My Charter School - Part 6 (Administering Education)

    I have a simple idea for my future charter school.  One that I think will make every teacher ever agree wholeheartedly.  One that I think many will think or say is implausible in administration.  I know little about administration of a school.  One day, maybe someone who is an administrator will read these and tell me where I've gone off the rails.  Most of this idea is for secondary, but may be able to be applied to elementary.

Idea: All admin have to teach one class.  

    Before pulling out a stack of reasons why this can't work, let's go through a little mountain of values that this provides.  Sometimes, not everyday, but a lot of the time the admin of a school gets an idea that most teachers know won't work in the classroom.  Now it is not a bad thing for admin to innovate, but if they aren't in the classroom then they do not know how best to innovate.  Yeah, all admin are former teachers.  It doesn't matter.  Since Covid all former skill in the classroom are obsolete.  An admin from the campus trying to innovate for the teachers is like engineering fixes without input.  Surely, the way to improve on an existing invention or process is to take feedback from those using it in the field.  And the admin may get some input from teachers, but it would be naïve to assume they get the input from their teachers that they would get if they were teachers.

    If the admin is teaching it is an opportunity to try all the innovations.  Louis Brandeis Supreme Court Justice popularized the phrase laboratories of democracy when he extolled the worth of federalism.  Principals and Assistant Principals could be trying things out with their classrooms.  If you want to have stations in all classes; try it out.  You may find stations works better in Math than History.  You want versatile seating?  Try it out.  You may find that some classes are mature enough for it and others aren't.  You may find that it is a bit dangerous in Science labs.  A while ago, writing down definitions of new vocab and using them in a sentence fell out of fashion.  I think that was a terrible failure of modern education.  I wish that more people were trying these innovations in the classroom.  My first two years in education we were getting a new innovation called Strategic Instructional Models.  The admin, including the SIM Coach (also an admin) kept teaching us how to use the models.  They didn't always think about whether they should be used.  What if they're teachers, they no how to model all innovations to the faculty.

    If the admin is teaching a class everyday then there is tons of time for modeling correct behavior.  I'm getting pretty good at teaching in my estimation.  I see a couple of new teachers every year who have no idea what good teaching is.  It is a balance of finding your own personality and rhythm and enfolding that into a lot of learned best practices.  It can be daunting.  If they're not quite getting it, a strong solution is to send them to observe a seasoned teacher.   Last year's teacher of the year?  How about the principal's math class?  How about the Assistant Principals Geography class?  What about the art class that is taught by some administrator who...you're not really sure what they do.   The number of options for that teacher to observe can only be a good thing.  

    If the admin is teaching everyday, they know what needs discipline in the class room and what needs discipline as an admin.  Teachers know that there are teachers who send kids to the admin too much.  We are not surprised when that teacher's write ups come back with less consequences than the teacher would like.  But many teachers have had admin that lose their sense for what needs to be given consequences and what doesn't.  Teachers are trying to create an orderly classroom and if admin is failing to offer consequences then the classroom atmosphere can severely deteriorate.  If admin is teaching the kids we all teach then they have a better sense for what is good behavior, what the students are capable of.  I don't want my admin to only spend time with the bad apples.  They'll spoil the whole bunch of admin.  I want my admin to meet the honors students, to have them in their classes, to have them passing their tests, so they know what they can expect from any of them.  

    If admin is teaching a class then their criticism will be more adroit or expert.  Some teachers really hate sitting down with admin to talk about data.  The students all scored a 60 on the benchmark science test.  They need a 70 to pass.  What did you do wrong?  How are you going to fix it?  Better yet, 'here's what you did wrong and here's how you're going to fix it.'  Number one, I would love to see some teachers held up for improvement, but more than that I'm going to say that without a cultural shift of excellence some teachers cannot fix the problems in some schools.  You go into a high school in an urban area and the kids aren't studying. Why would they, they have a job waiting for them.  They're not planning on college.  They have no objective reason to get their degree.  Go in that school and the average last year was maybe a 30% on the standardized tests and you raised it to a 45%.  Now the admin want you on a growth plan because passing rate wasn't achieved.  Well, can the admin do it?  

    If the admin can, then that means we all can.  Admin teaching 10th grade algebra might really have a profound impact on the campus.  If that admin can come into an on-level class and get them all to succeed in an underperforming school then there can be a cultural shift.  The leaders are leading not just describing where the rest of us should go.  They aren't describing the map, they're leading us where they've been themselves.  There is a culture of excellence among the faculty because the admin are our advocates.  They are our teammates and not just the coach.  They act like they've been there because they have been.  

    If the admin is in the classroom then the students are getting advanced degree teaching.  The admin are the best trained, highest qualified, highest motivated teachers in the school.  Their skills as teachers are wasted.  The connection to students that they may have is non existent.  Think of the opportunities to reach the students that the admin have in the classroom.  This is another opportunity to change the culture of the school from mediocre to excellent.  Because if the admin really are master teachers then they're helping create that atmosphere hands on with all the students in their care.  The students also get a sense of continuity from the class to the administration.  This device would ensure that the students are treated the same way by admin that they are by the teachers because they are the same.  

If the admin teach then they are cognizant of the teachers' feelings.  Have you ever sent a student to the admin and had the admin send them back with no consequences AND some candy?  If that hasn't happened to you, you haven't been teaching very long.  Teachers know what that feels like.  Give the admin a taste, or make it never happen to anyone ever again.  Admin teaching helps them to know how much time it takes to prepare, they know what it means to ask extra of their faculty.  They know how much prep goes into class plans.  They know how much anxiety can come from being observed or going over their plans in a Planned Learning Community.  All of these are reasons to get admin back in the classroom.

