Talk 1 from Arne Duncan

Talk 1 from Arne Duncan. FOR RELEASE: June 14, 2009

I am continually struck by the profound wisdom underlying the American political experiment. The genius of our system is that much of the power to shape our future has, wisely, been distributed to the states instead of being confined to Washington.

Our best ideas have always come from state and local governments, which are the real hothouses of innovation in America.

On so many issues—energy efficiency, mass transit, public safety, housing and economic development–it's the states that are often leading the way, sometimes with federal help and sometimes without.

Nowhere is this truer than in the field of education, where dedicated practitioners in schools and districts and states are constantly finding new and better ways to educate our children and prepare them for the world.

When I was running Chicago's schools I knew that the federal government's role was to support our work—not to direct it or micro–emanage it but to encourage, reward, and support the innovation and progress that were being made at the state and local levels.

Now that I am in Washington, it's even clearer to me that education reform starts locally—in classrooms, schools, districts, and states—and my job is to help you succeed.

The call for higher standards is a perfect example.

It started with governors like Jim Hunt and Roy Romer, who are both here tonight, as well as Richard Riley and Lamar Alexander, both of whom have been very helpful to me in these first few months.

So I am thrilled to be among the true education reformers who understand the stakes, want to see change, and are determined to lift American education to a new level.

I'd like to start by saluting Jim Hunt and Roy Romer for their vision and courage on the issue of education reform. They challenged all of us to make education more than a political talking point or an empty slogan.

Governor Hunt called for common national standards when it wasn't politically popular. His institute has done important work with the National Research Council that shows that there is the political will to accomplish this task today.

Likewise, Roy Romer led the call for higher standards as a governor and as a superintendent. Throughout the 2008 election, he kept this issue in the national dialogue, and we wouldn't have 46 states and three territories agreeing to adopt high common standards if it weren't for his hard work.

Again I want to thank you both for showing leadership on an issue that is critically important to our future.

Let me start by talking about the unique, historic, and powerful opportunity we have to transform public education.

We have a perfect storm for reform. We have:

• The Obama effect;
• Leadership on the Hill and in the unions;
• Proven strategies for success; and
• The Recovery Act providing $100 billion.

Let me give you an update on state fiscal stabilization:

• As of last week, 31 states had received $24 billion in stabilization funds and $11 billion more in Title I and IDEA funds.
• Several more states have their applications in and are close to being approved.
• We are urging governors to get their applications in by July 1.
• We promise to turn around applications quickly. This is currently taking about 10 calendar days.

We are working as fast as we can because we understand that states are hurting in the current economy. We know that you are struggling to balance budgets, and we appreciate that you are working hard to protect schoolchildren.

I also appreciate that the primary focus of the Recovery Act is to save and create jobs, and we're deeply grateful that states across America are helping save hundreds of thousands of teaching and other education–related jobs.

But if all we do is save jobs, we will miss this opportunity, which is why we are also using this recovery money to drive reform in four core areas. I'd like to talk about them.

It starts with robust data systems that track student achievement and teacher effectiveness, which I discussed in a speech to academic researchers last week.

We need to do a much better job of tracking students from pre–K through college. Teachers need this data to better target instruction to students. Principals need to know which teachers are producing the biggest gains and which may need more help.

We also need to track teachers back to their colleges of education so we can challenge teacher training programs to raise the bar.

This is where reform will play out. It will filter up from classrooms and schools, districts and localities, but then it will arrive on your desks. And when it does, I urge you to remember that the truest measure of a society's worth is whether it offers all of our children the opportunity to go where they want to go, do what they want to do, and fulfill their dreams.This is the promise of education. This is the American promise.

There's a lot of money available in the Recovery Act to help improve our data systems and I want to work with you to put the very best technology at the service of educators.

The second area of reform is teacher and principal quality, which I will discuss in a speech to the NEA (National Education Association) in July, but let me touch on it briefly.

Nothing is more important than getting great teachers into our classrooms and great principals into our schools. And there are millions of hard–working, dedicated teachers in schools all across America.

But there are many schools where the teaching staff has declined either because of poor leadership or simply professional burnout. And there are also some new teachers who simply don't belong in the classroom. That's not unique to teaching. It's true in every field.

But we can't allow that to continue, and we need to work with our education leadership to address this. We need to look much harder at recruiting, training, and supporting our teachers and principals.

We also have to fix our method of evaluating teachers, which is basically broken.

A recent report by the New Teacher Project shows that 99 percent of teachers are all rated the same, and most teacher rating systems don't factor in student achievement.

Some states actually have laws creating a firewall between teacher evaluation and student achievement. This isn't fair to kids or to teachers. Worse yet, it's not honest.

How can you possibly talk about teacher quality without factoring in student achievement?

We also need to have an open mind on issues like alternative certification and incentive and performance pay.

I understand that teachers are concerned about the fairness of performance pay. I share those concerns, but I am confident that if we sit down with the unions—instead of forcing it on them—we can find ways to reward excellence in the classroom.

The third area of reform is turning around our lowestperforming schools, which I will discuss at greater length in a speech to charter advocates next week.

Last year, there were about 5,000 schools in “restructuring” under NCLB (the No Child Left Behind Act). These schools have failed to make adequate yearly progress for at least five years in a row.

The children in these schools can't wait for incremental reform. They need radical change right now–new leadership, new staff, and a whole new educational approach.

We need to build more capacity to turn around these 5,000 schools. Everyone needs to get in the game: charters, unions, districts, states, nonprofits.

This is very hard work and very few people do it, but we have a moral obligation to save those kids.

States and districts need to step up and have the political courage to close failing schools and let others try. We have $3.5 billion in Title I school improvement funds to support this work and another $1.5 billion in the 2010 budget.

We need leaders with the courage to do the right thing and we need educators with the energy and determination to take on the toughest challenges in public education.

That's why our administration is pushing so hard to lift charter caps. We want new educational options for those communities. We want innovation to flourish, and where charters are doing well there should not be barriers to growth.

Where they are not doing well, however, they should be held accountable. Many of you have great charter schools in your states. I have visited some of them.

But many of you have charter schools in your states that, frankly, are not getting the job done. If they are failing, they should close and the children should have another option.

I opened more than 70 charter schools in Chicago. I closed down three for academic failure and mismanagement. Every state needs to look hard at the quality of their charter schools.

I also think that we need to break through the dynamic that positions charters against unions.

Albert Shanker, the legendary union leader, was an early advocate of charters. The AFT (American Federation of Teachers) represents something like 70 charters and the NEA (National Education Association) represents another 40.

So we should stop fighting over charter caps and unite behind charter accountability.

The fourth and final area of reform called for in the Recovery Act is around higher standards and assessments.

We think that every state should set internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in the workforce and college.

World-class standards are the foundation on which you will build your reforms.

Some state leaders have been telling us that for decades. I mentioned governors Hunt and Romer earlier. There have been many others.

Governor Barnes of Georgia and Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin led a bipartisan commission on changing NCLB. Fixing our patchwork of 50 [sets of] state standards was a key part of their proposal.

Many other governors have been actively involved with Achieve over the years.

I want to thank Governor Pawlenty (Minn.) for taking a leadership role at Achieve right now, and also thank governors Granholm (Mich.), Carcieri (R.I.), Rendell (Pa.), Bredesen (Tenn.), Heineman (Neb.), and Patrick (Mass.).

Gene Wilhoit has made national standards his top priority as the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers. Thanks to his organization and the NGA (National Governors Association). Your hard work and leadership are paying off.

As I said before, 46 states and three territories have now committed to creating common internationally benchmarked college–and career–ready standards. And you deserve a big, big hand for that.

Creating common standards hasn't always been popular. Right now, though, there's a growing consensus that this is the right thing to do.

The list of supporters for this effort is long: The National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the Council of the Great City Schools, and business leaders. From what I've heard on our listening tour, teachers in the classroom are supporting you as well.

Just last month, the U.S. Department of Education started asking for comments on policy issues through the Web site. Our first question was about raising standards.

