I’ve heard that it costs the United States Treasury more than one cent to produce a penny. Obviously these people went to American schools because where else would you come up with the idea to spend more money creating an item than the item itself would ultimately be worth?

And then, complicating the irony of it all is the fact that this is currency we’re talking about. We are losing money making [literally] money.

But worse yet, why do we still continue to do it.

Once upon a time, copper was cheap and the U.S. penny actually possessed the ability to purchase something. Not much, but something.

Nowadays if all you have is a penny in your pocket — or two or three — you ain’t got squat. I can’t think of anything that a penny will buy. (Except “your thoughts” and for some people’s, that’s over-paying… another issue entirely.)

And yet, the U.S. Treasury is coming out with a new penny. Never mind the fact that there was a campaign I’d heard of a few years ago to get rid of the penny entirely (because of its out-dated-ness, the folly of its cost, and so on) and just kick the lowest form of U.S. currency up to a nickel. (BTW, I’d sign that petition.) So essentially, they are going to continue to use taxpayer money to create new money that is less valuable than the expenditure it took to craft the money in the first place.

From the moment it rolls off the production line it’s an exercise in silliness. And yet, they continue to do it. Why?

Cause that’s the way it’s always been done. (I guess.) I only wish they would take a lesson from our schools.

D’oh!

Anyone notice that we, in education, still seem to do a lot of things for what seems like the “cause that’s the way it’s always been done” reason.

I guess those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones at the penny makers, huh? I mean, I could bash and bash this new penny idea on and on but at least the U.S. Treasury has money.

Schools, we certainly don’t. Matter of fact, we’re so hard up that to us pennies look like benjamins.

Yesterday I wrote about how first and foremost I must raise my standardized test scores. I also expressed how I was disheartened by such a cold, black and white reality.

However, these are the cards I’ve been dealt. The federal government is literally strong-arming the states through a lording of the purse strings over their heads (i.e. no comply, no money — no comply, no money — no comply, no money) to either raise bubble test scores in our schools — particularly in our low-performing schools such as the one where I teach — or incur draconian consequences.

We are now in the draconian consequences mode here at Lynwood High School.

Though I believe I have spent years bashing the bubble tests as being insufficient assessment tools, ( I truly do not believe they measure my own ability as a teacher, the work I have done, nor do they precisely measure the full capacity of my kids in a manner that paints an accurate, holistic portrait of the individual child — and I do feel that growth model assessments would be much more fair and much more accurate indications of the work being done in our classrooms… blah, blah, blah, this case has been made ad nauseum) the powers that be have remain unmoved for whatever reason. And so, like every other teacher in my school, I have to play they way they want me to play or else they will remove me from my position and bring in other teachers to do as they wish.

Raise your test scores. That’s all they want.

And the thing is, I don’t really think it’s going to be all the immense of a challenge for me.

Now, I don’t want to be arrogant. I don’t want to sound like a teacher filled with hubris but, look… let’s be honest. I can do this.

Why? Because I am now going to “crack” the test.

And I am going to teach all of my students how to “crack” the tests.

And their scores will rise.

Let’s be clear, I am not going to do anything illegal. It’s all perfectly legit. Just like the SAT prep classes and the graduate school entrance exams (the LSAT, the MCAT, the GMAT) all have expensive “test prep” classes that teach their students how to “crack” the test, so too will I do the same for my kids.

Standardized tests by their very nature are “crackable” and if you put me in front of the guillotine, well… I have a job I’d like to keep.

And so, I will buckle to the pressure.

Is it best for the kids? Well, it seems like the powers-that-be don’t really care for my opinion on that matter.

Of course, it’s all fine and dandy when there’s no bread to tell others, “Let them eat cake” but this is going to save my job so please… unless you have a way for me to protest my approach to the second half of this school year without it costing me my employment, recognize that this is the world in which we all now live.

And if this pressure has not yet come to your door, be thankful.

Just FYI, more posts to come (for the curious) will speak to:
– How to crack the tests.
– Why I actually do believe in accountability.
– What will get put on the back-burner while test-prep gets “red-alert” priority.
– The inner conflict I feel about “going along to get along” as opposed to being willing to “die for a cause”.

America’s definition of wealth is warped. And the definition of wealth we teach our kids is skewed as well. (After all, I should know. I think the way I have been taught to think about ideas such as “worth”, “value”, “assets” and so on are exceptionally demented being that the monetary association is always my first and foremost barometer for these definitions — when I know in my heart that family, health, service to others and so on are much more meaningful to me once I slow down and count up all my chickens.)

Let’s be honest, in the United States, people use money like a scorecard. We publish the salaries of movie stars, big-name athletes and CEO’s. The higher one ranks, the “better” a person is. And come on, isn’t salary — or lack thereof — one of the prime reasons so many people treat educators in a condescending manner? I tell ya this, a lot fewer people would hit me up with the ol’ ,”Oh you’re a teacher? I really admire the work you do. It must be so challenging yet rewarding,” pity-talk I often get at holiday parties if I was banking an 8 figure salary.

