School-of-Thought

After a year and a half of work, our school district’s teacher evaluation and professional growth tool is ready for primetime. It will be presented to the school board for review at our upcoming meeting on Monday.  In reviewing the pre-meeting material, I’m pretty excited about what I see. Developed from scratch through a collaborative effort between our teacher’s union and administration, the tool lays out clear and demanding standards for our teachers – and establishes a process for professional growth and development unlike anything we’ve ever had before.

According to Education Secretary Duncan, teacher evaluations are something that’s broken in our country:

“The truth is that students and teachers don’t live in mythic Lake Wobegon, where According toeveryone is above average. Yet we have an evaluation system today that pretends otherwise. As a result, great teachers don’t get recognized, don’t get rewarded, and don’t help their peers grow. The teachers in the middle of the skills spectrum don’t get the support they need to improve. And the teachers at the bottom don’t get the support they need either, and if they do and still don’t improve, they need to be counseled out of the profession.”

It seems to me our new instrument will go along way in addressing his concerns, and will help us continue to strive toward our ultimate goal of improving student achievement. 

The tool establishes a “professional growth rubric” based upon seven area of a teacher’s job performance. These seven areas are:

• Planning and preparing for learning
• Delivery of instruction
• Building relationships with students
• Classroom management
• Monitoring, assessment and follow-up
• Family and community outreach
• Professional responsibilities

The rubrics are designed to give teachers an assessment of where they stand in all performance areas along with detailed guidance on what’s expected to improve. To have enough knowledge to make decisions about the rubric areas, principals will observe teachers in their classrooms frequently throughout the school year – up to 10-12 times per year!

The intent is to establish a four-year staggered evaluation cycle, with about one-quarter of the teachers starting into the cycle during any given year. Year one calls for ten to twelve walk-through visits by the principal with feedback provided through reflection questioning. The teachers will also respond to the questions. The second year is goal setting for the teacher. The third year will have the teacher select two of the seven components of the rubric to have the principal review during the walk-through visits (five to seven). The fourth year is another year of goal setting for the teacher.

The rubric classifies teachers in each of the seven areas of evaluation as:

(1) Distinguished – “reserved for truly outstanding teachers as described by the demanding criteria of the area;”

(2) Proficient – describing “solid professional performance;”

(3) Professional Support Needed – indicating that “performance has deficiencies” that must be corrected; and

(4) Does Not Meet Standard – an “unacceptable level of performance that must be remediated immediately.”

If the assessment finds areas of ineffective teaching practice, the plans calls for the teacher to be put on a plan of improvement with specific goals and resources provided the teacher to remediate the problem. Once remediation occurs, the plan calls for the teacher to be returned to the normal evaluation cycle. If the problem is not remediated, the plan calls for teacher termination.

What excites me about the plan is that it establishes a system to provide real opportunities for teachers to improve their performance, but also weeds out those who ultimately can’t meet the district’s standards.

There’s no question in my mind that good teachers know what it takes to be highly professional and effective in the classroom. This tool sets out a process to help them get even better.  And that’s good news.

Thoughts?

According to what I heard this past week in Washington, the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind will do more than leave behind the name (they’re going back to the old name of Elementary and Secondary Education ACT – ESEA), it will also leave behind the measurement of Adequate Yearly Progress. In its place will be new measurements of accountability that Duncan says will more fairly assess a schools’ academic progress, including:

1. Measurements of student growth.
2. Measurements of student achievement gaps
3. Measurements of high school graduation rates
4. Measurements post-secondary enrollment rates

All the South Dakota legislators we spoke with said they are getting mixed messages if there will be action this year or next, but what’s clear is that momentum is building to address reauthorization, especially in light of the president’s recent budget request which provides for an increase of $3.5 billion in discretionary spending for the Department of Education in FY 2011 – including $1.3 billion to finance a third round of competitive Race to the Top school grants.

Also on tap is the ability for indiviual school districts to apply directly to the federal goverment in the competitve program — something only the states can currently do. For a small state like South Dakota, that’s good news for us.

Some of my Facebook friends were giving me a little grief about how grumpy I look in a picture taken at the School Board FRN convention. It just so happens a moment after the first picture was taken, EdSec Duncan and I exchanged a few laughs that were captured by the same photographer.

So, the guy can smile too  . . .

(Picture is courtesy of the National School Boards Association).

The visits to our legislators are over.  I’m sitting at the airport in Washington, reflecting on the experience.  What did we accomplish?  Was it worth the time to take four days out of my life?

The most honest answer I can give is, I think so – at least, I hope so.  It’s hard to judge how effective our message is – how much weight it will carry, if any.  One thing I’m sure about is that the visit is just a beginning – to be truly effective in communicating our message, each of us needs to continue to communicate and foster relationships with our Congressmen.

What was the message we left behind?  First, that No Child has been extremely successful in focusing attention on accountability in education – a good thing in my opinion – but flawed in its one-size-fits-all application, and in its unrealistic and punitive nature. 

