Do We Need Lunch?

Jay Mathews’ suggestion that we eliminate lunch or even cafeterias would delight most administrators. I know that thirty years of standing on tile floors in school cafeterias takes a toll on the feet, legs, and back. Ouch! Jay has visited my school and he knows what a well-run cafeteria can and should look like at lunch.

I know a principal who did eliminate lunch, but not for the reasons Jay mentioned. This principal had so many fights and disturbances that he rearranged the schedule and put lunch at the end of the day. Instead of eating lunch, the students went home. Voila! No more fights. Problem solved!

Suggest eliminating lunch to my good friend, Mike Kakuska, the former principal at Roswell High School in Roswell, NM, and he would immediately ask you, “When would my kids eat?” In 2004, the first year of the program, our schools were both named NASSP-MetLife Foundation Breakthrough Schools, which are high-performing, high-poverty secondary schools. Breakthrough Schools must overcome tremendous obstacles to help each and every student succeed. Of the twelve schools named that year, our two schools were the only non-magnet, non-alternative, neighborhood schools. We didn’t sort applications. We served anyone who showed up at our door.

Even though we were located 2,000 miles apart, our schools shared a common characteristic. A number of our students relied heavily on federally subsidized breakfast and lunch programs. Mike told many stories of students who ate nothing from the time they left his school on Friday until they returned Monday morning. Mike’s first goal as principal was, not to make AYP, but to feed his hungry students.

Eliminating lunch would mean that many of our students would not eat. The cafeteria in our schools was a necessity not a luxury. Our students could not afford to grab a burger after school. If we didn’t feed them, they did not eat.

I worked for one year in a high school with an open campus at lunch before closing the campus the following year. Apart from the massive safety and security issues schools face with open campuses and open lunch hours, the worst part was how it segregated and divided the students.  The poorest students ate in the cafeteria. That was all they could afford. The middle class students ate at a variety of nearby eateries. A third group of students qualified for the free lunch program but were too proud to eat with the “poor kids.” So, they chose to go hungry. Everyone knew who the poor kids were. It broke my heart!

Jay’s article illustrates the great divide in education. We read constantly about firing principals and closing down underperforming schools with never a mention of the poverty that these schools must help their students overcome. Any principal would rather have their students E-A-T than make AYP.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 01:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Stuart Singer

Many times in a variety of venues I have expressed my firm belief that end-of-course barrier exams are a step in the right direction for education.  In a previous post on this website, A Good Starting Point But Not Quite the Finish Line, I wrote that while such tests have structural flaws, their implementation has created positive outcomes that include establishing uniformity in many curricula, creating a standardized evaluation of student comprehension, aiding in the evaluation of teacher performance and as a component in awarding federal funds for systems that demonstrate significant and measurable improvement on these tools (U.S. devises scoring system for school reform contest).  Even with all of those constructive improvements in mind, I was stunned when I read a quote from the Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction Patricia I. Wright in the February 10 Washington Post article, Md. tops U.S. in one measure of AP test performance.  Referring to the improvement in AP tests scores in her state Ms. Wright said:

“More of our young people are ready for the challenge of AP courses because of the Standards of Learning program (Virginia’s end-of-course exams) which has raised the instructional floor for all students."

How can osuch lofty accomplishments be ascribed to a fifty multiple-choice question test that is designed to ascertain the level of understanding obtained from 160 hours of classroom instruction in basic core subjects? It is obvious to me that Ms. Wright needs to curb her enthusiasm a bit.

You Say Mastery, I Say Minimal Competency

Apparently Ms. Wright is among the group of educators who believe that passing the Virginia SOL Exam demonstrates competency in a course and passing with a relatively high score indicates mastery.  While it would be wonderful if that interpretation were accurate, the facts reveal a very different story.  The Virginia Standards of Learning Exam is a collection of fifty, four-option, multiple-choice questions, in which the results are “normed” in much the same manner as the SAT.  This norming is based on the number of correct responses (no penalty for incorrectly guessing) and translates into SOL scores ranging from 200 to 600.  Four hundred or more earns one a “pass”; five hundred and above delineates advanced status.  To graduate, a student is required to pass the two English components and an additional four tests from the other three curricular areas including at least one from each discipline.   To be awarded an “Advanced Diploma” one must pass a minimum of nine.  But does this system of accountability really demonstrate what its advocates claim—a mastery of the subject matter being covered?

It Is All in the Math

Students, parents, teachers and administrators have continually misinterpreted SOL results. Understandably, when looking at a scoring range of 200-600 a result of 450 is viewed with great favor.  Consequently, when I refer to the SOL program as a measure of minimum competency rather than any demonstration of deep understanding, I have raised the blood pressure of many of my colleagues and supervisors.The strength of my argument rests squarely on the principles of mathematical probability.  The major weaknesses in the SOL testing system are the exclusive use of multiple-choice questions and the grading scale being employed.  A multiple-choice format without penalties for guessing has a strong propensity for misleading results.  This dilemma can be illustrated by a demonstration I give on this subject.  The process is simple—an individual is given a blank bubble sheet and then instructed to randomly fill in fifty answers with an A, B, C or D.  Then any one of the SOL tests is selected.  When the “blind” answer sheet is compared with the correct answers for the chosen test it will on average generate slightly more than twelve correct answers.  This result of twenty-five percent accuracy regardless of the questions or the answers is to be expected based on the laws of probability (note key word—laws).   Consequently, every SOL answer sheet will have about twelve correct answers even if the test-taker’s knowledge of the subject is zero.  Now the first step on the slippery slope of interpreting scores is about to be taken.  A dozen “correct” responses on a typical SOL exam translates into a score of about 325.  Remember that range of 200-600?  In reality the actual numbers should be 325-600.  Suddenly the use of 400 as a “passing” score becomes less credible.  Unfortunately, the process gets worse.  

On many SOL exams thirty correct responses equals a score above 400. Some require a few more, others a bit less.  So how much “mastery” of a subject is required to get to thirty correct answers?  If a student knows only half of the required curriculum, success is easy.  These students will accurately answer only 25 of the 50 questions.  Of the remaining 25 questions probability predicts at least six additional correct answers giving a raw score of 31.   On the 2006 Algebra 1 SOL that score would earn the student a result of 422.  Ironically, a score of 50% on virtually any classroom endeavor would be considered a failure.  (For additional scenarios see attached “How SOL Scores are Created”)  In reality even this example is understating the final score.  Placing the correct answer in the array of choices will skew the results slightly upward.  Of greater significance, if the test taker can eliminate one or more of the wrong answers the probability of a correct guess increases significantly.  Working backwards with the four answers that have been presented can often solve questions involving computation.  

After I gave this presentation at a PTSA meeting a parent approached me to say, “No wonder my son struggled so much in Honors Geometry.  I did not realize that his Algebra 1 SOL score of 460 was not what I thought it was.”  She was not alone in her misunderstanding of the numbers.  Virginia is not the only state with a “barrier-testing” program beset with these problems and comments like the one made by Ms. Wright add to the confusion.  This lack of transparency and misleading comments can lead to decisions resulting in significant future academic damage to students.

Doing It Right

What set of circumstances would allow Ms. Wright and others to use the word “mastery” when discussing these tests?  How can a state create a system of exams that would actually lead to more college-level thinking?  Here are some suggestions:

- Devote the resources necessary to upgrade the quality of the testing process.

- Be transparent and realistic.  Include input from teachers, administrators, and college admission officials.  Educate the community concerning the intent of the program. 

- Be wary of No Child Left Behind—any program that mandates a 100% pass rate in 2014 should not be a factor.

- Create tests that parallel AP and IB exams.  Replace multiple-choice questions with short-answer inquiries.   Have a portion dedicated to essay or multi-step problem solving.  Eliminate any advantage for guessing. 

- Do not norm the results.  Establish a criterion-referenced test with realistic scores and produce students who can achieve them.  For starters establish a score of 95% for mastery, 80% is competent, 66% will be passing and anything less is failure.  In the real world being wrong one third of the time is not a formula for success. If 95% of the test takers pass under these criteria everyone can be happy.  If 65% fail, do not lower the standards.  Instead, find ways to improve the knowledge base of your students. 

While it is wonderful that AP and IB test scores are improving in Maryland and Virginia, the root cause of this improvement cannot be attributed to Standards of Learning Program.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

by Stuart Singer

We have spent a great deal of time over the past week on this site discussing our concerns about the mass firings that took place in Central Falls, Rhode Island last week.   I could repeat all of the reasons why I believe this approach is not only wrong, it sets a dangerous precedent.  But those thoughts have been sufficiently stated in a variety of ways.  Instead, I thought it could be enlightening to solicit a response from someone who was a current classroom teacher.  What follows are a few hundred words of a highly successful educator about this subject.

William (Bill) Horkan has taught mathematics at a high school with the highest free and reduced lunch population in his county.  His success has been the subject of a Washington Post article, “To Impressive Success, Fairfax Teacher Nurtures Enrollment, Proficiency in IB Math Classes” and he is an excellent person to solicit input on this subject.  Here are some of his preliminary thoughts about a better plan for the Central Falls school.

“If you took three or four of high quality math teachers and placed them in the Central Falls math department, the program could be turned around in about three years.  I have seen it done in our school and I can see it being done there as well.  Put that core together with the math teachers who wanted to stay (I assume based on the total staff of 74 the math department has about 10 teachers).  Then I would do the following:

- Ask the current teachers for ideas.  It is always a bad idea to go into a situation by telling people what to do.  Also, whether the current teachers are good, bad or average, they still know the students better than anyone else.

- Tell the teachers that any reasonable ideas can be tried.  However, they have to show that they work.

- Realize that not all teachers are the same.  What works for one might not work for another. Have everyone try something, not everyone try everything.

- Realize that teachers are not interchangeable.  Some are good at teaching lower levels, some are good at teaching 'average' students and some are good at teaching higher levels.  Also, some teachers are better at teaching younger students, some are better teaching older students.

- Do not pass a student in a class until that student is ready for the next one.

- Find out what is best for each student.  "One size fits all" doesn't work for students or teachers.

- Do what is best for each student.  If this means going against the rules or making new ones, so be it.

These thoughts reflect the instant response of a professional educator.  Given more time and reflection they would be more precise.  And yet somehow they seem so much more constructive then to simply “fire them all.”

According to a just released national survey, teachers want supportive leadership more than anything else. In fact, by a wide margin, teachers indicated that supportive leadership was more important than higher salaries and pay for performance.

The survey of 40,000 teachers was sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with Scholastic, Inc. "We wanted to put teachers' voices front and center in the debate around education reform," said Vicki Phillips, the Gates Foundation's education director. "Teachers are on the front line of this work every day ... it doesn't make sense not to be talking to teachers."

What do teachers want?

- Supportive leadership (68%) more than higher salaries (45%)

- Digital media more than textbooks

- Evaluations based on how much students learn more than on principal evaluations. Only 22% believe that principal evaluations accurately represent their work.

- Salaries more than performance pay.

- The current school year over a longer school day and year. Only 36% favor extending the school year.

Additional findings of the survey include:

- 97% believe that setting high expectations is essential in raising student achievement

- 8% indicated that performance pay was essential.

- 71% believe that monetary rewards will have little or no impact on student achievement

- Also high on the list of essentials were relevant professional development, clean and safe working conditions, time to collaborate, and access to high-quality curriculum.

Conclusions

School leadership is essential to establishing a school climate in which teachers can teach and students can learn. As far as teachers are concerned, the principal is literally the “cork in the bottle.” The principal either makes things happen or prevents them from happening.

If schools want great teachers, they are going to have to have great leaders to support them.

All the money spent on improving teacher training will go for naught if we don’t fund principal development.

It is interesting to note that none of the things that teachers want most--respect, support, clean, safe, and orderly schools—cost anything. The most important things in school really are free. Money cannot buy a culture. Nor, can money buy relationships, trust, or support. School culture is not for sale!

Teachers know what they want, and when they don’t get it, they vote with their feet. They leave the school or they leave the profession. Teachers will simply not work in a school that is not teacher-friendly, and why should they?

Posted by Mel Riddile at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Stuart Singer

I am so excited about my upcoming evaluation.  I just know it is going to be a good one.  Let me share with you how my year has progressed.  My average class size was about thirty.  So for their final exam I broke them into groups of five and assigned them a project to encompass all of the work we have done throughout the year.  But again, for the sixth year in a row I was very disappointed with the results; more than half were unsatisfactory. It is so frustrating. To be precise, four of the groups should have gotten a zero for their performance, another was barely passing, and one was really quite good.  So I thought to myself, with a large majority of the students doing so poorly the right thing to do was to fail every one of them.  Based on the way things were handled in Central Falls, Rhode Island and the response of the Secretary of Education and the Administration, I know I must be doing the right thing.  So that is what I did.  All thirty were given grades of “F” so the entire group will retake the class again next year.  By taking this approach I am confident that I have sent a clear message to my future students.  I am sure they are looking forward to taking my class—kids like teachers who are consistent and predictable.

I am so excited about my upcoming evaluation.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A friend of mine has a favorite old saying, “Ride the horse in the direction it’s going.” Like most sage advice, it is right almost all of the time. However, when it comes to school reform, I’m getting off the horse, sometimes called school turnaround models. I refer to the four approaches to school reform as the “termination models.” I am dismounting because I can see where this horse is going and I don’t like it. In fact, all school leaders need to get out in front of this horse. Why? If this slash-and-burn approach is being promoted with Recovery funds, why wouldn’t these same provisions be included in the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind? I am betting that they will be in any new legislation and the “terminations” won’t stop with the bottom 2% of schools.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against firing people who don’t, can’t, or won’t do the job. However, I am about fairness. Fair is training school leaders, giving them quality professional development, making it possible for them to attract and retain top teachers, fully stocking their schools with quality equipment, and using a modern value-added approach to measuring student achievement.

