"Lectures have been equally ineffective for centuries."--Carl Weiman

The Boston Globe headline read "Study: It's not the teacher, but method that matters." The headline is misleading. In fact, the study reveals that it is the teacher and how the teacher teaches that matters the most. While the study looked at college physics students, the findings apply to all levels of teaching and learning.

According to Science Magazine, the study conducted by Nobel Prize winning physicist, Carl Weiman, found that "students learned a lot more from teaching assistants using interactive tools than they did from a veteran professor giving a traditional lecture." The students who had to engage interactively using the TV remote-like devices scored about twice as high on a test compared to those who heard the normal lecture."

Active Engagement

According to the report the interactive method used had almost no lecturing. It involved "short, small-group discussions, in-class "clicker" quizzes, demonstrations and question-answer sessions. Frequent Checks for Understanding

"The teachers got real-time graphic feedback on what the students were learning and what they weren't getting."

Weiman said that "It's really what's going on in the students' minds rather than who is instructing them." In other words, lecturers focus on content and teaching, while those using interactive methods put the focus on student learning and process.

The Mindset of the Teacher

Those teachers who prefer lectures with no discussion believe that their job is to impart knowledge. To lecturers, the mind is a vessel to be filled. This is not to say that teachers should never lecture. Students often need background knowledge that may necessitate some use of lecture.

On the other hand, teachers who prefer methods that actively engage students believe that what the student learns takes precedence over what they are teaching. They believe that the mind is a lamp that needs to be lit.

Behavior Doesn't Lie

Students vote with their feet. In the study, student attendance and attention were higher in the interactive class.

Conclusion

According to Weiman, "This is clearly more effective learning. Everybody should be doing this. ... You're practicing bad teaching if you are not doing this."

Wieman said "the need for a more hands-on teaching approach isn't an indictment of a generation raised on video games. It has more to do with the way the brain learns, he said. This method has long worked well in individual tutoring; it's just now being applied on a grander scale, he said.

My Take

High-performing schools are student and learning-focused. Struggling and underachieving schools are adult and teaching-focused. It is not what we teach that is important. The focus needs to be on what our students are learning as a result of our teaching.

Engagement, the active interaction of students with teachers and other students in relation to the content of the lesson, is the key to learning. Engaged learners learn more and they retain what they learn longer.

The option of choosing between lecturing and engaging students was taken off the table when we decided to eliminate factory model, ability-driven schools that sorted students in favor of work and effort-driven schools in which each and every student is expected to achieve to high levels.

A challenge to school leaders

Using the above definition of engagement--students actively interacting...--take a walk through some classrooms. If students are not actively interacting, they are not engaged. Hint: If teachers are calling on students who are raising their hands only a small minority of students will be engaged. The others may appear to be paying attention, but upon closer inspection, they could be doing or thinking about anything. Note: these teachers, while not truly engaging students are far superior to those who ask a question and answer their own question before the students can even raise their hands.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As measured by gains in student achievement, teachers, even experienced, mid-career classroom instructors, improved as a result of their participation in a formal evaluation process. An Education Week report cites two studies conducted in Cincinnati, which has an extended history using a formal evaluation system consisting of four formal observations. In Cincinnati, teachers are given a rating relating three standards: classroom practices, classroom management, and questioning and discussion techniques.

In addition to discovering that 1. Teacher participation in a formal evaluation process improved student achievement, the first study concluded the following:

2. Classroom Management Improves Math Performance

The study found that "while overall teaching practice was the best predictor of student achievement, classroom management was more highly correlated with better math performance."

3. Questioning Improves Reading

Teacher use of open-ended questions was more highly correlated with student performance than classroom management.

In a second study, also conducted in Cincinnati, student performance not only improved in the year that the mid-career teachers were being evaluated, but the improvement in student performance continued and even increased in the years following the evaluation.