The first response came from a woman named Michelle Wilson, who identified herself as a library media specialist.

She wrote: “I believe one of our country's weakest points in education is that the level of standards differs for every state.”

Education is a state and local issue. You pay 90 percent of the tab, and our job is to support leaders like you.

Another woman wrote, “If all states followed the same standards then there would be less inequity for our students.”

I agree with them both. With higher standards that are common across states we can share best practices and collaborate on curricula.

We can learn together about how to improve teacher preparation and development so that far more teachers can help students master challenging standards.

This can accelerate all of your reform work.

It is especially important that this has started at the state level because some people will raise concerns that common standards across states will lead to federal over–reaching.

I am very sensitive to that issue. As I said before, I was a local educator before I came to Washington.

Education is a state and local issue. You pay 90 percent of the tab, and our job is to support leaders like you.

So let's be clear: this effort is being led by governors and chief state schools officers. This is your work and this is your agenda.

Federal law does not mandate national standards. It empowers states to decide what kids need to learn and how to measure it.

But common sense also tells you that kids in big cities like Newark and San Francisco, or small towns like Tarboro, North Carolina, are no different from each other.

Standards shouldn't change once you cross the Mississippi River or the Rocky Mountains. Kids competing for the same jobs should meet the same standards.

So while this effort is being led at the state level, as it should be, it is absolutely a national challenge, which we must meet together or we will compromise our future.

The president called on us to produce more college graduates than any other country in the world. We cannot reach that goal without your leadership and the commitment of educators all across America.

You've taken the first step. Your stated goals are “higher, clearer, and fewer” standards, and I absolutely support your goals. The standards must be tied to the end point of making sure students are ready to succeed in college or in the workplace.

For too long, we've been lying to kids. We tell them they're doing fine, give them good grades, and tell them they're proficient on state tests that aren't challenging.

Then they get to college and they're put into remedial classes. Or they go into the workforce and find out that they don't have the skills they need to succeed.

We need standards that will get them ready for the day after they graduate. That means they must be rigorous.

Today, our standards are too low and the results on international tests show it. Worse yet, we see the signals in the international economy as more and more engineers, doctors, and science and math Ph.D.s come from abroad.

You must resist the temptation to make these standards too easy. Our children deserve to graduate from high school prepared for college and the jobs of the future.

Your standards must be rigorous and they also must be tightly focused on the most important things students need to know.

Right now, standards are too broad, covering 35 to 40 topics per subject in each grade as opposed to 15 or 20 standards in many high–performing countries.

Teachers scramble to cover everything—a little of this, a little of that, and not enough of what's really important.

They can't dig deeper on a challenging subject that excites their students. And students can't master material when they are racing through it.

We must limit standards to the essential knowledge and skills our kids need so teachers can focus in depth on the most important things their kids should know.

And once these standards have been created—and reviewed by professionals in every state—I encourage you to adopt them.

That's when everyone will know that you are serious. That's when your leadership will be tested because people will push back.

The fact is higher standards will make some of your states look bad in the short term because fewer students will be meeting them.

So I will work with you to ensure that your states will not be penalized for doing the right thing.

And in reauthorizing No Child Left Behind, the administration will work with you and with Congress to change the law so that it rewards states for raising standards instead of encouraging states to lower them.

I always give NCLBcredit for exposing the achievement gap, but the central flaw in the law is that it was too loose about the goals and too tight about how to get there.

As states come together around higher common standards, I want to flip it and be tighter about the goals but more flexible in how you can meet them.

I trust states and districts to find the way, and I don't trust Washington to tell you how to do it. You have the ideas, the leadership, and the ability. I'm here to support you.

And then our next step is to work together to find a better way to measure success, and that brings me to the real point of this speech, which is the assessments.

Once new standards are set and adopted you need to create new tests that measure whether students are meeting those standards. Tonight I am announcing that the Obama administration will help pay for the costs of developing those tests.

As you know, we have $5 billion in competitive grant funding under the Recovery Act to help advance these four reforms.

Congress carved out $650 million for the Invest in What Works and Innovation fund, which is for districts and nonprofits that are pushing reform.

The administration will dedicate up to $350 million of the remaining funds to help develop new assessments.

We haven't worked out all the details yet, but, in the coming months, we will develop an application process that supports this effort.

We need tests that measure whether students are mastering complex materials and can apply their knowledge in ways that show that they are ready for college and careers.

We need tests that go beyond multiple choice, and we know that these kinds of tests are expensive to develop. It will cost way too much if each state is doing this on its own.

Collaboration makes it possible for this to happen quickly and affordably.

Now, again, some people may claim that a commonly created test is a threat to state control, but let's remember who is in charge. You are. You will create these tests. You will drive the process. You will call the shots.

We just want tests that are aligned with your rigorous standards and accurately reflect what is happening in classrooms so that teachers, parents, and students can trust the results.

And we also encourage you to work together to develop benchmarked tests so that teachers can understand how their students are doing during the school year and can target instruction accordingly.

Once new standards are set and adopted you need to create new tests that measure whether students are meeting those standards. Tonight I am announcing that the Obama administration will help pay for the costs of developing those tests.

This is a growth area for the testing industry, which may worry some that assessments used across multiple states will be bad for business even if it's the right thing for kids.

However, it's not my job to worry about their business. My job is to worry about kids, and I know that our kids not only need to be challenged but they want to be challenged.

Everywhere I go—a Montana Indian reservation, a high school in Detroit, or a middle school in West Virginia—the kids are telling us, “Challenge me, push me, make me work and I will do it.”

And that means that higher standards will require more rigorous teaching and curricula, and that's why the other three reforms are so important to our overall strategy.

But it all starts with you: Raising the bar, raising expectations, and raising our sights.

Before I finish, I want to talk about the Race to the Top fund. I explained that the Recovery Act provides $5 billion in discretionary funding.

After the set–asides for the Invest in What Works and Innovation fund and the money for the new assessments, we will have $4 billion for states to drive education reform.

This is your opportunity to be bold and creative, to think big and push hard on the kind of reforms that we know will create fundamental change.

But this money will go only to states that are absolutely pushing reform in real and measurable ways—states where great educators are turning around our worst schools, meeting the highest standards, and producing career– and college–ready graduates.

We will ask tough questions around these four reform areas. We will ask you to show us how you will build a coherent strategy around these four reforms to produce a world–class education system—not just for some kids but for all kids.

States can also collaborate with each other or apply on their own.

In addition to evaluating your Race to the Top proposals, we will consider how your other Recovery Act dollars are being invested because that's also an opportunity to drive reform.

The draft application will go public in late July and be final by early fall. We will award grants in two rounds, the first one early next year and the second one in September 2010.

States that lose the first time have a chance to win in the second round. But we must see real and meaningful change. You must eliminate barriers to innovation and create the best possible conditions for success.

We have invited education stakeholders across the spectrum to get involved and we encourage you to work with your districts, with educators, with nonprofits, and with labor unions, to put together the very best applications possible.

We have talked to leading foundations and they are eager to support your work, so I urge you to reach out to them and draw on their expertise and resources.

There has never been this much money on the table and there may never be again. And there has never been a greater need.

With 30 percent of our kids dropping out of high school and millions of those in college struggling to achieve, we are falling dangerously behind other countries.

Improving education is not just a moral obligation of society. It's not just an economic imperative. It's the civil rights issue of our generation—the only sure path out of poverty and the only way to achieve the vision of equality spelled out by our founders.

As we look to the years ahead, we will continue to look to the governors and state education chiefs for leadership and innovation.

We will continue to find more ways to support your work on behalf of children. We will continue to do everything in our power to fulfill your collective vision of great schools producing great citizens, great thinkers, and great doers.

Today, perhaps for the first time, we have enough money to really make a difference. We have proven strategies for success in schools all across America.

The only question is whether we have the political courage, the will to make the tough choices that are right for kids.

At the end of the day, this comes down to leadership, partly in Washington but mostly in state capitals all across America.

