My iPad still keeps revealing its potential to me. For example, right now I am on a cross country speaking trip doing PD in Missouri then Georgia… then North Carolina next week. Indeed, it’s been busy busy.

And when you are gonna be on so many airplanes, in so many hotels, in so many places, it’d be nice if you had a few of the following things with you.

• email
• gps system
• internet access wherever you were
• planner/calendar
• notepad
• books, books, books,
• a few movies
• some podcasts
• an immense music library
• magazine articles of interest
• daily newspaper
• my contact list
• a coupla games

Do I need to go on?

My iPad really is incredible. To be able to take so much content with me in one so easy-to-navigate device… well, like I said, the thing still keeps revealing its potential to me.

It’s changed the way I plan and pack for travel. For kids today, this may seem like an “Of course you can do that with it” experience. But for me, who remembers what it was like to have to choose between which content I could and could not take with me on the road, well… it’s is just crazy crazy.

And it even lets me blog, too. Whouldda thunk?

These past few days I have been blogging about this idea of measuring teacher effectiveness. To do this properly, the rule seems to me that the powers-that-be are going to have to use multiple measures.

And when I say multiple, I mean multiple.

First off, test scores. Fine, you want them so bad, I’ll put them on the table. (And this is coming from a guy who is Mr. Anti-Bubble test so this is no small concession on my part – but since I know how much they mean to you, I’ll toss in the first olive branch.)

But you gotta give me a few things in order for me to believe that measuring my effectiveness has been fairly rendered.

I want my peers weigh in on me. That’s right, my peers. They may be scallywags and rascals, but if you create an anonymous system whereby the teachers in my department can give me a score, I think that there will be some merit to be found in their aggravate evaluation.

Let’s say we use a 10 point scale. Is your peer, Mr. Alan an effective teacher? (Please, for the sake of me not having to explicate an entire survey, know that, of course, the peer survey will be more than 1 mere vague question — I am trying to make a point here, so please, cut me some slack.)

And so, back to the question: Please rank Mr. Alan on a scale from 1 to 10 (ten being the highest).

Throw out the top score and throw out the bottom and I think you get a picture. Not a crystal clear picture, but hey, fellow teachers know our peers to some extent and if across the board for 3 years in a row, a person is scoring 2′s and 1′s on the peer evaluation survey, I’d say that it reflects something bigger than a “nobody around here likes me” issue.

Year one is an anomaly. Year 2 is an indication. Three years in a row. That’s smoke… and perhaps there’s fire.

Besides, I will have to trust the professionalism of my colleagues to try and do what’s right. (I mean HOLY JEEZ, we have to start trusting one another!) Besides, the ELA Dept is not Lord of the Flies and railroading someone out of political conspiracy just for the sake of a power grab doesn’t seem very likely to happen to a teacher that colleagues feel is actually doing a good job of, well, teaching.

I know, the cynics will tell me, “Oh, I am SOOOOOOOO wrong!” (Did I mention the trust factor? We’re being trusted with the lives of kids but we can’t trust one another to simply be honest on a simple survey. We really need to get a grip.)

Ultimately, the dude down the hall might be a schmuck, but if he’s a good teacher, I am going to have to be a big enough boy to recognize that if the kids are being well served by him, that should count for something — and I can give him a 7 instead of a 9 because he has a grumpy disposition. Whatever. But if he’s not a 2 I won’t give that to him.

Plus, knowing that he’s gonna have a chance to weigh in on me, well, it certainly tamps down my desire to be contentious… at least with a person who is doing their job.

As far as the opposite conspiracy taking place (“Hey man, you give me a ten and I’ll give you a ten, okay?”) the thing about teachers is, way too many of us are like Atticus Finch and would respond with some kind of comment like, “It’s nothing personal, but my integrity prohibits me from making any such deal as aspects like this could undermine the entire American education system… and that’s a system to which I believe we must contribute honesty.”

Come on, you know you are out there. How many of you would really give a 10 to a teacher who you thought was a three simply so that they would return the favor in kind?

Like I said, Atticus lives.

Multiples measures for measuring teacher effectiveness will continue tomorrow… post is growing too long.

I am a huge fan of teacher autonomy. Trust me on this. I used to be a pariah, now I am considered an innovator. Either way, it’s my own internal teaching compass which always drives my class and if you look at all the writing I have done, I really don’t feel the need to open this post with a defense of myself on this front.

