Politico Pith: Choice Thoughts from the State Secretary of Education

Not gonna say it was quite like seeing Lady Gaga walk into our library basement, but it was pretty cool.  Just a few (paraphrased) nuggets able to persist through my stats-addled brain-fog:

We hold school time constant and let learning vary.  We need to flip those: everybody to mastery, no matter how long it takes.

One of my big problems with NCLB was that it overidentified underperforming schools but didn't give states the money to help those schools.   

Teacher evaluation has to be based in part on student achievement.  It's a common sense connection parents know.  Last year she had a poor teacher and hated math.  This year she loves her teacher and math's her favorite subject.

If you want to guarantee great turnout at a school committee meeting out in the suburbs, don't propose revamping the reading curriculum--propose changing the school day by 20 minutes.

We just voted to do the first state takeover of a school system, in Lawrence.  I was at a school in a different city yesterday, and I was sitting there talking to those people, thinking, We should take over this district, too.

Climbing the First Year Mountain

This was exactly the time of the school year, several years back, when my first year of teaching started to suck.  It isn't news to anyone who's taught: the excitement of getting started quickly turns into survival, self-doubt, even the chills of disillusionment.  Many hope to spend a lifetime teaching, but never overcome the early challenges: at least a third of young teachers leave the profession within three to five years.

That's my story.  I came to high school Spanish teaching nontraditionally, having been an outreach educator for a year for the Red Cross, making presentations in Spanish to urban school groups.  I had a lot of enthusiasm and a great knowledge of Spanish--but little sense of how to teach it, and less of how to manage a classroom of ninth-graders.  I eagerly walked through the doors of an urban charter school that served students diverse in economics and ethnicity ... and rather quickly staggered into the abyss familiar to many neophyte educators: I was shifty, and the fourteen-year-olds smelled blood.  I was too authoritarian in some areas, but lacked an overall authority in the areas that counted.  Bronchitis came for a visit--and decided to stay.  I spent many hours preparing a group project on Spanish recipes I knew my kids would love ... only to see it sputter in execution.  The kids threw fits, threw balled-up paper, threw my attempts at behavior intervention back in my face.  My department head was busy helping not just me, but two other new Spanish teachers, and I was rarely observed in my critical first few months.  I had rented a studio to have peace of mind my first year, only to find I really needed a roommate I could come home and drain a fifth of vodka with to let off some steam with after a long day.

These problems were made worse by a spate of self-inflicted wounds: not observing other teachers till the late spring.  Not knowing what a truly rigorous classroom looked like.  Not examining my own practice enough to get there.  Simply and regrettably: not being tenacious enough.  I didn't do the thing all great teachers demand of their own students: step up, and get it done.

I was on the verge of quitting, but I did manage to see it through to June.  Within a year I was teaching adults.  It was a very different environment--I was very motivated to do well--I finally enjoyed myself, and my students finally had success.

But as I look back, I ask myself many questions.  From a policy standpoint, how many people out there are like me, having intended to teach K-12 for years but flaming out early?  What is the cost to the profession?  From a school standpoint, was I just a random example of somebody who wasn't quite equipped for that kind of classroom at that time?  How could my hiring school have better assessed my strengths and weaknesses, and either suggested they needed someone of a different profile, or hired me but then provided different supports?  How can schools offer key help in multiple areas upfront, without drowning new teachers in advice?

From a personal standpoint, if I could have stepped forward in time, and given myself advice with the benefit of hindsight, what would I have suggested?

Border Remorse

There are good reasons to be concerned by undocumented immigration and hope for better policy, but I continue to be struck by how incoherent/sloppy/hostile states' responses are in the absence of federal action.  Piece from The Boston Globe today on "buyer's remorse" experienced by states that pass legislation:

In Alabama, meanwhile, business leaders and lawmakers are feeling the tinge of a new law written with such haste that no one actually can figure out what it means. According to the New York Times, the law states that an individual must provide proof of lawful immigration status for any interaction “between a person and the state or a political subdivision of the state.’’ Vast government resources are now being used to ensure that local pee-wee football leagues are not filled with undocumented Mexican children. 

I visited the border south of Tuscon and in El Paso a number of years ago on a trip exploring border issues.  Among many memories in those nine days spent under a larger sky than I'd ever seen, I recall getting a firsthand look at the water jugs placed by humane organizations for folks who would inevitably brave desert heat (and cold) to get to this country.  There are humans at the center of the debate, first and always.  I also learned how wall-building and border-enforcement had been rather a bipartisan undertaking, from Reagan through Clinton, and how it had mainly had the effect of shifting paperless migration to treacherous mountain regions rather than stemming it.