These “termination models” represent an admission of failure—we don’t know how to turn around schools, and we are not willing to find out or ask. All that these models do is buy time.

They are the most recent version of “activity equals success.” I can hear it three years from now, “Look what we did. We implemented all these changes and these schools still didn’t improve.” In the meantime, there will be a lot of bodies of principals and teachers left in the wake and a profession in fear and disarray.

Here is what bothers me most. These approaches are targeted at the poorest schools in the most depressed neighborhoods. In most cases, these schools are merely a reflection of their surroundings. Those who live in these communities often have no voice or are reluctant to speak up. Instead of being a voice for them, these expeditious and short-sighted approaches are punishing them and their schools. Try pulling this stunt with a middle class school that is not performing to expectations.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Stuart Singer

Among the myriad of problems facing public education, one of the most disruptive is the stunning exodus of new teachers within the first few years of employment.  Many studies indicate that at least a third of all educators give up the profession within the first three years and more than half within five.  These losses represent a continuing drain on the competency level of a school’s staff and a remedy needs to be found to stop these losses.  There are a number of ways to alleviate this ongoing dilemma representing varying degrees of both cost and success. 

The first proposal does not cost any money but could result in a few bruised feelings among the more senior staff members in a building as well as some consternation among some of the more “traditional” administrators. It requires a strong commitment at all levels to ensure that new teachers are given the best possible opportunity to grow into seasoned veterans.  Some old-fashioned thinking may have to be readjusted and a small amount of buy-in will be required among the staff.  But the cost is small when compared to the potential upside for the department and school.

Closing the Deal

In order to develop great veteran teachers one must begin with high-potential new ones.   In June 2006 I had three math vacancies to fill for the upcoming school year.  As was my custom when hiring new teachers, I carefully studied the resumes of the county’s forty early math hires. I found seven that interested me and set up interviews.

When meeting with prospective math teachers I always tell them that this interview is a two-way process; they should be asking as many questions of us as we are of them.  We all must decide whether this particular school and candidate have the potential of being a productive combination.  This discussion does not revolve around good and bad, adequate or inadequate.  The simple fact that needs to be addressed is that schools have a personality just like individuals and some candidates are better suited to one rather than another.   I also tell them that they have more control of the process than they realize.  For highly qualified individuals multiple offers will be forthcoming and they will have choices.   In addition to this honest transparency about their options, I discuss their future at my school.  We talk about how we put together a career path for all of our new teachers. We will look at their first five years and plan what type of teaching schedule will best serve their long-term goals.

And finally I advise them to ask every potential employer three questions (my answers are in parenthesis):

 - How many class preps will I have?  (at most two)

 - Will I have my own classroom? (yes)

 - Will the administrative team be supportive?  (You are working in one of the most creative, collaborative and supportive environments possible.  We will do everything possible to produce a five-year plan to ensure that your career will follow the exact course you envision.)

After the top three “blue-chippers” were ascertained, job offers went out and fingers were crossed.  In a county with twenty-six high schools the competition for math teachers is fierce.  It is not hyperbole to say that a talented prospect can be offered positions at ten or more schools.  But one by one my three top picks said yes.  They all acknowledged they had many offers from which to choose, but decided to come with us.  I asked each one why she had made her decision.   Though none of them had ever met, they all had similar responses.  They liked the idea that we were open and honest about the process and most of all they liked the concept of a “plan” for their career.

There is a fascinating back-story here.  Another much more upscale school in the county offered jobs to the same three women.  When the assistant principal in charge of hiring math teachers discovered that his school had been rejected by all three in favor of our far less affluent location he responded angrily.  In a phone call to the school he demanded to know “What is it you are giving away over there?”  If I had spoken to him I would have told him our “tricky” lure was the combination of honesty and the promise of a future.           

Making Good on a Promise

History bears out that what occurred in these interviews was not a high-pressure sales pitch but rather a system we had been using for years.  Long ago I had concluded that the job of a new teacher was difficult enough without the added burden of moving from room to room.  Consequently, none of these teachers were placed in such a position.   (Ironically, I used one of their classrooms as part of my itinerant day)  One of the teachers was given a schedule of one regular and two double block Algebra 2 classes.  This assignment offered several advantages—while teaching five classes, she basically had only one preparation and three sets of students.  The slower paced double block (they met every day instead of every other day) meant she had more time to teach a concept and if there were problems they could be readdressed the next day in a more relaxed manner. Her second year schedule was exactly the same thus allowing her to perfect and refine her Algebra 2 lesson plans.  It was time to begin slowly expanding her career in her next teaching assignment.  That year her regular Algebra 2 was replaced with an Advanced Placement Pre-calculus.  This year she has two AP sections.  The second teacher had a parallel course.  She taught one regular and two double-block geometry for two of her first three years and in the third replaced the regular with a Trig / Math Analysis.  She is now working with the Honors Geometry program as well.  The third member of the group had taught Algebra 1 in summer school prior to coming to our school.  Consequently, she was assigned one Algebra 2 and four Algebra 1 classes.  The next year she had an identical schedule and the third and fourth she taught Algebra 1 and two sections of AP Calculus.  Now well into their fourth years, these talented educators give no thought to quitting.  To the contrary they now proudly tell me about their classroom success and of their high level of influence in the seventeen-member department.  One related to me in a letter “Just like you told us when you retired; the three of us are taking over!”  She was being facetious but not inaccurate.

Finding the Answer in Your Own Backyard

To cultivate good new teachers many of the “perks” normally reserved for more senior teachers must be reconsidered.  When assigning class schedules, lack of experience should be a consideration not a license to take advantage.  All too often new hires are given the “leftovers” of the master schedule, a frighteningly eclectic combination of the classes that no one else wanted.  If classrooms are in short demand the least experienced person is soon wheeling all of their newly created worksheets, supplies and notes on a cart during the already frantic exchange of classes.   Such treatment is precisely why the statistics on new teachers are so depressing. 

Perhaps the best model for how to develop and retain teachers can be found in a very surprising location—the high school classroom.  When a new student enters a class several weeks into the year what is the typical treatment accorded to them?  Well, let’s see, they are given additional individualized attention at first to make sure they can catch up with the rest of the students.  Extra time is allowed for them to understand the curriculum. They are not expected to immediately work at the same level as their more experienced classmates.   Often another student is asked to aid or mentor them through the initial process.  And in many cases previous material is streamlined and simplified to ensure that knowledge acquisition is accelerated as quickly as possible.

Could such a novel approach work with another group of individuals in the same building?

Next:  Two more plans, one a little bit pricey, the other downright expensive

but both really good.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Is firing principals and teachers going to turn around struggling high-poverty high schools? Apparently, President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan do. According to today’s Washington Post it is “the get tough strategy for struggling schools.”

Appearing before an America’s Promise event, President Obama and Secretary Duncan helped to announce the “Grad Nation Campaign,” which calls for “90 percent of today’s fourth-graders to graduate from high school on time.” This campaign is a long-term, responsible approach to solving our dropout problem.

The President seized the opportunity to reiterate his commitment to focusing on the 2,000 lowest performing high schools, the so-called “dropout factories,” many of which are located in urban, high-poverty neighborhoods. He indicated that, in order to access federal funds, states, districts, and schools must choose from four reform models; turnaround, restart, closure, and transformation. According to the Post, “each of the strategies, at minimum, appears to require replacing the principal.”

The “Terminate Model”

- Firing principals and teachers is a simplistic solution to a complex problem. School improvement will only occur in the presence of a change in the culture of the school. Firing creates a culture of fear and intimidation.

- It is easy to tear something down. The hard thing is to build something that lasts. Anyone can say, “It doesn’t work. Let’s fire everybody and start over.” The “terminate them” approach requires no knowledge and no expertise. Anyone with a book of pink slips can do it. It is a quick fix, a rearranging of the furniture.

- I get concerned when a person’s first idea of how to improve anything is to punish or fire people.

- If firing is the key to educational reform, maybe that’s how we can reform health care, fire the doctors and nurses.

- What is the message that we are sending here? We don’t train people. We don’t develop people. We fire them. As one urban superintendent told me repeatedly, “I put them out there, and if they have what it takes, they last. If not, I find someone else.”

First, Fire Them Up

- Instead of firing principals and teachers, why not help them do their jobs? Set them up for success.

- Provide long-term, continuous, and connected training and professional development. Right now, only 2% of available funding is used to train and develop principals.

- It costs more to educate students in high-impact schools. Increase the budget of these schools by at least 10%.

- Provide under-resourced schools with the resources and equipment they need now. Don’t fire the staff and then give the new staff a renovated building filled with new equipment.

- Help these high-poverty schools recruit and retain the most qualified and experienced professionals by providing financial incentives for teachers and principals to work in high-impact schools.

- Provide modern data systems that evaluate schools on a value-added basis that measures individual student progress on an annual basis.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 06:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One of the most difficult challenges that a high school principal can take on is implementing a school wide literacy initiative. However, after reading about the “biblioburro” my challenges paled in comparison. However, I learned that I shared some commonalities with Luis Soriano, CNN Hero of the Week. For example, "There was a time when many people thought that I was going crazy." I know the feeling. Reading in a high school?

More commonalities include:

"The children have very few opportunities to go to secondary school. Many of our students came from countries with limited educational opportunities.

“There are [few] teachers that would like to teach in the countryside." Only the most dedicated and skilled teachers had the flexibility and requisite variety to thrive in a school with such a diverse, high-poverty, highly mobile, high-second-language population.

“At the start of his 17-year teaching career, Soriano realized that some students were having difficulty not just learning, but finishing their homework assignments.” Upon arriving at our school, the teachers told me “our students don’t come to school and when they do, they cannot read.”

“Most of the students falling behind lived in rural villages, where illiterate parents and lack of access to books prevented them from completing their studies.” The parents of many of our students had little or no education and were illiterate in their native language.

Quote of the Week: "For us teachers, it's an educational triumph, and for the parents [it's] a great satisfaction when a child learns how to read. That's how a community changes and the child becomes a good citizen and a useful person," Soriano said. "Literature is how we connect them with the world."

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The sister of a friend was just appointed the principal of a k-12 school. While visiting a second grade classroom, one of the students asked her, “Are you going to do what Mr. Smith (former principal) did?” She replied, “Yes. I am going to be in his office, sit in his chair, and I am going to do run the school like he did.” With a big grin on her face the little girl replied, “Girl power!”

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Like many other parts of the country, the Northeast has experienced a particularly harsh winter, which, in many districts has resulted in repeated delays as well as a number of lost school days. Many districts have plans that call for adding missed school days to the end of the school year.

Principals and teachers know all too well that delayed openings and other disruptions to the normal school day make it difficult to keep everyone focused on academics. Today, for example, high winds forced the Fairfax County (Virginia) Public Schools to remove students and teachers from trailers and other temporary classrooms. That means that cafeterias, libraries and auditoriums will be filled with students. It also means that instruction is disrupted in the second or third largest district in the state. It turns out that the number of students receiving instruction in temporary structures in Fairfax County is equal in size to or greater than all but a few districts in the entire state.

While the school year is technically the same number of school days, more of those days now fall after high-stakes state assessments. What impact will that have on academic performance? This year students are losing days and weeks of preparation, not only for state assessments, but also for Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams, which are administered in the first week of May.

Attendance is one key factor in raising student achievement. In “Every Minute Counts,” The Teacher Leader provided a poignant illustration of lost time resulting in lower test scores.

“Several years ago I was attending a district-wide department chair meeting and the number one topic was the drop in standardized math scores throughout the district.  For the first time in years instead of rising, the scores were uniformly lower at nearly every school.  Our assignment was to find the cause.  When I returned to school I asked my best Algebra 1 teacher for her explanation.  Without hesitation she responded with one word—“snow”.  The previous year we had unusually bad weather and we missed two weeks of school.   While she had time to cover the material for the test, her normal two-week review period was lost.   With the loss of just ten school days an entire system saw a drop in student scores.”

Under plans currently being implemented, many teachers and principals will be fired because of dropping academic performance due to lost “snow days.” While this is certainly not the intent of the “reform,” the reality is that holding teachers and principals accountable for student achievement is not as simple as some would want us to believe.

For example, in some states, there is absolutely no accountability for students and total accountability for teachers and principals. For students, the state assessments are nothing more than an inconvenience. They are not barriers to graduation. The opposite is true for the educators, their jobs and careers depend on the results. That means that the schools are dependent on the good will of the students. If a student wants to draw pictures on the answer sheet, there is no consequence and the professionals are punished.

Likewise, many states and districts are lax in enforcing attendance laws. The research on dropouts conducted by Bob Balfanz and Nettie Letgers at Johns Hopkins points to student attendance as a prime early indicator of future dropout behavior. They point out that students with a 10% or greater absence rate are more likely to experience academic problems and are much more likely to drop out. Some schools have an overall attendance rate below 90%. That means that the average student would miss 18 days of school per school year. Add to that the two lost weeks of school due to weather, and you have six or more weeks of lost instructional time.

Principals and teachers are frustrated at the dual standard. Hold schools accountable, but do nothing to help them by enforcing existing attendance laws by holding students accountable for test results.

Being a teacher or principal in the Northeast this year could be a recipe for disaster. Get the pink slips ready!

Posted by Mel Riddile at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As earlier reported, Central Falls, Rhode Island, Superintendent, Frances Gallo, had pinks slips placed in the mailboxes of all 74 of the high school’s teachers. According to the news report, Central Fall High School is one of the poorest performing schools in the state, with a less than 50 percent graduation rate. “Supt. Gallo said the teachers would not agree on a plan to fix the struggling school that included a longer school day and tutoring before and after school.” The report indicates that the teachers wanted to be compensated for working extra duties.

