There is most certainly a very interesting tidal wave on the horizon. And in the mighty seas that are swirling these days in education, that’s no small feat (to create a potential tsunami that is teacher evaluation, that is. See here for the Obama chides California article which this blog post references).

Now, I have no problem with accountability. And no one is above it. I do have a problem, however, with evaluating a professional based on what I consider to be a weak, and quite possibly, inadequate means of assessment to make one’s decision… but I am holding back judgement right now on this Arne Duncan/Obama plan.

See, I think the tests are flawed to a degree. I believe we need growth model assessments to see how much kids learn over the course of the year under the direction of an educator in order to be able to fairly evaluate that educator. Otherwise, by comparing this year’s students to last year’s kids, it’s really apples to oranges (as I have said many times). How my 10 graders measure up this year should be based on where their skills were when they started the year with me — and then we can see their “growth” (there’s that word again). However, to evaluate my 10th graders this year against my 10 graders last year is practically an arbitrary comparison. All kids are different and if we can’t agree on that, then we can’t agree on much at all.

Additionally, my hope is that in this plan comes a recogniztion that there are a few different criteria to “evaluate” teachers — and please tell me that there are more tricks up their sleeves than the simple “kids taking bubble tests in May” approach which so often favor the upper socio-economic areas of our nation.

For example, a teacher who works in a suburban school with a population of kids where 98% of their parents went to college is, if we use our present data system, going to have students that (for the most part) outperform students where greater than 50% of the kids are English language learners.

Sure there might be some anomalies but for the most part this data holds true. The more wealth and education that the parents own in a community, the higher the test scores.

But, does this mean that the teachers who work in elevated socioeconomic areas are “better” teachers than those who do not?

Really… I question it. Because as of right now, I do not see how the teacher evaluation system that is being proposed does not seem to slant towards this end result. (Yet, I am trying to be patient, reserve judgement and wait to see what is actually on the table for all of this.)

But if it does end up that the teacher evaluation system slopes towards this end result, it’s almost un-American.

Two scenarios: Teacher 1 in the suburbs with kids who get high test scores. Teacher 2 in a Title 1 school with all the problems that run attendant to our nation’s lowest performing academic institutions.

Test time comes and the students of Teacher 1 outperform the students of Teacher 2. No one is shocked by the way by the result of their bubble tests.

Now, does this mean that the teacher in scenario 1 in the suburbs is a “better” teacher? Does it mean that the teacher in scenario #2, if the kids struggle to even read the tests, is a worse teacher? See this is where the problem exists for so many. And for me, I don’t want to stop working with the Title I population in inner city Los Angeles.

I LOVE IT!! However, I also don’t want the tests to demonize me as not measuring up because on the whole, my students do not score on these bubble tests at the same level of proficiency as kids who have lawyers, doctors and MBAs for parents.

American society is bifurcated along socioeconomic/class divides and while we all want to be rich, the truth is, all of us are not… and there are a great many of us striving to do 10 dollars worth of work with 5 dollars worth of resources.

My fear is that, unless these teacher evaluations take into consideration all the other mitigating factors that go into making for a really “great professional” what we are going to see is that folks who work in areas where the families have solid educational backgrounds and deep financial pockets are going to be rewarded while the folks who work in our more “troubled areas” are going to inevitably thrown under the bus.

And that is, as I have said many times before, un-American. Accountability is fine as long as it is not used as a weapon and if this plan is going to chase everyone to pursue jobs where the kids are already high-performers even before the school year starts, then we are going to do a disservice to the kids who most need our attention, care, solid efforts and skills.

Just found out a freshman of mine, Rosa, up and moved to Texas over the weekend.

No notice. No official checking out of school. No goodbye. Just Texas.

Also, no final exam, no final project, no completion of her last few assignments for my class or anything remotely tied to properly closing down shop. We have two full weeks left of school but not for Rosa. According to her friends, she’s left Los Angeles for good. And why?

Because her sister got pregnant. That’s right, her sister.

See, Rosa’s sister is/was a junior at our high school. Apparently, her mom blew a gasket over the weekend, kicked one or both of them out of the house upon hearing this news (details are fuzzy) and now they are off to live in the Lone Star state with their dad, a guy who hasn’t had any sort of presence in their life for a decade.

Of course the guy who contributed to the Rosa’s-sister-will-be-having-a-baby is a total no-show in all of this as well. Wow, that’s original.