This is where reform will play out. It will filter up from classrooms and schools, districts and localities, but then it will arrive on your desks.

And when it does, I urge you to remember that the truest measure of a society's worth is whether it offers all of our children the opportunity to go where they want to go, do what they want to do, and fulfill their dreams.

This is the promise of education.

This is my promise. This is your promise. This is the American promise.

Thank you.

U.S. Department of Education
Arne Duncan
Secretary

Competencies Thought

I have recently been listening to the podcast, What you missed in High School, from How Stuff Works.

The podcasts are each about 15-20 minutes long and they are fascinating. One detailed exactly how Blackbeard worked. How he grew up, came to fame and eventually died. Another talked about the childhood of Queen Elizabeth--the daughter of Henry the VIII. One of the very best was the story of Gettysburg. They detailed in under 1/2 an hour how the South won that battle. And they were able to describe complex battle conditions in audio, without the help of maps or visuals.

Students should absolutely know the details in these podcasts. The should wallow in the details and become lost in the amazingness of history. But along with these details they should understand the context. This is where competencies come in. The details about Blackbeard are incredible and the fight that eventually leads to his death is incredible. BUT students need to also understand the context of why all of this was happening. The fact that Blackbeard was an outgrowth of the privateer system in England and how the ending of that system lead to an explosion of pirates.

Many have argued that there are no details to be learned in a competnecy based system. That is not the case. The fact is that the same details can be learned but we must explain to students the context in which they fit.

Bullying

Interesting program on NPR's Here and Now program today. Click to get the link.

The program on bullying began with the story of Karl a sixth grader who killed himself after a year of relentless bullying. They interviewed his mother and she was clearly a very strong woman who took the road of not only forgiving the bullies but dedicating the rest of her life to not only helping the victims but to helping the bullies.

The reason here and now focused on bullying today was because the American Pediatric Association just came out with a new report on bullying. Doctors are encouraged to ask about the school environment--not only in the classroom, but in the lunch room, hallways, etc. The later tend to be the places that bullying actual occurs according to the study.

I haven't studied bullies too much because it doesn't come up too often in in my teaching. Although it does happen and this story will help me be more vigilant in looking for it. I had a particularly nasty case this year where a student regularly made fun of a student with Asperger's syndrome.

The big take away for me is how schools have worked to solve bullying. There are 3 participants in a bullying situation. The victim, the bully and the bystander. Schools that have conquered bullying focus on getting the bystanders as a group to create a culture in the school where the bullies are seen as the outcasts.

Challenges 1 and 2

Help!! I need lesson plans for the first week of school and have no clue what the curriculum is or how to create a lesson plan that supports the district philosophy. Where do I go? Who do I see?

Well to begin I would venture to say that the district philosophy is to ensure that students know what the big picture is and what they need to do to understand the material. A lesson plan that supports this philosophy would have students engaged in a variety of instructional methods. Some direct instruction, some hands on, some individual, some in groups. The teacher would frequently check if the instruction was working and take corrective actions when necessary. Remember what Chris Demers said—we need to teach more like art teachers and coaches—with corrective action coming immediately not delayed till a test.

To find what the curriculum is teachers, even veteran teachers, should consult the teachers in the building who have gone before them. Lesson planning alone should be avoided. There is someone in your building who has taught chemistry before and someone who has taught second grade for 25 years. My mentor didn’t tell me what to do but she did provide every single activity that she had used the previous year. That meant that I began my teaching with activities that were created after 16 years of teaching experience. Why would we want to do it any other way? She sat with me and explained how she had used each one and made suggestions for how I might use them. She provided samples of the notes she had given and let me know about possible pitfalls I might encounter. When I had difficulty I went to her and said—this didn’t work…what did I do wrong. And I would go into her room and watch her teach something that I had never taught before. I hope this is how it will work for you.

I’ve noticed that after lunch, my students are dozing off in class… What can I do to keep them engaged?

My high school students do this because they often consume lunches consisting of ketchup packets and energy drinks loaded with sugar. I’m not kidding by the way, I can’t tell you how many boys come in and tell me that they were in a ketchup packet eating contest at lunch. This inevitably leads to a crash at some point.

Research on high school students tells us that we should never go more that 20 minutes on one activity. Even in AP Biology where we think the kids might be able to take longer—go for 20 minutes only. At the younger grades the time goes down accordingly. This approach also makes sure that you are varying your teaching style and approach during the class or day.

Rick Wormeli, a leading speaker and writer on assessment and instruction, cites research showing that tiredness is often caused by dehydration. Seems silly but it is really important to allow water breaks often during class. At the high school level if I see a sleeping or nodding student I make them get up and go get a drink. The walk wakes them up and it alerts me that I may have gone on too long with my talking.

Finally, don’t be offended by a child who is nodding off—unless they do it all the time. Use it as a sign that tells you—if this kid can’t even stay awake then I bet the other kids aren’t super engaged either. Use it as a critique of yourself and say, “Why aren’t the kids engaged with what we are doing right now?” You can use simple techniques like popsicle sticks to make sure everyone is listening. Write down every student’s name on a popsicle stick and pull them out of a can when asking questions. Dylan Wiliam has shown that this simple approach can increase engagement from a handful of students to nearly everyone in the class.

Arne Duncan on Ed. Reform

I was reading through Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's speeches on education reform. I got tenure after two years and didn't have to do too much to earn it so I read the one on tenure and unions first. This caught my eye.

I linked to all of the speeches below. The over riding theme is that we have to face out tough problems and to do that we are going to have to make some changes. Duncan squarely keeps the focus on children and that is definitely where it needs to be.

Take a read for yourself and let me know what you think.

• adopt rigorous standards that prepare students for success in college and the workforce at the 2009 Governors Education Symposium
• recruit and retain effective teachers, especially in classrooms where they’re needed most, at the National Education Association annual conference
• build data systems to track student achievement and teacher effectiveness at the annual conference of ED’s Institute of Education Sciences
• turn around low-performing schools at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools Conference.

Collaboration and Communication

This is a section from the “synthesis” paper I have been working on. It is a first draft and I would love comments and suggestions.

Collaboration and Communication
When we had our first child my wife was in labor for 12 hours. During the 10 hours of that that we were in the hospital we must have seen 15 or 20 people. There was one wonderful nurse, Heather, who was assigned to work with my wife and I. But there were also other key people involved in the birth. Dr. Heidi, our obstetrician was there, of course and there were many other nurses and specialists.

If we compare the day to education Heather the nurse was like the classroom teacher and Dr. Heidi was the principal. The other nurses were like other teachers in the building. The people who drew blood were the specialists. The main difference in how they worked and how a school works is how they worked together. When Dr. Heidi would come in Heather wasn’t scared—she was excited. She would ask questions and make sure that she was doing all that she could for my wife and I. In turn, Dr. Heidi didn’t shout demands or give orders, she conferred with Heather and made suggestions about what might work in given situations. When my wife requested an epidural Heather, Dr. Heidi my wife and I all talked about the positives and negatives. They even suggested an alternative that we tried first. It wound up not working but we were glad we had tried everything before going to the drugs. (Once we went to the drugs my wife was quite happy.)

When our baby was born Heather stayed with us until the next nurse came on. Before leaving to go home she talked at great length with the new nurse and told her everything about us and our baby. The baby was five weeks early but was otherwise fine, vital signs, etc. Only then did she leave us. Since the baby was five weeks early a special nurse was called in. This nurse took a look at our child and concluded that our baby didn’t need extra help so she didn’t need to stay.

The analogies to education are obvious but the key thing we can learn from the medical profession is how they communicate profusely and how they collaborate with the interest of the patient foremost in their minds. As teachers when we collaborate (if we collaborate) it too often becomes a game of who is the better teacher. This thinking needs to go away. The vast majority of teachers are good, just in different ways. We need to lean on the strengths of other teachers to improve in the areas where they are a little stronger.

