Now I'm Depressed

Chapter 9 Blog

“Now I’m Depressed”

            I was flying high after reading about all the great things Finland, Korea, and Singapore were doing in regards to providing equal education to all. Chapter 9 of the Flat World in Education really slammed me back down to earth hard. When you think about how big the education system is in the United States and just how big a train wreck it is, the task of meaningful reform seems impossible. A famous U.S. Marine named Hammering Hank Halloran once said, “Impossible just means it will take a little longer”. I believe that as long as education reform is tied to political agendas and selling education continues to be profitable, the goal of meaningful reform will stay just out of reach.

            Linda Darling-Hammond makes a number of excellent recommendations. One of my favorites is that the State and District need to be accountable to students and teachers for providing an equitable learning environment for all students. This equitable environment encompasses many factors from quality facilities to quality educators. I think, however, educators and policy makers have very different views of what an equitable education is. I tell my students, and I’m sure you have all heard it, “Fair is not everybody gets the same, fair is everybody gets what they need”. Unfortunately our policy makers continue to be committed to the carrot and stick or test and punish approach to education. As Linda Darling-Hammond points out the test and punish model that came about with the advent of No Chile Left Behind has ultimately resulted in lower U.S. test scores.

            Teachers aren’t motivated by money. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve said that I didn’t get into education to get rich. Teachers do however want to be paid at a level that recognizes their status as a professional educator and a person of value in society. If the way our society shows how much we value a person is by how much we are willing to pay them then our society holds teachers in low esteem. Actions speak louder than words. One example of how our society really doesn’t understand teaching or teachers is what happened with last year’s fiasco with pay for performance. Just like we predicted it broke down along socioeconomic lines with the largest performance bonuses going to schools in more affluent areas and schools in poorer areas getting nothing. The Meridian Schools District’s teacher of the year did not get a performance bonus last year. Again actions speak louder than words.

            There are a number of things I think we could do that would make a difference without taking on the entire system.  Whenever contract negotiations roll around or it’s time to slash the budget the first thing on the block is professional development days. We need a greater emphasis on developing quality educators. Linda Darling-Hammond notes that teachers are attracted and retained by successful systems where they are valued and encouraged to continue to grow as educators. It seems to me that investment in professional development would be more beneficial to educational success than alternant routs to certification.  For proof that this is a sound investment we need only to look at the success of Finland, Korea, and Singapore where 100 hours of professional development annually, is the norm.

            Another idea I like is this notion of differential pay. As I noted earlier, teachers aren’t motivated strictly by pay, but combined with other programs like increased opportunities for professional development or carrier enhancement, differential pay could attract and retain quality teachers in high needs areas.

            We all need to take a look at our individual teaching practices and strive for improvement but until we take control of our profession we will always be at the mercy of someone else’s agenda.  

My level of geekyness continues to grow

Yes, believe it or not that IS possible

I am like Chris stated he was in one of his first blogs; it’s interesting (and a little sad) that eight years into teaching, this is the first time I have studied the history of my own profession. I think that every teacher should read School: The Story of American Public Education and while I agreed with little miss darling’s points in The Flat World and Education, and would recommend that book, I think that the most important element  of her book and our class is the study of different world versions of education. How can we make a plan of improvement for our educational future if we don’t know where we have been and what is working elsewhere?

Although I definitely don’t relate to the horror stories of many under-prepared new teachers, I do feel like I was missing key information concerning my profession going into it. This is why I love the idea of more required/provided/recognized professional development.  I am very thankful for the Wright Fellowship and the amazing professional development and collaboration opportunity it has provided. There has been so much that has come up over and over again throughout our classes that I had never even been aware of, and now that I am I hear about them all the time. For example, I am a little ashamed to admit this, but I had never heard of John Dewey or knew what people were talking about when they referred to Progressive education prior to the Wright Fellowship and his name has come up in EVERY class since last summer. I had also never heard of Action Research, only to find out that Korea has been having all their teachers complete action research projects in their classrooms. Then I think to myself, that it’s not like I have been stagnant in education, closing the door and repeating the same lessons over and over without knowledge of my students or the outside world. As of the end of the summer I will have 70 credits beyond my bachelor’s and have only been teaching for 8 years. While this is less than some, I know it is higher than average. And, I felt fairly prepared entering the profession, which shows just how important constant professional development is.