The Rest of the Story

In an announcement released today, Rhode Island Education Commissioner, Deborah A. Gist, has given Central Falls Superintendent, Frances Gallo, 120 days to develop a plan to improve Central Falls High School. According to the press release, last week, Gallo submitted a proposal to use the “turnaround” model as the basis for reform of the high school. The “turnaround” model requires replacement of the principal and at least 50 percent of the staff, “a new governance structure, better use of data, expanded learning time, and social-emotional and community-oriented services and supports for students.”

The press release indicated “Following procedures from the U.S. Department of Education, last month the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (RIDE) identified Central Falls High School and five schools in Providence as the persistently lowest-achieving schools in the state. Commissioner Gist ordered Providence and Central Falls to convene an advisory group of community stakeholders and to select for each school one of the four federal models for school reform: turnaround, school closure, restart, or transformation.”

My thoughts:

- Is this the first of many school “terminations” that we will be reading about in the coming months?

- On the surface, it appears much easier to simply use the “termination” or is it the “turnaround” model.

- It is much easier to “terminate” a school that to actually work with the staff to “turnaround” the school. To “turnaround” a school you actually have to know what you are doing. To “terminate” a school, all you need to know how to do is distribute pink slips, and any bureaucrat can do that.

- Instead of “terminating” the school, why not just skip to the good part? Why not give the school the resources that they actually need in order to raise student achievement.

- The only thing that this approach to school improvement does is to single out the poorest schools.

- Not only did 74 teachers get pink slipped, but so did the principal.

- I wonder, where is Central Falls going to find 74 teachers?

- Given the way the terminations were delivered, what teacher or prospective principal would apply to work in that district? Would you advise your son or daughter to apply for a teaching job in that district?

Our school was called by National Geographic Magazine “the most diverse school in America.” We had high poverty and high student mobility. Two-thirds of our students were second language learners (ELL). We didn’t have the highest test scores, but when we used a regression analysis comparing achievement on state exit exams to poverty in our twenty-six high school district, our school was the only outlier. We didn’t have the highest scores, but we were doing the best job with the students we had. I always said that I could take our entire staff and improve even the wealthiest school in the district, but the teachers from the wealthiest school wouldn’t last a day in our school.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 04:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

by Stuart Singer

There is an old saying in baseball when the manager of an underachieving team is fired—“It wasn’t necessarily his fault, but we couldn’t fire the whole team”.  Apparently that is not the case in Central Falls, Rhode Island.  As related in a recent news article, http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/central-falls-supt.-wants-all-74-high-school-teachers-fired, the Superintendent of Central Falls Frances Gallo has decided to fire every teacher in the school as a result of poor graduation rates and some contentious labor negotiations. 

When I first read about this case I must admit I was temporarily at a loss for words.  My first thoughts were laced with disbelief.   If someone with a sore toe went to a surgeon with a philosophy similar to Gallo, they could lose their entire leg.  Also, as a former math teacher I have to share the following mathematical fact—the likelihood that 74 out of 74 teachers are bad is more than remote.  It is numerically astounding.

On a More Realistic Note

After reading Mel Riddile’s response to the mass firings, http://nasspblogs.org/principaldifference/2010/02/fire_them_all.html, I think I have regained my verbal balance.  I concur with him on the need to treat all people with respect and dignity if you want to attain any level of success.  Likewise, every staff contains people of great talent.  But let me share a few thoughts from the teacher perspective.

One critical point needs to be made from the outset.  The path taken by Ms. Gallo, whether she realizes it or not, was the easy way out of a bad situation but not the solution to a real and important problem. While the adults are sorting out who to fire, who to picket and who to blame, more than half of the adolescents in the building will still not graduate from high school. The belief that the next seventy-four teachers will automatically be significantly better than the current staff is naïve at best.  What is far more likely is that the replacement troops will have no more success than their predecessors.  And while Ms. Gallo’s ego may be assuaged the ultimate losers, again, will be the students.

The tough choice would have been to take the time and energy necessary to discover the root causes of the problems at the school.  Were the difficulties grounded in demographics, philosophy, hiring practices, staff development plans, counseling, etc.?  At what points in the system was leadership breaking down?  The answers to such questions would require research and hard work but they would ultimately lead to a path toward improvement.

In my forty years as a math teacher including twenty-six as department chair, I worked with a significant number of colleagues who struggled in the classroom.  But the vast majority of these individuals wanted to be good teachers.  Their problem was that they did not possess all of the tools to ensure success.  The job of school leaders at all levels is to provide those instruments.  System leaders must give principals the independence to recognize the unique qualities of their individual schools and then craft a working plan to best reach the needs of their community.  School leaders must determine which staff members have the vision, teaching skills and management qualities to assist others to improve.  Teacher leaders must examine the strengths and weaknesses of the department members and find ways to maximize each teacher’s best talents while minimizing their deficits.  The task of educating is no different from any other endeavor.

No one is born with the specific skill set to instantly become successful.  Good role models, cohesive improvement plans, hard work and dedication will in the vast majority of cases result in better teaching.

The damage caused by the series of events in Central Falls will not be easily repaired.  As Riddle said one of the key ingredients in a successful school is mutual respect and commitment.  How can a school expect to attract teachers with those attributes after a mass firing such as the one in Rhode Island? How could anyone possibly convince them that their best choice would be   to work at a school that fired everyone in the building?   The word “fire” is dangerous in both a crowded movie theater and in education.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 03:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Central Falls, Rhode Island, Superintendent, Frances Gallo, had pinks slips placed in the mailboxes of all 74 of the high school’s teachers. According to the report, Central Fall High School is one of the poorest performing schools in the state, with a less than 50 percent graduation rate. “Supt. Gallo said the teachers would not agree on a plan to fix the struggling school that included a longer school day and tutoring before and after school.” The report indicates that the teachers wanted to be compensated for working extra duties.

Reactions:

Shine Those Diamonds - During a visit to our school several years ago, I was asked by a high-ranking U.S. Department of Education official, “Did you have to purge the staff?” I responded with a question, “Have you ever read Acres of Diamonds?” A big smile suddenly appeared on his face. It turns out that he had. Our school improvement efforts were led by a core group of dedicated, highly skilled teacher leaders all of whom had worked 15 or more years in the school. My job as principal was to find the diamonds and let them shine. In other words, I had to set teachers and their students up for success.

Control or Cooperation – In order to raise the achievement of each and every student, we need everyone working together taking ownership of the problems as well as the solutions. After this mass termination, I wonder how anyone will be able to gain the trust of the staff. As I indicated in a previous post, the essential question that every school leader and classroom leader must ask is “Do I want control or cooperation?” The answer to that question creates an intention that drives all future behavior. A school leader or classroom leader who seeks cooperation will think and behave much differently than one who seeks control. I contend that, if one has cooperation, control is unnecessary. However, it is the illusion of control or the fear of losing control that drives many leaders to engage in the kind of close-minded, top-down styles of interacting that erode relationships, stifle dialogue, and connote a lack of respect. Are you willing to give up a little control in order to get more cooperation? Are you willing to spend more time making decisions in order to make better decisions? Are you okay with not knowing all the answers? Are you willing to ask more questions?

The right thing, the right way, for the right reason – Schools become high-performing because they treat other peoples’ children the way that they would want their own children treated. In that same vein, we must treat our teachers the same way that we would want our wives or husbands treated if they were teaching at our school. My wife taught for 30 years and I can tell you that her classroom perspective kept me grounded. I certainly would not want her to receive a pink slip in her mailbox.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sports fans believe in miracles?

Today is the anniversary of the Miracle on Ice. Thirty years ago today, the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team stunned the world with a victory of the powerful Soviet Hockey Team. ESPN named the Miracle on Ice the greatest sports moment of the 1980s. Some equate the victory to “a high school football team beating the Philadelphia Eagles.”

Researchers and physicians believe in miracles?

USA Today reports on recent research findings that indicate “When it comes to the placebo effect, it really may be mind over matter.” Once placed in the same category as magic and hocus pocus, increasing evidence has led researchers to conclude that placebos “have an actual biological effect in the body.”

“The doctor-patient relationship, plus the expectation of recovery, may sometimes be enough to change a patient's brain, body and behavior, experts write.”

The Miracle on Ice and the research on placebos is not as much about the idea of miracles as it is about believing. Simply put, this research tells us that, if we believe that our health will improve, it improves. The question is, is the reverse true? If we have no hope or if we give up hope, does our health deteriorate?

Do educators believe in miracles?

One of my saddest moments in recent memory came last year when I read On the Front Lines of Schools. I have spent the better part of the last decade trying to convince educators what I had learned from my teachers and students--given time, all students can learn and achieve at high levels and, and that despite seemingly insurmountable barriers, teachers, students, and schools can beat the odds.

I knew that we still had work to do. I just didn’t know how much work was yet undone. If someone had asked me, I would have guessed that less than 20% of the teachers and school leaders still held on to old attitudes believing that only a select few students could really be expected to achieve at high levels.

I was stunned when I read the report. In fact, months later, I remain shocked. Apparently, all the talk about high expectations amounts to no more than a waste of time. According to the report, two-thirds of the teachers and two of five principals do not believe that all students can or should be held to high standards. The report concludes that our so-called achievement gap may, in fact, be an expectation gap. We hear about miracles in science, medicine, and sports everyday, yet many educators refuse to believe that our students can learn and achieve at high levels.

Several years ago I had the opportunity to have a private conversation with some high-ranking officials in the U.S. Department of Education on the topic of school reform. I was asked my opinion on what was needed. Without hesitation I told them that, based on my personal experience, unless educators truly believed that students and schools could succeed, it would never happen. Author Michael Fullan agrees. He writes that most educational reforms are short-lived or doomed to failure because they fail to account for the most important, third dimension of change—beliefs. Fullan believes that change is 25% ideas and 75% beliefs.

Implications for school leaders

Based on my conversations over the past five or six years with school leaders from all over the country, I have concluded that raising student achievement is less about what needs to be done and more about how to do it. As it turns out our challenge may be less about our students and more about winning the hearts and minds of our teachers—changing beliefs. Students cannot exceed the quality of their teachers nor will many students exceed their expectations.

I have tremendous confidence in the power of teachers to inspire and motivate students. From my viewpoint, if a teacher does not believe that students can achieve, they won’t.

Who is going to get them to believe?

There are no victims here, only volunteers. School leaders, it is up to us. We are in the position in order to make a difference. We want to offer every student the promise of a quality education and the prospect of a good life. We cannot raise student achievement unless we all believe that we can. We cannot raise student achievement unless we believe that each and every student, if given time, can learn at high levels. In our every waking moment, we must do everything in our power to pass on our unwavering belief in the unlimited potential of our students to our teachers, counselors, administrators, and parents. If we don’t, who will?

Finally, let’s make some minor changes in the USA Today article on placebos to read “the teacher-student relationship, plus the expectation of learning, may be enough to change the student’s brain and behavior.”

Posted by Mel Riddile at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Stuart Singer

Part 1: Defining the Problem

In his post “Gates: It’s the Teachers”, Mel Riddile firmly aligns himself with the views expressed by Melinda Gates in her recent Washington Post op-ed “Just Get the Best Teachers”.  Gates, Riddile and many other leaders of the educational community find that the equation for classroom success is quite simple:

The quality of the teacher = the level of student performance

Unfortunately, the solution of this problem is both difficult and complex.  Riddile formulates the overall answer—school leaders must do everything possible to create not only effective teachers but also individuals who are committed to their students and their profession.  Today I will offer the first of a three-part posting to address one critical portion of the teaching community where I believe such changes must be implemented. 

The task of making the American public school system more effective is much like the story of the little boy trying to plug all of the holes in the dike.  There is no simple fix or singular course correction available.  But there is a logical place to start.  Studies clearly indicate that good teaching can overcome a multitude of educational problems.  Likewise, poor instruction can undermine even the best of educational environments.  Consequently, the initial focus for improvement should be on the area that would be the most beneficial and critical—the classroom teacher.

The challenge is easily defined.  A plan must be created that would place excellent instructors in every classroom.  But while this may be a relatively easy goal to articulate it is virtually impossible to accomplish until one crucial trend is reversed.  Some data show that one-third of all new teachers leave the profession within their first three years and half by the fifth year.  For a comprehensive discussion of teacher retention refer to ‘Teacher Turnover and Teacher Shortages: An Organizational Analysis” by Richard Ingersoll (Richard Ingersoll, Fall 2001 issue of the American Educational Research Journal).  In a profession where experience is a critical component for success this constant riptide of disappearing talent is crippling.  When confronted with this statistic too many educational leaders simply propose raising teacher salaries.  Of course raising salaries is certainly not a bad thing but in this case it is not the fix.  Rather than money, the underlying reason for the failure of new teachers to grow into seasoned career professionals is the manner in which they are nurtured - or more accurately, not nurtured - in the majority of school systems.

I began my teaching career in 1968.  While many things have changed over the past four plus decades one constant has remained.  Every educational group on the planet refers to teaching as a “profession” correctly placing it in the same category as lawyers, doctors, and certified public accountants.  The comparison is apt.  College degrees are required and advanced degrees are encouraged in all of these vocations.  In order to be employed a license is needs to be obtained. 

The great divide between these occupations occurs in the initial years of a career.  No law, doctor or accounting office would give a first-year employee a job description equivalent to that of a senior partner.  They would certainly never place their most at-risk clients in the hands of their least experienced workers.  And yet, year in and year out, that precise scenario is played out in schools all over the country.