A few years ago someone told me how much work they had to do over the summer because they were teaching a new course. I asked them if anyone else in the department had ever taught it. They replied that about 6 other teachers had taught the course. It was clear from the rest of our conversation that the teacher wasn’t going to get much help from the other teachers on planning the course. Why? Imagine two dentists working in adjacent rooms. One knows a new tooth whitening technique, the other does not. Would the first dentist tell the second dentist to read about the technique to figure it out themselves? Of course not. So why do we have to behave this way in education.

Someone once told me that a new teacher was hired who had previously taught in Japan. She was told to come up with a lesson plan for a particular unit and said she couldn’t do it. When asked why she explained that she had never planned a lesson by herself—they just don’t do it that way in Japan. Doctors and nurses have learned that their collective knowledge is much more useful when there is a great deal of sharing and communicating. As teachers we need to work in the same way.

Learning

I have been musing about a post on learning--that the focus of education needs to be on learning. It keeps getting longer but the basic pieces are:

• Learning must be the focus of everything that everyone does.
• Hiring must be driven by a need to get the right people on the bus.
• Leaders must ensure that the focus of the school is learning
• Teachers must ensure that they are focusing on the most important learnings every day.
• Collaboration--teaching should not be an individual activity. Teaching should be an activity that is done collectively similar to how medical professionals work as a team to make you better.
• Special education is one tool to help students but there must be other tools that are equally robust to help students.
  

I've been trying to make it post length but it keeps getting longer. I'm thinking that the six things listed above might be a sort of synthesis for what schools and districts need to do to improve.

Harlem Children's Zone

On the Talk of the Nation today the program focused on "What Works." This whole week they have been focusing on seemingly "intractable" problems that have been solved in certain places.

Their guest today was CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone, Geoffrey Canada. I heard about Canada sometime last summer and I have a ton of respect for his dedication to poor students in Harlem.

Earlier this year Paul Tough put out a book called "Whatever It Takes," that chronicles Canada's nearly 20 years of working with the Harlem Children's Zone. I recommend it but if all you have is 1/2 an hour consider downloading the talk of the nation program from today. It will be 1/2 an hour well spent.

Some big points about the Harlem Children's Zone and Canada:

• They do everything at once--it isn't just about being poor. They have partnerships with hospitals, obesity clinics, diabetes clinics, drug and alcohol treatment places, block watchtes, etc. They knew the research and the science and they just did it all at once.
• The first kids to go through the program are currently in 5th grade. They began the program before they were even born. There is currently no gap between their achievement and the achievement of their peers.
• A second group who were behind in grade 6 are now in college. There is no gap for math and a slight gap for English Language Arts.
• Baby College is for 0-3 education. There is nothing special about this. Canada himself explains that 0-3 eduction has been done for decades--in the middle class. He is just taking what works there and educating poor parents about the methods.
• Why is 0-3 important. By age three, with no intervention, children who are poor know 800 fewer words than middle and upper class children. The gap continues from there.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has launched a plan to replicate the HCZ approach in 20 big cities. The funding is big upfront but if you can break the cycle of poverty--poor parents raising poor children who don't finish school and then raise more poor children--the payoff will be great in the end.

Canada uses himself as an example. He was the first person in his family to go to college. But for his kids it was obvious that they would go to college--and they have. For his grandkids there won't even be the slightest question of whether they will go on to college. Like middle class families all over the country--the choice of not going to college won't be a choice anymore.

So why am I so excited about a program that works in Harlem--where poverty rates were in the 90 percents? If Canada and his team can turn it around for thousands of students in Harlem then districts with smaller numbers of students who are poor certainly have something to learn from him.

Bow Data Day

Just completed an awesome day of work with the Bow School District. We had about 25 people from the high school, middle school and elementary school looking at data all day.

They said they were in the novice category in terms of data but I found out early that they were being to hard on themselves. They asked great questions and showed the same kind of insight that I have seen with so many teachers with whom I have had the pleasure to work.

Highlights for me included the incredible dedication of the teachers and the hard work done.

As we move to our second day together we will focus on:

• Are we asking the right questions?
• Are the questions big enough?
• Can we really get to conclusions? Or even inferences?
• What is really going on?

Looking forward to it.

Grading and Reporting at CHS

This got a little longer than I anticipated. The introduction explains some of my thinking and the research section on page two includes quotes and summaries from leading researchers on assessment and grading.

Introduction

• This weekend I tried to think back to why I began doing 1-5 grading in the first place. It actually had nothing to do with percent grades. I knew from the outset that the conversion would cause problems. My purpose was to clearly communicate to students exactly where they were on a learning continuum.
• I was convinced by Bob Marzano that 5-9 categories were about the most anyone could reliably use to judge students.
• Rick Stiggins and Anne Davies convinced me that assessment should be FOR learning. That it should not communicate and end point but that it should let a student know where they are and what they can do to go to the next level.
• Tom Guskey convinced me that I really couldn’t reliably sort students into the 101 categories available on the 0-100 scale. (And I certainly couldn’t sort them into the 1001 categories available on the 0.0-100 scale.)
• Grant Wiggins made me reconsider averages. Why, he asked, would we give a student the average when they could do it at the end of a course?
• Dylan Wiliam gave me the example of the driver’s license—no matter how many times you fail—we all get the same driver’s license once we finally pass.

So putting this all together I began to use a system where I scored each part of each assignment using the 1-5 scale. I stressed early and often that even if you had a 1 you were still a good person—we are all at the beginning at some point in our lives. I stopped giving zeros and gave incompletes. I would say to students that I couldn’t give them a score until I had that piece of work. I stopped talking about percent grades at all—the only thing I would talk about with students was 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5.

It seemed to work. Conversations with students transitioned from being about their grade to being about what they can to improve their understanding of a specific topic. The only time it didn’t work was for any of the 8 reporting periods when I was limited to giving students only a 2 digit grade to summarize their performance. Which is where I was 4 years ago and where I am today…

So…

Here is an attempt to compile the thoughts of leading researchers on grading. First of all I think it is important to remember that all experts recommend a systematic approach to rethinking grading. They are all pretty similar so I will use the steps that Tom Guskey and Jane Bailey advise. (The first 5 would go in order. Six through 9 give information about steps 1-5.)

1. Purpose—what is the purpose of grades?
2. Define the impetus for change—why are we re-examining our grading and reporting system?
3. Exploring the history of grading and reporting—what is the history of grading?
4. Laying a foundation for change—what is the research that surrounds grading?
5. Building a Grading and Reporting System
6. Grading and Reporting Methods I: Letter grades, percentage grades, and other categorical grading
7. Grading and Reporting Methods II: Standards-based, pass/fail, mastery grading, and narratives
8. Grading and reporting for students with special needs
9. Special problems in grading and reporting
   

Marzano recommends the following order:

Phase 1—have a vanguard team of teachers experiment with competency based assessment and record keeping.
Phase 2—identify the competencies and the software that will be used.
Phase 3—implement the system in stages.

Research
Anne Davies
Dr. Davies does not mention grading scales in her works or presentations. She does strongly and continuously stress that a change in grading should be a change from “assessment of learning,” to “assessment FOR learning.” Her take is that assessment is changing from something that happens to students to something that is done to help students.

“Research shows that when students are involved in the learning process—learning to articulate what they have learned and what they still need to work on—achievement improves.”[1]

Ken O’Connor
“Impreciseness is the main point of those who argue for letter grades rather than percentage grades; they believe that dividing student achievement into a limited number of categories is all that we can ever hope to do with any pretense of real meaning. According to this argument, using a 101 point scale gives a false sense of precision and, therefore, detracts from the main purpose of grades—meaningful communication of student achievement.