BTW, I just checked my calendar and realized that No Child Left Behind is mandating that all my students are at 100% proficiency by the year 2014. Just how exactly do they expect me to deal with this kind of stuff? I mean Rosa was a C-/D+ student before her end of the year disappearance, struggling to even maintain regular attendance (though she did discover reading this year in my class. The book 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher really hit a chord with her.)

Now, I’m not sure if she’ll get a D, a D- or an F. (I’ve yet to do the 4rth quarter’s math but it ain’t lookin’ pretty.) And just Friday I gave her the ol’, “It’s the 4rth quarter, you need to finish strong,” speech. However, does her final grade really make that much of a difference anymore? Truly, is there applause and pride to be found in a D-, like “Yo, at least I didn’t get an F!”

Is Rosa even concerned in the slightest right now about school?

Education is an upper level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and when the bottom rung has been threatened, everything up above appears as a luxury.

School has now become a luxury to this 15 year old, a luxury I am assuming she doesn’t think she can afford.

Really, is Rosa going to enroll in school in Texas? And with NCLB ready to demonize schools who are not at 100% student proficiency in the next 4 1/2 years, are schools in Texas really going to be stretching out a set of open arms welcoming in kids who are almost assured of lowering their test scores and aggravating their dropout rates?

The school Rosa just left will be punished for trying to help Rosa because NCLB demonizes us for low bubble test performance. The school Rosa will enter, if she does enter school, will also be punished for trying to help because to think she’s not going to need some remediation, some extra assistance, some academic “love” is incredibly naive.

But she did make progress of some sort this year in my class. How do I know? Because 13 Reasons Why is a book about teen suicide and Rosa, after she read it, told me it made her feel better in a way that told me oh-so-much more.

NCLB may not think Lynwood High School did anything positive for Rosa, and they are certainly on track to take our school out to the whipping shed next year due to our inferior bubbles, but those of us who do this day in and day out know there’s a flip side to the flip side of this coin.

This stuff is starting to make my head spin.

On one hand, our courts ban same sex marraige,on the other hand a high school in Los Angeles elects a male prom queen and on the third hand 1 in 4 U.S. school-aged kids are Hispanic, but they are not recent immigrants.

Jeez, I don’t know whether to be homophobic, heterophobic or xenophobic at this point. Goodness how I wish the myopic, closed-minded folks who steer public sentiment could give me a better sense of direction. These days it’s confusing to know who I’m supposed to hate.

Los Angeles Unified has also decided to cut summer school due to the budget crisis — but we’re going to keep credit recovery courses at the secondary level for high schoolers. Now this makes complete sense to me. I mean come on, what kind of hit would this school district’s iconic educational image take if we weren’t still offering the chance to make up 18 weeks of F work with 4 weeks of D work (via worksheets, of course) and kept funding programs that had been proven to help that small little segment of our state’s population like elementary age English Language Learners.

Good call! I mean heaven forbid we actually associated an F with the idea of failing or recognized that young kids who need more time in class but don’t get it while they are still young will turn in to old kids who don’t care about spending any time in class because they already know it all.

I mean I don’t want to say that this is a jilting bigger than that of Betty being passed over for Veronica by Archie (not sure I agree with this one, Arch, my friend) but still, if I was going for where my buck will get more bang, I’d be betting on the little kids who are trying to learn the language over the big kids who just had their chance to earn credits oh, 2 week ago.

And you wonder why teachers need aspirin.

I love when the media tosses numbers around because they can make people look either brilliant or foolish. For example…

Check out this great story, the tale of Sharron Pearson. Sharon is the first student from the Los Angeles school to be accepted by Oxford Tradition. She has a scholarship but figures she needs $2,500 for airfare and other expenses.

That story resulted in this story, a follow-up about, you guessed it, Sharon Pearson, the first student from the Los Angeles school to be accepted by Oxford Tradition. (The money came a flowin’!)

Makes your heart kinda go all weepy, doesn’t it? People are, I believe (actually I have to believe this otherwise I couldn’t press on in this world) fundamentally good.

But as I said, when the media tosses around numbers it can also make us look foolish. Take for example this story about our impending college graduate shortage.

Do you wanna know why there’s no hyperlink to a feel-good follow up? Because right now, my faith is a bit low that numbers like the ones cited in the story are going to spur enough people into action. I mean the Governator keeps slashing the education budget as if it’ economically prudent in the long term to short change today’s kids in terms of funding their education and the resistance we see being offered to his ideas is feeble at best.

Makes us look pretty foolish, doesn’t it.

Obviously, there are a heck of a lot of people working their tails off so that we don’t end up in an “I told you so” nation… but don’t say they never told us so.