Despite my skepticism about federal action, though, this is one of those issues where I suspect federal reform would be much preferable to current makeshift state forays into immigration policy.  Federal reform historically has been very imperfect, and would be again, but I think there's a fighting chance national senators would be less influenced by the nativist winds blowing at the state level, because of the political realities of the burgeoning Latino vote, which of course matters more at the statewide level than within a single (possibly gerrymandered) district.  A state senator can still get re-elected with a hardline immigrant platform, the thinking goes, but I suspect it's decreasingly possible for a member of Congress to.  Obama's made some motions toward this; perhaps its something I can hope to give thanks for during a second administration.

Lovin' Bikeful

Bikeyface:

Love the illustrations, love the voice, love the handlebar mustache adorned with bike lights, love how ... she's both pro-biking and pro-responsible biking!

Cultural Issues: Don't Accuse and Blame, Understand and Respond

On the political right, it's often popular to chalk up the inequalities of the world to poor people's “cultural factors” or “cultural reasons."  Culture of poverty, the culture in schools today, and so on.  The left runs from this sort of thing like Herman Cain from a Libya question ("just want to be sure, we're talking about ... culture here?").  But culture does affect folks in poverty, including adult learners, and that has to be kept in mind.

Toward the end of my first, six-month adult ESOL class an interesting phenomenon occurred.  Several students had managed to graduate from our English for Employment program without completing resumes.  They'd done all the career-awareness exercises in class, but when it came to meeting with my colleague caseworker to write resumes, no dice.  

What happened?  All of the students had made appointments with our caseworker, but had no-showed.  Some no-showed twice.  I hadn't tracked this, and had no idea until it was too late.  I was confused: my students could arrive bright and early every day for my morning class, but couldn’t get themselves to a single afternoon appointment with my colleague over the course of six months?  I had taken the time to sit down with the student, find a convenient time on my appointment software, seen her write the date and time in her calendar?  Given her a confirmation card?  And she’d gotten a reminder phone call from the receptionist?  And still, no-shows?

What's more, these were the best possible students from the 80 who had applied for the class.  They emerged from our screening process as the most reliable, most persistent, most able to succeed.  And they couldn’t come to a meeting they had no reason to forget, for a purpose—to help find a job—they all swore they cared about.  

If this had been just a couple no-shows--the occasional emergency with a student's kid cropping up--I wouldn't have been too worried.  But it was a consistent problem of no-showing.  Why?  Was it a different meaning to "signing up" for things in my students' native countries?  Was it the fact that most of my students were used to systems and institutions that don't expect much from them: the public-housing office, the welfare department, immigration?  Hard to say, but it seemed there were certain attitudes or approaches among students that deemphasized the caseworker meetings that were the lifeblood of our agency--and, for our clients, the ticket to completing a resume.

I'll admit to a flash of frustration that day as I reviewed all the missed appointments in our appointment log.  But most of the frustration was at myself, for (a) not anticipating this might be a problem, and (b) not having a system in place to check that our students were actually following through on their appointments.  Rather than point the finger at students and say, "It's a culture problem," I tried to understand and respond.  For our next cycle, we tied attendance of caseworker meetings to class attendance.  When I made an appointment for a student to see a colleague of mine, I emphasized that it was as important as showing up to class.  Every couple days, I checked the appointment log to make sure students were following through on seeing our caseworkers, and if there was a no-show, I checked in with the student to figure out what happened.  Every two weeks, I met with my career-services colleague to check on student progress--and we even created individual strategies for each student.

Culture matters.  People carry culture with them from their families, their communities, their home countries.  They develop cultural responses to the things they deal with every day.  As I learned, even if "culture" seems to a be a problem, as educators, rather than accuse or blame, we should understand and respond.

We're Not Not in Kansas Anymore

Great piece today in the Times about how Hispanics are reshaping ... small towns in Kansas--quite beyond  the traditionally immigrant-attractice meatpacking meccas like Dodge City:

Hispanics are arriving in numbers large enough to offset or even exceed the decline in the white population in many places. In the process, these new residents are reopening shuttered storefronts with Mexican groceries, filling the schools with children whose first language is Spanish and, for now at least, extending the lives of communities that seemed to be staggering toward the grave.

Fascinating point that the slower pace of small Plains towns appeals to immigrants' because of how it harkens back to their childhood turf.  This news--along with the rapid integration in suburbs around many cities--does call into question whether cradle-to-career initiatives that are too rooted in the "inner-city" may be missing bigger trends.  It's not to understate the poverty challenges still very much present in central cities, but to point out that the conversation about uplift for all kids can't be limited to Harlem, Pilsen, Watts, Roxbury.