As I have thought about this over the last couple of weeks, I have found that the more I learn about education and study it, the more I see opportunities to learn about it and discussions pop up where education ties into the conversation. Recently, at an outdoor concert, I struck up a conversation with a man who is a civil engineer in Boise. He and my husband were talking about engineering and he mentioned that he had recently worked with an engineer from Finland. I had not told him I was a teacher yet, so I was surprised when he mentioned that Finland did so well in education. He said that he asked the fellow engineer why he thought that was and he replied that he had no idea because he really didn’t feel that kids in Finland were any more prepared or motivated for the real world than anyone else. Now, that was just one person’s opinion, but with all the positive stories and examples we have heard all summer, it was interesting to hear another perspective. I then told the engineer that we were visiting with that I was an educator and had recently been studying this very thing in my classes. He was interested in this because he had briefly worked as a science teacher in a middle school, having been hired using alternative route to certification. He said he felt that he was vastly underprepared and while he felt valued for his subject knowledge, he didn’t feel enough credit was given to classroom management and discipline skills that teachers need to have in addition to content knowledge. The underprepared alternatively certified teachers have been another topic of class discussion and here it was coming up in a getting to know you conversation with a complete stranger. A few weeks ago I would have been much more ignorant on both topics.

I also had two conversations with my brother about the pros and cons of assimilation and melting pot vs. salad bowl and the pitfalls of litigation in education, both of which started out about other topics. I honestly don’t know if the conversations naturally found themselves there or if I am just constantly thinking about our class discussions and therefore wove the conversation that direction subconsciously. Either way, I can’t seem to get away from these sub-topics of education that had honestly never had very many conversations about before. I had conversations about my career all the time, but there were previously more limited to discussing school budgets, testing, standards, and content area specific at times. It’s not that discussion education is new; it’s that I feel a new interest and curiosity to study and learn even more about my profession. I feel like I need to warn my loved ones that I will probably nerd out on the subject and incessant amount from this point of my life onward.

Also, I watched this video last night which made me think about now the fact that I have to go back to school and decide how to apply all this with my kids who may decide, in spite of all my new found interest. Although I am sure I will find that there are not all that many people  who would be interested in or honestly even benefit from my nerdy ramblings, so I will have to watch ted talks and nerd out on my own unless Keith will loan me his imaginary friends. J
http://www.hulu.com/watch/292079

Harper High School

After listening to Harper High School on NPR any complaints I have EVER had about my students and my District and our problems seem really minor.  Instead of wise and mature my students seem immature. Not a bad immature a naivety which comes from living in a safe and over protective area  

I am in awe at the idea of having to move my students to a street would cause them to automatically have an affiliation with a gang. 13 years ago I graduated from a High School outside of Portland, Oregon. We had many gang affiliations at our school.  I can remember we weren’t able to wear certain solid colors or items such as bandanas and jump suits.  When I graduated I was asked if I could speak with teachers at a district in Eastern Washington where they were just beginning to have gangs.  I was to talk about my experiences and the meaning of different gang symbols.  It seems as if the factions and clicks have changed rapidly.

As a parent I cannot imagine moving to a street would automatically cause my child to be affiliated with a gang.  To walk to school in the morning they would be safer to walk down the middle of the street than to walk down the side of the street with a group of people, but not too large of a group.  This seems like too much for youngsters to have to deal with.  Yet for the school and the state the solution has been to pump money into it so they can afford counselors and the right people to help these kids become positive members of society.  It seems like such a tragedy that when they are just starting to do well the money will end.  Everything that is helping everyone to get along inside of the building will go away.