But wait...Admin literally doesn't have enough time for this.  That is because they do too much.  I've had over 10 admin.  They are over worked.  The amount of work is unethical, unGodly, and unwise.  The district usually has so many things for them to do, so many trainings to take that they're hoping will trickle down to the teachers.  It is idiotic.  They need to cut the number of things they do.  That means if the district, state, or federal government is asking too much they need to cut it back.  Admin should be finishing their work in 50-55 hours max.   If they can't do the work in that time they need to have more help.  Our society should demand that our admin does no more, no less.  We have an interest in our admin having families so we have an interest in asking only that which is possible based on time constraints that make sense.    

My Charter School - Part 5 (Foundational Behavior)

    Something is wrong with schools.  Here are some stories that I will try to weave together and guess what they have in common and some ways to fix or at least fight against. 

    The thing for me is the disconnect between what admin wants and what they're doing to get it.  School level admin wants students that are successful on State mandated tests.  It is sad to reduce it to something so simple, but isn't that the most basic thing that admin wants?  If the students perform well on tests then admin higher up won't be angry with them and won't bother them.  You can make the case that if they are performing on the state mandated tests it is because the knowledge of the students is also high.  Grades and scores go together to placate parents, school boards, superintendents, and government.

    My confusion is that admin doesn't seem to be doing those things that will ensure that scores on report cards and standardized tests are high.  

    This is a non-exhaustive list, but it is designed to show the simplicity of the things that admin has to do to ensure performance of the students.

1. Students must be well behaved in class.  If there is class chaos then there can be very little learning.  In a well behaved class, teachers hardly need to be there at all.  When the students listen they hear and are more likely to understand.  If they are not well behaved they will not listen.  Students who are well behaved cannot listen because the teacher is dealing with the students who are misbehaved.

2.  Students should be afraid to fail in school.  This is a parent issue.  Parents, by and large, are not doing their jobs.  I know that sounds accusatory or aggressive.  If you want to know if you're doing a good job of parenting school age children this is a good test.  If a student gets in trouble at school and begs the teacher not to tell their parents then that is a good parent.  But this is also a school administration issue.  Students should be afraid to fail in school.  This means that your disciplinary actions must hurt.  NO PADDLING.  I'm not talking about corporal punishment, and yet wall sits, laps, bear crawls, sprints, push ups towel pushes, all have an underutilized place in the pantheon of punishment.  But even without that, detentions should be boring, lines should be written, hands should cramp, students should have extra assessed if they weren't behaved.  ISS must be utilized.  Silence must be adhered to.  Lines must be written; busy, superfluous work should be assigned.  Saturday detention should be utilized.  Summer School must be utilized.  Failures must be utilized.  This is a simple obvious conclusion.  Students must be afraid to literally fail in school.  The fear is to have to retake.  The fear is to waste the first year.  The fear is drudgery and it must be real.   

There is the list.  Remember it isn't exhaustive.  But here are some disconnects between what the admin wants and what they're doing to get it.  

• One student who attended Tippit MS the year before I taught there was never in school.  According to teachers who were there before me, she had been in school 17 times the year before and was still passed along into high school.  
• One teacher assigned a detention to a student who disrespected a substitute.  The student was supposed to go to a teacher-assigned detention and write lines.  The student incorporated his mother to get him out of it.  The parent called the admin and the admin directed the teacher to tutor the student and let them out of detention.  
• One teacher has not failed a single student all year.  Her lesson plans are not dynamic, but stale.  She has no class management, but has great relationships with her students.  She doesn't ask difficult things of them and she underperforms on state assessments.  Her expectations are low.  The students always meet her expectations, but not the state's expectations.  She wears a onesie to class, but doesn't teach well.  
• One School stopped counting tardies.  Students acted as you'd expect, they stopped getting to class on time.  Now when the situation get really bad an announcement gets made that there will be a tardy sweep, and this is the time students really need to get to class on time or risk punishment.  The students behave the way you'd expect, they only get to class on time when the announcement is made.
• One school has had over a dozen bathroom vandalisms.  They have video evidence so after a bit of sleuthing they punish the offenders with detention and the custodian cleans it up.  The punishments aren't ramping up, but surprisingly the vandalisms are.
• One teacher has the worst classroom management I've ever seen.  Anything the students want she gives to them.  They are constantly leaving her class with her permission when they aren't supposed to, their noise is cacophonous, they horseplay in the room of the school with more technology value than any other.  
• One student was in seven fights in the first 9 weeks of school.  Some of those against SPED students.  The admin of the district wouldn't allow the school to remove him to alternative school or DAEP until he had 10 fights which is negligence, but he acquiesced and soon filled out his punch card.
• One district rid itself of the dangers of dress codes.  The old rule wasn't enforced.  The new code, much simpler, easier to enforce.  Thankfully the admin who didn't enforce the old dress code won't have to spend so much time enforcing.  Now the students break the much simpler, much more libertine dress code with impunity and the admin can spend its time NOT enforcing this dress code. 

Here's my question:  These stories are the tip of the iceberg, but they beg the question, if you want good scores why are you doing these things?  

    I genuinely do not understand the motivations of the administrations both district and campus level. If you don't enforce order, scores will go down.  If the scores go down you will get attacked by parents and higher ups.  But if you create order, then you don't have to put out so many figurative fires.  If you promote discipline because students are afraid to fail then students will succeed.  The parents will approve of any sensible solutions that cause success.  The district level admin won't bother you if you have order and a healthy fear of failure.  District leadership, you should be promoting this too.  If you don't want to be in the news, if you don't want to have bad ratings, then you have to create an atmosphere where success is possible. 

