Blog Archives - JANINE WALKER CAFFREY - EDUCATION INNOVATION

JANINE WALKER CAFFREY - EDUCATION INNOVATION

We Need a Little More Uptown Funk!

1/29/2015

Check out this great new video from A. Maceo Smith New Tech High School featuring its wonderful students and exuberant theater teacher, Scot Pankey. The mission of A. Maceo Smith New Tech High School is to be an outstanding school of choice where students are engaged in projects-based learning that develops 21st Century Skills supported by technology that prepares them for a competitive global society. This is a very new "choice" school located in Dallas, Texas that will graduate its first class this year. I just loved seeing this video, which certainly was a projects-based learning experience involving many students. We need to give our kids lots of these types of authentic learning opportunities in order to prepare them for the world they will inhabit after high school.

This video really hit home for me. I know from my experience as a mom and a teacher how much our kids learn through the arts and authentic activities such as this. Last week I had the privilege of seeing projects-based learning highlighted in a brand new film called Most Likely to Succeed. If you need convincing that our schools need to move away from traditional classrooms, toward some "Uptown Funk," just watch this video, and then go see Most Likely to Succeed.

Discussion Leads to Understanding

1/27/2015

Today's Reading Teacher Tuesday video shows students discussing a text and coming to a consensus about character motivation. Watch these 2nd grades talk it out!

What is Assessment?

1/23/2015

Assessment is Part of Instruction

1/20/2015

Teachers do not need standardized tests to understand what their students know and still need to learn. Watch this guided reading lesson with first graders to see how the teacher weaves assessment throughout the lesson. In order to move our students toward proficiency on rigorous reading standards, we must support teachers in becoming skilled assessors throughout each lesson.

A Bold Experiment

1/19/2015

The testing of every child every year began as a bold experiment in 2001 as part of No Child Left Behind. The theory of action was that if we could expose the truth about student achievement and provide appropriate "carrots and sticks" for success and failure, we could improve education for all children. The goal was for all children to reach proficiency within 12 years. That has not happened. Our bold experiment has failed. We are now in the midst of a new bold experiment as we begin using new standardized testing aligned with the Common Core State Standards. This time, for the first time, states are making these test results integral to teacher evaluation. But there are some huge problems with our new experiment.

Who Should Be Accountable for Student Achievement?
First, we do not have an adequate understanding of how each teacher contributes to student achievement. There are many factors that contribute to student success. How can you hold a middle school social studies teacher or physical education teacher accountable for student performance on reading and math tests? The truth is that only about 20% of our teachers are teaching subjects and grade levels that can be directly linked to what is being tested. Additionally, we don't have a clear understanding of what is really the responsibility of the teacher versus the parents, school structure and community.

Test Anxiety!
Second, we have to consider the culture that high stakes testing has created. Teachers, students, parents, and entire school communities have become so anxious about testing there seems to be little talk about anything else. We have lost perspective, making the typical public school much more narrow in its focus. We have decreased important parts of the life of the school such as recess, the arts and science experiments in favor of "drill and kill" activities. This is all so that children will do better on the tests. Yet, despite all of this focus, results nationally are not even close to the original goals of No Child Left Behind.

Parental Push-back...
We are now seeing parents play a pivotal role in the future of our testing dilemma. For the very first time, parents are organizing a resistance to federal testing mandates by having their children refuse to take the tests. There is now a national group called United Opt Out that helps local groups organize and mobilize resistance to standardized testing. They are growing and becoming more visible. This begs the question, "What if they gave a test and nobody came?" School districts and states are suddenly rethinking how they respond to federal mandates.

Let's Try a New Bold Experiment.
Student assessment is an important part of the educational process. Teachers need to understand how students are progressing toward their educational goals so they can adjust instruction accordingly. What if we were to only allow assessment that would provide teachers with actionable information regarding student progress? Forget the high stakes. Let's build systems with more frequent assessments, that are part of the instructional process, and give teachers the information they need to move students forward. Teacher evaluation would focus on HOW teachers understand their students' needs and HOW they use this information. Students would advance in grade levels and programs based on this information. If we are interested in understanding the performance of a school or district as a whole, we can look at what students are doing in terms of advancing from one level to another. Here are some good questions that can be asked for accountability purposes:

1. What percentage of students are ready to move from "learning to read" to "reading to learn" by 4th grade?
2. What percentage of students are ready for Algebra by 8th grade? 9th grade?
3. What percentage of students are able to create and execute a science experiment based on the scientific method by 5th grade?
4. What percentage of students go to college without requiring remediation?

We can still understand the relative performance of schools by asking these types of questions. Eliminating annual high-stakes testing will allow teachers more time for instruction and better information to help children progress.

Teachers WANT to know how their students are progressing. We need to focus on professional development that respects their professional judgment and helps them improve their own assessment skills. Student assessment for any purpose other than helping teachers understand their own students' needs has no place in our schools. Let's have a new bold experiment that eliminates all testing except what is truly needed for our children.

Teachers are Superheroes

1/13/2015

Teachers are superheroes. They have the power to help kids learn to listen to other points of view and communicate in a way that others will understand. We need more people in the world who can engage in meaningful dialogue. Teachers can use superheroes from literature to help their students improve the debating skills necessary to take part in discussions. Take a look at the newest Reading Teacher Tuesday video to see how kids can engage in discourse with one another through a conversation about superheroes.

When you are finished, you can answer the question, "Who is your favorite superhero?"