Instead, they’d be schmoozing me up for hot tips like, “Yo, let’s say I was at Bloom Taxonomy level 3 preparing for a unit quiz. Got any sweet “ins” on how I could get all the way to level six without sacrificing classroom management in the process of trying to hyper-engage all the different learning styles in my classroom?”

That’ll be the day, right?

Additionally, to the uber-rich, it often feels like — at least to an outsider looking in — that no matter how much money they have, it’s never enough.

What are they still seeking, I’ve often asked myself. I mean, how big of a steak can one person eat?

Interestingly, I came across this comment from Eli Broad, a man on the Forbes List of billionaires, about what the latest financial turmoil means to the people of our country. Broad says…

It’s not any longer simply about how much money you have, what your assets are worth. The happiest people I’ve found are in science. These people have three times the IQ — maybe I’m exaggerating. They have a higher IQ than I do. They love what they’re doing, they have a good family life, they’re satisfied. People are going to take a look at how we define wealth, and not just in financial terms. They’ll ask, what am I accomplishing? What am I going to leave behind? What am I doing with my kids? How am I going to help my community? I’ve not led a balanced life. If I had it to do over again, maybe I might lead a more balanced life.

Haven’t we all been indoctrinated to believe that by reading the Forbes List of billionaires we are also reading a list of those who are the most happy and satisfied in life? Haven’t we all been served a glass of kool-aid that gets us to believe that the more we possess, the more we are fulfilled?

Are we now at the dawn of re-evaluating wealth? Does 2010 ring in a year when fulfillment is part of the equation in determining one’s “assets”?

Will the ghost of my “level of income equates to my level of value in this world” ever stop haunting me?

Cause that’s the tainted Kool-Aid I done drunk.

This article in Education Week calls attention to potential “conflict of interests” between educational publishers and those that are behind the scenes of the national standards push.

Essentially, here’s the thrust of the article…

The Literacy Research Association sent a letter Oct. 21 to the groups overseeing the development of common standards that, among other points, expresses concern that many of the authors are “representatives of multiple commercial entities that stand to profit enormously from selling curricula, instructional materials, assessments, and consultancies as the standards are rolled out.”

On one hand, can you really be surprised? When billion of dollars of government money is on the line, there are going to be commercial wolves salivating for the cash. (It happens in defense, construction, telecommunications and so on.)

On the other hand, the people who are authoring the national standards are some of America’s foremost thinkers and experts on students, achievement and blah, blah, blah. I mean where else would the Dept. of Ed turn for this authorship? And the educational publishers need these type of people to author their materials as well… so where do you think they are going to turn?

To the same people.

The conflict of interest was inevitable.

The solution seems kind of obvious to me. Make the contract read, if you write the standards you can’t author/consult/and so on for commercial educational publishing/testing materials for say, 5 years. (Or, if you have accepted money for authoring/consulting educational publishing materials, you are automatically excluded from national writing standards.)

Either way, should we be shocked that some people want to set it up so that “the folks in Congress get to vote on their own pay raise” (cause it’s kind of analogous)?

In parts of school and educational policy these days, all you have to do is follow the money.National standards means national standardized testing… and who will profit off of the implementation and administration of that I wonder?

The chumminess is troubling — even more so when it gets obfuscated behind closed doors, through back channels and what-not. But, hey, Joe and Jane parent… whadda they know. After all, they are entrusting both their kids and their tax dollars to us so that we can, as professionals, make these “best decisions” for them..

Hard to make a best decision for somebody else’s kids when you are staring at 10 figure contracts on the line.

That’s right BILLIONS are hanging in the balance.

But the internet makes for an amazing watchdog, does it not? People with hands in cookie jars… they gotta be more careful than ever, don’t they?

Another very big study was just published as to what keeps teachers in their jobs — particularly at urban schools.

It’s worth a read if you have the time (click here) but in a nutshell, here is what they found.

The overall story implied by these results is largely similar to what was learned from the OLS analysis: a supportive principal appears to have a large effect on job attractiveness, and an induction program and curricular flexibility have smaller, but substantial effects. The ethnic composition of the school population has remarkably little influence. (note: this is taken directly from page 9 of their report)

Look, it’s not money that drives us. This is why the national conversation about merit pay is so frustrating. Uh duh… if money were the leading reason why people became teachers they wouldn’t become teachers.

We like the work but want to feel supported. It’s really hard to work in a school — especially an urban school. Even exceptionally challenging at times (almost more difficult than anything we imagined). But at the end of the day, as so many studies prove, teachers want two basic things.

