Education and Science from 2008 Never Published

The whole purpose of these posts is to talk about science and education so the week in politics makes for a convenient chance to talk about both.

I'm no fan of No Child Left Behind. But if you try to take the glass if half full approach the program/policy did shine a light on the fact that is is embarassing if all white kids are doing well and all of your poor black kids aren't. The penalties and labels that get associated with schools, in my view, don't help the sitution but helping those students that are already facing and uphill road is a great goal.

That's why I was so happy to read the following quote in Paul Tough's book about Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone.

"The philosophy behind the project is simple. If poverty is a disease that infects and entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we cuan't just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community. And we have to focus on what actually works."

Obama also is quoted in the book as saying, "the first part of my plan to combat urban poverty will be to replicate the Harlem Children's Zone in twenty cities across the country. We'll train staff, we'll have them draw up detaild plans with attainable goals, and the federal government will provide half of the funding for each city, with the rest coming from philathropies and businesses."

And Geoffrey Canada himself said, "If the stars align, there could be a real conversation developing in America about a new strategy on poverty. If it happens, I think it would give Americans a belief again that not only can you do someting, but we should do something--that there's a self-interest involved in helping these kids. In the end, it's going to make America a stronger country."

NCLB pointed out and highlighted the problem. Canada and hopefully Obama are talking about a soultion. I hope for the best.

Science

With the appointment of Steven Chu Obama immediately separated himself from 8 years of terrible behavior toward scientists. And his recent quotes seem to support these views:

He says, "that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology." And he has pledged to do what our scientists have to say even when its inconvenient--especially when its inconvenient.

Timeline of a Job I didn't get

January 2010
My wife saw an ad on EdJobs NH for a position at Souhegan High School. They requested a new Dean of Faculty who could help them continue their mission. They asked for all the traditional things but also a values statement and most interesting--a document explaining how the candidates strengths met the Souhegan mission. It was the most interesting job posting I had seen and the only one in 10 years that I was even mildly interested in.

My mantra throughout my Concord career has been that I would like to advance but I would also very much like to stay in Concord. My wife grew up near Concord, we go to church in Concord, we would like our kids to be educated in Concord. We are currently moving to Concord from nearby Barnstead. So even though the Souhegan opening was interesting I left it alone.

The Non Snow Day Snow Day
In February there was a snow day where it didn't actually snow. This was the day my annual review was scheduled so I decided to drive to town for it. I had worked really hard during the year and my hope was that my assessment job could be turned into a full time one rather than a part time one. The review of my performance was good but there was no way the job could become a full time one.

At this point I began to consider the Souhegan position. I was committed to staying in Concord but I was also interested in obtaining a full time position. I like working all year round. I enjoy using the summer, time off from students to consider how to to help them in a more effective way. Just like

From 2011 on Khan

All,

For the last 2 weeks I have been investigating the Khan Academy. They offer online mini lessons on tons of concepts in math and science. Kim Marshall in his weekly memo brought this to my attention.

Sal Khan, the creator, originally began making videos to help his cousins. The videos were so popular that he eventually gave up his job and formed a non-profit company to work on these videos full time. At this point there are over 2100 videos. Khan's thought is that providing traditional lecture material online allows students to go at their own pace. His model actually turns education all around and posits that students would watch the lectures for homework and then come to school and do what used to be called homework. He is also very interested in the idea of pacing. Students working at their own pace is a key to his ideas about education.

In some circles Khan and his academy have been criticized because they don't teach critical thinking and problem solving. The videos focus more on the acquisition of knowledge than on the transfer of it. But Khan doesn't claim that his videos do any more than that. His hope is that the videos will allow more time for teachers to teach problem solving and critical thinking.

I'm still not sure how I will use these in my own teaching. But at this point I feel like it is worth all of us taking a look at.

`1

Link to the materials.

TED video of Khan presenting his work

Enjoy the weekend,

Tom

I must respond--Competencies

Much to say this week. Here is the first commentary on Competencies. There was an episode of Laura Knoy's The Exchange on NHPR. Here is the link so you can listen for yourself.

