In comes the Obama administration, and in the zeal to demonstrate just how terrible the Bush administration was, we now have a new educational reform hitting the schools: Race to the Top.

The idea behind Race to the Top is that American education should be the best in the world – thus we begin the race to the top of the world in educational standards. (Kind of reminds me of kids playing King of the Hill) Along with this lofty ideal of being the best, we have sweeping changes including standardized core objectives for all states to adopt (if they want to, of course), new testing, new evaluations for teachers and much more.

There are a lot of questions that I have, and my biggest concern is that the entire education system doesn’t trip on the race to the top. If teachers evaluations are to be linked to student test scores, how do you differentiate between schools in affluent areas where the parents are involved and the students simply WILL achieve more? If teachers in that area are up against teachers in low income areas with absentee parents or parents who simply don’t care, then I know where I would want to teach.

If instead, teachers are evaluated based on individual growth of students over a single year in school, that would be better, the problem still remains those things which are out of the teacher’s control, like attendance. Missing school has a statistical impact on student scores according to the National Center for Educational Statistics, but is not something that teachers can have any control over, so how can we penalize teachers for that?

I suppose only time will tell, but it seems to me like more of the same, or if it is arguably different, then different for the wrong reasons… Because I know we all want to improve the educational system in America just so that we can be better than the Japanese and Swedish, right? I know everything I strive to do better at is for the purpose of being better than the person next to me…

Related posts:

1. The Obama Effect
2. Maryland is $50 Million Richer…
3. 2011 Proposed Budget for Teachers

So what are these Common Core Standards?

They are exactly what they sound like: core standards that are common to everyone. Different states have had different standards, which has led to discrepancies between states; take an average student from Maryland and from Florida and you will see what I mean. These common standards are designed to eliminate this discrepancy.

The Core Standards are NOT Federal Mandates from the Government – this was a state led initiative, read more about their creation on their website. That said, in the FAQs there is talk about how the Federal Government can “support” schools in their adoption of these standards, kinda of reads like “no, the Federal Government didn’t create them, we did! Who cares if they are the ones who hired us to do this…” (Easier to get someone else to do your dirty work, right?)

Where Did these Core Standards Come From?

According to the Common Core State Standards website, teachers, school administrators (scary!) and “experts” (hmmmmm) developed the standards. While the collaboration may seem a bit suspect, I actually think the standards are probably pretty ok. I mean, educators don’t like to reinvent the wheel (even if the wheel is broken, perhaps) so likely they just took the “best” standards from various states (at least, they claim to not have formed the lowest common denominator, so I would hope they picked the best). So while they may look new, don’t panic, it’s probably not going to change what you do in the classroom all that much.

Who is Using the Common Core Standards? Are they Mandatory?

These Core State Standards are not mandatory – indeed not all states have adopted them yet. I wonder how long those remaining few states will hold out, though, peer pressure being what it is. So yes, they are voluntary and yet I am sure it will not be long before it is accepted by everyone.

Will This Lead to a Common Curriculum too? 

Check out the FAQ on their website and you get a lot of legalese – Read between the lines and you get “we’d love there to be a single common curriculum for all schools in all states, it would make it so much easier to ensure our agenda is accomplished!!!”

Beyond that, I withhold judgement until the results are in – For some teachers it will mean a change in the curriculum and for others it will be business as usual. Perhaps in 10 years we’ll all be glad for uniformity in standards… or perhaps not.

Related posts:

1. National Sexuality Education Standards
2. Don’t Trip on the Race to the Top
3. Should We Raise School Standards?

So now we stop to appreciate our teachers. Let’s look at what we’ve done to teachers in the past few years: Teachers are having to find second jobs to pay the bills; the best teachers looking for new jobs. Some districts are questioning whether 12th grade is a necessity, while a the same time looking at trying to educate 3 year olds. Test scores are now the only thing that matters and teachers no longer promote honesty and integrity as filling in the bubble on a scan-tron, even when the answer is not known, is of a higher priority. (I am a Bad Teacher, by Valarie Strauss)

Here are some questions I have about the whole situation:

1. How many administrators eat out each week? (because we can’t afford to on a teacher’s salary after pay cuts and mandatory raises in our pension contribution…)

2. How many government budget makers are struggling to pay for health insurance? (because many teachers have to pay this by themselves now, something that is quite difficult unless a spouse has another career that pays well)

3. How may students can you physically stuff into a single room and expect to learn?

4. How will eliminating 12th grade help colleges who already complain about having to provide remedial support for incoming freshmen?

5. How will bringing in students 1-2 years sooner (3 and 4 years-old) improve a system that can’t figure out how to educate them starting at age 5?

6. How does cutting pay for teachers solve anything? (unless you really want fewer teachers in the school systems, then that will help)

My prediction – at least 2 more years of worsening before it begins to hold steady. In that amount of time, who knows how many teachers will be left? The fact of the matter is that we need good veteran teachers to mentor and help train up the new teaches entering the field. Without the veteran teachers, new teachers will have a bigger steeper learning curve.

