is found in the San Francisco Chronicle, April 20, 2010, “U.S. tapping school’s recipe for success” by Jill Tucker.

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Posted in NCLB, No Child Left Behind Act, public schools, school community, successful schools |
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Where Are the Great Teachers?

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Within a month, three articles appeared in national magazines describing great teachers–who they are, what they do, how they do it.  Check out The Atlantic, January/February 2010; The New York Times Magazine, March 7, 2010; and Newsweek, March 15, 2010.

high-achieving suburban high school

high-achieving suburban high school

Perhaps the writers were making up for the put downs, blame games, and finger pointing, reasoning that, after all, some teachers must be doing a great job.  Otherwise, how would there be students at public university UC Berkeley, private school Harvard, or any of the terrific higher education institutions in between the coasts?

However, there are also plenty of reports about teachers in failing schools.  For example, the media flocked to Central Falls High School in Rhode Island when the board of education on the superintendent’s recommendation fired every single teacher because the school was performing on state tests at a persistently low level.

All that was reported was the fight between the teachers and the superintendent.  Couldn’t the Central Falls debacle be a story of what demographic and economic changes in the community let the school slowly sink until it was too late to address the problem?  Or why the school board let the problem fester for years and years?  Or why the superintendent and teacher leaders at the school site didn’t sit down and plan a satisfying turn around?  Hard to find clarification for the dismal picture of that school.

But as of March 15, 2010, the president and the U.S. Department of Education have taken on American education.  Revising No Child Left Behind to raise academic standards, turn around the most distressed schools, and develop tools to better evaluate teachers and principals.

And everyone is surprised?  Did every state think the issues would slither around the edges, lost in the tussle for school funds, while high-achieving students went to Stanford and the other kids got a finger wagged at them?

Speaking of which, this week California distributed its list of 188 persistently lowest-achieving schools in the state.  Mostly middle and high schools were placed on the list to go along with the state’s effort to get funds from Race to the Top, the biggest pile of money out there to help transform secondary schools.  Next application deadline is June 2010.

In the meantime thousands of teachers and students took to the streets on March 4 to advance comprehension of the disaster befalling California in which teachers will be laid off to balance school district budgets when the state can’t balance its own budget.

Which creates the question: what happens to good teachers with no money available?  Three possibilities have surfaced in the news.

First, great new teachers will be gone unless, as in San Francisco, the PTA gets families to chip in money and attract matching donors to make up the deficit.  Think that can rub out $1300 million?  Or the Educational Foundation asks each district family to contribute $375 to erase the $3 million deficit as in Cupertino.

Second, a school board in a district like Los Angeles, $200 million in the hole and 23 low-performing schools to turn around, will lay off teachers and improvement efforts will sit on the back burner to simmer and bubble.

Or third, school boards may take the cheap way out and let for-profit charter schools take over the low-performing high schools, getting the problem off the school board’s back.

As the three articles showed, the latest teacher preparation has improved a teacher’s ability to manage the class, understand the curriculum, and use best practices to teach.  No statistics tell how many and where are the great teachers.  There is an answer.

The truth is some great teachers work at Central Falls, just as they are found in every public school.  All schools could have many, but the effort to increase the number of good teachers is like the discipline needed by school boards to turn around low-performing schools.

It’s daunting, time-consuming, and depends on teacher-leaders, administrators skilled at communicating*, and, above all, resolute school boards willing to back the teachers doing the hard job.

*For one model of good communication go to the website for this blog: takecareschools.com.

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Posted in No Child Left Behind Act, Race to Top, layoff notices, low-performing schools, public schools, teacher preparation |
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The Changing Teacher

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Change has become the well-used mantra in the past year, often as the start of a taunt or wisecrack.

Columnist David Brooks, however, is glad about change in the 21st century education world.  He’s on the side of President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan in their determined push to keep education reform as a top priority.  See “The Quiet Revolution,” New York Times, October 23, 2009.

Though I completely disagree with Brook’s despair that a District of Columbia Schools voucher program has been tossed, I do concur that the Obama administration is pushing for change in school districts and schools of education.  (See post 11-4-09).

A Policy Information Report, December 2007, distributed by the Educational Testing Service, confirms the anecdotal changes I saw already underway in new teacher preparation before I retired.

The report’s findings looked at several factors about new teachers and experienced teachers taking courses to satisfy the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandate for highly-qualified teachers.  It found that students who passed the exam in the second cohort studies (2002-2005) had higher GPA and SAT scores.  Students from all ethnic groups and both genders showed consistent improvement in academic work.

The most interesting conclusion of the study suggested “that when policies target a common objective and employ a variety of strategies, real change can happen.  …seldom have policy changes been associated with such positive impact in so little time.”  Finally, a good thing from the NCLB legislation.

Problems still remain, of course.  The second cohort had a lower number of passing students, attributable to the increased difficulty of the exam.  Middle-school teachers, both new and experienced, had special difficulty passing the test.

The report looked at 20 states with teachers who take Praxis tests as part of their teacher preparation.  They must pass all parts of the exam or they do not receive certification.  Only 3 of the states, Nevada, Hawaii, and Oregon are in the west.