My brother-in-law, a teacher in Chicago, posted on Facebook this comment the other day, “One of my students in my special education class wants to get out of a gang because things on his block are getting too real—shankings, shootings.  At the same time, he thinks going to Mexico to work for a drug cartel would be cool because they behead their enemies.  Another wants to be a “good boy,” but he also wants to use a gun to defend his block against rival gangbangers who shot his gangbanger friend.  I let them talk pretty freely and try to get them to think about consequences.  Other students join in the discussion in support of safer choices.  Getting out of a gang doesn’t happen over night.  Staying out of a gang is a daily choice.  Over the course of the year, I see growth in moral reasoning, good judgment, and ability to stay out of trouble.  None of this measured by the AT.  With the gutting of tenure, how does a teacher evaluation system based heavily on growth in test scores encourage teachers to spend any time on what is really important to our students?  Students in middle class suburbs or small towns may face difference issues than students in cities, but the importance of teachers in non-academic growth is just as great.  Students deserve authentic assessment and teachers deserve fair evaluation.”  After listening to Harper High School his post has a whole new meaning. I am even more thankful to work where I work and to live where I live. 

Harper High

So this week I listened to the episode of This American Life that covered Harper High School in Chicago.  It was an education concerning gangs to be sure.  I was really struck by the fact that the kids didn’t have a choice as to whether or not they joined a gang.  This is vastly different from the idea I had living here, safe in my north Idaho bubble.  My vision of gangs was largely a product of the mid D.A.R.E. program and exposure to other mid 90s anti-gang propaganda delivered to me at school.  In this 90s model, as Ira Glass pointed out, gangs are something you join and are initiated into, a conscious choice to choose evil.  I think I imagined the joining of a gang to be not unlike signing articles of piracy in the 17^th century, you know, candles, a dark room, guy with an eye patch and no teeth stands in the background with some sort of blade in his hand.  The truth that kids are simply “in a gang” because of the block they live on was astounding to me.  It seems that this being in a gang by default is something new because in the bit about Terrance Green, Terrence’s father seemed to have the same view of gangs that I did.  In point of fact, he seemed unwilling to accept that his son was a victim of something so large he couldn’t escape, the new reality of gangs. 

It is strange to me that even though most of the kids aren’t in the gang because they want to be, the violence level is still high.  I guess you have to play the part…  Personally I can’t even imagine walking to school, knowing that I have to cross through a neighborhood of enemy territory where I might be shot simply because I am a male of age.  I still can’t wrap my mind around that concept.  It sounds like something from a post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel - marauding bands of territorial teenagers with guns looking for someone to attack, tribal warlords vying for territory and power. But this isn’t a Sci-FI novel, and there is no hero standing up to them.  Even the policeman they interviewed seemed largely hopeless.  I have to wonder what the solution is, and at the same time I have to have a bit of a dark chuckle at my own schools attempt to limit gang activity.  We have policies like no wearing of bandanas and other such rules that just seem silly in light of the reality the kids at Harper face.  As if bandanas were really the issue, and as if there is anything even remotely close to Harper in north Idaho.  I do have to say that if there were a gang problem in north Idaho, the death toll would probably be much higher because kids around here know how to shoot.  I found it fascinating, in a dark sort of way, that even though kids around Harper grow up around guns, seem to be saturated with gun culture, they still can’t shoot straight.  The radio spot pointed this out, and even said that kids prefer the 15 round clips because they have such a hard time hitting anything.  I think I remember them saying too that most drive-bys are bloodless.   It makes me wonder if they are missing on purpose.  One of my friends from Germany, whose grandfather was forced to fly for the Nazi’s during WWII, told me that his grandfather purposefully missed allied planes because he didn’t want to kill anyone and he knew that the Nazis were bad.  He also knew that the Nazis would kill him if he refused to go on missions.  Maybe this is a similar situation.      

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Hapiness

As we approach our independence day, celebrating the freedom we have as a country it is sad to think there are places in our country where people are not really free.  To not be able to walk on the sidewalk, but have to walk down the middle of the street to be safe (or at least be able to see danger) and all of the challenges the kids at Harper High face is not what we would define as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  The sad fact is that many students across our county live in unsafe situations or have had to endure unimaginable tragedy, death and violence on a daily basis.  Coming from rural Idaho we do not face the same struggles daily.  The most traumatic things our students have faced have been watching school shootings in the news ad we did have one student die this year.  This one incident impacted most all of the students in our school.  There was grieving and crying from the moment they walked in the door to school.  Even a month or two later I could still see the effects of the trauma my students experienced by losing another student in our school (not even our class or grade).  I had so many students who needed counseling, hugs and time to process their loss.  I cannot imagine being in a school where this kind of tragedy was a regular occurrence and students were accustomed to dealing with danger and gang violence incessantly. 