Very old. 2009. Could turn into something. 

http://www.nhpr.org/node/27325

One comment:
Competency Based Ed is a new name for Outcome Based Ed. Google Peg Luksik/ you tube/ and she will explain what OBE is all about. It's snake oil folks.

No, wrong. Outcome based education was an excellent idea that we implemented in a poor way. Outcomes were excellent ideas. Measuring how students get to outcomes was not done well. In the outcome based education model a student was told that they met the outcome if they answered a certain %age of questions correctly. This is not understanding.

Competencies are an advancement of outcomes because it means that students must prove that they know a certain amount of material.

In the program Knoy asked if there would be 22 students requesting to do civics a different way. This is NOT what is going on.

Brennan makes sense.

Khan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM95HHI4gLk

The Khan school has been getting some good and bad press. The positives:

--homework is watch the videos.

--classwork is the old homework.

start with the building blocks

learn math the way you learn anything. do it as long as it takes until you get to mastery

everything that can be taught in this type of a framework--this is key--he is not claiming critical thinking.

red blue green

time--did we benefit because we are fast

His argument is that using Khan Academy frees up time for the teachers to teach the critical thinking--he is clear that his system can only do certain things.

--

Interview

An old one from 2011. Partially done.

I had the chance to interview for the Assistant Principal job at Concord High School the other day. It was a short interview and I was over-prepared. So I wanted to lay out why I think I would be helpful to CHS.

Overall Focus--Student Learning

• Curriculum--I feel that we need to make sure to continue (as a school) to focus on competencies and to focus revising and refining the existing competencies. And where possible we need to examine how we can do this in a collaborative way.
  
• Instruction--The teachers at CHS are excellent but there are always new strategies to consider and especially new ways of planning instruction in teacher groups. It is also has become more and more important to be clear about the goals. Real world skills are being stressed more and more by teachers and politicians and other leaders.
  
• Assessment--How can we increase student assessment of their own work? Not evaluation (grading) but creating a system where students regularly look at the work that they have created and compare it to the goal. When a person is working on re-doing a roof they should regularly look at other roofs that are well installed. Or when working on a writing sample writers might look at exceptional writing samples.
  
• Climate and Culture
• Administration and Support
  

Kahn Mathematics Experiment

Never published. Started in 2011.

Tonight your homework assignment will be to watch an mathematics lecture online. Tomorrow we will work problems related to the lecture.

This is what mathematics teacher Tim Beaulieau of Concord High School in Concord NH told his students one day this spring. He had read about the work of Sal Kahn and had decided to use Kahn's web lectures in his class. Kahn rose to national prominence when Bill Gates introduced him at the 2011 TED talks and supported him with a 2 million dollar development grant. Kahn is a self described hedge fund manager who began making web tutorials for his young cousins so they could learn the math that they were having trouble with. At this point he has created over 2000 YouTube videos in the areas of math and science and there have been more than 50 million page views of Kahn's content.

Kahn uses a simple approach. Simply put he uses an online blackboard and his voice to give the lecture on a particular subject. It is nothing special but he advocates a topsy turvey approach to education that involves his videos. The thought is that student's homework would to be to watch the lectures--the current norm of during the day math teaching. Then when they returned to class during the day the teacher would have the time to work on basic problems related to the lecture and then on problems where students would transfer their learning and apply what they had learned. The idea being that the math teacher no longer provided the lecture--they would provide the context and the application of the learning.

Tim began by asking a group of Algebra students to view a Kahn Academy video for homework. During the school day class he had explained to students where to go to access the site and how they could complete the assignment if they did not have home internet.

Thoughts

 A very simple one. These should be put into a bigger and better article someday.

Thoughts from Tom

Read The Souls of Black Folk by WEB DuBois.

Listen to David Blight’s semester class from Yale on the causes of the civil war.

Read Self Reliance by Emerson.