Democracy lives large when assigning tasks in education. Every teacher in a building, whether on their first day or twentieth year is assigned the same number of classes with a similar number of preparations and equally large class sizes. In truth a new teacher’s treatment is often less than equal in many circumstances. In a misguided attempt to reward seniority, schools give new teachers entry-level classes that many times are among the most difficult in a building while reserving the higher levels for long-term staff members.  

Imagine if recent law school graduates were told that on the first day at the office their initial case will be a high profile criminal case before the U.S. District Court—in one week.  But far too many first-year teachers face a comparable situation.  If classrooms are in short supply—not an uncommon situation at most schools–it is almost always the new guy who gets to roam the halls from class to class.  One person in this exact situation referred to his life as “Have wheels, will travel”. 

Inexperience in the classroom is a heavy burden; inexperience in multiple locations is down right oppressive.  Thus, is it any wonder why so many new teachers decide all too quickly that teaching is not for them?  On my first day as a high school math teacher (age 21 with the face of a twelve-year-old) I discovered that the majority of my Algebra 1 students, typically a ninth-grade course, were eleventh and twelfth graders.  The explanation was simple—the school did not like to have students who had previously failed a course to have the same teacher for the encore performance. Since I was the new kid (literally) on the block, it was very convenient for the counselors to place every student who had failed Algebra 1 onto my rosters.  No danger of repetition in that plan.   My classroom was the only academic classroom located across from the industrial arts wing so I was occasionally interrupted by the sound of a lathe, lawnmower engine or jackhammer.  Looking back on my initial teaching assignment, it was amazing I lasted three days let alone three years.

Over the years problems have diminished somewhat.  Colleges are doing a better job of preparing graduates to succeed. Some locales give new teachers an extra day or two of meetings prior to the beginning of the year.   Often young teachers are assigned to an experienced mentor who is expected to answer questions and give advice.  Unfortunately, little or no time is dedicated to this interaction.  The selection process of mentors in many cases is at best weak and at its worst terrifying. It is critical to remember that even the most conscientious individuals in this position still have to deal with a full time teaching job of their own as the school year is about to begin.  Obviously, this issue is far from ideal.

The continuous loss of young talent in education cannot be sustained.  Band-aid solutions will not cure the root cause of the exodus.  Answers are available but can only be found a good deal outside of the traditional box.  Many of the ways we have done school business will have to undergo serious changes.  And be assured the best of these alterations will cost money in the short term.  But the gains to our overall educational system will be well worth the cost and effort. 

(Next:  Three solutions, one is free; one will be costly; the third is expensive.

But all will help retain our youngest and brightest)

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a previous post, “Just Hire the Best Teachers,” I described a situation in which, after delivering a keynote speech on school turnaround, I was told by a noted expert, “all you have to do to improve schools is hire the best teachers.” Apparently, Melinda Gates agrees. In a recent Washington Post op-ed pieces, Ms. Gates states, “The key to helping students learn is making sure that every child has an effective teacher every single year. Teachers are at the center of our strategy at the Gates Foundation,” which is currently “working with more than 3,000 teachers in seven school districts to develop measures of teacher effectiveness.”

Ms. Gates correctly points out that the schools making the biggest gains in student achievement were those doing “revolutionary work inside the classroom.” The challenge is to find out what the revolutionary work actually entails.

Her optimism is supported by the successes of schools around the country that are beating the odds including the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP). Ms. Gates observed that the key to the success of the KIPP schools was its principal and the dedicated and talented teachers on the staff. She goes on to point out that the classroom teacher is the most important variable in student achievement.

Ms. Gates then asks an important question. “Why hasn’t education policy focused more on raising teacher effectiveness? Here are my thoughts:

First and foremost, I am reminded that “for every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” (H.L. Mencken) We keep saying “No silver bullet will cure the ills affecting the nation’s education system” (Arne Duncan) yet we insist on coming up with one solution after another. In fact, Ms. Gates, herself, expands the range of solutions when she attributes the success of KIPP to the principal and the teachers.

When my friend, the expert, told me that all we had to do was hire great teachers, I turned to him and said,  “Who do you think recruits, interviews, hires, and trains your great teachers?”

Teaching is a profession, and professionals learn and grow from experience. New teachers don’t walk into schools with all the skills and knowledge that they will ever need in their entire career. All new teachers must rely on mentors and advisors, most of whom are provided by the principal. Teachers must be trained in effective teacher preparation programs, and they must be nurtured and grown throughout their careers.

Teachers need instructional leadership. They need a direction and focus. If it is great teachers who make great schools, then it is those who hire, nurture and develop teachers who are equally as important to the equation.

Teachers need a support system to succeed. Learning cannot take place in a chaotic, high-threat environment. Teachers need warm and inviting, safe and orderly school environments.

Teachers need adequate, focused, and uninterrupted instructional time in order to teach each and every student. In addition to the fact that KIPP students must apply for admission, students in KIPP schools spend 68% more time on core subjects than do students in other schools in their districts.

A colleague recently confided to me that the starting teacher salary in her state was $18,000. Low starting salaries make it difficult to attract the best and brightest into teaching. While teachers don’t enter the profession for financial gain, they must make a living wage. More knowledge about teaching will not change low salaries.

Do we need more research? I am reading a book that is a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses of research into student achievement. That is a lot of research. The reality is that we need to apply the research that we already have. The problem with improving schools over the past fifty years is the fidelity of implementation. We keep searching for the silver bullet, when, in fact, we already have a good idea about what we need to do, but we don’t implement well. We are hopelessly searching for educational riches when we are literally sitting on top of acres of diamonds. I predict that no principal or teacher will be surprised by what the Measures of Effective Teaching project reveals. What we need is to stop searching for greener pastures and to focus on actually putting research into practice.

Finally, and most importantly, we all need to strongly believe that all students can be held to high standards and that they can achieve to high levels. Unfortunately, two of three teachers do not hold that belief. All the research and strategies on effective teaching will not overcome a fixed mindset. The achievement gap, may, in reality, be an expectation gap.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 05:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

According to NPR, Lake Mary High School (FL) principal, Michael Kotkin, was recently informed by attorneys representing Chrysler that his mascot, a ram, was, in fact, not St. Mary’s ram at all. St. Mary’s ram was identical to the Dodge Ram and it was going to have to go.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Social media and video games may have more value than simple entertainment. They may be a valuable source of information and communications for school leaders.

The Vancouver Sun reports that “A conversation a B.C. man had online with a stranger while playing an Xbox game raised some alarm bells, and the man’s quick thinking may have averted a high school shooting in Texas, police say.” Participants in an Xbox Live chat session overheard another participant threatening friends and staff members at his school. One alert individual notified the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

“A conversation started with one player who spoke about being a high school senior who was failing academically. The chat then took a more ominous turn as the student detailed plans to take part in a shooting at his school the following day.

“The suspect indicated he was a senior at his high school, had failing grades and mentioned names of students he was targeting, along with plans about how the shooting would proceed,” said Port Alberni RCMP Staff Sgt. Lee Omilusik. The RCMP alerted Microsoft Security, who traced the source to San Antonio, Texas.

According to a San Antonio News-Express report, the suspect was identified as 16-year old student attending Marshall High School, which is in the Northside Independent School District.

“Pascual Gonzalez, a spokesman for Northside Independent School District, said the boy and his mother met with the high school principal and said authorities searched the boy's locker and found nothing. “The boy was very remorseful and very scared,” Gonzalez said. “We believe that the boy truly was sorry for what he was doing, but in this day and age you have to take all of these kinds of verbal statements, these verbal threats, very seriously and he's going to have to learn that the hard way.” The student was suspended and is not allowed to return to Marshall.”

Because the threat involved a school, the San Antonio police indicate that the student will be charged with a felony.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Stuart Singer

In the Washington Post article of December 21, 2009 “Fewer high school students taking computer science classes” the decline of Computer Science in public education was documented.  While it is not unusual for courses to disappear from the typical school schedule, the loss of this particular class should be of great concern.  It is important both as an essential twenty-first century curriculum for our public high schools and as a warning sign of a systemic problem.

The View from the Inside

Who better to explain the importance of Computer Science than someone who has been in the course within the past few years?  Here are some excerpts of a letter from just such an individual.

“Today, I was informed that my former high school is no longer offering Computer Science courses to students because of low enrollment… I graduated four short years ago.  I earned the full IB Diploma with four higher-level IB classes.

I had two majors in my Undergraduate degree: Biology and Computer Science. After graduating college in 2009, I was virtually unaffected by the recession and had employers fighting to hire me, which is quite unusual for graduates holding only a Bachelors degree with an average GPA.

Computer Science is the future.  The IT industry is a great place for young people to get a good solid start at life.  Computer science graduates earn 13 percent more than the average college graduate, according to U.S. Department of Labor.  Computer jobs are ranked among the highest in job satisfaction.  A degree in Computing can make it much easier to find a job for a recent graduate.  The field is projected to increase by 24 percent in the next 10 years (average growth of employment in a field is 7-13 percent).  It’s a field at the forefront of technology, a career that is always evolving leaving new opportunities in its wake.  The diversity of jobs computer knowledge prepares a person for is staggering.  Even if CS majors decide to take a job in a different field, their computer backgrounds can be extremely useful in a working environment.

Beyond being a doorway to a good career, the subject itself is invaluable to young minds.  It’s a practical application of problem solving skills, which is why Computer Science degrees run alongside Mathematics degrees at many institutions.  But unlike the derivatives of Calculus, which might seem a waste of time to a seventeen year old, Computer Science is logic at work.  It’s a real-world application of mind-bending exercises.

Even if there are only 10 kids who sign up for the subject each year, make it available to them.  Let them try it out; let them expand their minds that much more.  I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t want to take the class.  My mother told me to take it because it was available, and after the first class I was hooked.  Look where it led me.  Frankly, I don’t think the course should just be offered, but it should be a requirement of a high school diploma; just as a sound knowledge of computers is required in any job…. Don’t turn these students away.  Don’t make it more difficult for them to find their direction.  At the end of the day, educating the next generation and preparing them for the world we made is of the utmost importance.  Let’s not lose sight of that.  The world on the horizon is one run by computers, with the Computer Science majors at the helm.  Help your students, help our kids, and find success.”

Not a Singular Opinion

Allow me one more anecdote.  For more than a decade my son has been a highly successful computer engineer at an international computer programming company.  When I asked him whether CS was critical to a high school his response was immediate:  “If it was not for CS in high school I would not be where I am today.  My degree in college was in chemistry but the background I had from my high school and college courses in computer science was what got me my job.”  He went on to tell me that in the rare cases where his company hires someone without a strong CS background, a college professor from a nearby university is brought in to give the new employee a private “CS tutoring session”.  These young people are far from alone in their beliefs.

So What Is the Problem?

I asked a former CS teacher why these classes were disappearing.  Her answer was two- fold.  “CS has never been sold for what it really is—a solid course for future vocations.  And now in the current environment of budget cuts, when a class does not have a certain number of students, it is cut from the master schedule. My last cancelled CS had 18 students registered.”  While many AP and IB courses will remain on the schedule with low enrollments the case for giving computer science similar status has never been adequately articulated.  Nor has it been sufficiently promoted to the students. The lack of effective salesmanship is obvious.   Tragically, effective advocacy for computer science need not be time consuming or expensive.  For example, the MIT School of Engineering periodically sends out a team of young women to speak to selected groups of students concerning a possible career in engineering (http://mitpsc.mit.edu/outreach/landing.php?id=102). I watched one of these presentations and was stunned by the enthusiasm it evoked from its audience.  After dismissing the notion that engineering was only about concrete and steel, the power point flashed a picture of a bright red, stiletto-heeled shoe.  The woman at the microphone then asked, “Who do you think designed this?  Her answer, an engineer?”  The positive and enthusiastic response from the all-female audience was palpable.   Similar approaches need to be taken to ensure that the study of computer science is given the importance it deserves.

The Canary in the Coal Mine

I have never taught or studied computer science.  Am I showing my age?  My concern for its decline is that it is symptomatic of a larger problem within our educational system.  Here is how it works. 

- The Bait.  One of the rites of spring has become the public bargaining session between the various school systems and the community.  Each year the schools announce that due to budget issues some popular programs that are near and dear to the hearts of the people will have to be cut.  The usual suspects in this annual dance are athletics, the arts, and field trips.  After the predictable pushback by some of the most vocal and powerful parent groups in the high school, some funds are restored, threatened actions are rescinded and the process moves on. 

- The Switch.  But there is a second act that is not so public.  Monies are still in short supply and some items still need to be sacrificed.  Consequently, when a class like Computer Science falls a little short in enrollment it disappears for a year.  After this absence is repeated a few times it becomes a vague memory and eventually it becomes extinct.  My concern is that this same scenario holds true for too many other important but smaller classes as well.   One is sliced here, another removed there and soon the quality of the educational system has died from a thousand small curriculum cuts.

A Better Way to Go

If real budget cuts are necessitated by dwindling funds then perhaps the annual threats should become the reality.  The simple truth is that certain courses are more important in meeting the goal of a forward-thinking educational system that truly wants to produce productive citizens that are prepared for the future in a global, technology-based society.   Unlike using technology, knowledge of how technology works will enable our young people to innovate and take part in creating new ways of computing.   This knowledge is not going to be picked up on the proverbial streets.  We need to take a serious step back and redefine what we want and need from public education and then reprioritize our spending.

We need to heed the sage words expressed earlier in this piece by two young people.  Computer Science must be a consistent, standard course offering in all schools.  Enrollment should be encouraged at every level of the system—teachers, counselors, administrators and system-wide.  This approach should then become a model for other courses of similar worth.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In “No Place for the Hatfields and McCoys” the Teacher Leader opens up a Pandora’s box of critical issues that go to the heart of school improvement.