It is important to note that in the Cincinnati evaluation system teachers are not evaluated annually and that the evaluation process does not use a value-added component. In addition, the Cincinnati teacher evaluation system connects to a career ladder for teachers, which may be a motivating factor.

Implications for School Leaders

- Teacher evaluation is not the most enjoyable part of a school leader's job. However, knowing that teacher evaluation improves student achievement makes the process more meaningful.

- If school leaders want to make a difference in student achievement, teacher evaluation is a no-cost way to do so.

- Teacher evaluation is most effective when the teachers are clear on what behaviors will be evaluated, and if both teachers and principals have had extensive, multi-year professional development. Cincinnati was chosen precisely because both factors were present. In addition, many states and districts are proposing similar evaluation models and Cincinnati's decade long experience should help inform future practice.

- Even more encouraging is the fact that student achievement continues to improve in the years following a meaningful evaluation process of even the most experienced teachers.

- It makes sense that questioning improves reading, but I wonder why classroom management makes a bigger difference in math classes. Perhaps the sequential nature of math demands continuous attention and student engagement--students miss out if they miss a step in the process.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 | Comments (0)

The following was excerpted from a Fairfax County Times article:

"In response to an opinion from Virginia Attorney General, Kenneth Cuccinelli, the Fairfax County School Board (177,000 students) voted Thursday night to refund Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exam fees to students.

The School Board had approved the test fees during its budget discussions last year as a way to cut costs. The estimated cost to refund the fees, school officials said, is $2 million."

State Constitution Guarantees a Free Education

"On Jan. 8, the Attorney General wrote that the school system's practice of charging AP and IB students a testing fee violated a provision in the state constitution that mandates access to a free education. Students were charged $75 for testing to help balance the school system's budget.

To comply with the Attorney General's opinion, the school system had the choice to either make the test optional for students taking AP and IB classes or to resume covering the testing costs and refund the previously collected fees, said Superintendent Jack D. Dale."

Principal Points

1. Schools in many areas charge fees and most states have provisions in their constitutions referencing a "free education." Does this mean that any and all fees violate the state constitutions?

 2. AP and IB courses are electives. Students voluntarily enroll in the courses. It makes sense that no fees could be charged for required courses, but what about electives?

3. Placing fees on tests is a particularly regressive way to balance a school budget. These fees discriminate against under-resourced students and the schools who serve them. Fees have little or no impact of resourced students. For middle class families, test fees are an inconvenience. For under-resourced students, the testing fee prevents them from taking the course. The last time these fees were assessed, our IB participation dropped by 20% even though the students were guaranteed that we, the school and the PTSA, would cover all fees for any student in need. The impact of test fees on course participation parallels participation in the federally subsidized lunch programs in high schools, many students are simply embarrassed and do not enroll. By the way, in the case of our school, as soon as the fees were eliminated, our participation levels returned immediately.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer!

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few days ago I introduced my wife to the new iPad app The Daily. Yesterday, she wanted to show me how amazing The Daily was and how she was using it. She particularly liked the videos imbedded in the articles.

"What if you could make a textbook look like this? she said.

I told her to go to the Kahn Academy website and then check out this YouTube video featured on the PBS NewsHour.

A few minutes later, she came back, "This is amazing! This is a dissertation! How long have you known about this?"

I replied, "I tweeted about this a while back. Don't you follow me?"

"I don't know how to do Twitter," she replied.

"Do you know how to use YouTube, I asked? There are some great Twitter tutorials there."

She retorted, "I don't tweet!"

So, you are not interested into tapping into the collective intelligence of hundreds of other people? You think it is better to do it alone?

The Bottom Line

No more excuses - If you have an Internet connection, there is no excuse for not learning about something that you really want to learn about. Look it up!

Check out the Khan Academy. What began as the founder "making a few algebra videos for his cousins has grown to over 2,100 videos and 100 self-paced exercises and assessments covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history." It is a great resource for teachers and students.

Twitter is the best way to tap into the collective intelligence of many people with whom you share common interests.