    Finally, what is the solution.  I think there are some obvious ideas.  The success and knowledge of students must be the number one priority.  This must be drilled into the heads of our teachers often.  They must be reminded oft that their mission is not to create relationships, but to create knowledge and understanding.  In Professional Development teachers are taught too often about the importance of relationships and not often enough about the importance of knowledge for knowledge sake.  

    I know that relationship is important, but we are wrong to assume it is a necessity.  Good behavior and a healthy fear of failure are necessities.  I think schools should focus on mission statements if they want to have success beyond their socioeconomic standings.  Every semester admin and teachers should read, reread, and dissect a mission statement with stipulations like...

1. We will teach the students all the information they need to know. 
2. We will cultivate a safe and orderly atmosphere so that all students can learn.
3. We will discourage behavior that limits our students ability to learn.
4. We will teach the students that misbehavior has consequences.  
5. We will give clear and fair consequences to students who do not succeed.
6. We will always try to challenge our students and never make success easy.
7. Knowing that students cannot succeed without character, we will encourage character.
8. We will aggressively build up the capabilities of our coworkers, because our students deserve it.

My Charter School - Part 4 (Reading and Writing)

    In a perfect world I would be writing this blog and hundreds of teachers and former students would be reading it and responding to it.  I would ask this question:  How much do you read in each of your classes in school?  I'm going to write this entire essay, I wish that if people read it they would respond with the answers.  If you're a teacher you may answer different than I answer.  That may be because you are a teacher at a better school than I am.  You might teach at an affluent school that isn't Title 1.  You may work at a Public charter or Private school and the story might be different there.  I hope the story is different at your school.  People who read this and only experience of  school is there own school from years ago, will, no doubt, be surprised by what I am saying.  I am not trying to write with hyperbole or exaggeration. 

      You can go to school in America today without reading.  A student should have English/Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies in almost all grades.  Math may be the one that gets a pass.  The teacher instructs.  The math problems aren't always text, although there is tons of word problems that are over emphasized all through school to make math seem more relevant.  There is no excuse when it comes to the other classes.  Science and Social Studies Content comes through text and ELA the text IS the content.  I have been a part of my own class and have sat in, walked through, observed, heard about enough classes to know that there isn't significant reading going on in any of the classes.  

    Do children need to learn to read?  Yes.  It is the most essential building block of education from which all knowledge and understanding must spring.  Literacy however, and vocabulary fluency is waning in this country.  Expectations to read are going down.  I am confessing and lamenting this problem in my class, in my school.  In all the schools I have been a part of.  In every conversation I have had about this topic.  And it must be attacked and beachheads must be made. 

    It is my opinion that children should read and write everyday in class.  The only way to make sure of this is to require it in all classes everyday.  There must be overt, specific, concrete, and clear expectations to read in every core class.  No ifs ands or buts.  

    In Social Studies and History their should be content read from the book and from notes.  Every student doesn't need to copy notes everyday, but every student should read text and notes everyday.  Simple expectation.  Some schools and ages can require reading at home.  I think a middle school students should be expected to read 1-2 pages in their text book each night.  If there is no text book or if the teacher doesn't like the specific selection in the book then the teacher should assign something else of equal amount.  All of this should not be concurrent to the information in class.  However, there should also be reading done in class.  Maybe 1-2 pages.  Quietly or one student at a time.  One paragraph at a time.  In groups, to the class, one student take a turn each day.  All of these are options so that each student is practicing this essential skill regularly.  Students would be getting so much more content than teachers can teach in class.  Teachers may also legitimately hope that students have the ability to read and the skill to do it without barriers to understanding outside of school.  In high school the expectation should be increased.  2-5 pages out of class, for purposes of time you may have to limit in class reading, but there should be in class reading.  Students refuse to read in middle school.  They cannot read.  There is an epidemic of teachers not expecting this, not teaching not, not practicing this.  But isn't it our sacred duty to help them learn this and to never let them slip through the crack without this.  Imagine if you will a student graduating high school with a diploma that reads at a 5th grade level.  What if that was the average.  A compilation of the top 40 books teens in grades 9-12 are reading in school shows that the average reading level of that list is 5.3 -- barely above the fifth grade.  -HuffPost

    In Science I think the same thing should be expected.  1-2 Pages outside of class and 1-2 pages inside of class daily.  Both should be expecting a short response to a pertinent question of 4-6 sentences three to four times a week.  Both should write a response to the unit they are in that encapsulates most of the information within the unit because synthesis is the best proof of understanding.  If someone told me that I had to do this, I would freak out.  Teachers used to grade essay questions.  But, by and large, we don't anymore.  Teachers love multiple choice because it's easy to grade or computer graded is even better.  We love drag and drops because they can be visually checked.  But this isn't education.  We need to ask what is proof of knowledge and what is the intake of knowledge.  That is reading and writing.  The hope would be that if this became more endemic then Social Studies and Science teachers would be able to spend less time correcting grammar and punctuation, and basic stupidity.  Them more that students practice this skill the easier it would be to grade them.  Write now it is so difficult.  Administration would flip out if this was suggested especially at a title 1 school.  I am rarely able to expect any or any significant homework, let alone everyday.

    If the Science and Social Studies are reading and writing everyday then ELA must be doing even more.  Now after the primary years are finished with a fanatic study of phonics students are going to have to read more and more and more.  There needs to be reading, call and response, choral, rhyming, and more all throughout elementary.  I have heard of Public Charter schools with more emphasis on reading the classics.  I am sympathetic to that, but I also believe in reading books self selected.  But the principle needs to be promoting not limiting. 