I believe I can be taken at my word – I am a HUGE fan of teacher autonomy.

However, teacher autonomy has wrought having scores of unfit boneheads in the classroom and they are doing so much damage — and they operate with virtual impunity in an unchecked manner that’s making almost a mockery of teaching as a profession… to say nothing of how the application of common sense employment guidelines are being kicked to the curb – and there needs to be reform.

Is the federal government’s desire to measure teacher effectiveness really an oligarchical march to power with an eye towards submarining democracy? Sure, the point actually has a small speck of merit because politicians are psychos… but to me, this is about “How do I know that the 9th grade English teacher down the hall isn’t checking her Facebook page all day instead of actually educating the children in her room?”

Because that is what is really going on out there.

And so, do we stall efforts at reforming the system so that the people who are literally stealing from our kids and taxpayers get outed and addressed or do we get mired in fighting off the shadows of potential dystopia through ceding to a measurement system?

Personally, I don’t even think the decision is a close call.

We really, right now, have a segment of teachers that do not deserve to be in the classroom. We also have a segment of teachers that are rock stars. And we have practically no means of knowing who is who. As a result, we are worse off for it. The top teachers can be empowered to expand their influence and the bottom teachers can be reigned in to re-adjust theirs, if we were only to know, who is who.

Now, if this means I am setting myself up to be an unwitting lemming that empowers the forces of oligarchy to finally seize control of democracy once and for all, then I think what really has come to pass is that we have lost the ability to apply some common sense to this issue.

I need to know if the sixth grade teacher down the hall is actually teaching pre-algebra to her kids or if she’s playing soduku.

CAUSE THAT IS WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON!

And if she’s the universe’s most awesome pre-algebra teacher, the pied piper of factoring equations, maybe she should be turned to as a thought leader on this subject area so that others can learn from her methods?

That’s what I believe measuring teacher effectiveness is all about.

One one hand it’s about outing the lemons. On the other hand it’s about taking advantage of our best talent to expand their “sphere of influence”.

And for those in the middle — most of us — it’s about identifying ways to see our strengths, recognize our weaknesses and see how we can better grow as professionals.

But there’s no trust. That’s what the conspiracy theories illuminate for me. We believe nefarious evil-doers are at the gate waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting sheep who lower their democratic guard for a minute.

Naahhhh. It’s about the fact that our entire system is riddled by a lack of trust. We don’t trust our federal government, we don’t trust our school districts, we don’t trust administrators and we hardly trust one another.

It’s like an overweight person getting on a scale. Only the people this person trusts get to see the number of pounds posted. And if you are forced on the scale, it’s an exercise in shame.

But if you can get the person to the scale willingly – because they trust that you are there to help them become more healthy, lose some weight, let go of some issues that are interfering with their ability to be better — you can make some real headway.

How can we really see where we are and learn how to improve if we are so unwilling to actually see where we are?

This is not about dystopian power plays. This is about common sense. People are being paid to do jobs. How are they doing?

We have no means of answering that question and it’s a gaping hole.

So here’s a fear I have about national standards. I think it’s going to create too much of a checklist system.

For example, I will be given a national standard to teach. I will teach it.

Then there will be a test. Scouring over the data from this test will be on a checklist of “tasks to do” for my school site administrators.

This data will be collected because collecting this data will be on a checklist for school site administrators. Then they will send it on.

Which, of course, will be on a checklist that someone sends to the district. Then they will send it on.

Which, of course, will be on a checklist that someone sends to the county. Then they will send it on.

Which, of course, will be on a checklist that someone sends to the state. Then they will send it on.

Which, of course, will be on a checklist that someone sends to the federal government. Then they will send it on.

Which, of course, will be on a checklist that someone checks at the level of the federal government.

And then, the federal government will look at all this data. And they will provide feedback on their ascertained checklist. Then they will send it on… which, of course, will be on a checklist.

Then they will send it on to the state. Which, of course, will be on a checklist.

Then they will send it on to the county. Which, of course, will be on a checklist.

Then they will send it on to the district. Which, of course, will be on a checklist.

Then they will send it on to the school site administrator. Which, of course, will be on a checklist.

Then they will send it back to me, the teacher. Which, of course, will be on a checklist that they expect me to check.

And what will that check actually tell me?