Culture or Structure – The Teacher Leader astutely points out the importance “creating a positive, productive and trusting relationship between the administrative team and the teaching staff.” When all is said and done, any school improvement effort that focuses on changes in structure is doomed to failure unless the culture of the school changes. When school change is mentioned, many think immediately of reconfiguring bricks and mortar, changing the physical configuration of a school building, altering schedules, acquiring new technology, or purchasing equipment. But schools are not about bricks and mortar. Schools are about people and what they believe and expect, how they think, and how they interact and work together. Structural changes like small learning communities, career academies, professional learning communities, and ninth grade centers all work if the values, beliefs, expectations, and attitudes of the staff support a commitment to raising student achievement—culture. Culture is not for sale. Money cannot purchase a supportive environment or respect and trust. A school can have all the right programs in place but not be a high-performing school if the culture isn’t about continuous, incremental improvement.

Cooperation or Control – The essential question that every school leader and classroom leader must ask is “Do I want control or cooperation?” The answer to that question creates an intention that drives all future behavior. A school leader or classroom leader who seeks cooperation will think and behave much differently than one who seeks control. I contend that, if one has cooperation, control is unnecessary. However, it is the illusion of control or the fear of losing control that drives many leaders to engage in the kind of close-minded, top-down styles of interacting that erode relationships, stifle dialogue, and connote a lack of respect. Are you willing to give up a little control in order to get more cooperation? Are you willing to spend more time making decisions in order to make better decisions? Are you okay with not knowing all the answers? Are you willing to ask more questions?

Mutual Respect and Trust – Ask anyone about the key to successful working relationships in schools and they will say, “I want respect and trust.” The bottom line is that without mutual respect and trust, there is no relationship. Behavior doesn’t lie. It is our actions that speak for us. Leaders who respect and trust their staff will tap into their collective intelligence by taking the time to consult, collaborate, and share decision-making. They will spend more time deciding and less time cleaning up messes from hasty decisions. Shared decision-making leads to shared responsibility and shared ownership. Everyone involved must feel that they are not only being heard, but that their opinion counts. In that kind of school culture, staff members want to attend meetings because they know they have a say-so in the decisions being made.

Role Confusion – High-performing schools make the most use of the resources available to help each and every student succeed. The greatest resource is the expertise and emotional commitment of the staff focused intently on meeting the needs of the students. A staff pulling together for the students is virtually unstoppable. The school succeeds or fails to the extent that the adults work together. When visiting high-performing schools one never hears “That’s not my job.” Everything that supports student success is everyone’s job. Our roles change constantly. Early on in the change process, the school leaders, teachers and administrators, concentrate on the need to develop a clear vision and a focus. As the effort progresses, school leaders may spend more time removing barriers and acquiring resources. Our role is to work together to do whatever it takes to raise the achievement of each and every student.

Our job is inherently difficult – Change is the only certainty in our schools. I don’t see a day in the future in which we will be asked to do less. Even though we may be given fewer resources, expectations will never fall. That is our reality. If we work on the right things, the right way, for the right reasons, and if we appreciate, trust, and respect each other, and if we don’t care who is right or who gets the credit, we cannot fail.

Silos of Expertise – In stark contrast to “sorting students for success,” raising the achievement of each and every student requires an entirely different skill set and a level of expertise that only specialists can provide. Trained professionals spend their entire careers developing the necessary knowledge and expertise in areas such as special education, English-language learners, technology, and literacy, as well as in specific content areas. For example, the Teacher Leader developed his expertise in mathematics instruction over the span of four decades. Raising school-wide student math achievement without that level of expertise would have been impossible. With the complexity of our task—raising the achievement of every student—no one can be expected to know all the answers. Success in today’s schools is about asking the right questions, not in any one person knowing all the answers. In the past, school leaders could simply hire the experts and get out of the way to let them do their job.

Partnerships Not Silos – Today’s schools contain a tremendous amount of professional skill and knowledge that, if allowed to function independently, form semi-autonomous silos of expertise. If allowed to work independently, those silos become small kingdoms that could be working in conflict with the outcomes of the school. For example, a technology expert could be so concerned about security and network integrity that students and staff are prevented from engaging in meaningful and relevant learning experiences. School and classroom leaders must work in partnership to harness the collective intelligence and expertise of the entire staff to focus on student success.

No failure, only feedback – Working together to a common focus is our job. We must stop blaming and making excuses. If we truly trust and respect each other, we will not immediately jump to conclusions. Success is all about finding problems and solving them, not blaming, explaining, and excusing. We cannot be concerned about failing. We can only fail if we stop trying. There is no failure, only feedback toward our goal of continuous improvement.

Top-down or bottom up? – The Teacher Leader correctly points out that schools must be flat. High-performing schools are not about top-down or bottom-up decision-making. They are flat, less hierarchical, student-focused, and collaborative. In high-performing schools everyone shares in the decision-making process and in taking personal responsibility for student success.

Teams not individuals – High-performing schools are team oriented. Gone are the days of the individual, all-star teacher or charismatic school leaders. Today, it is about collaboration and working together toward a common outcome.

Accountability Demands Involvement – There can be no winners and losers in our schools. We either win together or we all lose together. If we believe that everyone must contribute to student success, then we must involve everyone in a meaningful way.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

by Stuart Singer

It is no revelation that some students need more time than others to master certain subjects.  The task of a school is to find ways to give students the opportunity for that extra attention.   Also needed is a realistic understanding that adolescents do not automatically seek out additional study time even when struggling.  The problem, then, for administrators is two-pronged—creating more access while providing compelling incentives.  One of the latest proposals was outlined in a Washington Post article by Jay Mathews “Do we need lunch periods, or even cafeterias?” 

A Problem with No Easy Answers

As Mr. Mathews aptly notes, whenever the proposal to lengthen the school day to improve student achievement is floated it sinks like a rock to the bottom of the educational idea pond.   The “agrarian” calendar used by the majority of systems (and so appropriate a mere 150 years ago) also appears unlikely to disappear any time soon.  Thus, the newest innovation as outlined in the Post’s article is the extension of the lunch period from thirty minutes to an hour.  The concept is simple—give students the freedom during the extra half of an hour to move about the building seeking extra help for the classes in which they need some remediation.  During this time they can also socialize, relax and escape the peer pressures that can sometimes be experienced in the cafeteria.  It is important to note that what follows here will not be a discussion about nutrition or the aesthetics of a lunchroom.  I will leave those concerns to others.  This conversation is about the best way to meet the academic needs of students.

One Problem, Three Approaches

For the sake of comparison I will briefly outline three remediation plans that I have either experienced, observed or read about.  Two of them utilize time within the established school day and the third requires work after the final bell.

The Extended Lunch Period expands the time allotted for lunch from thirty to sixty minutes.  During this time students can eat lunch, relax with friends or seek out teachers for additional instruction.  This system seems to leave most of the decision making in the hands of the students.

The Embedded Remediation Period creates a separate class period in the school day when students have the opportunity to receive help from teachers.  Most of these models have periods of about thirty minutes with passing time on either side.  Some assign classrooms or locations to students while others are more free form.

The After School Academic Support Plan requires students who are receiving grades of “D” or “F’ to attend thirty to forty minute supplemental sessions with their classroom teachers immediately after the school day ends.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

In the interest of transparency let me state from the beginning I consider the after school approach vastly superior to either of the other two options.  Let me explain why. The three major weaknesses of the two in-school plans are the loss of instructional time for everyone, a lack of precision in targeting the appropriate students to be assisted, and no clear incentive for attending.   The extended lunch option removes thirty minutes of class time each day; the embedded option removes even more time due to the additional minutes needed for transitions between periods.  Even in the best-case scenario, a half an hour per day subtracted from the typical high school 180-day year results in a loss of 90 hours of instructional time.  This reduction translates into the equivalent of three weeks removed from each class.  The embedded program loses nearly four weeks.  But does such a loss of contact time really matter?  I believe the following anecdote goes a long way toward answering this question.

Several years ago I was attending a district-wide department chair meeting and the number one topic was the drop in standardized math scores throughout the district.  For the first time in years instead of rising, the scores were uniformly lower at nearly every school.  Our assignment was to find the cause.  When I returned to school I asked my best Algebra 1 teacher for her explanation.  Without hesitation she responded with one word—“snow”.  The previous year we had unusually bad weather and we missed two weeks of school.   While she had time to cover the material for the test, her normal two-week review period was lost.   With the loss of just ten school days an entire system saw a drop in student scores.  Under either of these two aforementioned plans this loss of time would be even greater and impact every student not just the ones who are struggling.

Both of these options result in every student being affected by the needs of a small portion of the population.  While no one would argue that time to decompress is harmful or think only weak students benefit from time for small group assistance, if remediation is the primary goal for reconfiguring the school day, then it becomes quickly obvious that too large a net is being thrown out to catch a very small number of fish.  Significantly reducing instructional time in every class and for every student is far too high a price to pay for avoiding after school remediation.

Hitting the Bulls Eye

A decade ago my school developed the After School Academic Program (ASAP). For the purpose of the current discussion the broad outline is as follows.  Based on their professional opinion, teachers would target students who they felt would benefit from an additional thirty to forty-five minutes of instruction each week.  Individuals who were receiving poor grades for attendance or discipline issues would be excluded.  Such problems needed to be addressed in a different manner.  The list was then sent to the appropriate administrator.  Students would be assigned to an afternoon session that would begin within fifteen minutes of the end of the day.

Late buses were provided to give transportation home if needed and all extra-curricular activities could not begin until ASAP concluded.   The consequences for not attending—administrative detention (no teacher involvement)—were consistent, enforced and effective.  Teacher participation was voluntary even though the after school program was within contract time.  The primary concern for the teachers that volunteered for ASAP was that students were receiving the help that they needed to be successful in their classes.

It seems obvious to me that mandating attendance in an after school program for those who will benefit is a superior option to removing class time from every student.  But I will let the words of an assistant principal I overheard in the hallway express the best answer.  When a student told the assistant principal that he had missed ASAP because of his part time job the response was clear and direct.  “Son, let me be very clear about what is important here.  If you don’t pass your classes, that part time job will be your fulltime job for the rest of your life.”

I think that says it all.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

by Stuart Singer

My discussion of the role of the department chair brought forth some interesting and intriguing responses.  While many focused on the specific proposals, a number of others saw it as an opportunity to discuss the difficulty of creating a positive, productive and trusting relationship between the administrative team and the teaching staff.  More importantly, there was a general consensus that a strong “we vs. they” mentality exists in many schools and when allowed to fester it can seriously impair the morale and effectiveness of a building.

The perceived source of this tension was surprising.  One might think that the most significant cause of such strife would be teacher evaluations.  Any time one person is responsible for assessing the performance of another, a “boss- employee” mindset can easily form.  Surprisingly, based on the input I have received, this assessment is not considered the main area of friction between the administration and staff.  While there are stories worthy of folklore concerning this process, those cases tend to involve only the individual participants rather than the school at large.  School-wide problems, it appears, revolve around disagreement as to roles of the administrative team and the faculty concerning the establishment of curriculum policy and the educational environment in a school.

In This Corner

The job of an assistant principal is inherently difficult.  In addition to dealing with issues relating to student discipline, buses, parental complaints, bell schedules, field trips and the like, this position can become even more challenging when the responsibility of teacher evaluations is added.   The school curriculum is an ever-changing landscape of barrier exams and new programs to evaluate.

And in This Corner

The job of the classroom teacher is inherently difficult.  In addition to the usual responsibilities of grading papers, creating materials, parent conferences, after-school help, extra-curricular responsibilities and the like, this job has become even more challenging because of the ever changing role of the classroom educator.  The curriculum is in a constant state of flux as new initiatives are continually being implemented and the technology demands never stand still.  

When Worlds Collide

(The following views are from the perspective of the classroom teacher.  Those with other perspectives are encouraged to offer theirs.)

While there are plenty of potential interpersonal potholes in the path of any assistant principal, the issues which are most problematic deal with constructing educational policy and the professional roles of teachers and administrators.  During my twenty-six years as a math chair, the department was supervised by six different APs.   Their educational experiences were highly diverse and many were outstanding but they all shared one commonality—none had ever taught math.  These seemingly inappropriate assignments were neither unique nor avoidable.  When a staff of three or four assistant principals must supervise a dozen different and very distinct curricula the probability that they will be in charge of a subject they had taught is remote.  With these circumstances in mind, it is not difficult to visualize potential conflicts arising if this individual is empowered to make decisions directly involving curriculum policy.  It is even more potentially combustible if these choices are in direct opposition to the opinions of the department chair or classroom teacher.

One reader wrote:

“I was in a meeting where a question was asked as to the role of the department chair.  The response was ‘Their responsibility is to carry out the policies of the administrative team.’ When pressed further it was clearly stated that policy making was exclusively the domain of the administrative team.”

It is not surprising that this approach could be a concern for a classroom teacher whose experience in teaching a specific curriculum far exceeds the experience of the person making such a statement.

Another source of friction is the belief held by many teachers that any time a student struggles in their class the responsibility for this failure is placed squarely on the instructor.  The countless number of conferences, documentation and questions that are triggered by student failure often point in the direction of the “offending” teacher.  And in most cases the person questioning the competence of the teacher is the assistant principal.  This situation led to another response:

“I firmly believe that administrators should teach classes occasionally.  I don’t mean just visiting a class; I mean a whole semester or year. As soon as somebody leaves the classroom, they change.  The argument is that now they see the other side.  I’m sure there is another side, but that doesn’t mean the teaching side disappears.”