Arne Duncan makes bold claims: “I hear you, I value you, and I respect you.” A statement that is hard to swallow when teachers feel their cries fall on deaf ears, find that their value now lies in the accuracy of student’s ability to fill out a scan-tron sheet and respect for their job lies in a dwindling paycheck that doesn’t cover all the bills anymore.

Budget makers – your values are showing through as you continue to cut back education funding. Where will it stop? When will the education of the next generation be a priority? Cut out the rhetoric, talk means nothing. Put yourself in a classroom and find out what teachers do every day. Stop asking teachers to get kids to pass a test while pulling the rug out from under them at the same time.

Or are we going to start offering free and reduced lunches to teachers as well as the kids?

Happy Teacher Appreciation Day

Related posts:

1. New Study for Autism
2. Teacher Appreciation Week
3. Teacher Appreciation Week 2010

Going to school year round does not mean that students will end up with no summer break, or that they will attend school more days during a single calendar year. Schools that provide year round school simply attempt to balance the calendar in order to minimize student learning attrition over the long summer break by providing shorter, more frequent breaks.

First, let’s look at a typical 9 month school year calendar:

School usually starts in August after about 60 days off for summer vacation. Thanksgiving break provides 3 days off, winter break (or Christmas break) provides approximately 10 days off and spring break (or Easter break) provides students with approximately 5 days off. The long summer break is well known for causing students to forget or lose ground, often referred to as the “summer slide”.

Balancing the calendar so that the long summer break is minimized is thought to help eliminate this “summer slide” and results in what is termed “year-round school”. This method has students only off for 30 days during the summer. Fall break is added to the calendar at about 15 days, Thanksgiving remains at about 3 days off, and winter and spring break are extended to be approximately 15 days each. This helps to spread out the time students have off of school and provides less time for losing ground, allowing students to gain more ground in their studies.

Does Year-Round School Work?

There are many reports provided on the NAYRE website that show various groups and organizations that are advocating for a balanced school calendar, and research shows that students in a low socio-economic status lose more knowledge over the summer than their high SES counterparts, emphasizing the need for something to change over the summer.

There will always be proponents for and against year-round school. Both sides of the argument will be equally passionate about their stand. The very fact that public education is a democracy run by the government will cause any major changes like this more difficult to standardize, but I ask one question:

If you agree that something needs to change in order to improve schools, why shouldn’t a radical change like this be considered instead of rehashing old ideas of teacher education/test scores/incentive pay/etc.?

Related posts:

1. Prince George’s County Schools to Go Year Round
2. Report Card Comments for the End of the School Year
3. The Importance of Summer Tutoring

1. There is not enough time to teach a single skill until all students have mastered it.

2. This lack of mastery is a result of a curriculum that requires them to move ahead too quickly.

I personally think it is not the fault of the curriculum that prevents mastery, but the schedule and setup of the public school system that does not allow enough focus on academics.

I grew up homeschooled, a fact that is often surprising to people, and recently had a conversation with my mom about how we were graded. Easy answer – we weren’t. There was no need to provide grades because we simply worked on a skill until it was mastered. There was not room for B’s and C’s because the expectation was that we would LEARN the material, not that we would become somewhat familiar with the material.

If someone were to suggest eliminating the grading scale, parents and teachers alike would probably spin into a tizzy, trying to figure out how to know whether their children (or students) were learning anything in school. If only teachers had the time during the day to teach students to the point of mastery, then grades would not be necessary because parents would know that their children were LEARNING.

Lets take a moment now to look at how much time teachers generally spend teaching per day (this does not take into account testing, pretesting, etc. This is based on one schedule at a public elementary school – other schools will obviously have different schedules with different total teaching/down times).

Students arrived: 9:00AM

Math: 9:30-10:15

Specials- 10:15-11:15

Lunch and recess: 11:30-12:30

Water/bathroom break/quiet reading at desks – 12:30-1:00

Language Arts (reading and writing combined) – 1:00-2:00

Social studies – 2:00-2:45

Pack up/clean up/read aloud – 2:45-3:15

Dismissal: 3:15

Total time teaching in classroom: 2.5 hours

Total time at school: 6 hours and 15 minutes.

Then you throw in field trips, assemblies, discipline problems that interrupt instructional time, etc. and that amount of instructional time reduces even more.

So let me ask you – is it the curriculum that is the “cause” of the lack of teacher’s ability to teach a skill until student’s have mastered it?

Related posts:

1. Change in Grading Scale for P.G. County
2. Prince George’s County Schools Implement Controversial New Grading Scale
3. The Problem with the Public School System

So… should we raise school standards? Raises a few questions, doesn’t it?

Related posts:

1. Common Core Standards
2. National Sexuality Education Standards
3. The Importance of Wait Time

When planning any lesson, it is important to first ask: what is the ultimate goal behind this lesson?

Example One: Differentiated Instruction of Perimeter and Area

So for example – Students will learn how to measure the perimeter and area of a shape. The ultimate goal is NOT that students will simply be able to improve upon prior knowledge. (I am sure everyone will agree there, but surprisingly, differentiated instruction seems to lose this idea). Additionally it is NOT that students will be able to pass a unit test. You might say that the ultimate goal is to pass the state tests, and in one sense that is an ultimate goal. The final ultimate goal is for students to be able to grow up, measure their living room and purchase the correct amount of carpet.