Something preposterously obvious that I am sure I could have already informed anyone along the chain of checklists if ever they had bothered to 1) ask me or 2) trust my professionalism.

Is this the new world?
Is this the current one?
Is it just me or are American schools becoming more and more dystopian?

The Checklist System, A Banquet of Preposterous Beauty

A-HA!! I finally figured out when the madness of NCLB will end. Now I am not sure I know how to to do the math properly, but I think it works out to something like this:

There are 26 letters in the alphabet. If you multiply 26 x 26 that means there are 676 possible two-letter combinations of acronyms to which they can ascribe names of punch-drunk policy.

This means that once NCLB hit the 677th clownish matter of educational legislation that requires an acronym, the system shuts down and we, the teachers are freed from this buffoonish dungeon.

Unfortunately, NCLB is a 4-letter acronym which means that they actually have 456,976 potential matters of acronym-al policy to work through before we are all free. (26 x 26 x 26 x 26). There’s good news and bad news in that.

The bad news: we still have a few hundred thousand more clodhopper mandates to work through before we are off this preposterous hook.

The worse news: sometimes they use 5 letter acronyms so we’re gonna have to multiply it again by another 26.

The good news… well, there ain’t much because I think they’ll start incorporating numbers once they recognize this flaw in the system… so just like the web gave birth to web 2. so too, will we one day be faced with NCLB 1.5 — it’ll try to be twice as good but it’ll fall half as short.

The only guarantee: it’ll be 1.5 times as maddening. Cubed! (That’s 3.375 times as loony if you multiply 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5. — which is really the only guarantee in the whole post.)

One of the biggest problems I have with our current national assessment system is that they have almost mastered the art of shaming and belittling those who do not make the cut while doing an exceptionally poor job of of recognizing those who have made strides in a positive direction or really give an exceptional effort at doing more with less. It’s as if under-performing the task of meeting their objectives deserves a SHOUTING DOWN FROM THE ROOFTOPS while those that make gains, small, medium or even large, get virtually nada other than a stuffy look over the nose of horned-rimmed glasses with a sense of, “Come on, ya know you gotta do better, right?” attached to their gaze.

When it comes to fear-mongering and draconian punishment, our national assessment system knows how to make front page news out of any school in the nation. When it comes to positive, small steps in the right direction, they don’t even know how to send over a “pat on the back” well-done, thank you card.

And really, who wants to work for a boss that only knows how to highlight your shortcomings without knowing how to recognize your achievements? I mean come on, to look at all that is actually being achieved in our schools today — and oh yes, there is a lot — you would think by the way it gets acknowledged by the powers-that-be that there was actually little to nothing of merit actually going on in the halls of our nationa’s educational system.

For example, my principal and I had a 45 minute phone call last night that started at 9:15 pm and school doesn’t even start until Friday. Actually, it was supposed to start on Tuesday but there was no money for “buy back” days so Tues and Wed were scratched due to budget cuts. So then Thursday was supposed to be our first day back but that was scratched as well because now it’s a furlough day. So essentially, we will start with Friday as our first and only day back with adults only before school actually begins (with kids) on Monday.

That’s one day to get a staff of nearly 200 people ready to go. In a school that is on Dante Circle of NCLB hell number 6 or something like that right now.

Uhm, hello… are we not already being set up to under-achieve just a wee bit. I mean I wonder whether or not everyone is even going to be able to get their room keys on Friday — forget being all on the same page as far as the zillion other details that run hand-in-hand with being part of a huge urban school go.

And does our school get any credit for the fact that there are a host of folks preparing on their own time, using their own money? Does my principal get any love for have left 19 days of paid contractual vacation time on the table this year so he could work to do a better job for our kids.

Where’s the attention to that?

When the month of May rolls around and Lynwood takes it on the chin (not they we absolutely will — it’s not a foregone conclusion and I certainly am holding out hope we can turn this puppy around — and working my tail off to do it as well), I wonder if it comes with at least a recognition of, “but to their credit, back in August, do you see what kind of effort they were at least trying to make?”

In too many ways, August can be the tail that wags the dog.

There is no way to work in a school today without the very clear recognition that the cracks are expanding. The question is, how do we prevent ourselves from cracking up amid the crumbling?