A Successful School is Flat

The world of Thomas Friedman is flat, a place where the actions of every country affects every other.  In order for an educational institution to be high functioning it must be constructed in a very similar manner.  Student success is the ultimate measure of a school.  And the highest levels of accomplishment only occur when every human cog in the machinery of a building is working to its maximum capacity and in concert with everyone else.  Without the best efforts of the teaching, clerical, custodial, administrative, security and counseling staffs diminished results are inevitable.  If one of these groups fails to meet its obligations, the negative ripples spread throughout all others.  Consequently any instance of miscommunication, mistrust or incompetence must be avoided.  The working relationship between the administrators and teachers must be founded on mutual respect, appreciation of the talents that each possess and the realization that their relationship is one of a collaborative and constantly evolving partnership.   Equally important is the understanding that none of these attributes is intrinsic to a title or position.  They must be earned and re-earned regularly.

Communication Has to Start at the Top

So how can a school create a cohesive, positive working relationship between the administrative and teaching staffs?   The administrative/faculty interaction should be one of the highest priorities of principals.  Their vision of this relationship must be clearly stated, contain no ambivalence, and be repeated often both in public and private.  It should be shared with the teachers, the administrators and then to everyone collectively.  The dialogue should be both verbal and written to ensure that there is no possibility of misinterpretations, misconceptions or secret agendas.  Fully informed individuals can best manage their own expectations and are far less likely to be disappointed or confused.

Ensuring the academic success of every student is the ultimate responsibility of a school principal.  Creating a learning environment where there is a strong sense of respect and a clear understanding of individual responsibilities among the staff rest squarely on the building’s top administrator.  The buck and this policy stop at that office door.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

by Stuart Singer

Leave Your Ego At The Door And Create A Better School

The specific role of the high school department chair varies greatly from school to school.  When appropriately utilized these instructional leaders can significantly improve academic success, staff morale and the effectiveness of the administration.  All too often, unfortunately, the department chair is more of a caretaker than a leader with primary job responsibilities consisting of ordering supplies, reporting equipment problems and relaying administrative decisions to teachers.

A Subtle Change of Direction

For the first half of my twenty-six year stint as math chair this description would be a fair assessment of my responsibilities.  That role began to change in the early 1990s when one of the school’s Assistant Principals was elevated to Principal.  Her strong respect for the importance of the teacher in the success of a school and her familiarity with the school’s personnel allowed her to immediately invest a high level of confidence in the input of many of the department chairs.  By the time she retired eight years later this increase in teacher influence was the perfect environment for her successor.

A New Vision for School Leadership

In his first opportunity as a high school principal, the school’s new leader arrived with two points of emphasis.  First, he believed that the key to a student’s academic success was the ability to read at or above grade level.  To attain this goal he hired a former “teacher of the year” from another state to incorporate a reading program throughout the entire curriculum.  Secondly, he viewed the teaching staff as unquestionably the most important component to any school’s success.  Consequently, he was determined to do whatever was necessary to maximize the talents of every educator in the building.  To symbolize his commitment to that lofty goal he placed a sign on his desk that had the letters A-B-C with a slash written through them.  The placard carried a simple message—the concept of “Administration By Convenience” would not be tolerated and the primary focus of the administrative staff would be providing an educational climate that would provide the best possible teaching situation.

Putting the Leader into Instructional Leader

This change in approach was not easy.  Many traditional attitudes had to be altered.  The long-time concept of “top-down” decision making was being replaced with “bottom up” input.  The goal was to move the teacher-administrator relationship from a “we-they” mentality to one that centered on “us”.  Assistant principals were becoming less identified as evaluators and more as facilitators. 

It was a process that started slowly.  The first two years were little different from the past.  More advice was solicited and some lively discussions ensued at department chair meetings but for the most part they were still the principal’s domain.  He conducted the meeting, set the agenda and made all the final decisions. Subtle changes were, however, occurring.  The cast of players was slowly being altered.  Department chairs who had been chosen previously on seniority were retiring and being replaced with individuals deemed among the top teachers in the department.  More and more of the discussions began to revolve around educational philosophy rather than school policy.  But the most important change occurred in year three.

Finding a New Direction

At the time I really did not think it was a big deal.  The Principal made a simple request—he wanted me to establish the agenda and lead the next department chair meeting.  I was not quite sure what he meant until the next time the group convened.  I passed out a list of topics for discussion and glanced in the direction of the Principal.  He sat passively without saying a word.  Suddenly it hit me.  A department chair was in charge of this meeting and he was sitting in my seat.  The session itself was uneventful.  No one questioned why I was leading the discussion and the Principal was not shy about sharing his views on each topic.  But the direction of the school leadership had been altered.  The evolution of the role of the department chair was about to begin.

Over the next few years a stunning transition occurred within the school.  Some of the changes were cosmetic, some procedural and some were precedent shattering.  The cast of characters at the meetings was dramatically expanded.  In addition to the eleven department chairs, the entire administrative team would attend along with the librarian, reading specialist, IB coordinator, and any other staff member who had business before the group.  We actually had to find a larger room to facilitate the ever-increasing number of participants.  Ten days prior to each meeting I would send out a query letter soliciting agenda items from the participants.  A week later after compiling the responses, I would send out the preliminary agenda.  In addition, I would meet directly with the Principal to review the topics to be discussed.

The body language at the meetings spoke volumes.  The administrative team would be scattered around the outer perimeter; the chairs sat in the center. The message was clear—this meeting was for teachers to talk and administrators to listen.   In retrospect the transformation of attitudes was quite astounding.  Participants recognized that they were becoming true instructional leaders discussing and ultimately deciding educational policy for the school.  Meetings would begin at 2:20 and would sometimes last until after 6:00.  Sometimes small groups would congregate in the halls well after adjournment to continue discussing issues.  Even more telling was the fact that virtually no one would leave a meeting until it was over.  Those who departed would lose the opportunity to have their voice heard.  Staff members took this forum so seriously they would often   send me agenda items long before they were formally requested.

So many plusses, so few downsides

As the empowerment of the department chairs grew, the benefits to the school expanded as well.  Classroom teachers now believed that they had a voice in the management of the school.  When concerned about an issue they would approach their chair who would then present it at the next meeting.  This approach was significantly more productive than what had preceded it—loud and long complaints in faculty workrooms.  The department chairs understood their new responsibility.  They were now advocates for their members.  They would at times have to support ideas that were not necessarily in line with their own beliefs but did represent the majority sentiment of their staff members.   The newly envisioned position of the department chair—a hybrid who had clear access to the administration but was still a classroom teacher—gave them a unique status.  

The administration quickly saw the positives as well.  Not only were great ideas being generated, decisions were far easier to implement.  A principal who says “I have decided” is not nearly as likely to succeed as one who can say “The department chairs support this decision”.  Soon a wide range of activities were reviewed, revised and approved by the chairs.  The direction of the decision-making process had been profoundly changed and as a result school morale and student performance soared.  These two outcomes were not a coincidence.

Next:  Choosing the right person for the job

Posted by Mel Riddile at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

by Mel Riddile

Actually, I am not kidding. Reading aloud to teens may be one of the most effective and low-cost ways of raising student achievement. You probably have a mental picture of super-sized high school students sitting in elementary-sized chairs gathered in reading groups with a teacher reading Dick and Jane to them.

Get rid of that image, because we are not talking about the old days where the teacher reminded students, “If you are good and finish your work, I will read to you.”

Secondary teachers all over the country report that for years they have been reading aloud to students to motivate and interest students in a book or topic. However, there are more benefits to reading aloud to teens that creating interest.

Reading aloud:

- Improves reading skills

- Improves thinking skills

- Exposes students to higher levels of language. Malbert Smith and the researchers at MetaMetrics have found that spoken language tends to be below students ability to comprehend. In some ways, we talk down to students. For some students, their only exposure to higher-level reading and language is if teachers read aloud to them.

- Promotes a love of literature and interest in reading

- Builds interest in a topic or subject

- Provides background knowledge and helps introduce a topic

- Models fluent reading

- Exposes students to texts they might not read otherwise

Posted by Mel Riddile at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

by Stuart Singer

Leadership Is a Terrible Thing To Waste

The task of improving our educational system is daunting.  There are so many areas of concern and so few funds to devote to the solutions.  Consequently, there is a continuing need to find creative, effective and inexpensive ways to improve the delivery of information to our students.  Redefining the role of the high school department chair is one step that will meet these three requirements and can result in dramatically improving the effectiveness of a school in a variety of areas.

A Little Bit of History

I began my math-teaching career in 1968.  At the time the chairman of the math department was one of the most beloved teachers in the building.  A former Captain in the Navy during World War II, Capt. Smith (not his actual name) had been in charge of the department since the school opened in 1959.  His celebrity was such that his birthday was formally celebrated throughout the building.  In the morning “Capt. Smith Day” was proclaimed over the public address system and posters throughout the halls exclaimed his unique status.  However, this notoriety had little impact on his educational role.  He was not present at my job interview the previous December.  When I was formally assigned to the school in June there was no contact.  Our initial meeting was midway through the first day I reported to the school to start the year.  Over the next three years before he retired, he never visited my classroom, discussed my teaching assignment, offered advice on teaching strategies, or assigned me a mentor.  At no point was I ever formally introduced to the department.  I am not sure he even knew my first name.

Working On a One Way Street

Unfortunately this scenario had nothing to do with the good Captain’s personal approach to his position.  Rather, it was a reflection of the method in which decisions were made in the high school and the role of the department chair in 1968.  Leadership at that time was a mind-boggling combination of top-down educational policy and hands-off educational philosophy.  The administrators dictated every facet of the school with the notable exception of the teacher’s individual classroom.  In terms of the day-to-day school decision-making, no questions were asked; no input was ever solicited.  Meanwhile the actual process of teaching students was rarely if ever addressed. (For the first five years of my teaching career no one ever came into my class to see what was transpiring.  I did, however, get excellent evaluations every year.  But this is a topic for another time).  The department chair served basically as a caretaker—order textbooks, make sure there was an adequate supply of chalk and communicate the directives issued by the administrative staff.  During that three-year period I do not recall a single sentence spoken by the chairman of the department that began “I have decided”.

For the next eleven years little changed.  Two other teachers “ascended” to the position but neither of them ever observed my class, shared philosophies or solicited my input on educational policy. The assignment of classes each year remained a mystery.  Every few years my classroom location would be changed but no explanation was ever given. 

In 1981 it was my turn to be chairman.  During my twenty-six year tenure I experienced a roller coaster ride as the job evolved in a mind-spinning number of directions.  Throughout the twists and turns I began to understand the potential, fulfilled and unfulfilled, of this position in a high school setting.

A Slight Course Correction But No U-Turn

The role of the department chair was fairly static during my first decade.  Initially the only changes were semantic.  At meetings and sometimes in print department chairs were now being referred to as “educational leaders”.  Later the title was upgraded to “instructional leaders”.  But the actual job description was not altered.  As always, an additional planning period was given in exchange for attending a variety of district meetings, ordering textbooks and basic supplies, and serving as a source for communicating administrative policy. 

The criteria by which department chairs were appointed revealed a great deal about the perceived importance of the position.  More times than not the selection was based solely on seniority.  In the rare cases where that standard was deemed inappropriate, the job was assigned to whomever was willing to accept it.  More than once when an opening occurred a few teachers would informally huddle together to decide who would ascend to the title. Suffice to say, a job given with little regard to merit is a job that itself is of little merit.

Perhaps, far more telling measure of the significance of the department chair, was what was not in the job description.  There was no input on staffing or the master schedule.  For fifteen years I would meet the new members of my department on the first day of school.  Few opinions were solicited on educational issues.  While the department chairs would meet on a fairly regular schedule, these meetings were not a formal venue for input.  This situation was not a reflection of an individual principal’s philosophy or skill.  Five significantly different people occupied the principal position during this time period.  From my perspective two were excellent, two were adequate and the other was so disastrous he was later fired at another school.  The general job description of the department chair remained largely unchanged throughout the period.

But change began to emerge in the early 1990s.  A variety of events created a perfect storm for educational evolution in the building.  In almost every aspect the school was in a total meltdown.  In less than five years there had been three different principals.  The last was the aforementioned disaster.  After announcing he was leaving the school because “God told me it was the right thing to do” (Cross my heart—he stood in front of a shell-shocked faculty at a meeting to reveal this celestial revelation.  Within five months apparently there was a heavenly change of heart and he moved to a high school in another state.  He was fired within the first year with or without divine intervention).  After this latest in a series of calamities, the entire faculty took an aggressive stance with the county.  The Assistant Superintendent tasked with hiring the next principal was told both in person (at a faculty meeting) and in writing (to the School Board Member) that the school had suffered enough and that one of the current Assistant Principals was the right person for a school in severe pain.  This confrontation was a defining moment that brought a profound change to the school’s culture.  The county got the message—the recommendation was implemented and a sense of empowerment had begun.  The new principal was a perfect vessel for change.  She was viewed as a strong advocate for teachers and understood that the success or failure of a school is determined by the quality of the people at the front of the classroom.  Department chair meetings became discussions rather than lectures with the input of the teachers being considered and often adopted.  School morale, which had been at its nadir during the previous administration, began to rise.  The faculty viewed the school as a communal effort.  The position of department chair was now seen as someone who spoke to the needs of the teachers.  More importantly this input was being heard and woven into school policy.  An important and profound structural change had begun.  But the best was yet to come.

Next:  Part 2:  Leave Your Ego at the Door and Create a Better School

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

by Mel Riddile

“Now we have a study that shows that when you train kids in reading, you change their white matter to where it should be. And that helps show that anybody who has acquired literacy will manifest different brain anatomy and physiology than non-readers." - Guinevere Eden, a Georgetown University researcher who is president of the International Dyslexia Association.