Read Good to Great by Jim Collins.

Read some Calvin and Hobbes.

Have kids write more and create fewer powerpoints.

Don’t be an over-delegator.

Don’t be an under-delegator.

Tell people, clearly, what you want to see from them. 

Use a style guide like Brian Garner’s Dictionary of Modern American Usage but don’t be an asshole about it.

Eschew Buffalo wing analogues.

September 11

 9/11/2001

Minus Post 1

I didn’t feel well. I was up at four AM and considered calling in sick for the day. I’m not sure what made me decide to go.

On the way to school I bought something, a beverage or something, at Cumberland Farms. Leaving the store I walked between two dumpsters without noticing they were being picked up. If the operator had moved the dumpster forward I could have been crushed.

My morning of teaching was uneventful. I taught what I needed to teach for my chemistry class and when the bell rang at 9:15 the class was dismissed. I don’t know who told me to turn on the TV during the passing time but I did. They were already replaying the video of the first plane hitting the towers. At first I thought it was a Cessna that had gotten off track. Then as I realized what was going on I realized that the scale of a cessna to the towers was off. This was a big plane.

It was such a beautiful day. I went on a bike ride with a friend of mine and the silence, after a day of TV, was surreal. It was such a beautiful day.

In the days after I thought: “What if we had the balls to send peace?” Could we, would we be bold enough to execute the greatest turn the other cheek in the history of the world? Instead of attacking as everyone said we must, why not send people and love and friendship. For the first time in the world a country would not fight war with more war and -- and here I got a little crazy even for this crazy notion -- the world would follow and there would be peace. (I learned -- only this year -- that Stanley McCrystal was reflecting on the US response after 9/11 and said that he would have like to spend a year doing nothing military. A year to teach 10,000 Americans Dari/Farsi and Pashto and Arabic. A year to better understand what just happened and plan the response.)

In Star Trek First Contact, the captain explains to the people of earth’s past that after humans realized that they were not alone in the universe they stopped all wars and came together. Could 9/11 be something like that for the real humans instead of the fictional ones of the Star Trek franchise? No.

No, it could not. And as time wore on I began to think that maybe the human race won’t ever get to peace. Our ability to solve problems with one another amicably and peacefully is not only lacking -- it seems to be getting worse. On 9/11 I was in my late 20s. Now, nearing 50, I have started to think about what I have accomplished in my own life and what humans will have accomplished during my brief time here. I’m hoping for a lot more.

Dinner at Mo’s July 2023

I wanted to take advantage of being in Baltimore, so I really wanted to get either some really good crab or some fresh oysters. Before Amelia's lacrosse games on Saturday we scouted out some places. The night before we were casting about for places and walked through a spinning door and were deposited into an ice cold black tie only lobby that was clearly not for a sweaty, shorts wearing, dad and his daughter. Saturday we walked around a little bit in the sweltering boiling heat of a Baltimore Summer and found a place called Moe's that looked pretty good and looked like you know sort of a working place. There were people there for lunch so forth and so on.

We came back after her games. She took a shower. I drank a beer and we went over to Mo's. I was a little nervous because it was 7:30 and I didn't know if they would have a wait. It seemed like the type of place that really could get hopping with locals as the evening progressed. But they had a table for two and sat us right away. The place was bustling. Three round couples who seemed to be from Indiana came in. The impressively bellied men wore trucker hats and conservative themed t-shirts and the pear shaped wives all had the same short economical hairstyle that you can find at SuperCuts. They were enjoying life and having a great vacation. They were very happy to be led to their seats upstairs.

I like dive bars. Dive bars are not shitty or dirty bars. They are small, well-run, and well loved by their patrons. My sense in the morning and my initial sense after my first 10 minutes of observation was that I was in the presence of a wonderful dive bar style experience. The first little twitch that something was off was when they delivered our drinks. Amelia's soda was fine. I had ordered a dirty martini and it appeared a little bit lime green and cloudy. Imagine a frog pond. 