Kids used to just fall through cracks. But “kids”, at least as the phrase’s original connotation indicated to me, implied single kids (despite the use of the plural which I took to mean “one at a time.”) Or it meant a certain type of kid. It left one with the impression that a “kid falling through the cracks in the system” was an anomaly, a rare, but sad and regrettable bird, one that someone somewhere was diligently working to prevent in the future.

But nowadays, this expression has taken on (and is about to take on even more so) a whole new meaning.

Not just some kids, not just a bunch of kids, but many, many, many kids will fall through the cracks in the system in the next few years because the system is officially cracked and these budget cuts are taking a drill bit to the fault line.

For example, my own school district has forecast a projected 16 million dollar deficit after the operation of the 2009/2010 school year so something like 18% — 22% of our district’s teaching force was just pink slipped.

We’re still going to service roughly the same amount of kids, though. We’re just going to do it with 20% less educators (and a slashing of “fluff” classes like computers, art, music, and so on).

And all this as we face the oh-so-gentle stick of NCLB. Lest anyone forget, my high school is sinking towards Probation Level 4 in the DoE Circle of Educational Hell. I’m sure that less people actually trying to remediate our issues is going to help a heck of a lot, though. Wonder if they’ll take that into consideration when evaluating our bubble tests next year?

They raise the bar. They slash the resources to achieve the targets. Then they paint the people who work there as imbeciles who couldn’t teach a hungry monkey how to peel a banana.

I mean from my Superintendent on down to lil’ old me, what’s a fella to do? I know, I know, roll with the punches… but how many more punches can we all be expected to take before we are considered to be too punch drunk to soberly and successfully go about performing our jobs?

And it ain’t just Lynwood that is cracked. As this report states, nearly 60% of this Chicago school’s students will not be graduating from 8th grade, to the great shock of both the students and parents, of course. I mean I too could clearly see how my child was all beefed up on books and ready for Harvard but then voila, turns out she’s flunked 8th grade (along with the lion’s share of her peers) and here I was totally clueless about my kid’s — or her entire graduating class’s — performance. Totally believable.

Not that the school is above reproach, though. I’m sorry, but if 60% of your entire 8th grade is failing, guess what folks? The people working at the school are failing, too. Take some freakin’ ownership!

In that spirit, are Lynwood’s shortcoming my own fault as well? Absolutely. I must, if I am to accept any credit in the areas where we achieve, accept culpability for our shortcoming’s as well. After all, am I not my co-teacher’s keeper?

Usually, I’d crack a smarmy joke right about now in this point of the blog. Go for the smile with a small twist of the knife to boot. But guess what. These cracks are serious business and where the hell are our kids going to be in 3 years if we continue down this path.

Crack. It’s like we’re smoking it.

A really interesting report was just published that essentially equates me, a teacher, to a widget. By that they point out that public education views me as a replaceable cog, an indistinguishable influence on the overall productivity of public schooling which assumes that the work I do can be replicated by any other widget who meets the same criteria for being hired that I do.

I am immediately struck by a few things about this report:

–No duh! Everyone who works in our school system feels as though, if we were not to return next year, there would be the sentiment of, “Oh well, we lost a good one there but life goes on, bring on the new guy/gal, keep the wheels a turning please.” Under-appreciation for the work we do runs commensurate with the position. That’s just status quo. In a way it’s good because it means that no one person is any more important than the larger entity, its principles and public education’s societal objective. On the other hand, it breeds a system whereby all I really need to do is enough not to get fired. Once you are a widget, as long as you remain a functional widget, you get to keep on widgeting.

–This report states that 99% percent of teachers receive a satisfactory rating and that only 1% are rated unsatisfactory. Come on, now you have to admit, that’s a little high. I mean 1% — it can’t be that many! Lore is they have what’s called the Dance of the Lemons whereby folks who stink simply get transferred to other schools and not canned.

–Their claim that Professional Development is inadequate. I’d suggest that it’s virtually token if not out-n-out non-existent in many, many schools. (And this comes from a person who works hard to try and provide excellent PD when I go and visit schools.) Conference attendance is at a horrific low, resources to obtain high quality materials are being frittered away (see my recent commentary on textbooks) and hucksters abound in the world of “I’ll come to your school, fix all your problems plus your staff will laugh the whole day long”. A real commitment to PD can change a teacher’s classroom craft for the better but unless real support is provided from above (and in a world of budget cuts, PD always seems like a luxury to oh-so-many bean counters) ain’t no fresh news here.