From Dependence to Independence: Building Community Outside of Class

This past spring, a couple weeks into my adult ESOL class, a couple students came up to me and said, "We'd like to have a Friday Social every week."  "Sure," I said.  By the next week, a half dozen students were delegating who was responsible for napkins or cutlery and who was on salad duty, lugging in huge plates of food, and hobnobbing with fellow classmates they'd only met a scant few weeks before.

On the one hand, what could be better?  We were building a community for folks who often lacked one.  My students came from neighborhoods high in poverty in violence, from which most families try valiantly to shield their kids, if not just get out.  Some of my students lived in shelters--so they were definitely trying to get out of their communities.  Most of my students toiled to raise their families in relative isolation.

Friday Social was a chance to kick back among a newfound group of peers.  At the bare minimum, they could let off some steam between learning the present continuous and setting realistic goals (woo-woo!).  More than that, the social was a space to share what their lives were like, and learn from each other: What do you do for daycare for your daughter?  What's your son's school like?

But I was faced with this dilemma: the student social started running 10 minutes over the 15 minutes which had always been the allotted time, making it tougher to dive into important material after break.  And the social was happening all in Spanish--while most of the students were Latin American, one was from Africa.  To tackle the language use, I introduced the concept of "small talk," modeling questions you could ask your classmate as you munched arepa: How's your family?  Where do you live?  I then had different students prepare questions for each week ahead of time. 

To tackle the time issue, I brokered an agreement: Social could last 20 minutes (more than the usual 15-minute break), so long as 15 of those minutes were spent speaking English.  While I reveled in the organically, student-created nature of Friday Social, I accepted their gracious invitation to eat alongside them, but maintained a low profile.  It was their space.

In my constant mission to move students from dependence to interdependence and independence, Friday Social was, unintentionally, a great example both of how an interdependent, out-of-class culture can crop up among adult learners, and of some of the dilemmas such a cultural gathering poses in practice.

At the end of the day, for folks living in poverty, especially immigrants, the chance to build a support network was incredibly valuable.  When it comes to moving adults toward relying on each other and on themselves, there are many steps to be taken.  But rather than provide my usual list of promising practices, as I have about gaining independence in language acquisition and classroom culture, I wonder what more I could do.

Imagine if students created working groups outside of class to share ideas about public benefits, education programs, and supports for their children? ...


created parent unions for their schools? ...


protested adult-education budget cuts?

These are just the tip of the iceberg.  Things I haven't gotten to yet.

What ideas do you have?

Starting Line Item

Announcement from the Obama Administration today that Head Start funding will be subject to competition.  Shuttering centers if they don't show academic progress, directing funds to successful programs.

The changes will require all lower-performing Head Start programs to compete for funds instead of receiving the money automatically. The new benchmarks to determine eligibility will mean some programs that fail to show children are making academic program will lose funding. Grants will be reviewed every five years.

In general, I support the President's move toward competitive bidding, especially in energy and transportation, usually havens of earmark lard, cough cough.  Besides creating some motivation for lackluster centers to work better--and it's not at all clear to me that Head Start's mixed outcomes have to do with lack of staff motivation rather than inability to attract and support great staff--I'm  not sure how this helps increase the supply of high-quality childcare for kids from tough backgrounds.

Some centers will get better, and maybe get more money, but short-run it implies shuttering more centers.  And justifying one's own existence based on potentially hard-to-measure academic outcomes could certainly be a recipe for book-cooking.  It looks like sanctions rather than support.  I'd love to be proven wrong.

Finally, thank-you-thank-you Business Week for this graf:

Before making his remarks, Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius toured a classroom at the Yeadon Head Start Center. He played with 16 3-to-5-year-olds gathered around smaller circular tables. One group worked on putting together a puzzle, another played with blocks.

Now if that isn't a metaphor for working with Congress, what is?

Occupaideia: The Week's Links

Favorite tweet this week: anthonyha: I wish it was physically possible to murder one's inbox.

Joseph Stiglitz explains why, when it comes to Occupy Wall Street, he's in.

Things are even getting hot in Louisville, writes Charles P. Pierce, in his awesome new nook at Esquire.

I'll just point out that the Red Sox are still looking for a manager, and I'm still looking for a job for next year.

From Dependence to Independence: Culture Isn't Just About International Night

Teaching is listening.  Learning is speaking.  It's a paraphrase from my thick mental file labeled, Profound Things Debbie Meier Wrote.  In some iconic sense, teaching might seem to value what teachers have to tell and give.  For teaching adults, at least, I'd say it's more about learning how to ask and request. 