My husband and I listed to the podcast on the way to and from McCall and he asked me why the turnaround money was ending.  That is the question of the hour.  Why are states cutting money for education when clearly the alternative is spending more money on incarceration?  Lapwai is in school improvement and there are so many requirements to meet in order to comply with the turnaround plan, but it seems these are expected with no additional resources. 

The University of Chicago, one of the most prestigious universities in our country is located in the mist of all of the gangs, but it has a very safe campus.  This is due to a security army and they actually pay the gangs to keep their students safe.  As the policeman described how every child is in a gang just based on where they live, I wondered how a school in this area can keep its students safe.  They really must spend a lot of money ensuring the safety of their students at the University of Chicago.   I wonder what will happen to Harper when the turnaround money ends?

Harper High had some amazing counselors and staff who were truly devoted to making school a safe place and helping their students cope with the losses they’ve experienced and ongoing struggle to survive.   I am hopeful that our commitment to my students and giving them a quality education will help them rise above any struggles they face.  This podcast was shocking, but inspirational and my take away is WOW!  This is crazy, but if they can do it I have no excuses!

Perserverence- A Harper Valley Legacy

Perseverance- A Harper Valley Legacy

As I listened to the Harper Valley High School podcast I kept thinking of how the student’s seem to persevere despite the great odds that are placed against them. My mind was blown away at how drastically different this school setting is compared to my small rural Idaho school. I realized that I live in a country with vast differences in every school district yet we are all compared and expected to meet similar criteria that will place us before other countries. I began wondering if Finland, Taiwan, or Singapore had drastic demographics like us or if most of their schools were all in communities that were similar and safe.

As I listened to the conditions that the staff and students deal with on a daily basis in order to get an education I was very worried about their stress level. The dynamics that the principal monitors on a daily basis to ensure that staff and students are safe from the drama outside of the school walls blew me away. The fact that several rival gangs were all going to the same school and that students were in a gang just by where they lived astounded me. I kept going back to the story of the young man who was the quarterback that did not want any part of the gang lifestyle but was considered to be a gang simply by where he lived. My heart broke when he tried to stand up for himself and his friends and he lost his life. I could not fathom if my sons or daughters had to deal with this and felt for the father who had no idea what his son tried to handle on his own. I kept shaking my head and wondered how we could stop this vicious cycle. The police department was so matter of fact and offered no solution to the gang dilemma. I felt frustrated and broken hearted listening to this part of the podcast.

I thought a lot about school reform and wondered how it could help a school district like Harper Valley were it seemed that surviving was more important than a test at times. I thought about the gun control dilemma that our nation struggles with and wondered how it could help inner city school districts like Harper Valley that our plagued with violence and death from stolen guns. I had no solutions to any of these thoughts and found myself thankful for my rural Idaho issues that didn’t seem as stressful as I once thought. I know that my students face a lot of issues on a daily basis but they can feel safe playing outside or walking to school and knowing that their classmates will more than likely be there when they go back to school after summer break. The students at my high school will not have to worry about cancelling their homecoming events due to the threat of rival gang activity.

The students and staff at Harper Valley School District worked very hard in achieving quality education and I felt the compassion of the teachers who tried to ensure that their students could just be kids. I imagine that the stress and burn out level was very high in this district and felt for the counselors who strived to meet the needs of the students who sought their guidance and love. I could not fathom this war like atmosphere and wondered what happened to students once they graduated or left Harper Valley High School.

Negative Nellie on Ch. 9

Ch. 9…

As I began reading Ch. 9, I couldn’t help but feel pessimistic about her ideas.  I just kept thinking that education here is too tied to politics and big business, and that the people making decisions about educational reform don’t know anything about education.  They don’t trust or listen to teachers, and they aren’t working to do what’s best or right for children.  They’re just pushing their political agendas, whatever they may be. 