Looking at differentiating instruction for this concept has come a long way from even just a few years ago. It used to be that teachers were told to provide several examples and then allow time to work in small groups so that students who struggled with the concept could have personal time with the teacher to learn a difficult concept.

A New Look at Differentiated Instruction

Now teachers are being prompted to provide a variety of complexities in the problems given. Now for this example, the complexity does not compromise the concept: finding the area of a room that is 5×5 square uses the same formula as finding the area of a room that is 10×32. When it is time to add other shapes to the room, the problem becomes more sticky.

One article I recently read stated that students should be given a list of several questions of varying difficulty and allowed to choose a couple of those to answer, allowing the advanced students the chance at harder questions and slower students the chance at easier questions. The problem is, if the easy problems: a room that is only 5×5, are the only ones answered, then those students who are struggling will never have practice with more difficult problems: a room that has to be divided into three sections in order to figure out the area, for example.

Example Two: Differentiated Instruction for Multiplication

One example given in the article was multiplication. Given a selection of multiplication problems, students who have not grasped double digit multiplication can answer only single digit questions while students who are more advanced can answer more difficult double digit multiplication.

My question – when does the slower student learn double digit multiplication? And if your ultimate goal is that state test, how does that slower student have a chance at passing when they are always given the option of a simpler problem? Lose the problem sets and bring back individualized attention, please!

Related posts:

1. Extension Ideas for Lesson on Obama’s Speech
2. Do not Differentiate Your Instruction…or Should You?
3. Report Card Comments for the End of the School Year

While on the one hand this seems like a logical step – the kids who will be tested need to have the help necessary to catch up and be “on level” for their grade in math.

On the other hand, the logic seems a bit backwards – the kids who now will not receive the math lab in second grade will be the ones who will eventually have to participate in the remediation in older grades.

Putting a bandage on a problem, like remediation for students with poor test scores, can help heal the wound (poor test scores), but why do this at the expense of those students who are at high risk for needing remediation later?

Any Dr.will agree that preventative medicine is the best – eat healthy, exercise, get plenty of sleep. If the medical industry stopped focusing on these healthy lifestyle choices, teaching individuals how to care for themselves and stay healthy, and instead focused all their time and energy on healing those who became sick, that would turn our health care system upside down. While Dr’s (and remediation) are absolutely necessary, preventative medicine (and perhaps math labs for second graders) is just as important if not more so.

Related posts:

1. How to Increase Student Motivation
2. Prince George’s County Schools Implement Controversial New Grading Scale
3. Mom, Sit Here!

In Providence, Rhode Island, Central Falls district has made the striking decision to fire every teacher on staff at Central Falls High School. In all, 93 were fired, including teachers, principal, guidance counselors, reading specialists, 3 vice principals, school psychologist, and physical education teachers.

This was one option available to the school officials who were required to take drastic measures to turn around what was labeled as a chronically low-preforming school. The preferred method of extreme reform failed as the union and school officials were unable to come to an agreement. The school officials were asking teachers to take on additional tasks for no or little pay. Now, instead, all the teachers will be fired.

The school is allowed to hire back no more than 50% of those teachers fired, so all is not lost for every employee let go. Teachers from across the state, parents and students all gathered in support of the fired teachers, but Secretary Duncan said, “when schools continue to struggle we have a collective obligation to take action.”

Related posts:

1. The Problem with the Public School System
2. Student Assessment
3. Making the Most of In-Service Days

Here are some tips for improving test scores based on research from the National Center for Educational Statistics. Check out these tips for improving test scores, then follow the links to read more and find out what surprising things actually make no difference in the test scores.

First, my opinion – be sure that in the ever present push to get through each standard on the state mandated curriculum, that children are learning why they need to know the information. Understanding the facts may help them pass a test, but understanding how that information is applicable to their lives is priceless and will ultimately result in better educated adults. It may also be worthy of note to reduce test stress.

Here are research-based specific things that teachers can do to ensure higher test scores.

To Improve Elementary Reading Test Scores:

1. Make reading a fun and enjoyable activity. Research shows that students who perform well on standardized reading tests enjoy reading and find it fun.
2. Focus on building student vocabulary.
3. Provide time for silent reading

Read more tips on improving reading test scores.

To Improve Elementary Level Math Test Scores:

1. Spend 3-5 hours on math. While this may seem simple, it provides teachers the amount of time necessary to teach each skill.
2. Avoid excess homework. Research shows that an excess of 15 minutes of math homework each day might actually hinder the goal of improving test scores.
3. Ability grouping is helpful as well, providing teachers the ability to focus on a single level of student ability at a time and really bring up the skill set of each group.

Read more tips on improving math test scores.

Teach Middle or High School level? Here are some tips for you on improving reading test scores:

Raising Middle School Reading Test Scores

Raising High School Reading Test Scores

Related posts:

1. Changing the Focus of Education
2. Preparing for State Testing
3. How to Increase Student Motivation