Next: Revisiting Reverse Instruction

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week I am blogging from the NASSP Conference in San Francisco.

"More is easy. Better is hard."

This morning I listened to Bill Daggett of ICLE talk about school improvement. Bill said something that I have heard him say many times before. In fact, I have used the same statement in many of my own presentations. What Bill said went something like this. "Teachers and principals in high-performing schools are not working harder than their counterparts in other schools, but they are working different."

I had to pause and recall our experience in moving from a good to a great school. I often describe the first three to five years as "dog years." Each year seemed like seven in terms of the stress and workload. However, the last four or five years were a lot different.

It seemed like we were working harder in the early years mainly because we were doing so much experimentation. We were trying to figure out a school wide approach to improving literacy and how to turn around our Algebra I performance. We were inventing things that no one else had done before. We were pioneers or "edunauts" as I called education improvers.

We were changing on a daily basis and that is stressful, but stressful doesn't mean working harder. It just seemed that way. Our teachers were already arriving early and leaving late and that never changed. From my perspective, I could not ask any of them to work harder.

We needed to get better and better is harder. What did change was that we were reaching "tipping points" and we started to see things change. We were actually making progress.

Our students were improving dramatically and it seemed like it happened in an instant. We would work and work and hope that we were doing the right thing. Then, all of a sudden, we would see improvement. We couldn't point to the exact moment when all the students were in class on time, or when all the teachers were teaching bell-to-bell, or when our reading performance and algebra achievement jumped, but it happened, and the positive changes began to gain momentum. Success became contagious.

I liken the school improvement process to an airplane taking off and eventually reaching cruising altitude. A lot of energy is expended in the takeoff and the climb to the desired altitude. However, at a point the plane reaches altitude and seems to ease off. Although the plane continues to expend energy, it seems to be taking less effort.

We never stopped working hard, but we were working in a different way, and different is hard, at least at first.

As we moved through the stages of change from forming, storming, norming on the way to performing, we were working just as hard but we were enjoying it more, and here is the key. We were making progress. We were making a difference with our students, and that made us even more determined. We simply refused to go back to the way it used to be, because the way it was was simply too much fun, and because we were having fun, everything seemed to be much easier.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Be careful what you ask for! Just about anyone could see this one coming. Cut school budgets and layoff teachers. Demand that teachers close the achievement gap. Tie evaluations to test scores. Threaten to fire teachers. Complain about teacher pay. Call schools failing. Then wonder why people don't want to be teachers.

School leaders and teachers face a new "perfect storm." The pressure to improve continues to rise and the resources continue to diminish.

According to a new report, "the number of Californians seeking to become teachers has plummeted by 45 percent over a seven year period – even as student enrollments are projected to rise by 230,000 over the next decade and as many as 100,000 teachers are expected to retire." Furthermore, "Teaching is clearly becoming a less and less desirable profession for Californians." While student populations continue to grow, the critics are going to get exactly what they asked for--more students and no new teachers.

I have said it all along. Our problem is not how to fire teachers, but rather how to recruit, train, and develop great teachers. This is confirmed by a report from the Center for Future of Teaching and Learning which warns about the brewing crisis:

"The disinvestment in building a top quality teacher workforce is at odds with rising demands for students' academic success. The fiscal crisis has so severely damaged the pipeline for recruiting and training new teachers that teaching quality may be put at risk for many years to come."

"Because of budget cuts, teachers are expected to do more with less, typically teaching in larger classes, with fewer counseling and other staff to help out with hard-to-teach children."

One expert put it bluntly, "Teachers are coping with lower compensation, fewer resources and increasing expectations of student achievement. "It is a reasonable expectation that a college sophomore or junior might think 'I might not even get a job, so perhaps I should look for another career."

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the context of high-stakes accountability, schools must do two things very well. First, schools must have a focus that is so clear and concise that every staff member can articulate it to anyone. Too many schools are fragmenting their efforts and straining limited resources by trying to do too much at the same time.

