In a recent webinar for the National High School Center, Brockton High School (MA) Principal, Sue Szachowicz, attributed her school’s success to the purposeful and hard work initiated by the staff.  “Making change takes tenacity, not brilliance,” she said.

Szachowicz "discussed her school’s experiences in planning for and implementing school-wide literacy, which has resulted in dramatic academic gains in student achievement for both Reading and Math.

Sue's 10 Keys to Literacy Success (in my words):

1. Literacy is the key to raising academic performance.
2. Improving student literacy skills requires the involvement of the entire school.
3. Focus on building teacher capacity over time.
4. Identify, clarify, amplify, and model good instructional practices during professional development.
5. School wide instructional practices that are both "defined" and "aligned" benefit all students by providing each student with repeated exposure to research-based practices throughout the school day.
6. Data-informed initiatives ensure that the focus remains on student needs instead of adult "wants."
7. Change takes time, years in fact. Look at a school wide literacy initiative as a long-term process by building layer by layer, year after year.
8. Any long-term initiative should grow and evolve over time. A literacy initiative should look different in year five than it did in year two.
9. Changes and modifications to any initiative must be based on the assessed needs of the students.
10. "Schools cannot wait for teacher buy-in. Results are what convince the staff." If leaders approach a school wide literacy initiative as a long-term process, there is no need to wait for total agreement before beginning nor is there a need to force everyone to be at the same level all at once.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 10:12 AM | Permalink

Background: Nationally, two-thirds of students are not reading on grade level by the fourth grade, the earliest year of testing in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). That proportion rises to four-fifths for low-income children, according to NAEP results released last year.

A recently released national study indicates that students who are not proficient readers in third grade are significantly more likely to drop out. "Students who don’t read proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to leave high school without a diploma than proficient readers."

It's Poverty Not Stupid (3-6-8) "Poverty compounds the problem."

Students who have lived in poverty are three times more likely to drop out or fail to graduate on time than their more affluent peers;

• If they read poorly, too, the rate is six times greater than that for all proficient readers.
• For black and Latino students, the combined effect of poverty and poor third grade reading skills makes the rate eight times greater.
• Poverty troubles even the best readers: Proficient third graders who have lived in poverty graduate at about the same rate as subpar readers who have never been poor.

“We will never close the achievement gap, we will never solve our dropout crisis, we will never break the cycle of poverty that afflicts so many children if we don’t make sure that all our students learn to read,” said Ralph Smith, executive vice president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Specifically, the study found:

• One in six children who are not reading proficiently in third grade do not graduate from high school on time, a rate four times greater than that for proficient readers.
• The rates are highest for the low, below-basic readers: 23 percent of these children drop out or fail to finish high school on time, compared to 9 percent of children with basic reading skills and 4 percent of proficient readers.
• The below-basic readers account for a third of the sample but three-fifths of the students who do not graduate.
• Overall, 22 percent of children who have lived in poverty do not graduate from high school, compared to 6 percent of those who have never been poor. This rises to 32 percent for students spending more than half of their lives in poverty.
• For children who were poor for at least a year and were not reading proficiently in third grade, the proportion of those who don’t finish school rose to 26 percent.  The rate was highest for poor black and Hispanic students, at 31 and 33 percent respectively. Even so the majority of students who fail to graduate are white.
• Even among poor children who were proficient readers in third grade, 11 percent still didn’t finish high school. That compares to 9 percent of subpar third graders who were never poor.
• Among children who never lived in poverty, all but 2 percent of the best third-grade readers graduated from high school on time.

The study concluded that improvements are needed in the following areas:

1. improving the schools where these children are learning to read
2. helping the families weighed down by poverty
3. better federal, state and local policy to improve the lot of both schools and families
4. aligning quality early education programs with the curriculum and standards in the primary grades
5. paying better attention to health and developmental needs of young children
6. providing work training and other programs that will help lift families out of poverty.

Essential Question

Can high schools or middle schools afford to wait until students arrive at their doors with reading problems?

• The development of math and literacy skills is a PK-12 issue, not an elementary issue, not a middle school issue, and certainly not a high school issue.
• Vertical articulation between all levels is one key to improving literacy skills.
• Curriculum alignment is another key.
• Cross-content literacy instruction (Common Core ELA Standards) and whole-school literacy initiatives are another key.
• Keep in mind that, even if under-resourced students are proficient by third grade, they must have direct, explicit literacy (reading, writing, thinking, discussing) instruction every year thereafter or they will not progress.
• Literacy skills predict future math performance, which, in turn, predicts future college completion.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 10:11 AM | Permalink

I frequently use Reagan National Airport and my flight occasionally lands late at night. So, the story about two planes landing while the one and only air traffic controller on duty slept, caught my attention. Like many others, I was shocked to learn that more than a few airports, some of them considered major hubs, routinely schedule only one controller on duty.