The very pleasant server came back and she asked us what we'd like. Amelia doesn't eat meat but we had looked at the menu ahead of time and she picked out some things that she would like. She asked for macaroni and cheese. The server said, “Oh you don't want to order that here but it's on the menu so I'll bring it if you really want.” to that I said well my daughter is a vegetarian so are there other things that you might recommend. the server then recommended chicken chicken tenders or a hamburger. everything was moving too fast and I only realized later that what she had wondered was or what you thought about Amelia was can I get you something that is not fish. so Amelia gave up on the mac and cheese and ordered a Caesar salad which she usually Likes I ordered oysters a dozen and we waited for our food to come out.

With no mac and cheese coming for Amelia I encouraged her to eat all of the rolls that came out.

My oysters were served traditionally on a bed of ice but the first one I ate was lukewarm. I thought about just getting up and going but there was nothing overtly wrong with the oysters they just weren't ice cold which is the way I prefer eating them. I looked to Amelia and she said that the lettuce was okay the dressing was bad and the croutons and cheese were bad. so not a very good Caesar salad. I ate most of my oysters we ask for the check there was no line to give a tip I ask the server if there was a way for me to give a tip and she disappeared we did not see her again. so I signed the bill and we left.

 My friend Alex shot himself 6 years ago and he died four days later. I had been feeling down for a long time. Maybe a year maybe two years before he died but sadly his death or his death sadly was a turning point where I said I have to confront why I'm feeling bad because I know I don't want to get to where he got.

After he died I contacted a therapist and started meeting with her and it was one of the best things that I've ever done. I'm sure that most people say the exact same thing going to see a therapist or something most important thing they've ever done or the one of the best things they've ever done and what's interesting is when people say why don't or why doesn't everyone have a therapist and that's a great question.

 As you can imagine with therapy it wasn't all about my friend Alex, and it wasn't about all about me but it was about why I felt the way I did. There were a couple things that emerged. I had previously had a superintendent and a principal that believed in me and trusted me completely I was now working with a superintendent and a principal who did not have that feeling. An example is that I had written a teacher evaluation under the previous superintendent that had been held up as an example of how to do evaluations by the previous superintendent and when I submitted a teacher evaluation that was identical the new superintendent talk to me about it being a perfect example of how not to write evaluations 

I just never got off on the right foot with the new superintendent she was wonderful as a person and as a superintendent just our working relationship never really gelled. the new principal I'm not sure what happened I don't know if you didn't trust me or still thought of me as a brand new teacher even though I had been a teacher of her 12 years and and it's system principle for five by the time he started.

The more important point about all of this is taking care of oneself if this doesn't happen and if it isn't allowed in your organization or is an encouraged in your organization that is something that needs to be addressed if you don't have the power to be the one who addresses it then you need to speak to someone with a little bit more power who can help address it. 

The other thing that I learned in the process of working with therapists eventually being diagnosed with major depression or severe clinical depression is that the right step to take are to contact your supervisors and the people in human relations as soon as possible so they do not think that you're taking sick days with no reason and instead they understand that you have an actual situation going on and that they can support you I have since advised many fellow Educators to do the same thing when they have come to me in distress with depression or other issues I always say to them talk to a trusted administrator about what is going on so that that administrator knows and can be a proactive supporter of what's happening with you

Unforced Errors

 Unforced Errors

• It is time to put away your summer clothes and put on collared shirts, ties, dresses, and professional footwear.
• Parent-teacher conferences will be online again this year but teachers are required to be in the building to conduct them. This will avoid possible disturbances from pets and children.
• Make sure to sign in when you get to the faculty meeting.
• Turn in your certificate of participation for the conference or you will not get professional development hours.

School administrators make mistakes all the time. They are tasked with making hundreds of decisions every day. They might be told that there are no paper towel in the 4th floor girls bathroom and in the next moment be told that there is a bullying and sexual harassment situation that involves ten students. Confronted with the sheer volume of decisions large and small it is inevitable that administrators will make mistakes. Given that mistakes will be made it is crucial that administrators work to eliminate unforced errors.