Secondly, reduced budgets and limited resources demands that schools get the most out of the resources at hand. That means that increasing performance by having each and every staff member work together to help raise student achievement.

In today’s world, a graduate who lacks the skills needed for postsecondary education and training is essentially sentenced to a lifetime of marginal employment and second-class citizenship. Schools cannot reach each and every student working when teachers work in isolation as they did when we were sorting students for success. Reaching every student will require the focused effort of the entire staff.

Working in isolation, the math department can only do so much to improve student math skills in the limited time available. Because science, social studies, math and English texts are written much differently and present the student with different challenges, raising literacy levels of all students requires the efforts of every teacher in every classroom. Each teacher must teach the language of his or her content area.

Since no one has all the answers and every school has its own DNA, we will need to pool our collective intelligence and build our capacity to deliver solutions that are appropriate for our students. Tapping into that collective intelligence requires that every staff member takes ownership of school-wide initiatives and that requires that they have input into key decisions. The kind of top-down leadership characteristic of schools in the past will not realize the requisite level of teacher buy-in. For school leaders, that means working in partnership with teachers and listening to their input.

Everyone Working Together

Because most of our teachers obtained most of their educational experience when teachers worked in isolation and received recognition for singular achievements, overcoming resistance and getting everyone working together is a hard sell for many school leaders. We have the difficult task of convincing our teachers that different times demand different approaches and it is in everyone's best interest to work together.

Who better to talk about the importance of teachers working together than a veteran teacher? In “One for All and All for One—No Thanks,” The Teacher Leader provides principals and school leaders with one of the most poignant conversation starters in recent memory. The Teacher Leader makes a number of important points relating to the impact that teachers have on one another and the need for all of us to work together as well as the consequences of not doing so.

"No individuals in a school are as adversely affected by ineffectual teachers than the remainder of the staff." The Teacher Leader emphasizes that teachers impact their students, their fellow teachers, and their school in either a positive or negative way. Whether they realize it or not, they are part of a team and the team is only as strong as the weakest link.

Poor teachers act to "spread an infection throughout the building." A poor teacher creates classroom management problems for everyone." Poor classroom managers make it difficult for their colleagues to establish routines and high expectations for student behavior. For example, teachers who ignore tardiness undermine their peers who are trying to maximize learning time by ensuring the on-time behavior of their students. "It becomes a far more difficult task for teachers to enforce their own behavioral expectations when similar expectations are being ignored in other locations."

"A poor teacher will disrupt not only their own classes, but all subsequent classes in   courses that are taught sequentially." A weak Algebra I teacher makes life difficult for Geometry and Algebra II teachers.  "The worst case scenario for students is to pass a course with poor understanding of the required material.  These students are then doomed to struggle with all successive classes in that sequence."

"A poor teacher results in students losing time in other classes. Most administrators will tell you that suspensions are more frequently the result of misbehavior in a weak teacher’s room than in a strong one.  But a suspension results in students missing all classes not just the one where the infraction occurred. "

"A poor teacher can wreak havoc with the grading system." Consistency is the key to an effective grading system. When individual teachers fail to maintain high standards or are inconsistent, "other teachers will suffer."

The Bottom Line

Working together to "ensure student success" is everyone's job and perhaps the most important challenge confronting today's school leaders. Building unity of purpose means changing the culture of the school from a focus on individual teachers and their wants to a culture in which teams of teachers focus on the needs of each and every student.

While teacher evaluation systems are certainly important, the key to continuous improvement is not inspection of teaching practices, but, rather, in building quality instruction into the teaching process through continuous, connected, and ongoing job-embedded professional development.

I made a commitment to our teachers. Other than the knowledge of your content area, for which you hold a license the state, I will only hold you accountable for what we teach you. Whatever we expect you to know and be able to do, it is our responsibility to teach you. In return, I ask you to make the same commitment to your students. Whatever you want them to know and be able to do, it is your responsibility to teach them.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 01:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If a business increased its production by 44% with no drop in quality and no increase in equipment costs and with no additional resources, researchers would be beating a path to the company’s door and Jim Collins would be writing a “Good to Great” book about the company. Why? In the real world, simultaneous quantitative and qualitative improvements are rare.