My thoughts immediately turned to a recent airport experience. I was in an unnamed airport in a major city waiting in a long security line. For the sake of fairness, I must admit that, in most airports, security has gotten better in the past year. In this case, the line was getting longer and longer, yet there was only one security station screening passengers. I thought to myself, surely they will open more lines. I was wrong.

I counted thirteen uniformed TSA employees standing idle while they watched passengers screening through one checkpoint. It reminded me of when I was a kid listening to the adults joke about the state road crews. "One has a shovel or a broom and five others are watching."

I then imagined a scenario in which the one traffic controller on duty was sleeping while downstairs thirteen TSA employees observed one security checkpoint. Talk about misplaced priorities.

In my mind, landing planes takes priority over confiscating hair gel. Having more than one air traffic controllers on duty at a time is a non-negotiable. Clearly, some airports are majoring in the minors.

School leaders can use the misplaced priorities of our airports as a learning experience. Truth be told, most schools don't consistently do the things that improve student performance. We must decide on our priorities--two, no more than three, areas of focus. Next, we must say no to everything else. Our focus must be non-negotiable. Finally, we must continue until we have both mastered our priorities and accomplished our goals and objectives.

Ask yourself. What are our "must do's?" What are our "need to do's? What are our "nice to do's? In other words, what "must" we do every day in every classroom throughout our school in order to raise student performance? Once we determine our priorities, we must resolve to do those things with fidelity. We must do them consistently day in and day out, and we must do them over time, in many cases, for years.

Focus: Clear and Simple

For ten years, our school had a clear and simple focus. Note, I didn't use the word "easy," because there is nothing easy about improving student attendance and literacy skills. That is not to say that those were the only things we did. We totally revamped our approach to math, integrated technology, enhanced our ESL program, reduced suspensions, changed our school calendar to year-round, began mandatory after-school tutoring for any student with a "D" or "F" in a core academic subject, and list goes on and on.

If you asked our teachers about our school improvement plan, they would respond, "R-A-G-S to Riches"--Reading plus Attendance means better Grades and a Safe school." In other words, if we improved student literacy skills (Reading) and raised Attendance, student performance would improve (Grades) and discipline referrals and suspensions would go down (Safe). Here's the key. For almost a decade, our plan never changed. While we continually enhanced our strategies, our focus never changed. We never waivered.

The Secrets of High-Performing Schools

High-performing schools consistently do what other schools do not. No misplaced priorities here. No majoring in the minors either. High-performing schools have fewer priorities and they are obsessed with reaching their goals. At the recent NASSP School Showcase the presentations made by several schools made it crystal clear to me that schools serving large numbers of under-resourced students must have a student-focused obsession, and that obsession must relate to the specific needs of the population that the school serves.

The three schools all served under-resourced students. However, the three high schools varied in size, had very different demographics, and were located in states with very different economics and education policies. The context in which these schools operated was about as different as they could possibly be.

Although they were very different in appearance, the three schools had a lot in common. They each had a laser-like focus on student success that bordered on an obsession. In fact, these three schools were so obsessed with student success that they were willing to overcome any obstacle that got in their way.

Literacy: Brockton High School (MA) is a large (4,350) urban high school that has focused on raising the literacy--reading, writing, thinking, discussing--levels of ALL students, particularly its large ELL population. Principal, Susan Szachowicz, and a "handful of fellow teachers" organized a school wide campaign that brought reading and writing lessons into every class in all subjects, including gym. According to a New York Times article, Brockton's literacy-for-all success has defied the "small is better orthodoxy" proving that any school can beat the odds and raise student performance.

Attendance: The audience turned to each other with looks of disbelief when the staff of Arroyo High School (CA) posted their three-year attendance figures. Arroyo's average daily attendance was well over 96%. For a large, high-poverty, high minority, urban high school, 96% is phenomenal. However, I could see the enthusiasm abate as the staff spent about twenty minutes describing all the initiatives the school used to improve attendance. As I have emphasized over and over again, improving student attendance is all about hard work and will power, and the Arroyo staff have plenty of both. Arroyo's success formula is simple. Get the students to attend school every day and make sure that the students succeed.

Course Failure: The presentation began with a simple but very effective slide that pointed out that, over a three-year period, Barberton (OH) High School had reduced course failures from over 2,500 to 350. The staff at Barberton must have read Bob Balfanz's dropout research that points out that course failure is one of the best indicators of dropping out of school. Admittedly, a school could reduce failures by simply lowering standards. This was not the case at Barberton, where the focus was clear and no obstacle too big to overcome. The staff used small learning communities, flexible scheduling, a unique master schedule, student-led conferences, and an advisory program among other strategies to significantly improve student performance.