    In secondary education students should be reading 1-2 pages in class and outside class in Science and Social Studies for a total of 10-20 pages/week.  School is 36 weeks long for a total of 360-720 pages /year.  Double that for ELA takes us to 720-1440 pages of text per year.  Students who read, lead.  Students who are voracious readers will be prepared for college.  Students cannot slip through without essential knowledge and skills when the emphasis is on the knowledge and skills that they need to get the information.

 

My Charter School - Part 1 (Athletics)

    My future charter school needs a lot of work and planning.  What makes up a school what makes it good and what makes it bad?  I know very few people read this blog, but one day maybe I make a charter school and people read this in order to understand it.  First, I'm going to spend a significant amount of digital ink on EXTRA curriculars.

    The first football game was between Yale and Harvard.  It wasn't nigh unto professional sports.  I cannot imagine those students spending more than a couple of hours a week practicing and they were the only teams that filled out a team that year.  Soon many others would join.  Other schools in the last century and a half have had football teams much faster.  Yale and Harvard were open over a hundred years a piece before they started playing intramural sports.  But even colleges that were started between 1850 and 1950 started small, a college, that focused and grew and changed and added sports over time.  Now new schools race to have athletic programs.  

   And high school follow along the same trajectory.  They had no programs in small towns, then they had small programs, then they had large programs.  Now, middle schools have programs that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.  The costs are in some ways hidden by the labor.  Four coaches in athletics means $200,000+ but they also teach.  Well, some of them.  They use trainors from the high school, their gear is nike, or under armour, the kids bring in some money, they fund raise.  Middle school programs now I would guess cost more even with inflation than college programs did say 75 years ago.  Sounds like a long time?  High school programs I believe cost more than college did 35 years ago, is my guess.  There are exceptions.  Big college verses little high school might not be close, but the point is there is an unquestionable gradual growth.  And there doesn't seem to be a limiting principle.  

    Why would there be a limiting principle.  The more colleges spend on athletics, the more they get from advertising dollars for being on TV.  The more they're on TV the more students that matriculate.  The more students the more money, the more money the more athletic potential.  The more they get from donors.  High schools and middle schools get a great deal of prestige from Athletics for some unknown reason.  The average person cannot name which school was last years high school state champ unless it was your school.  The kids care so much about winning district in middle school, but who cares.  It is no great predictor of Division 1 success or professional potential.  Who cares?  Almost everyone does.  If the money is to indicate interest then teachers, parents, students, voters, and everyone else cares who wins.

    So...everyone is wrong.  Especially in the school setting.  Athletic programs were invented between the world wars and especially after WWII to teach discipline and athletic ability to a large swath of society.  Our schools are failing in this.  Football is failing in this.  Football creates prima donnas who don't listen or respect, do not achieve in the classroom.  Coaches are trying to get players to play whether they pass or not.  Coaches are leaning on admin and teachers to pass students so they can play.  There are reasons for kids to play, to learn discipline and respect, to work off some excess energy, to have an outlet for aggression and even corporal punishment.  But it should always be subservient to education.  Students who cannot read and do math on level shouldn't be double blocking athletics, but reading and math.  

    Athletics are therefore beneficial, but must serve the school.  Athletics must prepare boys and girls for all futures rather than a future in professional sports.  So in my charter school there will be no sports against other schools.  I think organizing games within the school will be much cheaper, will tamp down any fame that students may achieve for a couple of touchdowns on Friday night.  Basketball played within a single school will allow many students of varying skill levels to make an impact.  It is terrible that so many students don't play any sports and then they don't have any athletic activity in their boring PE class.  The Gym teacher doesn't push this class, many times because they cannot be useful to them on a team.  

    I know there are some students who come to school for sports.  I know there are some students who achieve in the classroom in order to play on the team although that number is shrinking.  To them, I think this could be even better than the system we have now.  If games are played daily at school among students then there is always the opportunity to achieve and play.  Because many students also practice in order to play.  Let them practice for half a class and then play everyday, there are too many, most schools, who are so business, they rarely scrimmage.  That is also bad for kids.  But what if a scrimmage isn't good enough, and what if two or three students dominate the games?  Play a bigger game after school.  Have a blue team and a red team within your school.  Trade players to resist factions.  And believe it or not, there are a lot of dominate players in intermural sports.

NO PASS NO PLAY

    I have a student named E.  He's tall, like 6'1 which is tall for an 8th grader.  I've never seen him play basketball, but he seems like he'd be good at least on defense with his size and apparent agility.  First day of school he said, he wanted to be a coach, a player, or a soldier.  He never talks out of turn, but he doesn't work.  He doesn't seem to care to turn work in.  The young boy would benefit from failing in class, because he needs to realize why he needs to perform in well in class.  But I truly wish he could figure that out without failing a nine weeks.  If he would play outside of UIL and on the school team, then he could sit out a day or a week, because faculty told him he couldn't play for a short period of time.  Not three weeks, or six weeks, or a unfigurable term that no one can figure out in UIL which is arbitrary.  The punishment, the consequences, should fit the crime.  E and others should receive swifter, simpler, more direct consequences for misbehavior, or lack of effort in the classroom.