Some states have identified their own tests.  California, for example, uses the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) when determining new teacher and highly-qualified teacher certification.  The exams must be passed before teacher preparation classes are completed.

While the study demonstrates that teachers entering the profession are better prepared to do well in schools of education, other studies share additional issues that must be addressed to turn out excellent teachers for the variety of students in the 21st century United States.

Let’s look at two other reports Eduflack blogger Patrick Riccardo has noted.

Hope Street Group, a business group interested in better learning outcomes, released “Using Open Innovation to Improve Teacher Evaluation Systems.”  While the report, developed mostly by teachers, is concerned with accountability in the classroom, some of its proposals could be part of further improvement in teacher preparation, attracting new professionals with good academic backgrounds.  Here are several examples:

* Education schools should use clearly defined standards of quality instruction and assessment of a student teacher’s classroom performance.

* Student teacher evaluations that rely on observation and discussion must be in the hands of instructional leaders who have sufficient expertise and training.

* Information from teacher preparation evaluations should be comparable across schools of education and available to districts, and similar evaluations used to address new (and experienced) teachers.

The Forum for Education and Democracy’s Rethinking Learning Now group released its report “Effective Teachers, High Achievers,” outlining another model of high-quality teacher education.  The government pays all expenses for teacher preparation; the student teacher receives a year of practice teaching in a clinical school; all beginning teachers are mentored; and ongoing professional development is embedded in the work week.

These guidelines would surely change the outlook for the teaching profession.  If so, keep in mind President Obama’s key question-who is all this change for?

Kids, I hope.

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Posted in NCLB, No Child Left Behind Act, highly qualified teachers, public schools, schools of education, teacher preparation |
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Better Off in “Basic Aid” School?

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

These days, savvy California parents with school-age children, looking for a place to live in a school district with stable finances, might search in a “basic aid” school district.

"basic aid" school in Los Altos, CA

"basic aid" school in Los Altos, CA

Those schools are usually thought to be found in high personal income communities, with high academic ratings and highly-qualified teachers.  A parent would be happy when the realtor discovered the perfect house.

Turns out nothing is perfect.  Every school unique.

If the realtor found a delightful dwelling in up-scale Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County, the family might be surprised that Beverly Hills Unified School District-fabulous student academic achievement; clean, up-to-date facilities; elite teacher corps-depends on “revenue limit” funds.

On the other hand, an oil man, buying a home in the Kern County Taft Union High School District, would find his children in a “basic aid” district, reaping the property taxes from the oil companies sitting on vast oil fields in the Central Valley.  The families with children attending TUHSD, however, have the lowest average personal income levels in the state. The schools are identified as Program Improvement (PI) under No Child Left Behind and student educational needs put a huge stress on the “basic aid” funds.  It relies heavily on state and federal categorical funds like Title I to support its programs.

How can it be so?

Settlement of the Serrano vs. Priest cases in 1972 and 1976 by the California Supreme Court, brought students under the equal opportunity protection of the law.  (Read Paradise Lost by Peter Schrag for the whole picture.)

The state then guaranteed each district a specific amount of funding per student per year, based on Average Daily Attendance (ADA).  Those “revenue limit” funds were based on property taxes raised in 1972-73.  For 35 years those monies have been adjusted by the state from other sources to equalize the revenue to each district.  Most of the approximately 1000 school districts in California rely on state “revenue limit” funds to set the yearly budget.

In 1978 Proposition 13 passed and property taxes became a huge thorn in the side for every school district.  It turns out some school districts actually had more property tax available within the school district boundary than would have been received from the “revenue limit” allocation.  Those districts are known as “basic aid” districts, about 100 or so in California this year.

Remember, all is not perfect.

Look at two adjoining “basic aid” elementary school districts in the affluent Silicon Valley where some of the most expensive property in the United States is found.  Los Altos School District’s Academic Performance Index (API) for 2008-09 was 959.  Can’t do much better, except for its few socio-economically disadvantaged students who barely made the grade on the NCLB Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) scale.

Meanwhile next door, “basic aid” only since July 2009, the Mountain View Whisman School District’s API rating was a respectable 822.  However, with a far more diverse student population, two of its schools are designated PI and must “turn around.”

Listening to Los Altos school board candidates, many questions came up about the antagonistic exchanges with the charter school that uses property in the district boundary.  No one brought up the need for schools, even high-performing ones, to devise plans to analyze test data to enrich the curriculum for high-achieving students as well as support low-performing students.

Reading the local newspapers, MVWSD is consumed with issues that can drain money from its  “basic aid” funds.  For example, property tax money doesn’t relate to student enrollment, so when one school loses and another bulges with students, arguments ensue.

What about the main problem for this “basic aid” district:  Program Improvement and “turn around?”  PI means professional development; teachers to work with low-performing students; a staff that communicates well; a plan to analyze testing data and account for the improvements all students must make; district administrators that realize the time and effort it will take.

School boards have difficulty focus on these tough issue, and such a “turn around” gives all districts a tight budget headache.

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Posted in Academic Performance Index, Annual Yearly Progress, No Child Left Behind Act, highly qualified teachers, low-performing schools, public schools |
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