The Bottom Line for School Leaders

We simply cannot afford to waste time, money, and effort on programs and strategies that will not improve our schools. Schools cannot have fifteen priorities and do them well. The more we try to do, the more we spread out and dissipate our effort. Focus is power! The reality is that "we do more when we do less." Saying no is much harder than saying yes to new initiatives, but saying no is the right thing, the courageous thing to do. Resolve today to stop majoring in the minors! Become obsessed with your priorities.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:40 PM | Permalink

Translation: Oh my God (OMG), laughing out loud (LOL) and my best friend forever (BFF) are now included in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

Heads up teachers! Here are the new academic vocabulary words--900 new words now included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Actually OMG is not new. It's first confirmed use was in a letter written by a British admiral in 1917.

OMG - "oh my God"

LOL - "laughing out loud"

IMHO - "in my humble opinion"

TMI - "too much information"

BFF - "best friend forever"

By the way (BTW) heart, which for my entire life was a noun, is now also a verb as in "to love."

Posted by Mel Riddile at 12:41 PM | Permalink

Blogger's Note: Few would deny that written communications is an essential skill. It is also a skill that is rarely practiced. While literacy (reading, writing, thinking, speaking) skills are the "spine that holds everything together in all subject areas," in most classrooms, little reading and almost no writing is practiced on a regular basis.

The author of a New York Times op-ed piece is a veteran English teacher who teaches college freshmen to write essays and research papers, which he contends "invite font-size manipulation, plagiarism and clichés."

He believes that "We need to set our sights not lower, but shorter." Instead of insisting on long research papers, this English teacher takes a different, perhaps more relevant approach.

The author believes that "learning how to write concisely, to express one key detail succinctly and eloquently, is an incredibly useful skill, and more in tune with most students’ daily chatter, as well as the world’s conversation. The photo caption has never been more vital."

He is able to enhance the writing skills of his students, make learning more relevant, and differentiate his teaching by using a number of practical writing strategies that any secondary teacher can adopt.

• “Come up with two lines of copy to sell something you’re wearing now on eBay.”
• "Describe the essence of the chalkboard in one or two sentences."
• “Write coherent and original comments for five YouTube videos, quickly telling us why surprised kittens or unconventional wedding dances resonate with millions.”
• Write Amazon reviews for the works we read this semester.
• Write a cover letter or a networking e-mail.

The author emphasizes that "short isn’t necessarily a shortcut. When you have only a sentence or two, there’s nowhere to hide." "I’m not suggesting that colleges eliminate long writing projects from English courses, but maybe we should save them for the second semester."

"Rewarding concision first will encourage students to be economical and innovative with language."

Thoughts for learning leaders

• Reading gets students to college. Writing keeps them there.
• Writing improves reading skills.
• How can we improve our students' writing skills if they never write?
• Concise writing requires deep thinking.
• Synthesizing a complete thought into a few words requires students to engage in higher-order thinking.
• There are numerous examples of teachers using Twitter-like writing to enhance the writing skills of their students.

Strategy: Ask students to take an article or a passage from a book and condense it into PowerPoint bullets of no more than 8 words.

All of the above strategies would make excellent "bell-work" activities.

Writing Resources

Writing to Read: How Writing Can Improve Reading
(2010) www.carnegie.org/literacy

Writing Next (2007) http://www.all4ed.org/files/WritingNext.pdf

Posted by Mel Riddile at 01:42 PM | Permalink

I received this message from a former colleague in an email this morning. "Did you see 60 minutes last night?  A school is paying teachers $125,000 per year and their student score are NOT going up!"

The title of the 60 minutes segment was "NYC charter school's $125,000 experiment: Does a non-unionized school that pays teachers a higher salary get better results?"

Background

Would teachers be willing to give up tenure and job security for a chance to earn a lot more money? "There's a school in New York City that's trying to prove just that. It's a bold new experiment in public education called "TEP," which stands for The Equity Project, a charter school that is publicly funded but privately run. It's offering its teachers $125,000 a year - more than double the national average." Zeke Vanderhoek is TEP's founder and principal.

"TEP aims to prove that attracting the best and brightest teachers and holding them accountable for results is the essential ingredient to a school's success. Could this school become a national model for the future of public education? That's the $125,000 question."

Demographics

TEP students are mostly African American and Hispanic, and almost all of them come from poor families. More than two-thirds of the students are reading below grade level when they get to TEP." There are currently 247 fifth and sixth graders and 15 teachers. That is a ratio of 16.5 students for every teacher.