I do think that Linda Darling-Hammond has great ideas about reforming education.  Other countries have been able to implement some very successful changes, but I just don’t think it can happen on a national level here.  Maybe if it started small with a single school then a few more schools or maybe an entire district, it could spread.  If politicians thought it would advance their careers, they would jump on board when they saw it being successful. 

I could relate to Boston teacher Liz McDonald trying to keep up with the pacing calendar even though you know that kids are being left behind, especially with math.  I’ve been complaining about our math curriculum for years because it claims to “spiral” concepts, but their idea of spiraling is one lesson each year on certain concepts such as measurement and telling time.  There’s no depth.  Yet, I continue to keep up with the pacing calendar year after year.  It’s the rule follower in me.  If it says I have to be done with chapter 7 on Jan. 12, then I will be done on Jan. 12.  This year, after taking MTI, I changed how I taught math completely.  I didn’t even hand out the math books.  I spent time teaching concepts with manipulatives, collaborative groups, problem-solving and partnerships.  Not only that, but I spent more than one day on a concept.  I was so far behind the pacing calendar and was afraid for the ISATs, but my class ended up doing great!

Speaking of the ISATs, on p. 301 Linda says, “Although the child and the school are accountable to the state for test performance, the state is not accountable to the child or school for providing adequate educational resources.”  How true is that?  They keep cutting funding, but expect us to keep performing better and better each year.  Our district can’t even afford to get a new math series even though it’s years behind on a new adoption. 

On p. 313 Linda says that “expert teachers are perhaps the most important resource for improving student learning – and the most inequitably distributed – it is imperative that the United States develop policies for recruiting, preparing, and retaining strong teachers, especially in high need schools.”  I really agree with a lot of her ideas in this section especially the career ladder models.  I like the idea of advancement within the district for qualified teachers, and that people get tenure because they’ve earned it not because they were hired three years ago. 

Finally, the stories of the Tennessee school and Mitchell Elementary offered a ray of hope that big changes can be implemented with success.

This was a really good reality check

I have really enjoyed reading The Flat World and Education by Linda Darling-Hammond in the sense that it has made me truly reflect on the difficulties American students experience as we try and ensure every child receives an education. Time and time again we see the inequalities with school buildings, quality teachers, curriculum, supplies and expectations from one school to another.

Reading this book and listening to the Harper Valley High School Interviews has made me feel ashamed of myself when I complain because I don’t have something the “rich” school across town has. It is so easy to forget that others have it so much worse than we do in our district. The employees at Harper High School in Chicago have definitely secured their spot in heaven. These individuals are extremely dedicated to making sure every student, in horrible circumstances, have the best opportunity to succeed and live long enough to graduate. Students can’t walk alone, they can’t walk with a group, they can’t go outside and they all belong to a gang whether they want to or not simply because of where they live. They are forced to live in a way they would never choose to if they had any other option.

Students in other states also face classrooms with inadequate facilities, teachers and curriculum that fail to give them the same level of excellence we all expect for our students. As Linda Darlind Hammond says, “It is exhausting even to recount the struggles for equitable funding in American schools much less be engaged in the struggle, year after year, or more debilitating, to be a parent or student who is subject day-by-day, week- by- week to the aggressive neglect often fostered in dysfunctional, under sourced schools. These stories are similar to what we hear in the news when soldiers come home from active duty with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. How can we let huge populations of our children live in war zones within our own cities? Until we address this issue, all the money we have isn’t going to help a student succeed that is unable to get home safely each night.