A recent news report indicates that “in the past 20 years, there has been an explosion of studies showing just how adaptable and malleable the human brain is.”

The journal Neuron reports that brain researchers Marcel Just and Timothy Keller at Carnegie-Mellon University’s Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging have found that just six months of intensive remedial reading instruction, children who had been poor readers were not only able to improve their skills, but grew new white-matter connections in their brains.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

by Mel Riddile

While teachers as a group make the most impact on student achievement, research continues to confirm that the principal is the single, most important individual contributing to student achievement. Ironically, school leaders are the most neglected group in terms of support and training. Yet, principals are the only group in the educational food chain truly being held accountable for student performance.

In an effort to change this situation, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) and Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) introduced the School Principal Recruitment and Training Act (S. 2896/H.R. 4354). The bill would fund the creation of a grant program to recruit, support, and prepare principals to improve student academic achievement in high-need schools. Provisions of the bill include:

• A one-year residency
• Focused coursework on instructional leadership, organizational management, and the use of data to inform instruction
• Ongoing support and professional development
• Skills assessment
• Mentoring
• Development of a high-quality evaluation
• Information clearinghouse to facilitate the sharing of best practices
• Development of standards and definitions of principal effectiveness

For more information, see the Principal’s Policy Blog

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Mel Riddile

The L.A. Times editorial staff believes that kids are naturally mean, and, when they are mean to each other, school officials should mind their own business. “Mean girls—and mean boys—have been terrorizing their classmates since the first schoolhouse was built.”

The editorial points out that some courts are refusing to back schools in their efforts to reign in the reputed bad online behavior because it did not occur on school grounds and because the schools failed to prove that the behavior could reasonably be expected or did cause a substantial disruption to the operation of the school.

According to the Times, “It isn't just students who are targeted by the online equivalent of "slam books," the notebooks furtively passed around playgrounds in previous generations in which children inscribed insults about their classmates. In Pennsylvania, a student was suspended and shifted to an alternative education program because he posted a parody MySpace profile that described his principal, among other insults, as a "big steroid freak" and a "big whore." A U.S. district judge lifted the suspension, saying that non-disruptive online speech couldn't be punished even if the offensive material could be accessed on school computers.”

A Principal’s Reaction

- Not my child – If it is my child being victimized, I want school authorities to protect her. If it is someone else’s child, she has the right to free speech. I wonder what the Times writers would say if it was their child who was the victim of harassment, cyber-bullying, or “sexting?” I bet that they would be contacting their attorney because the school failed to protect their child. The Times wants to paint this as schools attempting to extend their authority instead of what this really is - attempt by schools to protect their students and to meet their responsibility for the safety and welfare of the students.

- Power Hungry – The Times assumes that school leaders are power hungry bureaucrats seeking to extend their authority. This is not about authority. The issue here is responsibility. The first responsibility of every principal is to create a warm, safe, and orderly school environment in which students can learn and grow. Principals take their responsibility to protect all students very seriously. They treat their students with the same dignity and respect that they would want for their own child. When one of their students is threatened, harassed, intimidated, or bullied, they act to protect the student because they sincerely care for the student. Failure to do so could be considered negligence. Again we find dedicated, well-intentioned school leaders placed between the proverbial rock and a hard place. If they protect the student, they are violating the perpetrators rights. If they don’t act, they are found negligent.

- Only on school grounds - The editorial supports schools in their effort to prevent harassment and insults only when the behavior occurs on school grounds. Here is the crux of the issue. Where does the responsibility of the school begin and end. Is it, as some districts define, portal-to-portal—from the time the child steps out of the door in the morning until the child arrives home from school? Or, does the responsibility of the school begin and end at the border of school property during school hours? “…Educators should recognize the reasonable limits of their authority and confine their discipline to girls and boys who are mean to one another -- or to their principal -- at school.”

- I agree with the Times, “Schools aren’t hermetically sealed off from what students do at home.” Today, everyone has an electronic leash (cell phone) that connects them to the entire world. Those electronic signals know no boundaries. If you have a phone, you are connected. As the Times correctly points out, “the Internet has eroded an endless number of formerly clear distinctions, including those based on physical location. So, who gets the benefit of the doubt, the schools or the mean boys and girls?

What Can and Should Schools Do About Mean Online Behavior?

- First, schools must be safe havens where all students feel physically and emotionally safe and secure at all times.

- Schools need clear policies that define harassment, cyber-bullying, and “sexting,” and they need to consistently enforce the policies. Because the goal is not to apprehend and punish but to deter negative behavior and teach responsible behavior, the policy should contain a prevention component that contains provisions that students be taught “responsible use” of technology.

- When considering policies and practices, school officials should put the behaviors into context. Compulsory attendance laws require that students attend school. They have no choice. Unlike a cable TV viewer, students cannot simply change the channel whenever they like. They are compelled to be present and to be subjected to messages that they would normally tune out. Compulsory attendance places an added burden on schools to protect students. For years, one high school allowed students unfettered access to the public address system each morning. The simple act of standing in line allowed any student who wished to say anything about any subject. Not only did the morning announcements go on forever, but the entire school was forcibly subjected to frequent, inane rants. The new principal recognized his responsibility to all students by placing a staff member in charge of the announcements, which required prior approval and were delivered by trained student government officers.

- An enforceable school policy is not a board policy that passes the buck to the principal by simply stating that the school should have a policy. This provides board members with cover and wiggle room when parents complain, but it places school leaders in a position to have the rug pulled out from under them at any time that a constituent or board member disagrees. The result is usually an unenforceable policy.

- Schools would not allow anyone to print and freely distribute paper flyers that contained nude pictures, threats, or slanderous statements, nor should they permit those behaviors simply because they occur electronically.

- Schools must recognize that the Internet gives every student a license to print. A cell phone is literally an electronic printing press that sends messages to the entire world with the touch of a button. As such, the consequences of misdirected or inappropriate messages are instantaneous and virtually limitless in scope. In other words, one message can move faster and do a lot more damage than the printed word. One student with a cell phone can literally direct a “reign of terror” toward another student.

- At some level, students understand that electronic messages are impossible to stop and can be viewed by anyone. Consequently, they are quicker to anger and easily incited to violence when someone posts a derogatory message on social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace. Some schools even refer to the resulting altercations as “MySpace fights” or “Facebook fights.

- Harassment is harassment whether it is electronic, verbal, or in print.

- Problems usually stem from how schools deal with the issues not from the fact they actually address the issue. Because most parents don’t want a suspension on their child’s record and certainly not a cyber violation, making suspension from school the first response will set everyone up for a disagreement. Attempting to use school authority to force someone to “take down” a comment or an inappropriate post will, more often than not, result in a confrontation. Many principals have found success by simply having a conversation with the parents of the offender. In my experience, the simple act of setting up a meeting almost always resulted in successful resolution because, it turns out, the parents were not aware that their child’s electronic behavior in the first place.

- If a student brought a Playboy to school in the 1970s, I confiscated the magazine and called the parents. Future violations would result in strict disciplinary action. Distributing inappropriate photographs of students would result in the same. In the case of “sexting,” schools must make it clear in writing that this behavior is harmful, probably illegal, and unacceptable.

- Any student who is bullied, harassed or “sexted” has been victimized. The behavior should be treated as serious and stopped. The victimized student should be given support from a student-services team consisting of an administrator, counselor, social worker, and a school psychologist.

- Like any other illegal acts, these behaviors should be reported to the School Resource Officer or the appropriate law enforcement personnel. Child abuse must be reported to the appropriate authorities in a timely manner. This should be explicitly stated in policy.

- Schools must have clear guidelines and policies that allow them to deal internally with bullying, intimidation, harassment, and “sexting,” separate and apart from any criminal or legal action.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

by Mel Riddile

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

by Mel Riddile

With each passing day, we improve our chances of leveling the playing field for all students by bridging the digital divide. Despite tight budgets, the technology future for schools is bright. Overall, the cost of technology equipment continues to fall. The capacity and computing power continues to accelerate. Personal computing devices are getting smaller and smaller. Convenience and ease-of-use continues to improve.

THE Journal has announced the “5 K-12 Technology Trends for 2010.”

1. eBooks – With textbooks costs rising as fast as computer costs are falling, we are reaching a point where it will be more economical to provide electronics versions of textbooks to every student.

2. Netbooks  - These ultra-compact devices are very close to being able to replace laptops for students.

3. Interactive Whiteboards – These will soon be standard in every classroom.

4. Personal Devices are Ubiquitous – My wife claims that, other than grading the papers of her graduate students, she can do everything on her iPhone. Cell phones, PDAs and other personal computing devices are becoming useful learning devices with the potential for Disrupting Class.

5. Customized Learning – Clayton Christensen was right about customization but he may have overestimated the time it would take for technology to catch up with the needs of learners.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

By Stuart Singer

Since my posting on December 8, two recent articles have come to my attention concerning the use of student performance on standardized tests and the economics of education.   Both reinforce my contention that the utilization of this data is a step in the right direction.  These stories were reported by Nick Anderson in the December 13 Washington Post.  The first “Performance pay funding for teachers may increase”, discussed some of the initial steps taken by the Obama Administration in equating success on certain exams to the rewarding of millions of dollars in resources to school systems.  The second “Louisiana serves as model in teacher assessment”, details a pilot program in Louisiana in which merit pay for teachers is based on a combination of student test performance and classroom observations.  Of significant importance is the fact that many other school systems are studying this approach with the intent of incorporating some of its components into their own future plans.

Both of these initiatives are indicative of the movement toward the analysis of test scores in evaluating the effectiveness of individual teachers, schools and entire school systems.  As stated previously, I feel that when done properly this method of measurement will be a positive step for improving education.  However, the “done properly” caveat is critical and it is imperative that individuals who are well versed in both the use of data and what it means in an educational setting will be the decision makers. 

Stay tuned for future developments.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

by Stuart Singer

Recently the Obama administration introduced a new program “Race to the Top” (“Scoring System for School Aid”, Washington Post, November 12) which includes a new set of guidelines for schools to qualify for billions of dollars in government aid.  Of the various criteria being utilized in deciding the distribution of the funds the one with the greatest bearing on the decision-making process is the use of student achievement on standardized end-of-course exams. This data will be used as a measure of the effectiveness of teachers and administrators.  When first written the plan contained an even higher reliance on these tests and not surprisingly most teacher unions were less than enthusiastic.  However, as the rules have been modified to incorporate other data there is now a somewhat grudging acceptance of the concept by these groups.  As a forty-year veteran of the math classroom my view of this new direction is quite simple.  Based on my experiences the direct use of these test scores as a measurement tool of a school’s progress is a revolutionary change that, if done properly, has the potential to profoundly improve the educational process. 

A Question Asked Over and Over

For nearly a decade on numerous occasions and in a wide variety of forums I have been asked to discuss my views concerning end-of-course, barrier exams.  My answer was always consistent if a bit unpopular with other teachers.   I would quickly acknowledge that the exams being used in my state were, and still are, seriously flawed (50 multiple choice questions, poorly conceived scoring, too little teacher input, etc.).  But I subsequently stated that I believed the concept of testing was a positive step toward improving public education.  These tests, even in their less than perfect implementation, brought consistency to the curriculum.  Prior to their introduction the coverage of subject matter in too many classes resembled the Wild West. All too often educators over-emphasized the topics they found most interesting and lessened or even omitted those in which they were either weak or did not enjoy.  As a result there were wide variations in what each student was learning in ostensibly the same curriculum.  Until the advent of the standardized tests there was no uniform mechanism to determine if mastery of the subject had been attained.  While the actual testing process may be less than satisfactory it is significantly better than the chaotic approach of earlier years.  These test results gave a school’s staff a valuable starting point in measuring student success. 

A Pleasantly Surprising Development

I have always been intrigued by the definition of a good teacher.  In almost every school it is common knowledge among the staff, students and community which teachers are the most and the least effective.  This continuum of teacher efficacy is often determined without the use of personal observation or any concrete data.   Nonetheless it exists; it is consistent and remarkably accurate.  Add to this mysterious method of ranking, the results of the first decade of standardized testing and something quite informative appears. Students taught by “good” teachers would always average significantly higher scores than those enrolled in the same course taught by a lesser teacher.  When studied over the course of several years the correlation between our school community’s perception of a teacher’s ability and their actual effectiveness as measured by their students’ scores on standardized test was both high and positive.

Scores You Can Believe In

While it is unlikely that the time or money necessary to dramatically improve the quality of end-of-course exams will be forthcoming any time in the near future, the Obama plan calls for government aid to be at least partially determined by these tests.  This new approach offers an opportunity to introduce a more quantitative and effective process for improving our public schools.

Consequently, the task is to find the best approach to make the information available reflect an accurate accounting of a school’s success.  Here would be my list of “Dos and Don’ts”.

·  Don’t measure a school’s scores on a subject with the scores from previous years.  This method says little since it compares different students, test questions, grading scales and teachers. Do compare a school’s scores with those on the same test at other schools in the district and compare its relative ranking from one year to the next.

·   Don’t evaluate a school exclusively on its comparative scores with other schools.  Create a chart based on pass rate and then next to every school note the percentage of students on Free or Reduced Lunch.  This is the best measure of the socio-economic level of a student body.  Do create a second listing of the percent of F/R lunch from lowest to highest.  A comparison of the lists will reveal how well a school is actually performing.  I created a mathematical formula for this but trust me the correct interpretation is always quite obvious. 

·  Don’t use individual teacher performance for these evaluations.  Do require schools to explain their philosophy and strategies for improving the overall success of their students on these tests.  Include the views of individual teachers as well as the administrative team.  The approach and intensity of a school when addressing the need to improve student scores can reveal a great deal about its potential for success.