Why pay teachers $125,000 a year?

"Because they're worth it, because teachers are the key, and if we can pay them this with the existing dollars, why aren't we doing it?" Vanderhoek replied.

"I don't think paying people more makes them a better teacher. You take a mediocre teacher, you double their salary, nothing's gonna change. So, if you wanna attract and retain talent, you have to pay for it. And that is ultimately how student achievement will be impacted," he added."

How are TEP teachers different?

According to the principal, "They're not. There are great teachers in almost every public school in the city. The difference is that they are often the exception, not the rule. So what we're trying to do is build a school where every teacher is a great teacher."

Student Engagement

Teachers must "produce some evidence that the students in their classrooms move from point A to point B," Vanderhoek explained. "In order for students to demonstrate that growth, they have to be into it. And so the teacher has to be able to engage students."

Closing the Achievement Gap

According to 60 Minutes, "the school's challenge is one that has bedeviled American educators for decades: how to get poor, minority, inner city kids to achieve at the same levels as kids from more affluent neighborhoods."

"The difference between a great teacher and a mediocre or poor teacher is several grade levels of achievement in a given year," Vanderhoek replied. "A school that focuses all of its energy and its resources on fantastic teaching can bridge the achievement gap."

Where does the money come from?

"There are no state-of-the-art facilities - classes take place in trailers. And the money that would go to pay for an assistant principal, reading specialist and other staff goes into teachers' salaries. But that means the teachers have to do those jobs as well."

Note: The report never indicated if the school requires students to apply, nor did the report indicate if the school served special education or ELL students.

Teacher Evaluation

Teachers are continuously evaluated by the principal and by each other.

Expectations of Teachers

According to one teacher, "The greatest benefit of working at TEP is that it's not okay to just be okay. And every lesson does need to be laser focused and super sharp so that you can get the best outcomes from it."

Students Say

"They actually care if we succeed and pass college."

"In my old school, I didn't really get that much attention and help with my class work, so I didn't do as well. Here, I'm getting As and Bs because the teachers stay on top of you and they actually help you when you need help," another said.

Teachers on Teaching

"You just have to believe in the kids. And I know that they can learn. And if there's a roadblock, if they're not getting it you know, look at me (teacher) first."

Tenure: If you have a pulse

Most charter schools like TEP are not unionized and don't offer teachers tenure.

"The idea that somebody could have a job for life no matter how they perform is not good for people in that job, much less for the students who have to suffer if that individual has gone downhill," Vanderhook said.

Asked if he thinks tenure should be abolished in general, Vanderhoek said, "Yes."

"If you have a pulse, you get tenure," former NYC Superintendent, Joel Klein said.

Can TEP be scaled up?

Klein says that traditional public schools can't follow the TEP model. Vanderhoek is able to make personnel decisions based on performance, but most schools can't because of tenure.

"It's virtually impossible to terminate an incompetent teacher. The process is so cumbersome that very few people will try. And so, as a result, we virtually get rid of no one for poor performance in the city," Klein said.

"In New York City more teachers have died while on the payroll than have been removed for cause. Over the past three years, out of 55,000 tenured teachers, only seven have been removed for poor performance."

Criteria for Evaluating Teachers

"Is the classroom managed in a way that supports instruction? Second, are the kids engaged? Are they on task? And third, is there evidence that students started at point A and grew to point B?" he explained.

Does More Mean Better?

Teachers indicated that it was not uncommon to put in 80 to 90 hours a week at TEP.

Disappointing Results

"When the fifth graders took the New York State math and reading exams, the results were disappointing. On average, other schools in the district scored better than TEP."

Note: There was no mention of the beginning and ending proficiency levels reached by the school.

It takes time!

"We don't have a magic wand. We're not gonna take kids who are scoring below grade level and bring them up in a year," Vanderhoek said.

"You're the head of the school, the principal. Why do you get to keep your job?" Vanderhoek was asked. "Ultimately to build an excellent organization is going to take time. And if that doesn't happen let's say four years from now, then I shouldn't keep my job," Vanderhoek said.

My Thoughts

- A school that has total control over hiring and firing and also controls which students attend and which students do not attend the school, in my mind, should show significant improvement. How can it not?

- Principal Vanderhoek is correct. It does take time to "build an excellent organization." The culture--attitudes, beliefs, expectations, and behaviors of the adults--must change and culture does not change in a year. TEP teachers were educated at the same colleges and universities as those teachers in other schools. So, why should they be any better or worse than any other teachers? The ultimate question is "Are the teachers better teachers for having taught in that school?" Are the students and teachers being set up for success? Does the culture of the school focus on student success or adult wants?