However, when the number of SAT test-takers increases by 44% with an increase in math scores and no drop in reading or writing “there isn’t any huge news here.” Despite fewer teachers, more students, and big budget cuts, more and more students are taking both the SAT and ACT. When it comes to public schools, simultaneous quantitative and qualitative increases are apparently the new expectation.

I know that it is fashionable to bash schools, but the refusal to give any credit where credit is due undermines the credibility of the reporters and so-called experts.

Only someone who had actually worked in a school would understand that the additional 44% of SAT test takers probably does not include members of the National Honor Society. They have already been taking the tests for years. That 44% represents less capable students who, in decades past, would not have even considered taking the SAT.

The experts won’t say it but I will. We still have a lot to do, but great work teachers and principals!

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“There is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequal people.”—Thomas Jefferson

While there may be disagreement about how to improve our lowest performing school, both Arne Duncan and the public agree that they must get better. Ironically, just as the interest in schools is peaking the economy is rapidly eroding any chances we have of turning these schools around.

The reality is that a bad economy adversely affects us all. While we all suffer when budgets are slashed, some are hurt more than others. In education, those students who have the least and who can least afford it as well as the schools that serve those students, are hurt the most. While fewer teachers, larger classes, and fewer resources hurt all students, they devastate schools with high numbers of disadvantaged students. Already high-performing schools are working hard to maintain excellence, but, most of these schools are made up of middle class students whose parents will make up for any deficiencies. Under-resourced schools, many of which are located in the poorest areas of the country, must make double-digit gains every year just to catch up have no backup plan. Many of their parents are undereducated themselves and are working two and three jobs just to survive.

Simply put, our neediest students need the most help. Under-resourced students arrive at school already behind their middle class peers and they rely on us to do whatever it takes to help close the gap. Whatever these students need—food, clothing, medical care, psychological services, social services--it is up to us to provide it. Hunger makes learning more difficult.

We had hoped that the most recent federal assistance could save many teacher jobs. However, according to the principals I have talked to, the money from the emergency jobs bill is not trickling down to schools fast enough to save jobs this school year. It was simply too late. Because states don’t need to spend the money until the end of the next school year, many are holding on to the funds in fear that next year will be even worse.

Doing more with less is quickly becoming a worn out cliché. It is one thing to have a bad budget year, but how many bad years in a row can a school weather. Raising student achievement in the face of massive layoffs and draconian budget cuts is a lot harder than it sounds. One principal I know has had a 12% increase in student population over the past two years while his staff has been cut 20%. Cutting staff in the face of increasing enrollment normally spells disaster. Despite the cuts, his school has made AYP the last two years. However, to make AYP this year, the school must achieve double-digit gains in both reading and math with more students and deep staff cuts. Worse yet, it appears that there will be more cuts next year.

School systems across the country are being forced to make huge, across-the-board cuts—teachers, support staff, maintenance, and technology. Not only will students have fewer course choices, but also their classes will be larger, have less technology, and overall fewer resources.

Some experts will tell you that the only fair way to make these cuts is to make them equally across all schools and all levels. While it is certainly more convenient to manage a budget that way, the fact is that some cuts directly impact under-resourced students much more than they do their middle class counterparts.

For example, one highly regarded suburban school system has decided to make students pay $75 for every Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exam. While I am not contesting the need to make these budget cuts, I know from personal experience that this policy will have little impact on middle class students. However, it will unfairly target disadvantaged students and will significantly reduce the number of poor and under-resourced students who take these college-level courses. Requiring students to pay for these tests will reduce the number of students who take the courses, and will effectively undo years of progress and the efforts of a whole host of teachers, counselors, and administrators to raise expectations and skill levels.