I don’t think it’s any great Einstein-ian insight to say that public education is dependent on the community in many, many ways. And when the community surrounding and supporting public education is dysfunctional, flawed, lacking, and so on, it’s really hard to be productive, excellent, amazing and wonderful in our classrooms.

Not that it can’t be done, but it becomes exceptionally challenging.

It’s almost self-evident that the first ally in our aim to excellently educate the students of this country is always the parents. For a kid that comes to first grade knowing how to write their name, read, identify letters, shapes, colors and has been socialized to working in classroom environments by having attended pre-school, teachers and schools can be rightfully expected to well educate that child. However, for the kid who did not have the “at home” pre-instruction to instruction, the kid who can’t write their name, doesn’t read a lick, struggles with elementary numbers and has no b.g. with books nor has been socialized yet to the demands of working well in a classroom environment, our schools are just not set up well to serve that kid — especially when mixed with other kids that are both above and below their individual level.

And then, as these students move up in grade level, the gap in skills and competencies — as all the data shows — grows and grows.

So yes, we need institutional change and yes, “there is something fundamentally flawed with the structure, management and compensation of the labor force in the public education system,” as was mentioned in another post on this ning but school readiness and community support are adding fuel to the fire and lots of us are quite sick of the fact that we’re viewed as if it’s all “our dysfunctional fault” that public education is in the state it is in.

We need better support! No matter how we are organized or re-organized, until we are better supported by the parents and community we are going to be extremely hard-pressed to meet our objectives because this lack of support is very much a weight on our back, an almost insurmountable albatross in many ways. Without real support from outside the school walls and halls, it’s spectacularly difficult to create the kind of wholesale change we’d all like to see. Sure, anomalies and success stories will always disprove any sweeping stereotypes but on the whole, turning around Washington DC, Oakland, Philly, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago and so on is going to take the communities of Washington DC, Oakland, Philly, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago and so on. Without the parents, without the local business owners, without the support of the alumni and the local governments, schools are going to be hard pressed to achieve the results that we all want to see.

When Barack said “parents” during the campaign, he knew exactly what he was talking about. We need the parents to be more involved, dedicated and committed.

Let me clear… I LOVE CLASSIC LITERATURE!! It’s why I became a writer and a teacher. Books have been nothing less than a spectacular and irreplaceably special part of my life. They’ve shaped my career choice, my social circles, my overall outlook on life and the manner in which I am raising my daughter. However, no one takes value from books they do not read — it’s that simple — and being that I teach in a school where we sport a near 50% drop-out rate, the ol’ “my way or the highway” methodology when it comes to text selection overwhelmingly results in kids saying, “Okay, I’ll take the highway.”

And it’s happening in Chicago, Oakland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Miami, Los Angeles, Dallas, Tuscon and on and on and on…

Sure, kids are cutting off their noses to spite their collective face but on the other hand, thousands of them come into our nation’s classrooms every day with a salty, bitter taste when it comes to the thought of reading and if we, as educators, remain so immovable (as we overwhelmingly have in the past 20 years) when it comes to embracing the idea that a kid must first view a book as an object which potentially holds great pleasure and possibility for them, as opposed to only great shame and punishment, then we are complicit when it comes to the miseducation of America’s youth.

For the teachers who think they are defending the honor of the canon by remaining intractable when it comes to getting kids to first like books — something legions of kids today have never had anyone do for them — before they ask them to wrestle with deep, meaty texts, well… it’s a recipe for not only academic, but societal, disaster.

BTW, I am in no way, shape, or form alone in this quandary. As a matter of fact, I’d venture to say that there are SCORES of teachers across our nation who are facing the very same hurdles I am on a daily basis. They are asking themselves, “How do I take kids who overtly make no bones about the fact that they do not like to read and get them to first and foremost, engage openly and honestly with a book, start to finish, reading the whole darn thing.”

Just having kids complete a book — that’s right, just reading one whole book — is a success that a huge amount of middle and high school ELA teachers today across our country are not enjoying. Nathaniel Hawthorne is great but he’s not being gulped down under the covers and being read by flashlight long after mom said, “Go to bed,” and at my school, the English teachers routinely laugh at the idea that more people do not read The Scarlet Letter than do when it is assigned.

And what can they do, fail the kid? Well, get in line. Turns out that kid is already failing math, science, and history.

But there is another way. It’s called winning his heart. The YA books that are being trashed on this board for not being of “high enough literary merit” is how I do that.