- There was a glaring omission from the schools criteria for teacher success--classroom management, student engagement, and improved test scores. Given the demographics of the school that consisted of large numbers of under-resourced students, the school staff should consider adding cross-content literacy instruction to their criteria for teacher success.

- The students are saying all the right things about their teachers. That combined with the fact that the teachers are working 80-90 hours a week and not getting results might indicate that they are not working on those things that raise student achievement and working longer will not produce better results. Activity does not equal success.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:27 PM | Permalink

I hesitate to address the sensitive topic of international comparisons with school leaders who have to face the reality of leading schools on a day-to-day basis. However, I wasn't subjected to the kind of attacks on public schools, teachers, and principals that we have experienced of the past year. In the past, when NAEP or PISA results were released, we simply shrugged our shoulders and moved on. Today, however, our teachers and community expect us to respond when asked. In fact, our silence on this matter could be deafening.

That is why I put together some talking points for school leaders on the 2009 PISA results. I have drawn from a number of sources including the Organization for Economic Cooperation (OECD), which coordinates the international assessments and the Washington Post.

Background

• Begun in 2000, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a system of international assessments that focuses on 15-year-olds' capabilities in reading literacy, mathematics literacy, and science literacy.
• PISA is coordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries. 38 OECD nations and 28 partner nations participated in the assessment.
• PISA includes measures of general or cross-curricular competencies such as problem solving.
• PISA emphasizes functional skills that students have acquired as they near the end of compulsory schooling.
• The U.S. sample for the latest results includes both public and private schools, with 165 schools and 5,233 students participating in all. Schools are randomly selected and 15-year-old students within those schools are randomly selected.

2009 Results

• Reading: The U.S. average score in reading (500) was not measurably different than other OECD countries. U.S. female students scored higher than male students.
• U.S. 15-year-olds had an average score of 500 on the combined reading literacy scale, not measurably different from the OECD average score of 493. Among the 33 other OECD countries, 6 countries had higher average scores than the United States, 13 had lower average scores, and 14 had average scores not measurably different from the U.S. average. Among the 64 other OECD countries, non-OECD countries and other education systems, 9 had higher average scores than the United States, 39 had lower average scores, and 16 had average scores not measurably different from the U.S. average. 

• Math: U.S. average score in math was lower than the OECD average. Male students, in general, scored higher than female students. Since 2006, U.S. has caught up with 9 countries.
• U.S. 15-year-olds had an average score of 487 on the mathematics literacy scale, which was lower than the OECD average score of 496. Among the 33 other OECD countries, 17 countries had higher average scores than the United States, 5 had lower average scores, and 11 had average scores not measurably different from the U.S. average. Among the 64 other OECD countries, non-OECD countries, and other education systems, 23 had higher average scores than the United States, 29 had lower average scores, and 12 had average scores not measurably different from the U.S. average score. 

• Science: 12 other OECD countries had higher average scores than the United States.
• On the science literacy scale, the average score of U.S. students (502) was not measurably different from the OECD average (501). Among the 33 other OECD countries, 12 had higher average scores than the United States, 9 had lower average scores, and 12 had average scores that were not measurably different. Among the 64 other OECD countries, non-OECD countries, and other education systems, 18 had higher average scores, 33 had lower average scores, and 13 had average scores that were not measurably different from the U.S. average score.
• Male students scored higher than female students. Overall score was higher than 2006, and the gains in science exceeded those for math.
• The US is one of three nations that give more money to highly advantaged schools than to disadvantaged schools.
• Overall, private schools do better on PISA...until you account for SES.
• There are number of high performing economically disadvantaged schools in the US: "success is possible against all odds."

U.S. Strengths and Weaknesses

• U.S. students showed the best relative performance in answering questions that judged students’ ability to reflect and evaluate information. On that measure, the United States ranked seventh out of the 34 OECD nations.
• The weakest area for U.S. achievement was in accessing and retrieving information, for which students tied for 19th place with France.