Darling-Hammond really showed us how the United States has a very ineffective and unfair system for allocating school funding. Oftentimes schools that are separated by just a few miles have huge discrepancies in what educational experience they can offer their students. Instead of allocating funds based on the local tax base, each student in every district across the country should receive the same amount. That may be simplistic, but really why does it have to be any more difficult than that. We have established districts with a broad tax base are able to offer their students a far superior education than a student that comes from a poor district. Stop segregating money by location. Of course people are going to scream and holler that they pay more so their child should receive more. That has never worked to bridge the gap in the inequalities these students live with each day. We have to change from a system that focuses on just what is best for the area we live in and look at the bigger picture of what our country could become if every child had equal opportunity, facilities, teachers, supplies and incentives to succeed and go on to higher education or a vocational track of their choosing. Make these students believe that we really do value them and will continue to work to even the score and make their experience something they can be proud of. They will never take us seriously until they can challenge and stretch their minds with outstanding teachers, work with curriculum requiring high expectations, go to and from school without fear, and know we believe they are worthy of occupying the seat that has been supplied for them.

 

 

Harper Valley High School

7/2/13

This American Life- Chicago- Harper Valley High School

I enjoy getting different perspectives from teachers and other school districts. After listening to This American Life- Harper Valley High School, my heart goes out to any school that has had to deal with shooting and violence. Anymore I don’t know what school hasn’t been through some form of violence, but I do have a new appreciation for the school district I work in and a new respect for schools like Harper Valley High School. To hear what some kids have to go through on a day-to-day basis just leaves my speechless!

There were 7 rules that students needed to follow just to try and be safe on a daily basis in the Harper Valley school district community. Rule 1: Look at a map and know your geography (there are 15 different gangs and that is what makes up the social structure of the school); Rule 2: Never walk alone; Rule 3 never walk in a group. If you are in a group it looks gangish and people think you are up to something. So it’s best to walk just far enough away from a few others that are walking together so you are not technically alone, but not technically with the group; Rule 4: Never walk on the sidewalk, but walk in the street. The street in more open and safer and you have more options if you need to take off running; Rule 5: If someone shoots, don’t run because then they will continue to shoot. If you fall to the ground you will have a better chance; Rule 6: You can be shot for reasons big and/or small; Rule 7: Never go outside. Stay away from your block as long as possible. If there is a school event, stay there as long as you can. It makes me sad to think that kids have to worry about these things daily. I always have thoughts and ask myself how can I help? There are some ideas and sayings that the staff in Harper school would use and I think I will take them with me to help my students, for example, “I appreciate you in advance” and “You are valued, you matter”.

I try and take the time to talk to my students when they are having a rough day or they have things going on at home. My challenge is not “enough time” in the day. I hate saying that because it’s about the kids, so I should make time, right? But sometimes I will have a student whom needs to talk and process right when I’m in the middle of a group and that is hard to juggle because the group is important, but so is the individual. Maybe what I will start doing is checking in with my students in the mornings to see how they are doing and if any of them need to come talk to me, then I can make time in my mornings for that.

Listening to the social workers’ stories was amazing. The story of De’vonte and his social worker, Crystal, was a sad story. She was there for him and he would visit her 2-3 times a day. From the little that we did know about their situation, it seemed like Crystal was doing everything she could do to help De’vonte, and it was working, but in the end the outcome wasn’t what I thought would have happened. I learned a lot being able to hear the staff, parents, and students’ perspectives and stories.

Chapter 9

While reading this book, I keep thinking of people I would love to share it with.  The people range from “educators” who oppose any type of reforms to family members that are pro-business models for education.  Wouldn’t it be nice if this was required reading for all education policy makers?

Darling-Hammond’s five key elements to transform education in the U.S. just seem like common sense.  They sound like nice, very simplistic ways to reform our educational system.  However, when looking at all it will entail to make these changes, it seems very daunting. I wonder if a whole cultural shift is required. 