This argument has a great deal of merit, especially for elementary and middle schools, where grades are not involved in high stakes decisions, except pass/fail. However, where grades are involved in high stakes decisions about students’ educational future—such as college entrance, graduate school acceptance, and employment opportunities, numbers may be preferable to letters because there are more scale points available.”[2]

O’Connor then illustrates an example of a student who gets all 89s and gets a B and one who gets all 90s gets an A. The 5 point scale of A-F would amplify differences between students that really aren’t that great. BUT O’Connor is not against a 5 point system. He goes on to say,

“If all the guidelines and principles described in chapters 1-8 [Nearly the entire book] are applied then letter grades based on teachers’ professional judgments using a detailed descriptive scale will produce the best grades. But if teachers crunch numbers to arrive at grades, especially in high school and college, then percentage grades are probably fairer, and therefore better, than letter grades.”[3]

Again, the second sentence here might seem to be a rejection of a 5 point system. But, go back and read the first sentence again. What O’Connor advocates throughout the book, and when he presents, is for teachers to use grades, professional judgment, conversations with students, and multiple measures to determine grades. He is the man who told me about the following simple way of explaining the 5 point scale.

5=Wow!
4=Great!
3=Got it!
2=Nearly there!
1=Oops!

O’Connor would look at the 2 students described above and using professional judgment determine whether all 89s should merit the designation of A.

Guskey
“Letter grades offer a brief description of students’ achievement and level of performance, along with some idea of the adequacy of that performance (Payne, 1974). Because most parents experienced letter grades during their school years, they also have a general sense of what letter grades mean. For this reason, parents often prefer letter grades to newer, less traditional reporting methods (Libit, 1999).

Despite their simplicity, however, letter grades also have their shortcomings. First and probably most important, their use requires the combination of lots of different forms of evidence into a single symbol (Stiggins, 2001). As described in Chapter Three, many teachers combine product, process, and progress evidence in a single grade. This makes the grade a confusing hodgepodge that’s impossible to interpret, rather than a meaningful summary of students’ achievement and performance (Brookhart, 1991; Cross and Frary, 1996).

Second, despite educators’ best efforts; many parents interpret letter grades in strictly norm-referenced terms. Probably because the letter grades they received as students reflected their standing in comparison to classmates, parents frequently assume the same is true for their children. To them, a C doesn’t represent achievement at the third level of a five point scale, similar to a middle level belt in a karate class. Instead, a C means “average” or “in the middle of the class.”

A third shortcoming of letter grades is that the cutoffs between grade categories are always arbitrary and difficult to justify. If the teacher decides that the scored for a grade of B will range from 80 to 89, for example, the student with a score of 80 will receive the same grade as the student with a score of 89, even though there is a nine-point difference in their scores. But the student with a score of 79—a one point difference—receives a grade of C. Why? Because the teacher set the cutoff for a B grade at 80. Although cutoffs are absolutely necessary in any multilevel grading method, where they are set is always arbitrary.

Finally, letter grades lack the richness of other, more detailed reporting methods, such as standards-based grading or narratives. Although they offer a brief description of adequacy of students’ achievement and performance, letter grades provide no information that can be used to identify students’ unique accomplishments, their particular learning strengths, or their specific areas of weakness.”[4]

Guskey goes on to say, “letter grades should always be based on clearly stated learning criteria, not on norm-referenced criteria.”

Guskey and Bailey
The seriousness of arguments over plus and minus grades contrasts sharply with the simplicity of the issue involved. Basically, the issue comes down to whether is is better to have a 5-category grade system (A, B, C, D, and F), or a 12 category system (A, A-, B+, B, B-, and so on0. But if more categories are better, one might ask, “Why stop at 12?” There’s nothing sacred or particularly special about using 12 categories. Instead, we might consider a scale similar to the one used to express grade point average: 0.0-4.0.”[5]

This would equal 41 categories if you stick to just tenths place. Or you could go on to percents and get to 101 categories. Or even more if you go to percents and decimals. 92.34 for example.

Guskey and Bailey go on to say, “Research on rating scales shows that increasing the number of rating categories from 4 to just 6 generally lowers both the reliability and validity of the measures (Chang, 1993, 1994). Other studies indicate that scaled of 5 to possibly 9 categories are about as many as any qualified judge can reliable distinguish (Hargis, 1990, p. 14). Moreover, as the number of potential grades or grade categories increases, especially beyond 5 or 6, the reliability of grade assignments decreases. This means that the chance of two equally competent judges looking at the same collection of evidence and coming up with exactly the same grade is drastically reduced.”

Guskey and Bailey’s Recommendation
“Although to our knowledge no research evidence to date confirms that more affirming grade-category labels reduce stigma attached to low grades, we remain optimistic that this may be true. Certainly the connotation of Novice or Beginning is far less negative than that of Failing….

At the more advanced grade levels, we also believe that it is much more advantageous to assign a grade of I or Incomplete to students’ work and expect additional effort than it is to assign a letter grade of F (see the discussion of “Grades as Punishments” in Chapter 3).”[6]

Marzano
Marzano first writes a book on grading theory and only reluctantly gets to conversions about 7/8s of the way in. From having seen him talk it is clear that in his mind converting scores to anything is of little use. But I have also seen him say that grades in their traditional sense will probably always be necessary in grades 10-12 at least.

In essence Marzano explains that giving a score for each of the measurement topics (competencies) in a class would be preferable. But if a “district or school…wishes to use the traditional A, B, C, D, and F grading protocol,” it would need “a translation, such as the following:

3.00-4.00=A
2.50-2.99=B
2.00-2.49=C
1.50-1.99=D
Below 1.50=F”[7]

“Summary and Conclusions
Various Techniques can be use for computing final scores for topics and translating these scores to grades. Computer software that is suited to the system described in this book has three characteristics. First, the software should allow teachers to easily enter multiple scores for an assessment. Second, it should provide for the most accurate estimate of a student’s final score for each topic. Third, it should provide graphs depicting student progress.”[8]

Stiggins
Rick Stiggins and Anne Davies go hand in hand when they talk about Assessment FOR Learning. He wrote the original paper where he began always writing the for in all caps. They both focus most of their work on the idea that assessment (to sit beside) should be something that helps a student learn. In terms of conversions Stiggins suggests a “Decision Rule.”

“[If} at least 50% of the ratings are 5s and the rest are 4s, the grade is an A, [if] at least 75% of the ratings are 4s or better and the other 25% are not lower than 3, then the grade is a B, and [if] 40% of the ratings are 3s or better and the other 60% are not lower than two then the [grade] is a C.”[9]


“What about the situation in which a student receives a B, but it’s a high B or a low B? Over the course of an entire year, the difference will not be significant in terms of mastery, and mastery is what grades are based on, not averages. This isn’t being dismissive, but the reality is that the difference in learning (mastery) between the high and low versions of one particular grade is not that much. In larger grading scales, for example, the difference between a B and a B+ is just a few points. How exact can we be when identifying a student’s true mastery of something? Does a 0.01 (1 percent) difference in a grade-point average really mean a discernable, significant difference in mastery? No. It’s splitting hairs.

There are some teachers who disagree with this. They claim that there are a large number of mastery points wrapped into each percentage point due to multiple and influential assessments over a long period of time, and that the difference of one percentage point can describe mastery or lack of mastery of a significant amount of material. If this is the case, then whittling grades down to their exact and relative values (offering 2.75s for example) may be necessary. Each time we are tempted to do this however, let’s remember how elusive declarative mastery is, as well as how subjective we are in the micro-moment of grading each product from each student, and how we make it even more subjective when we aggregate a variety of data for a summative grade. And let’s wonder whether having done this, even justifiably, will have any lasting impact ten years down the road.”[11]

“One caution: If we primarily use a 4-point scale, many students and their parents will equate the highest numerical value (4.0) [or 5 in our case] with an A,…They will wonder why we just don’t write A, B, C, D and F if that’s what they really are.”[12]

Thanks for reading—if you made it this far.