Behind the Facts

• The PISA rankings are determined by nations’ average scores. "Some researchers have suggested, however, that average score comparisons are not useful: even presuming that the tests have some meaning for future accomplishment, average students are not likely to be the leaders in fields of mathematics and science."
• In the last administration of PISA, the United States has 25% of all high-scoring students in the world. Among nations with high average scores, Japan accounted for 13% of the highest scorers, Korea 5%, Taipei 3%, Finland 1%, and Hong Kong 1%.
• The fact that one of four high-scoring students came from the United States and the remaining high-scores came from the other 58 countries participating "suggests that many American schools are actually doing very well indeed."
• "Well-resourced schools serving wealthy neighborhoods are showing excellent results. Poorly resourced schools serving low-income communities of color do far worse."
• The U.S. had many more students scoring at the lowest levels; these kids likely can’t compete for the good jobs in the country."
• "Americans in low-poverty schools look very good, even in mathematics. They would be ranked third in the 4th grade (among 36 nations) 6th in the 8th grade (among 47 nations). This is important because while other developed nations have poor children, the U. S. has a much higher proportion and a much weaker safety net. When UNICEF studied poverty in 22 wealthy nations, the U. S. ranked 21st."
• The highest scoring countries have less diversity and less poverty.

PISA confirms what we already know. The U.S. is quite capable of producing top performing students in well-resourced schools serving middle class neighborhoods. Under-resourced schools in poor neighborhoods do not fare as well.

Resources:

OECD

Are today’s students prepared for the knowledge economy of the 21st century?

PISA: Who made the grade? (OECD)

Washington Post

Do international test comparisons make sense?

Hysteria over PISA misses the point

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:54 AM | Permalink

by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

Previously, Mel Riddile has asked whether there is a schism within high school faculties as a result of the continual emphasis on standardized testing.   He quotes a teacher who believes there is such a problem—the core teachers feel they are receiving an unfair level of scrutiny while the non-core believe they are being ignored. 

A perfect storm of discontent  

There is little doubt that the public spotlight is squarely on a school’s standardized test scores and the teachers whose students produce them.  Schools are accredited, ranked, and publically evaluated based on the results of a few tests in a limited number of subjects.  Virtually every conversation concerning teacher evaluation begins, and too often ends, with a desire to use student test scores as a major component. With the misguided encouragement of educational leaders some newspapers have ranked teachers based on their students’ results. Virtually every discussion of merit pay includes student scores as a primary consideration.

It is not surprising that this fixation on certain numbers has split teaching staffs into two separate camps.  The pressure on those who are responsible for tested classes is immense and often oppressive.  As it ratchets up during the year, these teachers become increasingly resentful of their colleagues who do not have to deal with similar issues.  Intensifying these sentiments is the irony that so much attention is being given to a group that represents less than one third of a typical high school staff.

These ingredients result in the great disconnect within the teaching community.  If test results are a must in evaluation and merit pay, what does that say about those who do not produce such scores?  Many teachers are forced to ask some tough questions.  Do policymakers mistakenly believe that all educators produce such scores?   Or worse, do they feel that creating an evaluation for those teachers is not a critical concern?  Likewise, should they be excluded from merit pay consideration?  Regardless of the reasons, the message they hear is clear—if you do not create standardized test data within your classroom, you are relegated to a lesser status.

This educational caste system gets worse.  It turns out that not all standardized tests scores are equal.  NCLB focuses on only the results of math and English exams.  The exclusion of science and social studies from this mandate places the teachers of those subjects in a difficult position. While they have the same curriculum pressures as math and English colleagues, their work is clearly not considered as important. The state of Virginia has affirmed this stance.  While a score of 400 on the end-of-course exams is required for a “pass”, the state established a special policy for students in the two non-NCLB curricula—if a student takes the exam twice and scores at least 375 on one of the attempts, they are eligible for a “locally verified credit”.  The teacher and school are still charged with a failing score but a student who has mastered less than 35% of the material is declared successful. 

No cures but some ways to help

While it is impossible for any school to totally alter the educational culture, there are steps that can be taken to lessen the chasm between core and non-core teachers.  As Dr. Riddile noted in his post, the implementation of a literacy program at his school was woven into the entire curriculum.  This approach was the result of both necessity and design.  In order to be successful, this initiative needed to be incorporated into all subjects rather than implemented by the English department alone.  By asking every discipline to embed literacy into all of their classroom activities, staff members had an equal stake in a critically important program.  Every meeting, email or memo in regards to this program was appropriate for the entire staff.

The school took a number of additional steps to mitigate this problem.  The goal of each of these concepts was simple—demonstrate to all teachers that every class was important.  These included:

The end of year testing schedule did not negatively impact non-tested classes. Many schools adopted testing schedules that would involve massive disruptions to all classes for an extended period of time.  Considering that more than two thirds of the classes in our building did not have end-of-course exams such an approach was deemed to be unacceptable.  Our test schedule was designed to ensure that every class would meet during the entire testing window.  The length of the periods would be altered to allow appropriate time for the exams but no class was lost.  Also since testing was done within the period the subject was taught, no students were pulled from other rooms to test. 