COACHES

    In many middle schools there are 9 coaches.  Four for the boys, four for the girls, and one more for tennis or golf.  When I was a kid, 2 coaches coached 7th grade football, and 2 coached 8th grade football.  Now four coach 7th in the morning and the same four coach the 8th in the afternoon.  This is unwise.  Our coaches are becoming less educators and more coaches.  When these programs started 60 and 70 years ago there was a single coach for all the intramural sports and PE.  That is also unwise, coaches can't have impact on too many students.  That is why there should be more teacher coaches not less.  How many teachers could be utilized to coach a single class?  Two teacher coaches per period one man, one woman now there are 14 to 16 teacher coaches.  Who has the most authority in the classroom?  Teacher coaches.  Who are the most beloved after leaving school typically?  Teacher coaches.  When I have a behavior problem with an athlete who do we call?  Teacher coaches.  Now there are no stipends which are trash anyway for coaches.  There are no students who are receiving special treatment because they're 'taking us to state.'  There are students who practice a wide range of athletic pursuits, with a wide range of skill and interest levels, taught by a wide variety of teachers who cannot help, but keep their main focus on education, because they only coach an hour, but also dole out some consequences, and positive rewarding activities to students who're achieving in the classroom.

READY FOR WHATEVER

    I think football is wrong for students.  It does hurt too much.  There is brain damage with every hit.  The linemen aren't getting exercise.  Concussions and broken bones are too common.  One of my favorite movies is Necessary Roughness.  Scott Bacula is a college Quarterback and he's 40.  There are two antagonists for the football team.  One is the Texas State, the other is their own dean.  He doesn't think that college's hard earned money should be used on the barbarity of football.  I watched it when I was young and hated that guy, but I agree with him as I get old enough to be the arm of the armadillos.  No football, yes basketball, yes track, yes soccer, no hockey, yes relays and cross training, yes hiking, yes boxing with gear and hitting bags more than each other, yes field events including javelin.  Yes tag and wall ball, yes ping pong and cross country.  Yes gymnastics maybe swimming.  Yes wrestling yes volleyball.

TITLE NINE

    Girls will train with boys and will play in PE with boys.  When preparing for afterschool, more competitive games, there should be girls, boys, and co-ed.  

ANTS SPECIALIZE

    One hard fast rule for me is that I don't think kids should have to choose.  When I was part of a high school program as a student in the late 90's there was time to be an athlete and a nerd in the band or orchestra.  I think that is essential to the cultivation of students and societal members.  When I was part of a high school program as a coach (admittedly supporting role) in 2018 the time to be engaged in multiple activities was dead and dying out.  When I was in high school there were football players who pulled off their pads at halftime and marched with the band.  That is highly irregular these days.  Band members and football players both think they should specialize more to be ready for the next level.  This is a bad practice of our educational system.  It is tragic.  I think it should be reversed and it will be in my charter school.  Time will be alloted to make sure students can participate in multiple extracurriculars.  Will students be as competitive in state competitions?  No, thank God.

Cashing in on Education

"Why can't I just quit school and go to work?"

Ever hear that from your high schooler?  Maybe your 3rd grader?  

The national average price paid per pupil across the US is $12,612.  That means each kid costs that much every year.  This starts out at the upper end where New York spends $24,000 per pupil including a ton of money for pensions.  Utah is in last place, or is it first place?  They spend $7,628 per student.  *Stats from educationdata.org

America is not getting its money's worth.  Nope.  In large cities like New York, New York where students are costing $24,000 per student per year 80% are graduating and 80% of those can read.  Wow.  You know I'm actually surprised it's that high.  Maybe there is some statistical...creativity.  Maybe there are affluent schools bringing the average up.  Maybe there are some really good charter and private schools that just get it done.  Then again, exclusive private schools shouldn't even effect those statistics.  Maybe if the US used vouchers and we SHOULD use vouchers.  

Heck, maybe the numbers are fudged.  I'd believe that.  I just read 13 Ways of Going on a Field Trip.  Seems like there are some heroic and idealistic teachers in New York fighting a tsunami, but the tsunami is winning.  I've heard horror stories from people who work at Title 1 schools, and movies, and articles, and my own experiences these past five years at Title 1 schools.  

My personal assessment is that students and parents lack motivation.  Some students will do well for themselves.  Some students will do well for their parents.  Some students will do well to play sports or do the arts.  All of that adds up to maybe 50% and still few of those have an intrinsic motivation to retain knowledge rather than to score well on the test and dump their knowledge.  Still even that doesn't deal with the other 50% ish who aren't motivated by parents, sports, or anything else. 

Here's one idea.  Let's pay the students $500 a year to get A's and B's and good attendance.  Say $80 bucks per six weeks if they get A's and B's and only 2 absences, no more than 5 tardies.  They can lose out one or two Marking Periods and fix it in the others.  What about paying parents the same amount?  Now moms and dads are motivated to send their kids to bed on time, and get to school on time, and encourage them to do homework each night.  Maybe parents could even sit down with the kids regularly and look at their grades to hold them accountable.  

There does seem to be something perverse about paying students and parents to succeed.  After all we're already giving them something that has the ability to really do amazing things. Just go look up quotes about the value of education and you'll see Erasmus said, "The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth."  "Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. -Fredrick Douglas.  "A child without an education is like a bird without wings."  "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."   So should America pay its people to take this great thing?  Yeah.  

We already pay kids the price of the school building, team sports, pensions, teacher's salaries, counselors, and admin. We pay too much to try to grow their motivations instead of just trying to pay them to be motivated.  Let's buy their motivations.  

I often think, 'I could teach 40 students at a time in all of my classes IF each student was as good as HN, MI, or DS (initials used to protect identities).  You've had students like that, right?  What if they all were?  What if they were pressing you for all they might incidentally need to know instead of asking if they'll really need all this?  What if they self-regulated class and other student's behavior so that they could all hear and succeed?  What if they tried to butter you up, but were also conscientiously trying to not look like they were?  What if they all vied to be the teacher's pet?  Would teachers need as much pay and as much support staff?  Nope.