Unforced errors in tennis are the ones that are not caused by your opponent but by you. Unforced errors in administration occur when administrators insert themselves where they are not needed OR decides to create or enforce a rule that doesn't do anything to improve student learning.

        Don't wear jeans, etc. These type of edicts are dead on arrival and immediately turn everyone against you the administrator. The people who wear jeans all the time don't change their behavior and the people who have never thought about wearing jeans to work feel that you don't appreciate them as professionals. Instead of delivering a message to all teachers that they shouldn't wear jeans talk to the teachers who you feel are dressing a bit unprofessionally. I did this with two teachers and the both responded positively. They asked if wearing shorts was prohibited. I said no, but I thought it was not appropriate for high school teachers. They didn't agree but both of them stopped wearing shorts.

Still works

 Wow

School Law Class Post 1

You have a teacher in your school who cites verses from the Koran to students when relevant to the activities for the day. A parent calls to complain. What would you do as a school administrator? Cite case law to support your decisions.

First I would attempt to clarify exactly what the teacher was doing. Then I would invite them in and would say, "We have to have an open and honest conversation. This is not a one way conversation, I want to hear your side of the story but in the end we need to be clear on how to move forward."

Then I would explain what I had been told while giving the teacher ample time to respond. As part of our discussion I would clarify what the teacher felt the value of including verses in the instruction were. I might suggest that there are other ways to engage the students with quotes or inspiring movie clips that were not religious in nature.

The case law and constitutional documentation is quite clear on this issue. The Bill of Rights established the separation of church and state and Reynolds v. United States in 1879 clarified that there must be a separation. The fourteenth amendment clarified that the separation of church and state must extend to all states.

I also found a good quote in The Principal's Quick Reference Guide to School Law by Dunklee and Shoop; "It is important for teachers and others in the school setting to remember that they are employees of the government and subject to the establishment clause and thus required to be neutral concerning religion when carrying out their duties."

In concluding the conversation with the employee I would make sure that they clearly understood their own personal first amendment rights and that they also fully understood the role that they needed to take as a public school teacher.

Tom

Great Start

I want to share some of the awesome things that we have done in the Concord School District so far this year.

• Summer training of Mentors for 9th grade students--the students were incredible and were so excited to do the work.
• Success of the mentor program. 1. We didn't do anything like this previously. 2. Everyone involved is talking about the increase in connection to the school and the increase in academic motivation.
• Algebra Assessment--incredible results from the high school. They were able to give the assessment, score it, and turn it around in less than a week. This is what we want to do with implementing Driven by Data.
• 9th grade success program--we have id'd students who are struggling earlier than ever before and we are taking action to help them earn credit in their classes.

I'm excited!!!!!!!!!!

Founding Fathers

9th Grade Mentor Program--Note 1

Ninth Grade Mentor Program Initial Planning Meeting

This week I met with our one of our Assistant Principals Andy Carlson. And one of our great student leaders Elliott Tannenbaum. Our mission was to replicate the work of Nathan Frank an assistant principal at a similarly composed high school in Pennsylvania. His school is 5 years into a ninth grade mentor program and they are seeing positive results. Most notably they have increased the number of students earning 5 credits in their first year of high school from 35% to 65%.

Our high school is an excellent high school that regularly places students in Ivy League colleges and has provided an educational base for all of Concord's residents. As Jim Collins says, however, it is important for every good to great organization to confront the brutal facts of their reality. We have an epidemic of 9th grade failure. The number of students failing at least one class during their first year in high school has remained constant at above 20% for years.

The meeting this week was the first official planning meeting to begin our mentor program. Andy reflected on the success of a similar program for all students at his high school where they had big brothers and big sisters. I expressed my hope that this would be a positive experience for both mentors and mentees. I want students to be proud to be part of the program and I want them to have some fun even though much of the work will be hard. Elliott was excited about the possibilities but a little worried about the scope of the program and whether we would be able to pull it all off in time.