Tom Crumrine
[1] Research of Black and Wiliam 1998 and Stiggins 2001 reported in Conferencing and Reporting by Gregory, Cameron and Davies.
[2] How to Grade for Learning—Ken O’Connor. Page 200.
[3] How to Grade for Learning—Ken O’Connor. Page 200.
[4] How’s My Kid Doing?-Tom Guskey. Pages 45-46.
[5] Developing Grading and Reporting Systems for Student Learning. Tom Guskey and Jane Bailey. Page 70.
[6] Developing Grading and Reporting Systems for Student Learning. Tom Guskey and Jane Bailey. Page 77.
[7] Classroom Assessment and Grading that Work—Robert J. Marzano. Page 122.
[8] Classroom Assessment and Grading that Work—Robert J. Marzano. Page 124.
[9] Fair Isn’t Always Equal—Rick Wormeli. Page 154. Wormeli quotes Stiggins here.
[10] Fair Isn’t Always Equal—Rick Wormeli. Page 154.
[11] Fair Isn’t Always Equal—Rick Wormeli. Page 154-155.
[12] Fair Isn’t Always Equal—Rick Wormeli. Page 157.

Cell phones in class

• Mr. Crumrine’s Electronic Device Experiment
  Semester Two
  2008-2009 School Year
  Chemistry and Its Applications and Anatomy and Physiology Classes
  
  There has been much discussion this year about electronic devices and their place in the Concord High School community. While some would limit or outlaw electronic devices I come down firmly on the other side. Electronic devices are powerful tools that can connect us to each other and the work. The iPod touch, to highlight one, has thousands of educational applications. Some of them are as simple as the built in calculator while others provide students with interactive x-rays of the human body.
  
  Electronic devices can be used improperly—by both students and adults. I become pretty upset when I am giving a presentation and see people tapping away on their email accounts. And I really don’t like it when someone is ostensibly talking to me but in reality looking at their BlackBerry the whole time. But both students and adults can use these powerful tools in responsible ways. When I was in high school teachers had to teach us that our graphing calculators were appropriate for use in certain ways. In math class—OK. Playing tetris in English—not OK. We can do the same kind of teaching with electronic devices.
  
  During the second semester of this year my students and I came up with the following plan. We talked first about the value of electronic devices and then we talked about ways they could be used improperly.
  
  Here is the plan:
  
  
  Why would a student be allowed to use a cell phone/electronic device?
  
  ¨ Effective communication.
  ¨ Active self directed learner.
  
  In order to be successful after high school students need to know how to use modern technological tools. These include cell phones and other pocket electronic devices.
  
  The use of these tools however must be done in an appropriate way. Just as it would not be OK for an adult to text while a colleague is explaining something to them—it is not OK for a student to do the same.
  
  What do we do?
  • Use the calculator on your phone—OK at appropriate times.
  • Use the agenda feature—OK at appropriate times.
  • No texting at any time—because could disturb others outside of our class.
  
  Please ask for permission to:
  --use the calculator feature.
  --use the agenda feature in the last 5 minutes of class.
  
  In certain cases, with permission, you may be allowed to:
  --play games—work must be done.
  --listen to music—work must be done.
  --use the internet—you must use it for something related to class.
  
  Penalties
  • First offense—teacher takes cell phone—student gets it at end of class.
  • Second offense—teacher takes device—student gets it at end of school day.
  • Third offense—teacher takes device and turns it in to administration.
  
  
  I agree to this revised cell phone policy for our classroom only.
  
  Print Name:_______________________
  
  
  Sign Name:________________________
  

Reflections

The plan worked extremely well with the Anatomy and Physiology group.

• I warned one student one time about improper use.
  
• Nine or ten students had iPod touches (iPods touch?). Several of them used the anatomy flash card applications that are available for free or $0.99. One of them purchased a ten dollar application which was basically a digital textbook. They said they found it very helpful.
  
• During our end of the year project several students used text messaging in an appropriate way to communicate with partners. An example is a group where 3 people were dissecting a cat and one person was in the library researching cat dissection.

The plan worked better than I expected with Chemistry and Its Applications
In a very cute and funny way students would always ask if they could use the calculator functions on their phones. I found this to be effective and it saved me money because I usually buy about 10 calculators per year with my own money.

• A higher percentage of students in ChemApps had iPod touches when compared with Anatomy. But they did not take advantage of flash cards or other applications to my knowledge.
• One notable exception was a student who had, on his own, downloaded a ten dollar spreadsheet application. We were doing a lab where the students had to take the temperature of a substance every 30 seconds. He asked if he could put the data in his phone. Not only did he input the data but he was able to quickly create a graph when he was done. While other students took about ten-15 minutes to create the graph he was able to immediately start answering the post lab questions. The most important part of this lab was not making but interpreting the graph so this was a plus.
• There were several first offense violations during the semester (10) but students surrendered their phones for the period and I did not see repeat offenses except for the next bullet.
• I encountered major issues with 2 students. They did not follow the cell phone policy at all even though they had signed the sheet. They would not surrender their phones when asked and used them pretty much whenever they wanted. I should have done a better job working with administration with these two students. I will say that these two students were the same ones who did not follow any of the other rules of our classroom. They walked out of class without asking, swore at me and other students, used racial slurs, and sometimes screamed. I don’t think any cell phone policy would cure them of their other ills.

Quick Conclusion:

I would be willing to work hard on a cell phone/electronic device policy that emphasizes proper use of these powerful tools. For our students these are the tools that they have used for communication since they first learned to communicate. Teaching proper use will not be easy but I would rather work on that than tell students they can never use the computer that is right there in their pocket.

The Challenges of Mission Reform at Concord High School


Introduction[CSD1]
Since 2003 Concord High School[1] has been involved in the process of becoming a mission driven school. While framed by a new organization, their accrediting body NEASC, it is the same work that has been espoused by many organizations in recent decades. In researching this paper I found three binders in the shelves of the district office that were from the University of Dayton. They were published in 1991 and explained a complete plan to become a mission driven school. Many of the buzz words have changed but the basic process of examining a mission, and creating a plan for action that derives from that mission are the same.

So this summary of the work of Concord High School tells some of the recent history of the school and focuses on the problems that occur in bringing theory to practice. In this iteration of mission work our main guiding documents were the Understanding by Design documents specifically the recent book Schooling by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. The Concord School District has had a long history working with the Understanding by Design process and calls itself a UbD district. There are many branches of district teams that use UbD thinking to guide their work.

History
We have compiled the history of the last 5 years in a 73 page document but here are some highlights of the work done at Concord High School. In the years from 2003-2007 time was spent on building consensus. Malcom Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, might say that we were in that holding pattern waiting for the tipping point to tip. This time was spent in philosophical discussion mainly focused on building consensus for change. At Concord High School there was little impetus to change because it was already such a good high school. Low dropout rate, high student and teacher satisfaction, lots of students going to good colleges and happy parents in the town.

In the case of Concord High School the work from 2003-2007 came together with two other important factors to bring us to our tipping point--the point where philosophical discussions end and the creation of a product and a program begins. A plan had been developed to guide work during the 2007-2008 school year when school leaders were informed that the school was being placed on warning by their accrediting institution NEASC. This warning status meant that they had to reformulate the plan during the 2007 summer to be much more aggressive in its goals. In addition to the strong suggestions from the accrediting institution the State of New Hampshire also was requiring that all high schools create course competencies that needed to be implemented in the 2008-2009 school year. Neither of these were much of a surprise but it meant that the high school now had little choice in what it needed to do. The time for discussion was over. 2007-2008 would be a year of products.

In the summer of 2007 teachers, administrators and the superintendent met and designed the CHS Plan. This plan clearly outlines the flow from very big district goals down to individual courses. This plan is based on the district’s continued work with Understanding by Design and is an adaptation of graphics found in Schooling by Design and the UbD professional development workbook. The CHS Plan served as a road map for the work that was done at CHS this year.

2007-2008—A Busy Year
Teaching is somewhat like putting out a newspaper every day. News writers might hope for more time to edit a story and more time to do research but the fact is that the newspaper has to come out every day. Writers do their best job and then turn in what they have at the deadline. It is the same for teachers. A common request is more time to work on curriculum and school planning. But the fact is that there is never enough time and the students keep coming in that door. Teachers do everything they can to be ready but at 7:45 they have to go to work—they have hit their deadline. This need to both run the school and partake in two big school changes was a constant theme of the work during the year. Teachers and school leaders constantly had to remain mindful of what the theory in the books said and what was possible for someone who also had to teach 140 students.