Could this lead to cheating?  For example, a teacher offers a good grade for part of the cash?  Yes.  But would you want to trust a student to keep quiet about that?  I wouldn't.  Could students and parents make a scene and argue?  Could rotating teachers and standardized testing be used to back up all teacher data?  Yes.  

It wouldn't have to be every school or even every school in one state.  It would just have to be a couple of charters to create the experiment.  I know there would be tons of teachers, parents, and students titillated by the opportunity. Then again, I didn't even ask Google if it was legal.

End Secondary School

I don't think there should be secondary school anymore.

Why would someone have secondary school?  Well, to teach the students everything they would need in life.  Really.  That sounds impossible.  Maybe we endeavor to teach citizens the things that make them fit the definition of educated.  However, schools largely don't do that.  Schools probably never did, or how many students can pass the same calculus exams that proved mastery one month later?  

And what does it take to teach the students these things?  It takes motivated students and only barely competent teachers.  It takes supportive parents who encourage and partner with students and teachers.  Over the decades the motivation of students has dropped, the buy in of the parents has flopped, and the competency of the teachers has gone up.  These statements are addressing averages.

Now there are teachers who don't do much.  They are at these failure factories in inner cities and they are working with too many students who don't care.  They lost the battle and their job is to shift the blame and cover the truth.  If America doesn't know, schools in inner cities are broken.  

But where the battle to educate is still being waged, public schools expected less and less and less.  In some academic game of high jump the children will keep adjusting to the lowered bar until they are refusing to jump centimeters.  They have and they do play limbo until they simply won't engage the bar.  School isn't teaching the minimum basic skills because there is no reason for the students to learn.  

So just end secondary school requirements.  Stop sending millions of kids who don't want to go to school to learn something they don't want to learn.  If kids want to go to middle school or high school or if their parents are highly motivated for them to go then they can go.  Then teachers wouldn't be spending out-sized time trying to make oppositional defiant teens pass arbitrary requirements.  Teachers can focus on the students who WANT to be there.  Students can get what they need.  The bills would be cut.  The arbitrary nature of grades can be amended up instead of down for the first time in decades.  

Just change schools to Primary (K-3rd) and Senior (4th-6th) and finally Remedial (7th).  In primary students will spend a lot of their time in the same way they do now.  However, maybe with more emphasis put on fewer grade levels there can be more teachers per student.  One teacher teaching 10-15...with a helper.  Sounds great! Student citizens need only to gain powers of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

It's all they need.  To read with good vocabulary and understanding for simple facts.  The idea that all 16 year olds can engage with Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Dickens is ludacris.  As surely as the idea that all 50 year olds can.  To do basic math well enough to mentally balance a checkbook.  To write opinions and feelings.  The list of requirements isn't large, and yet elementary schools are pushing some algebraic ideas into the lower levels so they'll be ready for them in secondary school.  That's crazy. Members of our society don't lament thirty year olds who can't find a hypotenuse, but America rightly cringes when we hear of high school grads who cannot read and write at a third grade level.  Forget the first problem and attack the second.  

Senior School (4th thru 6th) would be the time for high-stakes, standardized testing.  Students would need to prove their mastery of all ESSENTIAL (meaning a lot of them aren't essential) knowledge and skills.  Just as today this should be based on teachers grades, formative assessments, and standardized testing.  State testing would continue and increase in these early grades as children are proving mastery and schools are graded for their capability.  This makes politicians and test-writer lobbyists happy.

7th Grade would be for the ones who couldn't get through.  And as their peers move on they would be given more focus and attention.  Diagnosticians could give extra time.  Master teachers could be employed.  Summer school could be elongated.  The light at the end of the tunnel could be shown to them.  Once they get it they...

If a student doesn't choose to continue traditional, but re envisioned secondary school.  Send them to get a job.  They could be making their own money, helping their families, or a bit of both.  In my class I tell my kids that if they don't get through high school they'll probably only work menial jobs.  But some kids don't find this threatening.  Let's let them work at Domino's pizza, or Starbucks, or a grocery store, or where ever, for half of minimum wage.  Simply tie a juvenile minimum wage to the federal minimum wage.  Now a 12 or 13 year old kid can work for five years instead of secondary school. Kids can become apprentice construction workers, plumbers, daycare, animal groomers, or anything else  They can make more than minimum wage if their employers find them valuable.  

I can envision assistant managers taking over a fast food restaurant when they turn 18 because they've been working there 6 years.  General Manager may not happen until they go to business classes for a year or two, but that's way better than starting that trajectory at age 19.  

Plus, I'm tired of college graduates working at Starbucks.  Lets let them forgo Harvard and start butchering names right away.

Maybe you also don't let them vote until they pass their school.  I know sounds racially charged because it used to be, but I like the idea of the school graduation earning something.  How about you can't get a job until you graduate 6th grade and you can't vote until you can read the candidates positions.  Maybe people will care more about their vote if they all had to earn it.

Maybe they would care more about school if it earned them something.       

Substituting as a Civic Duty

You know those blogs that you see on the internet sometimes and they’re really pretentious.  They think they know everything about anything and they have very few facts, studies, and statistics to prove their points.  You read the blog and you know all the stuff in it is more or less true, but the writer acts as if they’ve discovered the wheel.  You know a thing or two.  You have lived in two centuries.  You got a lot going for you and you even read blogs and articles about education and parenting on the internet so how on earth does this writer think they’re telling you anything?