I tell you this, hundreds of pages of adolescent literacy research clearly illuminates the immense benefits, if not outright, fundamental necessity for, engagement in the classroom. However, nowhere have I ever seen any research which supports the idea of dis-engagement as an instructional strategy. And when you are staring out at 37 teens armed with no prior history of almost any sort of positive interaction with books and all you are provided with is the canon, it’s a freakin’ tough road to hoe.

That’s why we build bridges using relevant, accessible, gripping, popular (goodness, did I just validate popularity — gawd, I must be a heretic!) YA novels.

And for those who disagree, all I can say is I hear that inner city Detroit has a few teaching positions open. Go bring your theories of high fallutin’ literature as a sole academic diet to where the rubber meets the road — particularly in urban America — and see how well you fare. Suddenly, Speak, The Outsiders, Monster, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid provide a whole new meaning to the term “being a text with literary merit”.

Authoring the Book Jam has been an immense undertaking for me. After penning a book a year for the past 6 years in a row, I decided to take some time off and build a curriculum that came straight out of my private filing cabinet as a high school teacher in inner-city Los Angeles. Being that so many people have asked me over the years how I achieve the results I do with my kids, I decided once and for all to publish them in a format which would abide by a few simple rules.

It would have to be affordable, user-friendly, sizzling with energy, effective, intelligently constructed, and progressive in a way that empowered educators to meet the needs of the next generation of learner while returning the classroom teacher to a position of strength.

More than a few people thought I was bonkers to put aside a very healthy and lucrative book writing career (in the arms of Disney, nonetheless) to a pen a standards-based literacy curriculum aimed at reluctant reading 6-12th graders who had an overt disinterest in school.

BO-RING, right?

Well, no, I thought. Matter of fact, I found the idea electric.

The fact is, America’s classrooms are long overdue for change. Everyone agrees on this. Sure, we might not agree on how they should change or what this change will look like, but I meet very, very few people who look at the state of America’s classrooms as we draw to a close of the first decade of a new millennium and think, “You know, this whole school thing we got goin’ here in this country… it’s kinda firing on all cylinders. We need more status quo. Serve up more of what ya already got.”

So I asked myself, “How can I best contribute to creating the change I hope to see?” (instead of bitching about the problems, that is. See, so many people are complainers in the world of education, it drives me nuts. I say, quit moaning, pick up a shovel, a pen, a pile of books, a lesson plan — something — and GO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!! Just quit yapping. We need problem solvers, not problem pointer-outers. Geesh!)

So this is my attempt to re-invent the wheel I so dearly love. I mean face it… I’m a dork. I love school, books, writing, teaching, and homework. If I can’t be honest about my doofy-hood than I certainly don’t have a chance of breaking through to today’s kids.

But I’ve had a pretty good go these past few years breaking through to today’s kids by making connections, building bridges of relevance and accessibility and (yep, here comes the dorkiness) changing lives. It’s just what I love to do.

And Book Jams are how I now hope to empower others to be able to do the same.

Of course, as I type this, it’s late on Saturday night during a three day weekend from school that will see me working 16 hour days to bring the best that I can possibly offer to the Book Jam table. It’s a sick level of commitment which I have invested in these things but the fact is, I deeply enjoy the sickness. (I think if you look that up, it’s called addiction. Yep, I need Teachers Anonymous.)

Yet, I can honestly say that Book Jams are the best teaching I have ever done. Without a doubt. This, I’ll say it again, is the best work I have ever done. Unequivocally.

I can’t say where Book Jams will lead or what doors it will open but I do know that everyone behind the scenes who is working on this project feels a special energy emanating from the potential of that which we have thus far endeavored to craft. Truly, some of the best and brightest have come together to bring Book Jams to the light of day. I am literally amazed at how fortunate I am to work with so many talented people. And when I saw the very first piece of official literature on Book Jams, a simple poster/mailer thing that has everyone who has seen it abuzz, I decided to do a little chronicling.

We stand at the doorstep of unprecedented opportunity to revolutionize America’s classrooms. Book Jams are my attempt to step up to the plate with the biggest swing of the educational bat I have in my teaching bag.

And I am letting it rip.

Onward and upward, I say. America’s kids simply can’t wait

I should also mention that it is but a few days before Barack Obama gets inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. He enters office riding a mandate for change. It’s incredible to me just how many ripples a man of optimism and intelligence and faith and vision might make in the waters of mankind. Sure, some people are despondent when they look on the educational horizon. Me, I don’t see our problems… I see our opportunities.

I hope you’ll join me in your own special way.

Go ‘head. Chime in on the ning. We need you.