To lead the process principal Gene Connolly formed a Steering Committee in the summer of 2007. This group would meet weekly all year and guide the process. They were a one year task force with 4 specific goals.
Define the goals of the mission and express them as graduation expectations.
Create rubrics to measure the graduation expectations.
Pilot the use of the graduation expectations for each student.
Create competencies for each course.

The work began by asking all teachers one question, “What do you want students to know and be able to do when they walk across the graduation stage?” From this list the steering committee was able to compile one list that was divided into two types of expectations. Those were the Habits of Mind that were derived from the existing district goals and the Graduation Expectations that delineated specific academic goals for graduates.

Examples:
Habit of Mind:
Graduation Expectation:

The design was that the Graduation Expectations would be measured for each individual student during many points in their high school career. And that the Habits of Mind would me measured not for individuals but for groups of students.

The main thrust of the 2007-2008 work was in making rubrics to measure the Graduation Expectations and in implementing the use of the Graduation Expectations in classes.

The most successful step that the steering committee took was in its use and organization of the one all day professional day that the district does have. On this day in early October the steering committee organized a professional day that was attended by 2/3 of the faculty. (Faculty that could not attend had made commitments long before the day was planned.) The day was organized to define the graduation expectations and create rubrics to measure them. The participants were organized in mixed groups according to teaching specialty and years of experience. Two groups were assigned to work on each expectation and rubric. The group on technology for example wrote a goal statement for technology and then created a rubric for it. This was a very successful professional development day and by the end of it the faculty had created the expectation statements and the rubrics that would be used for the remainder of the year. Many faculty members expressed the sentiment that it was one of the most powerful professional days that they had ever attended.

The steering committee collected these rubrics, edited them and then presented them to staff. The second expectation on critical thinking was presented to staff in October. And the remaining expectations on oral communication, listening, reading and technology were presented to the staff in December. At each presentation members of the steering committee explained how these rubrics fit into the CHS plan. They also provided real examples of how these expectations could be used successfully in class.

Challenges
Schooling by Design is a wonderful book that takes the thinking of the UbD books to a school reform program. CHS will continue to work with the program described in the book and has already planned a summer retreat to continue to work with Grant Wiggins on the implementation of the CHS Plan over the next few years. This year has also been a year of learning about what can and cannot work at our particular school. With 150 teachers, 2000 students and a deadline of March 1 to complete the work—challenges inevitably arise.

Impetus for Change:
CHS had been discussing the philosophical basis for change for 4 years. While this pace was too slow in our eyes and especially in the eyes of your accrediting body it is important to spend time at the beginning of the process determining what the issue is. Wiggins and McTighe describe this in their book but it can easily be glossed over or a phase that is rushed through. It truly is the foundation for success though. No one ever drives by a construction site and marvels at the beautiful foundation but it is the most important part to any building. This is the same for mission reform. The work done at the beginning, upon which all other work is based, is the most important and least glamorous of all the work that is done.

Product:
At some point philosophical discussions need to end and the creation of a product needs to begin. Once CHS did move from our overly long foundation period it was critically important to keep everyone focused on creating a product during the year. This meant sometimes cutting off interesting philosophical discussion to bring a meeting group back to the task of working on the product at hand. This was particularly difficult at the beginning of the year…

Continual Change and Improvement:
There might never be a final product. Culturally we can become used to working on something and creating a final product. A product that is “done.” Mission reform is not like that. At CHS we used the example of how teachers teach. Every teacher starts with a product in their first year and builds upon it in each successive year of their teaching. The first time I taught biology I taught a unit on reptiles because that was one of the chapters in the book. I found a National Geographic that was a 90 minute show on reptiles, 15 worksheets and a note set from a different book. In subsequent years I first improved this unit and then realized that I should really be teaching reptiles within the bigger context of adaptations. Each year the presentation and information improved. The same approach is needed in this work. The rubrics to measure the graduation expectations this year were not perfect. The rubric for critical thinking was so well written that most people—students and adults—had trouble understanding what it meant. So in the next year we will work on using everyone friendly language in the rubrics.

Big Goals:
We constantly asked teachers to think about what they wanted students to know when they walked across the graduation stage. By continually coming back to this we kept the focus on what they really wanted to have as goals. We often said that if they were working on something that did not feel like it should be a graduation expectation…









[1] I will personify Concord High School in this paper to avoid long awkward phrases like, “the faculty at Concord High School,” etc.

[CSD1]Chris—take a quick look at this. It is a very rough first go. I will edit the writing more in later drafts. I am mainly interested in your thoughts on 1) structure, 2) questions that you have as an outside reader. I welcome anything you have to say.

Rethinking Midyear and Final Exams
by
Tom Crumrine

If high schools need to be better then high schools need to change. Here is one story…

Introduction
New Hampshire has recently begun a statewide initiative to implement competencies in all high schools. This competency movement means that course credit will no longer be determined by seat time but by the attainment of specific learning goals. This means a change in how high school happens and how high school works. This study explains one example of how high schools might work differently in the future.

At a recent conference I attended Doug Reeves presented the idea that exams might come earlier and then there would be time for students to work on what they have not yet learned. Here is what I tried:

Based on Reeves’s work I decided to try using my summative midyear in some kind of formative way. At Concord High School exams are given the last week of January. This year I gave my students their midyear the week before we left for the December Holidays. Over the break I scored the sections of the test. I gave them a score on each of the major topics that we had covered so far. This resulted, not in one grade, but in nine for the test.

When we returned from the holiday break we were left with 2 weeks of school before the official exam time. With the test results I had identified who needed more help and in which areas. The class was then able to self select into two major categories. First, those students who needed little to no help and second, those students who needed help in several of the categories.

In some ways I was most concerned about the first group of students. What would they do? How will I make sure that they are not bored? How will I make sure their time is not wasted? In the end I decided that the students who needed little to know help would study atoms and nuclear chemistry in greater depth. Specifically, the students were given an article on the radioactive poisoning of the Russian spy Alexander Litvenienko, an internet exploration on nuclear submarines and more in depth study of isotopes than we had previously undertaken. All of these activities tied in with the competencies of the glass but they were more in the good to know category than in the must know category.

With the second group of students I began to think of ways to work on what they must know. I had four ninety minute classes before the exam so I considered how I would use each one.

For the first I returned the exams to all of the students and asked them to look at the areas where they had needs. My focus always was on what they could do to improve their understanding NOT on what they could do to improve their grade.

For the second day I organized the room into six stations. Each station was dedicated to one or two of the competencies that students had to show that they understood. Using an approach advocated by Fred Jones, I had posters on each table that showed the step by step approach to the more involved problems like how to write electron configurations. On the other tables I had books and information that directed students to read and improve their knowledge.

On the third day, darn this isn’t meant to sound like Genesis, we had similar activities that were meant to increase student understanding in each area. For the next 3 days we worked on this

Mid Year Experiment

Early Midyear Exams
Middle of the night draft
By Tom Crumrine

In November I attended a conference and Douglas Reeves suggested giving midyears early, providing corrective instruction and giving the midyear again. A sysnopsis is found here:

http://www.sabine.k12.la.us/online/leadershipacademy/high%20performance%2090%2090%2090%20and%20beyond.pdf

So, I decided to try the experiment myself…

Introduction
The idea was to give the midyear at an earlier point so I decided to go with the logical pre-Christmas pre-exam. I have always wondered why we give first semester exams after a 2 week holiday so I just gave them early.

Upon our return to class in January I did the following things:

• Over the holidays I “graded” the exams by highlighting areas where students could add more information.


• On the first day back I gave students the exams and asked them to provide more information in the highlighted areas.


• When I got the test back I marked the scored versus the standards.


• With the scores v. the standards I was able to develop a plan to educate groups of students.