You know what schools need?  No, this isn’t a trick question and it should be the most obvious answer; many times it isn’t.  It isn’t materials.  We have a lot of those.  It isn’t smaller class sizes although I’m sure that could help.  I like the idea of teachers being allowed to Taser students.  But that isn’t it either.  It's parents.  

Now before you go getting a big head and start thinking that you’re the most important person in your kid’s life, you should know, this sucks.  By the way, there are a bunch of studies that show a parents influence over the lives of their children are decreasing.  My own belief on this topic is that an orphan's parents don’t have much influence over them.  By that I mean, that parents can have as much influence as they want to have. 

Parents can know what’s going on in the lives of their kids.  Parents can pay attention.  Parents can sit down every evening and talk at the dinner table.  Parents can make it their business to know who their kid’s friends are and what music they listen to.  Parents can check their kid’s homework and help them decide where to go to school and what classes they should take in middle school and high school.  Parents can have a ton of influence over their kid’s lives.   You can be one of the most important things in the world for your kid.  And let’s face it, if you’re the kind of parent who reads blogs/articles on the internet about parenting and education you probably are.  Odds are you do some of the stuff listed above.  You might neglect some of them, but you also, probably did it consciously to teach your kids responsibility.  You’re likely, to have a bunch of things listed that I haven’t even thought of.  You’re more likely to be a helicopter parent than an easy going one.  You’re conscientious. 

So what about the people that aren’t?  What about the people that can’t tell you what grade their kid is in?  What about the people who are really mad about their kid getting suspended because they’ll have to stay home with them rather than angry because they did something bad?  What about the parents who AREN’T mad when their kid does something wrong? 

As a teacher I know there is a huge difference between a struggling student and a struggling student who has an involved parent.  The one with the involved parent is getting a B the last week of the six weeks and EMAILS to find a way their kid can get an A.  The struggling student with no parent involvement doesn’t email me and they get a C, a D or an F which isn’t even based on the child’s talent or knowledge because without effort supplied by the parent, the student’s talent and knowledge really doesn’t come into effect.  If a parent is withholding television and or a cell phone in order to get good grades and enforcing a bedtime in order to make sure the student is calm and well rested/level-headed then the student can show off their talents and capabilities.  In my class it doesn’t take much effort to get an A.  It takes even less intelligence.  Parents who are involved are fulfilling a tough job.  But how can we, you and I, those people who are engaged, invested, and adult bring along the people who forgot to take their birth control pills?  How can the upright people bring along the Darwin award recipients?  How can the white collar and blue collar workers bring along the unemployed by choice and the collarless? 

I think there should be a law that everybody has to work in a school as a substitute like Jury Duty.  I don’t think they should be the teacher of record although I’m not opposed to that.  I much more simply think that parents and even non-parents should go to school once a year and take the pulse of our future society.  Everybody, after passing a background check, could go to a school their kid goes to and go with their kid to class. 

In elementary, we’d all see how hard the teachers work.  Maybe we’d know how difficult it is to give a kid personal time even when the teacher only has 15-20 students.  Maybe we’d see how easy it could be to give our own kid fifteen minutes of personal time every night, something that would drastically improve reading and writing in the lower primary grades.  We could play tag with the kids at recess and then maybe we could advocate for longer recess than the kids are getting because kindergartners don’t need to study 6 hours a day.  We could see our kids interacting with other kids.  We could try to help them practice this at home.  We could find out which kids we’d like our kid to be friends with.  

Maybe you don’t have a kid.  Why should you have to substitute?  Our schools are sometimes understaffed and we need help.  Our schools, as the founders agreed, and as most political philosophers believe, are more than just a service or a utility.  Our schools create our future generations assisting our parents.  That’s why we pay for them with our taxes even if we don’t have kids of our own and sometimes we need to pay time with our taxes (sometimes more important than money).  By the way, what about the people who aren’t paying any money into the education system through property taxes, but are being served with their kids in schools?  They should have to serve twice a year.  Adults without kids, properly vetted, could be a valuable asset for individual help, directed encouragement, clerical or manual support. 

In secondary schools, we’d see who the kids are in our schools who are the biggest problems.  We may see how our child is part of the problem.  We may see how hard our teachers work and how much support they really can use.  We could see how the kids talk.  The vapid language of the American secondary school student is a society-wide dumpster.  Would 10-15 extra adults walking around our halls everyday help that?  Maybe.  If it was YOUR mom would it clean up YOUR language?  If it was your friend's mom sitting at your table at lunch would it clean up your table’s language even if just that day?  Could it help papers get handed out quicker, could it help adults remember some of the incredible amount of stuff we’ve forgotten from our school careers?  Could it help us with our gym classes?  Gym is incredibly unimpressive these days.  No weights, no push-ups, no hurdles, no climbing the rope.  I think back to my gym class and remember with fondness the physical intensity that children scoff at today.  Could we remind them?  Could an insurance salesman who is over 50 and completely bald encourage our kids to run an extra lap because it’s good for them?  Could a single mom convince a bunch of apathetic high school girls how lucky they are to play basketball or soccer or lift weights and that they should take full advantage because adulthood doesn't offer many of these opportunities.

This brings more adults into the lives of our kids; a good thing, in my opinion.  I know there are going to be so many laws and lawsuits along the lines of, ‘I don’t want so and so, blah blah blah, hanging out at a school, infecting kids.  Okay, in jury duty there are challenges and dismissals why not substitute/assistant challenges and dismissals?  This also helps create adults who have to be a little more involved in their kid’s lives.  They have to be better advocates for education in the public sphere, they have to be better disciplinarians of their children, and they have to be better advocates for their child’s effort in class.  They know what the districts and schools need.  They know what the parents and administrators need.  They know what their kids and the world needs.