Je Suis Charlie

1/12/2015

Like the rest of the world, I am horrified about the killing of cartoonists, writers and others at Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Unfortunately, I think we are inviting this type of violence by our own refusal to engage in meaningful discourse. I keep thinking about the 2008 presidential campaign. At that time I was living in a very conservative area of Florida. I remember when it was announced that Sarah Palin would be John McCain's running mate. The talk around my community centered around Obama's "elitist" status compared to Palin's "folksy" image. Many people commented to me that she is "one of us." They complained that Obama was highly educated at elite schools and seemed to be above us. A few times I attempted to reply with something like, "...but don't you want our President to be really smart? Isn't it better to have a leader who is highly educated?" The few times when I attempted to reply, I experienced downright hateful responses from people I thought I knew. It became painfully evident that I could not engage in dialogue about this presidential campaign. This should have come as no surprise. I had been unable to engage in dialogue about a host of issues when I lived in this little corner of Florida. Gay rights, abortion, religion, politics - even the weather (due to the climate change debate)- had become off-limit. Our community had begun to reflect the rest of the nation. People were just shouting at each other and not listening.

During those days, the only thing that kept me sane was watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. It wasn't that I necessarily agreed with their views every night. What I enjoyed was seeing people engage in issues with intellect and wit. The use of satire and humor allowed them to go places where we could not go in normal conversations. That is why political cartoonists and satirists are so very important. They open up dialogue and get us talking. That is why they are so threatening to terrorists. The more we think and talk and truly communicate, the more we will push back against tyranny and extremism.

We are now living in a world where a dictator in North Korea can stop the release of major motion picture and someone who draws cartoons is gunned down in Paris. Where do we go from here?

We must continue, despite the risk, to engage in discourse. This starts in our homes and schools. We must create an environment where children are encouraged to express themselves, state their opinions, and support their opinions with facts. Children who can engage in discourse will grow into thinking adults who can see the world through a wide range range of perspectives and communicate their ideas in a way others will hear them.

Tomorrow's "Reading Teacher Tuesday" will be dedicated to the victims of Charlie Hebdo by providing teachers with some strategies to encourage discourse in the classroom. I hope you will join me in moving the world in a new direction by encouraging discourse at every opportunity.

Reading Teacher Tuesday

1/6/2015

Today marks the beginning of Reading Teacher Tuesdays. Each Tuesday I will be writing a short article about the teaching of reading. Together with the article will be a video that highlights a teaching strategy. Today am focusing on comprehension skills for kindergarten students. When readers are about 5 years old, they probably can't quite read yet. We call them emerging readers. This is a time when we are building phonemic awareness skills by reading them books and singing songs with rhyming words. We are reinforcing the links between letters and sounds, and we are helping readers begin to recognize short sight words such as "the." This is also a time when we should be working on beginning comprehension skills. Check out this week's video and see how the right questions help emerging readers identify key ideas and details to uncover the main idea of a story. Please subscribe to the new Youtube channel called Classhopper so you will be updated when something new is posted!

Federal Attack on Teachers

1/4/2015

Our federal government is now attempting to have us believe that the problem in our high poverty communities is our teachers. The US Department of Education is directing school districts to ensure equity in teacher assignment by adding a requirement for "state educator equity plans" to Title I grant applications. Each state that accepts the funding will be required to submit a plan that shows how it will ensure "poor and minority children are not taught at higher rates than other children by inexperienced, unqualified, or out-of-field teachers.” The theory of action that guides this mandate goes something like this. If we could just get better teachers to work in these places, the kids would learn more. Wow. I have worked in lots of different places, including some high poverty communities and I can tell you from experience, there are really GREAT teachers in these places. These teachers overcome what others see as insurmountable odds to reach their kids. In addition to tirelessly teaching every day and working to improve their own skills, they provide food, clothing and sometimes even shelter to kids in need. They work long hours in sometimes terrible conditions and have their hearts broken on a daily basis. The reason we have less experienced teachers in our tough schools is because this work is really hard. Most teachers know if they don't want to leave the profession, they will have to switch to schools where they won't get burnt out as quickly. So, after just a few years, that is what typically happens. If a teacher still wants to teach (many don't and leave the profession), she will move to a place where she can feel more supported and more readily see the results of her work. Stating that our problems in high poverty districts stem from less effective teachers is about the most insulting thing you could say about the teaching profession.

Secondly, simply looking at experience and credentials (the current proposal) does not tell the whole story. There are incredibly effective beginning teachers who only have bachelor's degrees. There are some amazing teachers who come into the field through alternative routes and others who do incredible work "out of field." Conversely, there are some teachers with more experience and traditional credentials who may not be as good. Since we still lack an accurate way to measure teacher effectiveness, we really don't know how to sort teachers in a way that tells us which teacher is more effective. This is the very heart of the current debate over standardized testing and teacher evaluation.

The third flaw in this thinking is that you can somehow improve how local districts and schools select their teachers by making the process more complicated. This process is already cumbersome, filled with regulations, certifications, background checks, politics, school district policies and union rules. Adding yet another layer of complexity will just slow down the process and prevent high poverty districts from getting the teachers they need, when they need them. The result will be larger class sizes and more substitutes when schools are unable to move through the process and hire enough teachers.

If we want our kids in high poverty communities to do better academically, it is time we truly supported the teachers who work with them instead of insulting and blaming them for all of society's ills.

Beginning this week, I will be devoting every Tuesday to providing new content to support the teaching of reading. I hope you will join me in spreading the word of new, helpful tools designed to improve reading instruction, and make teachers' work easier.