1) To feel supported and be appreciated for our efforts by our campus leaders.
2) To have a certain degree of curricular flexibility so as not be micromanaged by scripted programming/textbook pacing plan nonsense/ district overlords and so on that are not responsive to the needs of our individual students as we best diagnose their aptitudes and necessities.

It’s not rocket science. We need to feel as if someone has our back and that the people who have our back trust us and will serve as a resource to us when times get tough. We want input and solutions and help… not castigation, fear-mongering, blame, or abandonment.

Provide these things and we’ll deal with the challenging salary, demands of the job, crazy hours and so on. But take away a campus leader who is empathetic and encouraging and dictate the lesson plans being implemented to the point of us feeling as if it’s more about all bureaucratic nonsense and a CYA mentality than it is about the kids- – kids who are most assuredly struggling — and the attrition rate for folks like me explodes.

No, we’re not monks and yes, we like and need cash as much as the next person. But life, to us, needs to have some meaningfulness embedded in our day-to-day work and if the two elements above are absent, the meaningfulness plummets and we get the itch to abandon ship.

As the President has made abundantly clear, he believes the nation needs more post-high school education. He’s lobbying for it. He’s speaking about it. He’s even putting our money where his mouth is.

And then you read info like this (as reported in the Los Angeles Times) stating that University of California’s freshman class drops by 6.8%:

Freshman enrollment at the University of California will be 6.8% lower this fall, a drop of 2,603 students from last year that closely matches a reduction the university sought because of budget shortfalls, UC officials said Tuesday.

In all, 35,435 students from California and other states have told one of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses that they intend to enroll as fall freshmen, compared with 38,038 last year.

Geez, what to do? On one hand we know what needs to be done. We need to invest more money in education at every level of the system. On the other hand, the citizens of the U.S. are going to have to pay for it and the only way the government gets to pay for anything is by spending the tax money of its citizens.

So who’s up for higher taxes? Obviously, not enough of us. Matter of fact, we want lower taxes. Or better yet, no taxes. But we want all the services… please don’t cut those.

What is the cost of a highly educated citizenry? What is the expense of a poorly educated citizenry? It all brings to mind one of my favorite quotes of all time:

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
–Derek Bok

Or as the sign says, “Get a brain, MORANS!” (Go USA)

Hmmm, will digital textbooks simply replace traditional textbooks so that the wheels of these entrenched, corporate behemoth money making machines just keep chugging right along?

Let’s look at 9th grade…

Why would I pay for Romeo and Juliet when the full text of the play is already online free of charge in more places than I can even count?

I wouldn’t.

So then schools like mine will just pay for the accompanying lesson plans, right?

Not so fast.

I mean why pay for lesson plans when there are literally a host of INCREDIBLE lesson plans already online free of charge? I mean the Royal Shakespeare Company is pretty reputable, wouldn’t ya say? And they provide SO MUCH material smoking material it feels like it would be an honor to have them help me in my class.

Then add in the resouces being provided at NCTE or the stuff I can find on websites like WebEnglishTeacher.com and I can do some pretty sweet stuff.

Okay, R&J is covered. So what about The Odyssey?

Check.

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud?

Check.

The Scarlett Ibis? The Gift of the Magi? The Lady or the Tiger?

Check. Check. Check.

And are there resources for teaching these on the web? And good ones?

CHECK!!!

And do I then get to go back to doing what the state wants me to do, teach to the standards in a way that doesn’t come from one myopic source that attempts to be one-size-fits-all but rather empowers me to PICK and choose materials as I best see them working, as most appropriate to the needs of my individual students as I professionally diagnose their academic needs?

Check.

Indeed, my school used to shop for our entire grocery budget at the textbook supermarket — but now, it’s just looks like we’ll just be taking a banana please… and it better be a darn good one in order to justify the expense otherwise… I’ll just get the rest of our groceries elsewhere.

And look at all the money I’ll have left over in my wallet for other household needs. Wow!

And so, will digital textbooks simply replace traditional textbooks so that the wheels of these entrenched, corporate behemoth money making machines just keep chugging right along?

I wouldn’t bet on it.

P.S. For a really interesting view on textbooks which Jim Burke passed along to me, check out this blog post by Seth Godin.

So $100,000,000.00 was just spent (that’s right, 100 mill) and, as this article points out, virtually no positive results were reaped by the extra expenditure of cash-o-la invested in education by a fella with a pet education project named Randy Crew. Hmmm, what can we deduce?

*The Sticky Floor Theory is alive and well. (For those of you not familiar with the “sticky floor” theory in education it basically postulates that those who are down, once down, stay down — because the “floor” is sticky. Put another way, the thinking goes that once you sink into the combustible mix of poverty, sparse employment opportunity and low levels of education, there is a cultural sort of tar to this bottom-of-the-rung environment that seems to keep the feet of those who wish to climb up stuck to the ground levels. And upward mobility is plagued by there being an invisible yet formidable substance oppressing those who wish to rise. Essentally, it’s kind of an inverted cousin of the glass ceiling.)