Now, I’m not saying that everybody should do this.  Doctors don’t have to serve jury duty.  They might not need to do this either, but doctors would be really good substitutes for science classes and probably jury foremen. 

I’m not saying everyone needs to be in a classroom or everyone needs to be with their kids if they have a kid.  I’m sure district or school employees could give you a list a mile long of things parents and non-parents could do that would be valuable, effective, safe for children and adults, and tailored to different personalities, interests, and capabilities.

I’m sure some will have a problem with using the force of law to compel work (sounds like the healthcare mandate).  But systems could be devised to get out of these expectations or we could decide to fight hard to make sure that something like this happens that makes our schools AND our communities better.  Could a small town do this?  Could this be a municipal ordinance in a small town with a few thousand in population?  Yes.  Could a school board and a city council make it a referendum and have the community vote on it?  Yes.  Has this world veered too far from the good?  No. 

Without a big city-wide program to get every adult, within reason, to be a substitute at a local school can you and your church small group go through the annoying process to get certified to be a substitute and go substitute on one or two off days a year?  No.  Your church can have an initiative to have half of the members serve as a volunteer.  Your golf team can all make a pact to follow all your kids to each class they have once a year.  Your kid’s soccer team’s parents, or your drinking buddies, or your political party, your book club, the moms of your Boy Scout Troop, or Girl Scout Troop could all make a pact to go to each of your kid’s schools and ask if they need help and how.

Am I too nostalgic?

I'm trying to get a job as a teacher.  I also have a stepson who has teachers.  I also work at schools as a substitute and those schools...you guessed it, have teachers.  It may be that I'm hypersensitive to problems because of the job I want to have, or it could be that my problem is thinking about the past with rose-colored glasses.

Obviously that statement has a ton of different directions I could be taking this.  I'm talking about the two emails I sent to my kid's teachers last week.  Now school has been going on over nine weeks and this is the first time we've talked to them.  And we initiated the communication.  However, we initiated the conversation because of some small issues.  In truth, we still haven't contacted his other teachers because we only call if he has a 'B.'

Obviously, my aggravation should be seen in light of my failure to get a job.  But, I told myself in grad school that when I was a teacher I would contact.  One reason is because the only calls my parents ever got from the school is when I had misbehaved.  I hated that.  I hate it now.  My parents could have gotten a short call every time I got honor roll.  School could have called to tell them that I was voted to be Key Club president and I wasn't even Catholic.  But no.  Do you think my wife got a call to tell her parents that she was top ten in her school?  No.

I wanted to be different because if you need to have your student's parents increase their investment in their child's education then you would have to invest in your relationship.  And in a lot of schools I know this is a changing principle in America.  I know a lot of elementary school teachers contact parents every six weeks.  I think that's great.  I know that when I was in Korea I called all of my students twice every quarter and gave them a little over the phone quiz and then their Korean teacher would discuss these and other results with their parents.  That was a lot, but it was private school.  We were expected to be in closer contact.  Public schools seem to be expecting more communication.  One of those things that teachers are expected to do above and beyond teaching like discipline, life skills, nutrition, manners, phonics, and teamwork.

So how much communication is good enough?  I think a short call to the parents once a six weeks and a form letter/news letter home every week to the family isn't asking a ton.  Specific e-mails about strengths their students have would also be great.  I've always dreamed about having a picnic at a park on a Saturday and inviting all my student's families.  I like the idea of making the class/teacher relationship more communal and less professional.  I feel like that's something we've lost.

Now, there is this meme/cartoon of the difference between education in the seventies and today.  In one box the parents are standing with the teacher and yelling at the student, 'What are you going to do about these grades?'  In the other box the same words are being shouted at the teacher by the parents.  Have you seen that cartoon?  Does that match your perception?  Isn't this losing a professional respect for what the teacher does?  Is this what's wrong with our educational system?



But wait didn't I say we've lost the communal to the more professional?  Yes.  I do think we've lost a certain amount of respect for the work of societies professional teachers.  But I think we gained that appreciation after we lost the teachers' communal investment in the society and life of children.  This may sound a little pie-in-the-sky-ish, but a long time before teachers were professionals weren't they a part of our society?  Before there were unions they were paid by the parents and the parents had input.  Teachers used to be allowed to participate in corporal punishment because they were so closely tuned with the disciplinary system of the the parents. Later on their professionalism didn't allow that closeness.

Now, I'm not saying professionalism was bad.  These days we're expecting more holistic education.  These days we demand more inclusion.  These days everyone has their own "special" education.  We're making modifications and specifications and teaching to standardized tests.  We're putting square pegs into round holes.  We've cut out professionalism and replaced it with post-modernism.  We cut out cold hard facts and shoved in amorphous feeling-based modules.  We're creating a peacock of education.  This is a mosaic approach to education that we used to think was possible when we had parents communicating with teachers.

However, I may not have my historical principles correct.  I may be too nostalgic about the past.  I may see a lot of genuine community when there really was underpaid, badly-treated teachers misused and disrespected by their local communities.  Maybe I'm miss-remembering rural communities graduating high school students who couldn't read.  Maybe I'm miss-remembering state hospital lobotomizing an Asperger's Syndrome that we'd give daily inclusion to.

So if you read this and you have an idea about community and professionalism please comment.  If you have an opinion about how much communication is good then leave a comment about how often you'd like a teacher to communicate with you about your kids.  Maybe you would like to delineate between fair and unfair expectations between primary and secondary education.  Do it?  Would you go have a hot dog picnic with your kids if your kid's teacher invited you one Saturday a semester?