A Starting Point Not a Finish Line

The concept of incorporating standardized tests scores into the evaluation of a school and the aid it receives is an excellent beginning to bringing true accountability in our educational system.  The plan should be implemented cautiously and needs to be reassessed and refined on a regular basis.  The entire testing process itself must undergo continuous scrutiny with the goal of making it as accurate and reflective as possible.  Exam scores need to always be used as a tool, never as a bludgeon.  But most importantly, the ultimate goal can never be forgotten—improving the quality of our educational system and increasing student learning.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A group of my fellow principals had just completed a dinner meeting. As we were walking out, one of my colleagues came up to me and told me that she had been approached by one of the patrons who asked her, “Is that Mel Riddile?” The individual gave her his business card, he was an orthodontist, and told her to tell me hello. “He was my principal at Lee High School, said the man.”

When my friend told me the story, I said in amazement, “I left that school in the 1970s! Besides, I was not the principal. I was the assistant principal.”

The next week, I was in a local supermarket and a woman approached me and asked, “Did you ever work for the school system?” I admitted that I had. She went on to say, “Weren’t you my principal at Lee High School?” Again, that was in the 1970s. “I never got in trouble, so you probably don’t remember who I am,” she continued.

I can’t believe the number of times I am approached by adults who introduce themselves saying, “I never got into trouble” or “I don’t get into trouble anymore.”

These meetings with former students reminded me of another time at another school where I was also an assistant principal. This large high school was divided into small learning communities each with its own office and staff. Each “subschool” as we called them, acted as a mini-school. The assistant principal, two counselors, and one secretary took care of everything students from attendance to record keeping for 700-plus. The school had over 3,000 students and the principal, who was very focused on the need to personalize the school environment, intentionally stood in the same spot at the top of the main stairwell every morning so that the students would get to know who he was.

On one of the last days of school, a student office assistant in one of the “subschools” who was completing a mock final exam that all the secretaries gave to their assistants, walked up to me and asked, “Are you the principal?” I replied, “That man who stands at the top of the stairs every day is the principal. You are a senior. Didn’t you know that?” He calmly replied, “I always thought that you were the principal.

Action Item: There are two important lessons here. First, it is a mistake to assume that all students know who you are or what you do. Tell them and tell them again. Visibility is important, but visibility does not equal recognition. One year, as a joke, I carried around a hand printed sign that asked, “Who am I?” Any student who came up to me and answered correctly received a gift certificate to the a la carte line in the cafeteria. You don’t have to wait twenty years to learn the second lesson. As far as some students are concerned, assistant principals are principals. To many students, the assistant principal is one if not the most significant adults in his or her life. Remember that, because they will remember you FOREVER!

Posted by Mel Riddile at 03:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Mel Riddile

Research into memory and learning demonstrates that we best remember the beginning and the end of a list of words. The primacy and recency effects also apply to books and articles.  We best remember the first chapter and the ending of the book. Likewise, students are most likely to remember what is taught at the beginning and end of a class session.

In the first assignment in my very first graduate course, I read and summarized an article titled “Accountability Demands Involvement.”  At that time, we were many years away from the notion of accountability, but the concept stuck with me and I have repeated the idea numerous times over my career.

As one mentor often reminded me, “You can delegate responsibility, but not accountability.” When high stakes accountability arrived, I found myself revisiting my belief that accountability was not something we did to others. Rather, it was something that we shared. As a high school principal, I wished that those above me had shared that same belief in collective accountability.

As a principal of a diverse, high-poverty school, I learned very quickly that improving the achievement of each and every student could not be done by one person or by a small group. Instead of one leader, we needed many leaders. Instead of top-down leadership, we needed collaboration, shared decision-making, and shared responsibility. Instead of one person’s thinking, we needed to tap into the combined experience and collective intelligence of our entire staff in order to find the best possible solutions.

Over time, I came to realize that involving others was not the outcome but the means to shared ownership. If our school was going to succeed by helping each student succeed, we needed the commitment of every member of our staff. I also knew that, if our school was going to succeed, we would have to do so with the current staff. Replacing large numbers of teachers was not an option, nor was it desirable. I believed that our school had Acres of Diamonds, and that it was my job to find them and let them shine.

Instead of one leader, our school needed many leaders. I had the good luck of inheriting a core group of teachers who were emotionally invested in the school and the students. That core group had all worked in the school for more than twenty years. They had spent most of their adult lives serving the students of that school. They had witnessed the school change from a low-poverty to a high-poverty school, and from a low-diversity to a high-diversity school with students representing eighty-eight countries and over sixty languages. It was that core group of veterans who helped transform that school from one labeled as “failing” to award winning.

The staff did an outstanding job of caring about students, but we all had a lot to learn about raising student achievement. That meant that we had to continue to be who we were, but we had to change not only our expectations and beliefs, but we had to change what we did in each classroom and how we worked with students. Those profound changes would take time, focus, and hard work.

I realized that we had to use time wisely. We could not afford to make hasty decisions only to spend an inordinate amount of time repairing the resultant collateral damage. That meant that we had to make good decisions and that meant that we had to involve more staff members, even if the decisions took more time to make.

To make the kind of changes that were needed, we had to remove to some formidable barriers. First, years of being subjected to annual initiatives with no follow-through meant that the staff had a negative change history. The fact is that they heard leaders cry wolf too many times and their trust had all but eroded. Secondly, they had never truly been involved in key decisions that affected them as teachers. The idea that they were going to be the deciders raised some appropriate skepticism. Finally, we needed open channels of communication that filtered out both the personal and professional agendas. We needed to eliminate the traditional divide that existed between the administration and the faculty.

Changing expectations and beliefs, eliminating skepticism, building trust, creating a collaborative decision-making process, and opening up lines of communications would take months if not years to accomplish. The problem is that we did not have years to work on our adult issues. We needed to get to work helping students learn and grow.

We needed a catalyst, an accelerant. We not only needed teacher leaders, we needed a leader of teacher leaders to act as a bridge between the administration and the faculty. This individual would need to be a person trusted and respected by teachers and administrators alike, a person with unquestioned loyalty, not to a person or a group or a department, but devotion to the school and the success of all students. This individual needed to see the big picture and to be a person to whom both teachers and administrators could confidently confide.

After much thought, I decided that we had the one person who could be the bridge, Stu Singer. As it turned out, Stu was the most senior member of the staff. He had spent his entire career in the school. At first, Stu was reluctant. After all, this was uncharted territory. We both recognized that, if this was not handled properly, Stu would find himself caught in limbo—not a teacher and not an administrator. Our thinking was that his value was in his teacher role. So, we wanted to ensure that his role was clear.

After much thought and discussion, we came up with the non-threatening title of Instructional Coordinator, but, in reality, he was the faculty dean. Stu was also the Math Department Chair. He and I formed a partnership that lasted almost a decade. I trusted him emphatically because I knew that he would not tell me what I wanted to hear. Instead, he would tell me what I needed to hear. His loyalty was to the school and to the success of our students.

Stu set the agenda and led all leadership team meetings. He wrote a piece for my weekly staff newsletter that recognized our teacher of the week. His Math Department was where we conducted all our experiments; after-school tutoring, expanded learning time, attempts to manipulate class sizes to better serve struggling learners, and experiments with various instructional methods.

However, it was Stu’s leadership behind the scenes that made the most impact on our school. Thanks to his efforts, we opened the lines of communications that enabled us to build the level of trust that we needed to take our school to the next level. Without Stu Singer and our teacher-leaders our school could not have broken through and become a high-performing, high-poverty high school. Stu was not simply a teacher leader. From my perspective, Stu Singer is The Teacher Leader.

Stu Singer, The Teacher Leader, will be a regular contributor to this blog. He will provide readers with another vitally important perspective, that of a teacher leader.

Bottom Line: Two important characteristics of high-performing schools are shared-decision-making and collaborative leadership. Collaborative leaders don’t simply consult others, they share and distribute leadership throughout the school. Leaders in high-performing schools know that accountability demands the involvement of the entire staff. They know that leaders grow leaders.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 01:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

by Mel Riddile

On November 23 President Obama helped launch a new campaign, “Educate to Innovate,” designed to energize and excite America’s students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).  According to the White House report, the program “builds on the President’s pledge that he would use his position to help encourage students to study and consider careers in science, engineering, technology, and innovation—fields upon which America’s future depends—and elevate those students from the middle to the top of the pack worldwide.”
Educate to Innovate is designed to reach millions of students over the next four years and inspire them to “become the next generation of engineers and scientists, inventors and innovators.”
In his Inaugural Address, the President vowed to put science “in its rightful place.” According to the report, one of those rightful places is the classroom. The report goes on to point out that “our schools lack support for teachers or the other resources needed to convey the practical utility and remarkable beauty of science and engineering. As a result, students become overwhelmed in their classes and ultimately disengaged. They lose, and our nation loses too.”

by Mel Riddile

After finishing a 90-minute presentation a few months ago, I was approached by a friend of mine who happens to be a well-known researcher with a reputation as a discerning critic. He said to me, “Everything you said was correct.” Given my experience with him, this was a high compliment. I held my breath as he continued,  “I just don’t know which point makes the most difference in improving schools. But you missed the key point. It isn’t about school leadership. It is about hiring the best teachers. That’s the key to improving schools. All you have to do is hire great teachers.”

Enter Teach for America. TFA recruits candidates from the top universities to serve a two-year stint teaching in high-poverty schools. A four-minute NPR segment “Teachers Learn on the Job” provides a good overview for those unfamiliar with TFA. Here are some key points from the segment. The good news is that TFA recruits are highly motivated, welcome the challenge of working in with high-risk students, and they are not easily discouraged. The bad news is that they have little preparation--TFA candidates complete a five-week course and are then sent directly to the front lines--and they are weak in classroom management skills. Experienced administrators know that this combination spells doom for most new teachers and that puts a lot of pressure on their receiving school to provide needed supports. As a result, TFA recruits must rely heavily on the “many mentors and advisors” provided by the program and the school.  However, that is not all the bad news. TFA recruits only commit to two years of service.

The NPR report points out that some principals are reluctant to hire TFA candidates because they understand the importance of continuity. They want at least a three-year commitment. In addition, school leaders understand the investment of time and resources it takes to get a new teacher up to speed. Not all teachers will make it, but when they enter with a pre-conceived notion that this is only a two-year option, turnover becomes a major concern.

Now, back to my friend the expert. I turned to him and said,  “Who do you think recruits, interviews, hires, and trains your great teachers? Teaching is a profession, and professionals learn and grow from experience. They don’t walk into schools with all the skills and knowledge that they will ever need as teachers. All new teachers must rely on the mentors and advisors, most of whom are provided by the principal.” If it is great teachers who make great schools, then it is the person who hires, nurtures and trains the teacher who is the difference that makes the difference—the principal.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Mel Riddile

When you are a “singleton”--the only one or one of a few in a particular position in a school, like principals, assistant principals, literacy coaches, technology integration specialists, or guidance directors--school staff and community members either don’t understand or they misunderstand what it is that you do with your time. I know for a fact that only my administrative assistant had any idea how I spent my time. She was always encouraging me to eat lunch or to take a break. I learned that even assistant principals don’t know what principals do. I remember one of my former assistant principals saying to me after six months as a principal, “I always thought that you just sat in your office and talked on the phone. In twenty-five years, I have never worked so hard. I am exhausted when I go home at night. The stress is unbelievable.”

As a principal, I always made an effort to inform staff about what other “singletons,” like my literacy coaches or assistant principals, did all day long. In order to promote better understanding, I even encouraged shadowing. In fact, I found out that shadowing is a great way to expose potential administrators to the work that we do. One of my favorite teachers of all time, who was an outspoken critic of administrators, completely changed her attitude after I gave her the opportunity to work with me when I was an assistant principal. One day after she had given me a friendly tongue-lashing, I said to her, “Why don’t you work with me a few days a week. I could use the help.” First, she found out that she enjoyed the work. Secondly, instead of a critic, she became a vocal supporter and an excellent source of feedback. In fact, I just received and invitation to her retirement party. By the way, she has spent the last ten years of her career as an assistant principal, and a very good one I might add.

Bottom Line: Let your staff know what you do. Make an effort to let the staff know what the “singletons” in your school do. Often people are saying “no” when they really mean “I don’t know.”

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

by Mel Riddile

Since 2004, I have been privileged to be one of twelve members of the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy. It has been an honor to serve with the leading literacy experts in the country. On September 15, the Council released a watershed report on adolescent literacy, Time To Act. Time to Act is the capstone report of Carnegie Council for Advancing Adolescent Literacy. Since 2004, under the direction of Council Chairperson Catherine Snow, professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Council has gathered knowledge and ideas from experts nationwide on topics ranging from linguistics to the social science of teaching. Time to Act is released with five corresponding reports, which delve deeper into how to advance literacy and learning for all students, including such topics as the cost of implementing adolescent literacy programs and reading in the disciplines. This body of work provides a wealth of information to school leaders on adolescent literacy. These resources are free to our members and can be accessed by following the enclosed link. In addition to the free downloads, there is a series of podcasts and a video of the complete program.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

by Mel Riddile

As a high school principal, I always felt as though I was drinking out of a fire hose instead of a straw. It was always difficult to find the time to keep abreast of current issues that were important to me as a principal. I had the best of intentions, but I often found myself not reading that article or that book that a friend recommended. I needed someone to synthesize what was happening and translate it for me so that I could put the information into practice. I needed short bursts of information that I could absorb in a few minutes. If I wanted more information, I could take the next step. Blogs are a great way to stay on top of school issues, but I couldn’t find one that applied directly to me as a principal. I needed a bridge between research, current events, and my school. That’s what this blog is all about—taking what is out there and translating it for principals so that they can use it right away.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)