Discussions of SOL (state assessment) issues were limited to staff members who were directly affected.  At department chair meetings, the core department chairs would meet as a group after the conclusion of the topics pertaining to all subjects.  Likewise, faculty meetings were focused on topics of general interest.

Another possible solution

Authentic success in almost any endeavor is the result of an outstanding team effort.  Improvement in standardized test score is no exception.  Why not acknowledge this achievement as a school-wide effort?  Instead of awarding merit pay to individual teachers whose students exceed certain standards, a practice that can cause divisions within a staff, reward the entire school when the student body attains prescribed benchmarks.  Either give a bonus to all staff members or make the award in the form of extra funding for the school and its programs.   While such an approach would not end all friction among teachers, it would certainly be a good starting point.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:04 AM | Permalink

The Public Policy Institute of California has published a report evaluating the success of a comprehensive literacy initiative implemented in the San Diego Unified School District, the second largest district in the state, between 2000-2005. While the school district employed different strategies at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, professional development for teachers was consistent at all levels. The results outlined in the report carry important implications for secondary leaders who seek to improve student performance by improving literacy skills.

Time – Increased time devoted to reading resulted in significant improvement at the elementary and middle school levels, but not at high school. An extended school year at the elementary level and extended-length English classes at the middle level resulted in significant student gains. The study did find that high school students who participated in triple-length English classes were more likely to be promoted to the next grade but were not prepared to participate in college-level courses. The extra time spent on reading did not diminish performance in other courses nor were students discouraged as evidenced by lower graduation rates.

Professional Development – The study found that the investment in professional development for teachers was a key factor in improving student achievement.

Fidelity of Implementation – The study pointed out “a key aspect of San Diego’s reform program was that it was comprehensive and coherent. Interventions often were applied in two or more of the elementary, middle, and high school grade spans. Further, professional development was delivered uniformly, with a single focused goal, to teachers throughout the district.”

Change takes time! – The report emphasizes the need for policy makers and districts to be patient. Many of the reforms took years to bear fruit. For example, peer coaching did not result in improvement in the early stages of the program, but did in the remaining years. Apparently, this is a message that has been missed by most school reformers.

Implications for school leaders

When it comes to improving literacy skills, the longer we wait to intervene, the more difficult it is. Elementary and middle school students can catch up if given more time and better-trained teachers. However, high school students are often so far behind that extended English classes are not sufficient.

We learned from practice that students who do not come from language-enriched homes needed direct, explicit literacy instruction each year or their skills did not improve. Our school had a large number of under-resourced students who had not had reading instruction since the 3rd grade. As a result, we had many students who were reading at the 4th, 5th and 6th grade levels.

In that most high school texts are written at the 11th grade level, we had to help students make five or six years of progress just to be able to do high school work. When our students entered the 9th grade lacking literacy skills, our goal became graduation not college-readiness.

High school students who lack literacy skills are critically ill education patients who need intensive interventions taught by trained specialists in addition to a comprehensive school wide approach that supports the work they do in the intervention classes. Even in the best of circumstances, it takes years to bring students up to level.

High school principals and teachers are caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Only 20% of students arrive in the 9th grade on-target for postsecondary education. Yet, high schools are held accountable for preparing all students to be college-, career-, and workplace-ready, and, according to the current reform models, they have one to two years in which to do so.

Responsible change takes hard work, patience and time!

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:53 PM | Permalink

Have you had a chance to review the new Common Core Standards? How do your state math and ELA standards stack up against the new Common Core State Standards? According to a new report issued by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, many states have a lot of work ahead of them.

• ELA Common Core Standards are more rigorous than the standards in 37 states.
• Math Common Core Standards are more rigorous than the standards in 39 states.
• ELA and Math Common Core Standards are more rigorous than both ELA and math standards in 33 states.

In addition, the report, which provides state-by-state analysis, indicates “California, Indiana and the District of Columbia have ELA standards that are clearly superior to those of the Common Core. And nearly a dozen states have ELA or math standards in the same league as the Common Core.”

Principal’s Perspective

• For school leaders, the rules and the game are about to change.
• For most, the bar will be set significantly higher.
• For those in states with already high standards, the new standards will not necessarily be more rigorous, but they will different.
• If your school does not teach literacy (reading, writing, higher-order thinking, and discussion) skills schoolwide in all core content areas, get ready, because you will. (I will write a separate blog article on literacy and the new Common Core Standards.)
• By my estimate, the Common Core ELA Standards raise the reading requirements for all students by at least two years over the current standards.
• The Common Core Standards are new and by definition schools do not currently have the capacity to teach to the new standards. That means years of job-imbedded professional development.
• Teacher training programs are not yet preparing teachers to teach to the new standards.