We resolved to split up the work.

• Andy said he would work on a plan to communicate with guidance counselors and ask them what students might be good candidates for the mentor role. We all agreed that the students did not need to all be all star students or members of NHS, Key Club, etc. If they wanted to be part of the group and could commit to the commitment then we wanted them.
• Elliott agreed to work on a letter that would go out to students asking them to be part of the group.
• I agreed to work on a plan of expectations for the group members. I also will plan a calendar for the timelines that we need to meet.

In general we have a couple other planning pieces that we are working on. They are:

• Before the end of the school year create a meet and greet for mentors and future 9th grade students.
• Plan a the summer 1/2 day conference for the mentors. This will be on Friday August 12th.
• Plan a month by month theme schedule for the mentors and mentees to focus on.

All three of us are quite excited by the challenges that are ahead of us.

John Adams

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

Some Interesting Links

A few links that I have enjoyed this week.

This is about the effects of mainstreaming for low achieving students. The author's conclusions are that whole class instruction is not necessarily a negative for low achieving students.

The second is an account of school turnaround in Hartford, CT. The reviewer says this to wrap up her not entirely glowing account of the reform...

“It is not clear,” Pappano concludes, “whether Hartford Public High School is actually being turned around.” The book ends with descriptions of which academies will be abandoned, which are in the works. Would it not be more productive to convert the energy being spent on academies to ensuring that all students receive, at long last, a content-rich curriculum with a pervasive emphasis on reading, writing, speaking, and reasoning? In this respect, Hartford’s story is indeed America’s story.

With the recent onslaught against public education going on I did some looking into research on the positive effects of education on the populace. The College Board has published these statistics on the effect of education for various groups. They are from 2004 but they certainly show the positive effects of education.

An Essay I wrote for Plymouth State

PSU Statement of Purpose Essay

Tom Crumrine

13 March 2011

Early Years in Teaching

My mother always joked with me that I retired first. For four years after college I wandered a bit. I lived in five states and had 17 different odd jobs. I was a logger and a bookseller. I worked at LL Bean and I spliced fiber optic cable for MCI (remember MCI?). For a time I even worked at a plasma bank as a phlebotomist. When I turned 25 my mom sent me a Time magazine with a title something like When We Were 25. It showcased people like Bill Gates telling stories of how awesome they were when they were my age. While a bit heavy handed I got the point. Angry at first, I soon realized that my mom was right. Ever since I decided not to go to medical school in my senior year of college I had been adrift in what I wanted to do. I worked through the summer at my existing dead end job and applied to Bowling Green State University for the teacher certification program. I was going home to live in my parents’ basement and commute to school.

In all honesty I can’t tell you that at age 25 I knew that teaching would become the sole purpose of my life. Even at 28 or 29 it might not have been what I wanted to be remembered for. But as I developed as a teacher and as I met inspiring educators along the way I realized that I wanted teaching to not just be my job but my way of life. Teaching for me is my profession and my hobby and my favorite thing to do. When I’m walking with my daughter in the woods I tell her stories about evolution and ecology. At the doctor’s office the other day I explained to her that the little gold fish in the tank were members of osteichtheys—the bony fish. She’s only 2 and a ½ but I’m pretty sure it is sinking in.

I have been fortunate in my educational journey to be inspired by many great educators. In my first year at Concord High School my mentor Lise Bofinger was an incredible guide. She didn’t teach me how to make handouts or how to turn the book into notes for students. She taught me how to be a better teacher. Lise allowed me to sit in on her classes many times during my first school year. During these visits I learned from her that it is not the teacher’s job to answer all student questions. It is their job to help students discover the answer to questions on their own. Lise showed me how to teach as a coach rather than a lecturer. She also invited me to become a member of a formative assessment study group in 2003, long before the term had become such a buzz word. This group included mainly science teachers and from it I learned that even veteran teachers like Lise needed to continue to learn as they progressed in their careers. I was impressed during our meetings that Lise, a 20 year veteran, would often share mistakes she had made just a week ago. And she would offer them up to the group for criticism and analysis. It was Lise who encouraged me to take on the job as Assessment Coordinator.