Last week I discussed how to help ESOL students move from dependence to independence through language acquisition.  What about culture?  It's not just about throwing an international night where everyone noshes on food from five continents.  You can help your students become more interdependent and independent by empowering them in the classroom.  Here's how:

• Buy-in about class norms:  Earlier I've made the case for infusing even adult classes with lessons on skills and behaviors to help students become better ... students.  Building efficiencies and norms in the classroom are part of that.  Smoother procedures and more minutes on task help everyone learn--not just kids.  But with adults, their buy-in must be part of the process.  So when you're setting up your class procedures, ask the class for input and use their ideas.  One example: Class Constitutions.  At the start of each course, I'd lay out a few things I needed from students (punctuality, 100 percent English use, and so on).  Then I'd ask for their rules.  I'd show them an exemplar constitution from a previous course.  I'd provide a few categories: How students help themselves learn.  How students help others learn.  How to organize materials on the desks.  I'd give my students 15-20 minutes to write their own rules.  We'd post them--and follow them.  Students became responsible for motivating (and sometimes policing!) each other.

• Buy-in about what to study: Ask your adults what they'd like to learn.  The answers may surprise you.  Here are some that surprised me: How to speak English at the RMV.  How to understand street signs.  Integrate what students need for everyday life into class!  It doesn't need to derail accepted ideas about the sequence of English grammar to be learned.  But content is moldable--you can shape almost any topic to almost any grammar theme.  It doesn't need to derail the level of language you're teaching either: give beginners simple statements for the RMV registration desk, advanced students more complex conversations.  Student buy-in for curriculum can be taken much further, though.  For one course, I convened a "curriculum committee" of students to meet before class, multiple times, to brainstorm with me how to make the most of ongoing class activities and what new things to try.  ESOL students aren't preparing for some pre-ordained high-stakes test.  They're trying to get around America.  For the most part, they have a good pulse on what they need.  Listen--then use your language-teaching expertise to help them get there.

• Realia: Two days before you give a lesson on filling out hospital forms, should you make a stop at a nearby medical clinic to pick up forms?  No need.  Assign students the homework of going and getting realia on their own.  Invariably this technique yields an interesting range of items that reflects where students actually go and what they actually need help with.  For instance, before a lesson on how to navigate the RMV, a student handed me an impenetrable accident report form.  We don't know how to fill this out.  Duh.  And I thought they just wanted to renew their licenses.  Show students an example of what you're looking for before they go find it.  And as I learned the hard way: make sure one student doesn't go get a form and photocopy it for the others!

• Students as each others' resources: So many of my students came from communities beset by violence, anonymity, and lack of social connections.  Many of them had strong family networks--but did they know their neighbors?  Visit their local community centers?  That was unclear.  As much as possible, I encouraged them to become their own network of support and resources.  Did I tell them about upcoming immigrant events and parenting workshops?  Yes.  But I also got them sharing.  One example: as my students prepared to leave my program and enroll in a higher-level English class, I had them go through a sequence of lessons on finding their "next step."  I provided materials so they could research other English programs.  I gave them very structured forms in which to write down addresses, phone numbers, and possible questions to ask a program when you called (is there a cost?  when are classes?).  For homework, I had them make calls.  A few days later, I'd have them share what they had learned with fellow students.  I called program X, and they have spaces.  Here's the number.  At this point, they were doing the hard work, and I was just facilitating it.   

These are some ideas--I'd love to hear more.  A few final points: all of these areas to develop student interdependence and independence are purposeful.  The actual structure of teaching language--from comprehensible input to student practice to performance and assessment--need not change.  You aren't handing over the keys to language skills delivery.  You're just finding areas to empower student voices and experiences and making the most of them.  These techniques are also modeled, guided, and scaffolded.  If I had said to my students only, "Write a class constitution," the activity might have taken twice as long, confused half the students, and yielded ten different ways of saying "listen to the teacher, dammit!" 

There's always a time to provide a resource or a piece of advice.  There's always a time to stand in front of the class and lead a listening lesson.  But find the right spots to ask and request, not just tell and give, and your students will get a lot more from the class, from each other, and from themselves.

What's My Story?

A guest from a DC-based advocacy org came to very briefly present to a class of mine the other day.  She started this way:

I'm an alumnus of this class, and I'd like to make connections among other alums.  My work in DC is in health insurance.  Here's the issue: there are 8 million uninsured children in America.  But 6 million of them are eligible for health insurance, just not enrolled.  Some states have added a question to school registration forms about health insurance, and quickly been able to identify who needs to be signed up.

Wow.  In four to five sentences, she introduced herself.  She put her purpose out there.  She used two very simple numbers to paint a vivid picture in ways anybody could grasp.  And she suggested policy solutions.

Pretty complete picture.  One of my goals for the next year (-plus) is to be a better communicator.  What's my story, and how do I tell it?