Yet, there do seem to be some small shifts towards the key element of “Meaningful Learning Goals” with the adoption of the CCSS including the Mathematical Practice Standards.  We are now asked to focus on fewer concepts, but at a much deeper level.  Lesson development involves more than skill level drill and kills lessons.  We are now encouraged to create a learning environment where students have the opportunity to construct and develop deeper understandings of concepts.  This is slow and there is resistance both in and out of the educational community.  Obviously there is no published curriculum that meets the needs of the CCSS.  For the CCSS to really be effective I don’t think any massed produced published curriculum is the answer. Many teachers are lost without a guideline of what to teach, when to teach it, and for how long.  The element that is missing to support us as we move in this direction are PLCs to provide us with the time to develop pre-assessments, lesson planning, lesson implementation, assessments (formative and summative), reflection opportunities, then more lesson plan development.  There are individual teachers in our district who are trying to do this, but the time and effort makes it a real struggle.  Our district formed a math committee team to try and address the issues teachers are having as we move away from the published curriculum to the CCSS.  This committee is working to providing teachers with tasks to supplement the current curriculum with CCSS type of tasks.  Although I appreciate the effort to help provide teachers with supports, I do not think these were the most effective supports.   It is a start, and we can build and improve from here.

Another small shift occurring is time set aside for PLC’s.  Our district is moving to a late start on Mondays for students, so teachers have the opportunities to meet.   Although, I have concerns over how much really can get done in one hour a week.  It is a move in the right direction.  I just hope that these small efforts are given time to grow and develop, before being cut because results are not instantaneous.

SBAC is another move towards assessing students’ ability to transfer knowledge into new situations.   I do not think it is the complete answer, especially since it is tied to student, school and teacher rankings.  I hope that school and district level performance tasks will start to be valued as well.   

I am not sure that any sizable shifts have been made in the other 4 key elements (intelligent, reciprocal accountability systems, equitable and adequate resources, strong professional standards and supports, and schools organized for students and teacher learning).  Hopefully, we as educational professionals can keep the dialogue open or open dialogue about these concerns, and facilitate the opportunities for change to happen in the lives of our students.

Equity and my school

I knew that there were distinct differences in funding and education opportunities between schools, districts, and states, but I was not fully aware of how disparate those differences are. It reminds me of the separate but equal doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson. We have these separate but “equal” schools (demographically segregated based on where people want to or are economically or culturally led to live). Because of current funding formulas many of our schools are defined by the economic status of the parents and the neighborhoods they live in.

Even in my own district with only two sets of elementary/middle/high schools serving two different towns the equity issue is evident. We only recently stopped identifying our district with the name of the larger and economically dominant town. Many of the best teachers want to live/work in the bigger/wealthier town. The schools in my town are the training place for many teachers and then when they are proficient they move to the other school. This flux of teachers moving through every few years damages the cohesion of our schools. The principals in the bigger town have superior skills for organizing a productive environment, access resources, and generally support learning. The community in the larger town is more unified and vocal, so I believe the administration pays more attention to the quality of the principal and teacher staffing there and not so much to our town with a less sophisticated and less demanding population. 

This creates a classic inequity that Darling-Hammond describes. Where more resources ought to be directed to the schools with the highest need they often are not. The one important area where our district supports our high need community is in student to teacher ratios (usually less than 20). But, as I mentioned above our classrooms are often a learning ground for new teachers wanting to move to the bigger town. That said, we do have a dedicated core group of classroom teachers that try very hard to meet the needs of our disadvantaged students.

Page 120 of The Flat World and Education has a statement that bothers me:  “(S)tudents are unable to benefit from more investment because they live in a ‘culture of poverty,’ experience poor parenting, or are, implicitly, though it is not usually said straightforwardly, innately inferior.”  I sometimes see this reflected in the actions of some teachers and staff in my school, especially in weak moments when situations seem desperate. Even though I know better I have these thoughts when I get frustrated, especially with some the parenting I see). But we (I) should not let it affect the way we (I) work with these children, unless it is a call to double down on our (my) efforts to provide the best learning opportunities we (I) can.

I will make the most of my collaboration and collective planning time this year. My two partner teachers had a good start last year and focused mainly on moving toward the mathematics Common Core SS. This year we are focused on the language arts standards and plan to use units designed in Georgia (http://georgiaelaccgpsk-5.wikispaces.com/). We believe the curriculum is of relative high quality and many lessons have adaptations for students with disabilities. We are working on building formative and summative assessments to better understand what students are learning. I really benefited from the Mathematics Thinking Initiative and would appreciate follow up trainings annually to continue to grow as a teacher. Something similar should be provided to all teachers for language arts.