*Money alone doesn’t solve problems. Without good ideas and intelligent practices, more money spent is not going to equate to higher results achieved. (Maybe this is why NCLB remains so under-funded? They know if they do fund some of this buffoonery it ain’t gonna make a spit of difference. Hey! I just realized something. George Bush was actually a fiscally prudent, insightful, almost prescient president. Whoo-dah-thunk-it?)

*More time in and of itself isn’t going to solve the problems. As you see the article mention, the kids were more fatigued from the extended hours, the teachers were more fatigued from the extended hours and yet there seems to be virutally no improvement from simply spending more time in class. (Might it be that quality supercedes quantity? However, I, for one, do believe that America’s kids need more time in class — not less, not the same but more. WAY MORE! Yet alone, this isn’t going to do anything.)

*The assessments are flawed. Ask any real teacher in a real Florida classroom about how much faith they put in the FCAT’s as an authentic measurement of student achievement — or as a tool that gives true insight as to the qualities of the educator — or as to the true aptitudes of the students and you’ll hear a boatload of complaints. Standardized testing, as it currently exists — and in my opinion — is a sham.

*The teachers charged with achieving the results sought were not properly prepared for the task. What was the PD prior to the expenditure of this money? Can we assume that this Zone experiment might have needed more prep time so that the people working in the Zone were properly readied for the task? Or, is it a case of the next item on the list…

*The teachers stunk. Unfair to say, but this certainly provides more artillery for those who want to fire every teacher in America and then hire a whole new work force. (As if people are beating down doors to go work in Miami’s lowest performing schools.) I mean, hey, we just spent 100 million for no improvement — it’s gotta be the teachers fault, doesn’t it?

*People will now be frightful of signing off on spending money towards, what seems to have been, an exceptionally ambitious and meritorious aim. I know very little about this guy Randy Crew. He was forced out with a six-figure buy-out according to this article but only the lord above knows what really happened in Miami. However, I salute the guy for going to bat for the poorest, lowest achieving schools and really trying to make a difference. I mean the man seems to have staked his career on this venture and he came up as the goat. So what, I say. He apparently took a swing of the bat and gave his best run for the money in an effort to help some of Florida’s least fortunate. (And if you know anything about Miami/Dade county, you know that when we’re talking about a textbook case of America’s severely disadvantaged.) Crew went to bat for these kids and for that I think he’s to be saluted. And I am not alone. As Board member Agustín Barrera said in the article, ”It was a well-thought-out plan that, unfortunately, did not bear the fruits we all thought it would. The mistake would have been not trying the zone, because then we would have failed the students by not trying something new.”

Was it a an attempt for personal glory — the article implies that, too — or a case of going to bat for the kids in a real and earnest and dramatic way? I really don’t know.

But it does seem that education reform for America’s lowest performing schools — not just in Miami, but all across our country — just took a Crew cut.

I adore Obama and feel that he is spot on in so many ways when it comes to moving education forward in America to better meet the demands of the next generation.

However, I keep hearing him say “we need to do a better job of rewarding talented teachers” but I don’t believe that the key to national success and achieving our educational aims preeminently lies in figuring out a way to pay good teachers more money. In fact, I believe that we can make our biggest and best strides by simply better empowering our nation’s best educators. What we want are tools, resources, some personal freedom to use our own professional discretion as to how and when to apply our craft and not to have the penultimate evaluation of our school or our own individual competence as educators be determined by preposterous bubble tests.

Do I want more money? Of course I do. But if that was my sole driving force I never would have entered into this field. (I’d have become a Wall Street investment banker — soulless, rapaciously greedy, ridiculously over-compensated and self-righteous enough to believe that I deserve to make in one year what it takes the average American teacher, firefighter, nurse, or cop to make in 25 years).

Will better compensation help? Yes. I think the answer is self-evident. Right now our best and brightest aren’t choosing to go into the field of schooling after college and low pay is certainly a factor in this decision making. However, I never hear anybody voice the opinion, “Ya know, if my school district paid me more, I’d work harder.” What I do hear is people griping about how they are handcuffed by this overwhelmingly silly mandate to utilize one-size-fits-all materials (can ya hear me textbooks and scripted curriculums?!) and how they pretty much hate the bubble tests, finding them to be a waste of time, of little or no authentic assessment use for improving true, meaningful achievement with real, individual kids, and how they’d love to have some really good professional development that assisted them in improving their craft.

We want to get better. There are ways to get better. But, as all teachers know, the only way to get better is through more schooling and if there is one truism about all good teachers it’s that they understand the value of perpetually being a learner. We never know it all.

Empower us, Mr. Obama. And don’t let merit pay become a red herring.