This “one size fits all mentality” victimizes under-resourced students and slams the door of opportunity in their faces. This practice will directly prevent many students from attending college who could have reversed the destiny of their entire family by being the first to graduate from college. For many of these students, not taking these courses will be the difference between going to college and not. For other students, it will mean a loss of scholarship money, which will have essentially the same effect.

The last time we went through cuts of this kind, there was a significant drop in the number of disadvantaged students taking IB courses at our school. As soon as the policy was reinstated a year later, the numbers bounced back. If the policy had been in effect more than a year, the damage most likely would have been irreparable. What took our diverse, high-poverty school years to accomplish was undone in a single year. Our tireless work to improve reading, writing, and math skills in an attempt to prepare students to take advanced courses was undone by this strategy.

The same people who ask if school cafeterias are necessary are the same people who ask how could $75 make that much difference? The fact is that it isn’t that big of a deal to middle class families, but to students who depend on the school for two meals every day, and, in some cases the clothes on their backs, $75 is the difference between eating, paying the rent, and taking and not taking a course.

Despite that fact that our PTA raised money to guarantee that every test would be paid for, we had the same kind of drop in IB course enrollment that we see in applications for federally subsidized lunches when students transition from middle to high school. Ask high school principals and they will tell you that their applications for free and reduced-price meals are about 30% lower than their elementary and middle-level feeder schools. Why? Many high school students are simply too proud or too embarrassed to admit that they cannot afford to buy lunch.

Incidentally, that previously mentioned high school that has experienced a rise in enrollment and a 20% drop in staff now has only one guidance counselor for its 850 students. Now, who do you think will miss the counselor the most, the middle class students whose parents attended college themselves and who can afford to obtain private college-counseling or the under-resourced students whose parents have never set foot on a college campus and can barely pay the rent?

The Bottom Line

School leaders are in the unenviable position of deciding who will live educationally and who will die educationally. Decision-makers who insist that, unless every school has a particular resource, no school in that system will have that resource, think that they are being fair, when, in reality, they are singling out their neediest students and forcing them to compete on an uneven playing field. As leaders, we must make every effort to ensure that the cuts that we are forced to make do not target our weakest and neediest students. We must speak for those who have no voice.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 08:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Principals take note. There is a bull’s eye on your back!

The policy wonks new mantra is “We’ve got to do something. We must improve schools.” So, what do we do? Let’s find a convenient target of opportunity and strike. Then, at least we can say we did something. So, what is the easiest target? Not the teachers. There are too many teachers, and besides, everyone likes teachers. Let’s replace the principal. After all, when things aren’t going well at a school, the principal should be held responsible. For more than a decade, the school’s report card has been the principal’s report card. As one of my mentors told me years ago, “You (the principal) can delegate responsibility, but never accountability.

For someone to believe that the current school reform models are viable ways to improve schools, they would have to believe that the principal acts autonomously, independent of the school district. In fact, this could not be farther from the truth.

Take for instance the situation in Columbus, Ohio. For the first week of school, student transportation was a nightmare. Buses, when they did arrive, were as much as one to two hours late. The author, writing on the Flypaper blog, thought that was “appalling.” “In six days of school, only four of the buses that service CCA (Columbus Collegiate Academy) have been on time. School starts at 7:50 a.m., and First Student buses have dropped kids off as many as two hours late. You can imagine the impact this has on lost instructional time (not to mention the level of frustration experienced by parents, some of whom are new to the school).”

Guess who took the brunt of the teacher, parent, and student frustration--the principal, of course.

I learned very early as a principal that, as far as the students, parents, and teachers were concerned, I, the principal, was the school system. When the system doesn’t work, it is the principal who hears about it. When the buses were late, the lunches were cold, the books weren’t delivered, or when the AC didn’t work, it was the principal’s fault and responsibility to correct it.

I have better example than the Columbus bus fiasco. Six days is nothing. Try six weeks. A while back as the new principal, the district hit me with, what I refer to today as the “trifecta”—a three-part disaster. Yes, this was a set up, but it wasn’t intentional. At least, most of it wasn’t.