• In the two weeks after the holidays and before exams I provided corrective instruction

When it came time to take the exam I created a test that tested the same standards but with different questions. If students had already scored a 5 on a particular measurement topic they did not have to respond to the new question. So some students had to do all 9 questions and some had to do only 1. (All students completed a common part of the exam that assessed basic science skills—calculation of density, metric conversions, lab safety, etc.)

The Results
Figure 1: Items 1-9 are the measurement topics. The numbers at the bottom are the averages of all student scores. The test dates were exactly 1 month apart with a 2 week holiday break at the beginning of the month and four 90 minute classes of corrective instruction prior to exam week.

Reflection
Obviously I was excited about the graph and the fact that the average for all measurement topics went up. But there are both positives and concerns with this approach.

Concerns
We spent four 90 minute periods on the corrective part. I will argue later that this is not wasted time but we did not go on to new material.
The students who did well the first time around actually did go on to new material but they were self directed as I spent most of the time working with the students who needed more help. The students worked on an extension of the atomic structure unit where they investigated isotopes by looking at the poisoning death of Russian agent Alexandre Litvenienko. The students that were good at being active self directed learners told me that they enjoyed this project and they were glad that they got to do it. But those students that were not good at self directed learning did not get much out of this extension project.
I scored both tests. I tried very hard to eliminate any bias that would come from doing this by not looking at the December scores when scoring the January test and by creating specific rubrics for each question—but the fact remains…

Positives
The corrective instruction took some time but all student scores went up. The scores were based on understanding of the topic so the understanding of my students increased with the extra two weeks of instruction. The research backs up depth over breadth but as a teacher who learned science in a different era—the one of breadth over depth with the memorization of tons of factoids—it feels like I’m doing something wrong.
A couple of students asked if they could forgo the extra project and help other students. I granted this request and the results were great. Seeing one student teach another how to describe the model of the atom is the kind of scene that makes you nearly tear up.
Students loved the fact that each test was essentially customized to them. Once they got over the newness of the fact that they only had to answer certain questions they really liked the approach. This also was the “reward” for those students who did well the first time around.

Conclusion
While I have concerns the positives do outweigh them in my mind. In order for high school to change we must change some things about high school. This is one experiment that will be worth repeating.

homogeneity and class size

I was speaking with a fellow educator the other day about class sizes and homogeneity. Some thoughts I shared with him....

Class size reduction is an area of thought close to my heart. From my summers working with smaller numbers I have seen that it can have a great effect on my ability to keep in touch with each individual student. Recent studies on the effect of class size reduction do seem to bear this out. In the table below you see the research of three groups[1]. They all compare the increase in learning (in months) to the cost. (It is difficult to measure cost for the second one—thus the ?.)

Interventions

1. Class size reduction from 30-20. 3 month increase in learning in a year at an estimated cost of $30,000.
2. Increase in teacher knowlege from 50th percentile to 94th percentile. 1.5 month increase in learning at a cost of ?.
3. Effective formative assessment. 6-9 months increase in learning per year at an estimated cost of $3000 per year.

Your second point about heterogeneity is one that interests me as well. I went to a school with all homogeneous classes so I don’t have the perspective of learning in a heterogeneous classroom. I do appreciate many aspects of homogeneity and think that combining it with reduced class sizes in specific classes might be the way to go. If 20% of students are failing English 9 then it would seem that one of the possible steps might be to take action by reducing class size to 20-22.

Later in the day I happened to be calling Grant Wiggins to set up a web conference and he talked about the idea whereby competencies might actually lead to “smart” homogeneity. He cautioned that he supports heterogeneity just maybe not in all cases. If I were to extrapolate his thinking I would say that at times homogeneity is the right thing to do and at times heterogeneity is the right thing to do. I know from many of his books and speeches that he is against mindless devotion to any one educational system. He always counsels that as professionals we must thoughtfully decide what is best for students.

My own view is that smart homogeneity is a good idea but one that cannot be done easily. It requires everyone to understand the subtle (all too subtle) differences between homogeneity and tracking. Poorly done homogeneity is more damaging to students than poorly done heterogeneity. That is too sweeping but I feel that there is some truth to it. I support the use of good formative assessment to teach a heterogeneous group in a one room school house style. With good formative assessment you find out who needs what and teach accordingly. Then in the next unit you find out who needs what and teach accordingly. The homogeneous groups within the class are fluid.

On Dec. 3rd I will talk about the third row of the table which is the area where we can take action right now. That said I greatly encourage a push in the community to educate other community member and the school board to the fact that education is an investment NOT an expense. States chose to get into the business of education long ago because they knew it was the right thing to do—even in tough economic times it is important to remember that the best path to future prosperity lies in educating the citizenry.

I had this quote from Dylan Wiliam in another piece I wrote but will add it here as a way of closing:

“If you achieve at a higher level, you live longer, are healthier, and earn more money…In addition, people who earn more money pay more taxes, are less likely to depend on Medicaid or welfare, and are less likely to be in prison. It has been calculated that if a student who drops out of high school would stay to graduate, the benefit to society would be $209,000 (Leve, Belfield, Muenning, & Rousse, 2007). This sum is made up of $139,000 in extra tax revenue, $40,500 savings in public health cost, $26,600 savings in law-enforcement and prison costs and $3000 in welfare savings. Eric Hanushek (2004), a leading economist of education in the United States, has calculated that if we could raise each student’s achievement by one standard deviation (equivalent to raising a student from the 50th to the 84th percentile), over 30 years, the economy would grow by and additional 10%, and just the additional taxes being paid by everyone would more than pay for the whole of K-12 education.”

1. [1] Jepsen and Rivkin (2002)
2. Hill Rowan and Ball (2005
3. Wiliam, Harrison and Black (2004)

Homework

Prompted by reading the latest English Journal from November 2008 some thoughts on homework.


1. My students usually don't do it. The ones who I think "need" to do it are the ones who definitely don't do it.
2. The only clear effect I have seen is a negative effect on grades. This is from when I used to grade homework.
3. Now that I use a policy of "getting homework done" I have found that I still don't see the kids who need to do homework still don't do it.
4. When I gave students choices of penalties for not doing homework they still did not adhere to turning the homework in--my ultimate goal. In this case I gave them 3 choices 1) turn the homework in the next morning with no penalty, 2) I call home and then they turn the homework in, 3) stay after school and get the homework done. I had 3 of the 10 students stay after and 2 of the students turn it in the next day. This rate of 50% doing it in the end is the same as I have always found, no matter what penalty I use.

Interesting ideas from the articles:

1. Choice of homework. Offer students a choice of what they want to do. For example teach a lesson and during the last 10 minutes have them choose what homework they would like to do to prove that they understand the material. Using this approach my wife suggested some scaffolding where we would show examples of effective student work the next day. I plan to try this approach next week and will report on how it goes.
2. It isn't the homework but the right homework. It is really important to give the "right" homework so that it is effective for the stated goals. I have been thinking about this over the years but just as I have been more intentional about the right assessments I need to be more intentional about the right kinds of homework.

Responses to Assessment Conference

Responses:

I loved reading those. The one that most hit home to me was 1-5 (or 1-7) grading/assessment system, rather than percentages. I just could not agree more that percentages alone mean absolutely nothing -- this is clearly a big thing that AP and IB get right.

I also think the emphasis on progress reports is huge --- while teaching, I found this to be the most draining (in terms of both energy and time) aspect of the job, but it's also the way to make the biggest difference. Reading your stuff really makes me long to be back in the classroom.

Another one:
Wow, I had the same thought as [the writer above] as I was reading (about wanting to be back in the classroom). I actually was afraid that he would walk into the office tomorrow and tell [his boss] he was done...

Really interesting stuff and I think the fact that you are posting these things (and I'm assuming making that available to other teachers) is absolutely an incredible way to communicate the stuff you took away from the conference to the staff. So much resonates.

I would definitely encourage you to not be shy about getting this in front of teachers. You know how busy people are. Send them the link 3 times or find some other way to do it. It is important.