But the thing is, I like this report. They are advocating for a more sensible system of schooling. I am not bashing them — I am saluting them, even if they are merely statistically backing up what so many people on the front lines know to be as self-evident.

We, the teachers, are being treated as widgets. But that’s not the greatest travesty. The greatest travesty is that we are treating our students as if they are widgets and until we are dedicated to halting this production line, we are gonna go right on widgeting along.

Cut music programs. Give them more math.
Eliminate art programs. Make them follow scripted curriculums.
Slash after school programs. Pretend the time between 3-6 pm isn’t The Witching Hour whereby most teens get into trouble with the law.
Fund more bubble testing. Slash special ed.
Cut school counseling positions. Fire more teachers. (Well, at least they are being fair here.)

Widget. Widget. Widget. Widget. Widget. Widget. Widget. Widget.

Social promotion is the scourge of public education today. The fact is we are simply passing our kids on up the ladder whether or not they have demonstrated any sort of comprehension of the subject matter they are supposed to have learned in the class/course/grade level in which they are enrolled. This folly creates a ripple effect of domino-like failure because most of our education system is predicated on knowing what comes before in order to be able to succeed now and thereby prosper later.

For example, when kids don’t learn their multiplication tables it becomes almost impossible to do their algebra. Without their algebra, they can’t do geometry. Without geometry, they can’t pass high stakes tests like the California High School Exit Exam… so then they can’t earn their high school diploma.

Obviously, we need to stop stop the students from moving up the ladder — before they take the exit exam, before they enroll in geometry, before they take algebra — and ensure that they know their foundational skills like multiplication tables before the ensuing calamity befalls them when they are teenagers.

Thus we need gatekeeping checkpoints. I mean, if a students does not possess a certain minimum level of aptitude in specific subject matters, it’s ridiculous to move them up in the system because we are simply setting the kids up to fail.

Logical, right?

I think we need checkpoints before students enter school in grade 1 (so we can assess their aptitude before they even enter school to determine whether they can write their name, read, and so on. I mean some kids come in ready to read chapter books and some kids come in lacking the ability to recognize sight words — the difference is HUGE and if we continue to toss them all in the same class when their needs are so drastically different, we are feeding the social promotion monster right out of the gate).

Then we need checkpoints at grade 4, grade 8 and grade 12. (Well, grade 12 are already in place, dysfunctional as they may be in so many places — but don’t get me started on bubble tests. The assessments we need also have a need… to be re-imagined, but that’s for a different blog post.)

Sadly, however, the fact is that public education is in such general disarray that we’d be retaining too many kids at the lower levels with a checkpoint system and adults in policy circles all over the U.S. quake at the idea of eventually having 16 year old boys in classes with 12 year old girls as this system would seem to create. So since we can’t handle the volume of kids who need to be retained, re-taught, worked with some more because they learn at a different pace through a different modality, perhaps, we simply pass them on up with an F on their record.

Hello, social promotion. I mean what if NASA allowed their pilots to fly rocket ships without being able to even get a crop-duster off the ground. There’d be crashes everywhere and people would be screaming STOP, you freakin’ fools. Lives are being destroyed because of this nonsense.

Now don’t get me started on how we also pass these kids up with feelings of incompetence, low academic self-esteem and an attitude of why bother to even try because I’m too stupid to learn this stuff anyway. Even though they are failing our classes, we are teaching them things, that’s for sure. And the things we are teaching them emotionally hurt. (And we wonder why the kids act out?)

Yes, our problems are complicated problems, that’s for sure. But until someone puts a stop to the nonsense that is social promotion the entire system is going to continue to buckle. After all, a house built on a weak, pathetic foundation simply will not stand.

We need gatekeeping checkpoints. And considering that I proctored state tests today whereby kids all over my school were being asked to solve problems about Y intercepts, linear inequalities and quadratic equations on a graph with sloping, curving lines — and this is on the Algebra I test — is there any wonder that the chances of my school doing well this year are diminished by the fact that so many of our students struggle with things like long division and quickly decipher things like the answer to 9 x 7? Yet when they were struggling, when their teachers saw that they did not know the material, when years ago the educators knew that, “Hey kid, if you don’t get this, there’s no way that you are going to get that later on,” where were our policy makers then?

Why is it that common sense is so uncommon in our schools?

No one climbs a ladder without being able to step up from a prior rung.