I was the new principal at the school in which the former principal had served for the last twenty-two years. I wanted to get off to a good start and make a good impression. Anyone who has ever worked in a school knows that everything is a team effort including transportation, food services, human resources, and facilities. If one part of the team drops the ball, the school suffers and the principal looks bad. If the school does well, it is because it has great teachers. If the school does poorly, it is because the principal is not getting the job done.

Trifecta: Part 1: Transportation

For the first six weeks of school, all buses were forty-five minutes to one hour late every day. Irate parents tied up the phone lines every morning. The police were upset because they couldn’t plan for traffic control. Teachers didn’t know when the buses arrived, so they had no idea when to start classes. Most days, we were getting ready to serve lunch before the students had even arrived. I spent the entire day apologizing publicly and complaining privately. I have never felt so helpless.

Trifecta: Part 2: Scheduling

Before I arrived in mid-July, I was assured by district staff that the master schedule would be completed. Well, it was completed except that 20% of the students had incomplete schedules. It seems that someone in central office had the bright idea to experiment with the schedule by placing another variable in the equation--all students would be grouped in clusters in which they would have the same core teachers. This resulted in numerous conflicts. However, instead of taking out the variable and running the schedule again, they decided to close it out and require the school to hand schedule 20% of the students. Anyone who has ever worked on a high school master schedule knows that this would amount to requiring the school to hand schedule all 2,600 students.

Trifecta: Part 3: Personnel

A district official warned me in advance on more than one occasion, that I would most likely have a certain individual sabotage the opening, and sure enough, it happened. While I am not going to go into detail here, suffice it to say that a lot of things went wrong like the box of welcome to school letters later found in a closet. In addition, the letter for the antique school marquee mysteriously disappeared. You get the drift. Instead of taking care of the problem that they knew for certain would occur, the central office let it happen.

Sometimes you can look back on situations like this and laugh. I regret that, to this day, I get sick to the stomach just thinking about the stress and tension I was under. I cannot imagine what would have happened if I were new to the principalship and had no reputation to fall back on.

Reality Check

Here is a notice to all of the education experts who have never worked in a school, and whose only experience is that of having been a student. Principals don’t function autonomously. I had no control over the buses, personnel decisions, or the student scheduling process that year. As a new principal to that school, forces that were beyond my control seriously undermined my efforts. How could I make a case for high expectations and bell-to-bell instruction, when the buses were late every day?

Principals don’t make policy. They carry out policy. Principals depend on their districts to provide the resources and support they need.

Principals should be held accountable, but so should the school districts. Before principals are replaced under the new federal requirements, school districts should be required to supply proof that they provided resources and support to the principal and the school. Give principals the autonomy to hire teachers and administrators. Give them control over their budget. Then hold them accountable.

If individual teachers are to be held accountable for student test scores, the students should be held accountable. In too many states, students are “christmas-treeing” tests because they are not accountable for their performance.

In a functional system, everyone in the system is accountable and everyone takes ownership of the outcomes. Only a dysfunctional system would single out certain, specific individuals for accountability purposes.

The reality is that principals have no tenure. They serve at the pleasure of the superintendent and the school board. Principals can and frequently are replaced on a whim. Just as in professional sports, it is much easier to replace the coach than all the players.

The problem isn’t that we need to get rid of principals. The problem is that we need to hold on to them. Principal turnover, particularly in under-resourced, high-poverty schools is astronomical. Working in an under-resourced school demands a high level of “moral purpose”, but in today’s slash-and-burn climate it is a career-killer. Principals are leaving under-resourced schools, there very schools where they are needed the most, in droves because their pleas for help and resources fall on deaf ears.

Instead of scapegoating principals, we need to train them and we need to give them the resources, equipment, and support they need to do their jobs. Then and only then can we rightfully hold them accountable.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 06:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)