Chris Demers, my first colleague as Assessment Coordinator helped me to see how powerful data can be. He showed me how to become an excellent presenter of data and he taught me what to include and what to leave out of a presentation. In our years together we worked to run data retreats that really focused on the data but that were fun too. We also worked diligently to do some of the hard data analysis behind the scenes so that we did not waste teacher time with crunching numbers. We helped them to focus on what to do with the results. Chris also taught me how to be a better listener. When you speak with him he always puts you at ease because you are certain that he is listening to you. He is not thinking about what to say next he is thinking about what you are saying and what he might ask you next. I continue to improve in this area but Chris’s example is what I strive for.

Finally, Christine Rath and Gene Connolly have given me incredible insights into what it takes to be an effective administrator. For the last seven years Mr. Connolly has been the principal where I teach and my frequent collaborator. We worked together on regaining accreditation for the high school (see resume and below) and have met weekly to discuss how to guide the school on its academic journey. Superintendent Chris Rath has taught me how to delegate and how to be the leader of a meeting without dictating what will happen in the meeting. Her skill with working with all stakeholders in a school community is incredible and I have learned much from her.

Future in Education

In the next 25-35 years I want to continue to teach young people and adults. I love teaching students in the K-12 realm but I also am passionate about leading professional development for educators. I am proud of my 10 years as a teacher and now I hope to do more with my own education so that I can work with more students and adults.

I have experienced success working with large groups of teachers to create positive change and I want to continue that work. I know that I need more academic qualifications to become a principal or a superintendent and I am committed to earning those in the near future.

At PSU I hope to research change leadership and effective administrative practices. In my work as Assessment Coordinator my main role has been in leading change. Clearly I want to work with a PSU faculty member and receive their guidance but my initial research thoughts fall into two categories. First would be a meta-analysis of the literature to look for what exemplary school leadership looks like in effective schools. Determining definitions for exemplary leadership and effective schools would be the first steps of my work. The second idea, following along the same lines, would be to conduct field research on what practices occur in effective schools. I would want to conduct interviews and observations but I would also want to make sure that that information can be collected in a way that it can be statistically analyzed and reported in a meaningful way. I would be particularly interested in schools where change leadership has been effective. Of course I realize that an actual research study would require me to narrow these questions considerably. These suggestions are meant to frame the areas where I hope to improve as an educational leader.

How did I get here?

My interest in this kind of research comes from my work as teacher but also from my work as Assessment Coordinator. In my first year as Assessment Coordinator my role was to lead the 150 member high school faculty through a process of designing and implementing a measurable mission. Our school was on probation from our accrediting body and we had exactly one year to come into alignment with their directives. The district leadership agreed with the suggestions of the accrediting body but the high school faculty needed some convincing. My strength in the role was that I had the ability to process the science and the research behind the change but I could also empathize with teachers who were not seeing the connection between what the research said and what was happening in the classroom. As a school we went through a year long process where we had ups and downs and fits and starts. But in the end we had 100% consensus that we had done the right thing. And after our accrediting body reviewed our work they re-instated us as a fully accredited high school.

I am also interested in further graduate studies because of my work with data. As Assessment Coordinator for our district I organize when tests will be given and make sure teachers have support and materials. I also do a great deal of professional development with teachers on what to do with the data. I feel that I am proficient in doing this work but I know that there is more that I need to know. Our district has moved from conducting a data meeting once a year to currently having data meetings as a district 3 or 4 times per year. But I know from examining research on schools that are really closing the achievement gap that the analysis of common assessment data needs to happen on a much more frequent basis.

My purpose is to focus on student learning. I love students. I love teaching. Everything that we do as educators needs to be in the service of student learning. I will bring a lot to PSU while I am there and I promise to do a lot when I leave. I would love the chance to learn more from you.