The Bottom Line

Principal will again be asked to build the airplane while it is in flight. Expectations will continue to increase in the face of declining resources and more rigorous standards.

Principals will be held accountable for successfully implementing the new Common Core Standards while continuing to raise student achievement even though their current teachers and their new teachers do not and will not have the training needed to teach to those standards.

The New Equation

Higher expectation + more rigorous standards – declining resources – less teacher capacity = Our job just became much more difficult!

Posted by Mel Riddile at 04:01 PM | Permalink

Teachers have been telling me for years that many of their students identified with learning disabilities were actually poor readers. In addition, school leaders have consistently urged our staffs to view special education as a last resort.

It appears that the emphasis on literacy including diagnostic assessment, early intervention, and explicit instruction coupled with a response to intervention (RtI) approach to raising the performance each and every student is having a positive effect. The number of students identified with learning disabilities has dropped 11 percent in five years.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 12:27 PM | Permalink

In a recent post, we reported that early reading success predicted later algebra success, which, in turn, predicted college success. The reading, math, success connection is clear and unmistakable. The bottom line is that there is very little that students can do if they cannot read. Simply put, reading skills are the best indicator of current and future student success.

A recent study indicates that reading skills are the best predictor of future success and earning power. However, two-thirds of third graders students are reading below the proficient level and the situation is not improving.

The persistence of the "achievement gap," often attributed to differences in family incomes and first languages, is "profoundly disappointing to all of us who see school success and high school graduation as beacons in the battle against intergenerational poverty," wrote Leila Feister, the author of the report, "Early Warning! Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters" from the Annie B. Casey Foundation.

To get all students reading at grade level by the end of third grade, the foundation report offered these recommendations:

• Improve health and education in early childhood, starting with healthy births.
• Encourage and enable parents and caregivers to be involved in children's educations. Families should read to and converse with their kids to help develop language skills.
• Use data-driven initiatives to transform low-performing schools into high-quality teaching and learning environments.
• Reduce the chronic absences
• Reduce summer learning loss that often contributes to the under-achievement of children from low-income families

Principal Pointers

• Even though the report focuses on early readers, it has important implications for secondary leaders:
• Due to the fact that most schools stop reading instruction at the end of the third grade, it is highly unlikely that student will improve reading skills on their own.
• Under-resourced students need explicit literacy instruction at every grade level or their skills will not improve.
• Even if every third grader were reading at the proficient level, we would need to continue literacy instruction at every grade level in order to compensate for the lack or language enrichment that under-resourced students experience outside of the school.
• The longer we wait to rescue struggling readers the more challenging is our task.
• Remediation is expensive, time consuming, and often not successful.

We cannot afford to allow students to fall farther and farther behind. We must intervene early and often.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 01:54 PM | Permalink

According to a recent study, placing literacy coaches in schools can help boost students’ reading skills by as much as 32 percent over a three year period. Although the study involved elementary students, I believe that the findings have direct implications for secondary schools. This study is among the first in a new generation of research that helps school leaders identify not only what works but also when, under what conditions, and to some extent, why.

Here are some of the key points of the research:

• Reading gains were greatest in schools where teachers received more coaching.
• More coaching took place in schools where teachers felt they had a voice in what went on in their building and where professional networks among teachers were already strong.
• Schools that employed targeted teaching routines more often in their classes had the biggest gains in reading achievement.
• Having an instructional system in place accelerated the process of teacher learning.

Implications for School Leaders

1. Fidelity of implementation is the key to success. Even the best programs implemented poorly will not raise achievement.
2. Direct, explicit instruction raises student achievement and the same can be said for teachers. Direct, explicit coaching focused on targeted teaching routines will improve student achievement.
3. Students, particularly struggling students, respond positively to recognizable classroom routines.
4. Having a school wide instructional model or system sets both students and teachers up for success.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:45 PM | Permalink

We too often think of literacy as simply reading words. In reality, literacy is reading for comprehension, writing, higher-order thinking, as well as speaking and discussing.

What separates top students from their counterparts is their writing skills. Today’s release of Writing To Read makes the case that writing actually improves reading in three ways:

1. Writing about what we read deepens our understanding, personalizes, and connects us to what we have read.
2. Improving writing skills has been shown to improve reading skills.
3. Writing improves thinking and helps us to gain insight about reading.

By some estimates, only 20% of students have the writing skills they need to succeed in college and postsecondary education and training. Keep in mind that 20% or less of our ninth graders eventually graduate from college. If we are going to break through the 20% barrier, we must improve students’ literacy skills.

"Reading gets them to college, but writing keeps them there." - Mel Riddile

Posted by Mel Riddile at 03:20 PM | Permalink

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

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 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

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)