As an example, I’ll share the story about Watertown that I shared with our legislators. Most folks in South Dakota recognize that Watertown is a pretty darn good school.  There are lots of ways we measure our success, including the graduation rate.  Each year we’ve seen our rate improve over the prior year, and the current graduation rate (calculated from 9^th through 12^th grade) now sits at a little over 98%.   Most schools would do back-flips for that high a rate, and most folks would have a hard time considering a school with a 98% graduation rate “in need of improvement.”  Yet that’s just how the feds classify us. 

Why?  Because the NCLB accountability framework doesn’t fairly assess student, school, or school district performance.  There’s lots of reason why a school can unfairly be classified by the government as “in need of improvement.” In our case, it’s because of the unrealistic requirements of special education.  NCLB requires special education students to perform at grade level.  Well, one of the reasons our precious special education students are placed in special education is because they may not be able to function at their biological age.  For example, some sixth grade special education students may only be capable of functioning at the third grade level or the first grade level or whatever.  The point is, NCLB requires them to function at their biological grade level – and those requirements simply aren’t always reasonable. 

So today we discussed with our legislators our wish list for NCLB:

• Reauthorize and reform NCLB – now.  It was supposed to be reauthorized in 2008.  Each passing week that schools have to deal with the current form of NCLB hurts our children.
• Ensure high-quality, reliable and valid assessments for all students, especially for students with disabilities and for English language learners.
• Provide states and school districts greater flexibility to make educationally sound decisions, and be free of mandates that unnecessarily or counterproductively hinder schools from achieving their goals.  One of the criticisms of NCLB has been the one-size –fits-all approach.  Clearly, a rural state like South Dakota has very different needs than states with large urban populations.
• Use multiple measures of academic achievement that will more accurately reflect students’ knowledge and performance in the development of a well rounded education that necessary for success in a 21^st Century economy (as opposed to judging success on a single annual test).
• Permit the use of growth models (assessing how much a student grows academically over a period of time) and other measures of student achievement to more accurately reflect student and school performance.
• Facilitate strategic interventions and incentives that are designed at the local or state level and are targets at students most in need.
• Understand that it’s Congress’ job to support local school boards, not be a national school board.

At our conference, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said “President Obama’s education goal is to create a nation where every child enters kindergarten ready to learn.”  He also said his education department has two overriding goals for American education – “to raise the bar, and to close the gap.” 

How could any school board member not agree with those goals?  They sound good to me – yet like everything in life, the details are what’s most important.  What I’m waiting for is more than rhetoric.

One of the highlight of the school board conference in Washington was a presentation by Education Secretary Arne Duncan.  It seems to me he touched on the concerns of just about every school board member from across the country, including the concerns of school board members from rural states. 

 What are those rural concerns?  Well, there’s many. But primarily, it’s about money and fairness.  With federal dollars moving away from “formula funding,” in other words, funding based on the number of children that qualify for a particular federal program all across the country, to instead moving toward funding that’s “competitive” between the states, where dollars are no longer received on behalf of “all” American children, there’s concern that rural states like South Dakota will be at a competitive disadvantage when lined up against states with more money to spend on fancy educatonal grant writers, as well as the concern that the needs and challanges a rural state faces in educating it’s children will not be viewed as importantly by the Feds.

 Today Duncan addressed that.  He said, “the president wants to give rural schools a competitive advantage because he understands they problems they face.”

 Hmmm. Rhetoric, or is there a plan? 

 I decided to ask. 

 When Duncan finished his talk, I moved to the microphone to pose the question. 

 His response?

 He said funding for the special needs of rural states will be addressed in three ways:

1. Matching funds for technology.
2. Set-aside money for rural states.
3. Relationships will be developed with corporations to drive private money to rural areas.

 As with everything in education, the devil’s in the detail.  Forgive me for being skeptical; after all, we’re dealing with the federal government.  The rhetoric sounds good.  Now let’s see what happens.

I’ve reproduced one of the more impressive charts from today’s Washington school board conference.  The chart shows the US unemployment rate broken down by educational attainment.

I think it’s a pretty graphic reference about the value of an education, especially in today’s economy. 

The source for this data, as well as additional information can be found here.  

School Board Members are hearing that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) will undergo significant changes under proposed changes that are being considered by the Obama administration.

Under the current plan, the goal is for all American children to be proficient by 2014. What we’re hearing is that the new law will shift the focus away from proficiency in 2014 and will instead focus on a new goal that “America will have the highest proportion of college graduates of any country by 2020. We’re also hearing that many of the foundational elements of NCLB — like punitive measures for schools not achieving adequate yearly progress will be done away with. The new law will instead reportedly focus on measures to document academic progress (growth), along with some type of funding incentives for states or districts that demonstrate desired growth.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will speak on the budget and ESEA reauthorization at our Federal Relations Network Conference later this afternoon. I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say.  (Picture courtesy of  NSBA.  Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) addressing us during lunch).

Minus a minor snow storm, I gratefully arrived in Washington DC without incidence. Gathering with nearly 1000 other US school board members for the Federal Relations Conference, we spent the day listening to a variety of speakers.  One I found particulary interesting was author Daniel Pink. 

Pink started out his presentation with a simple question, “Who here didn’t have breakfast and is thinking about lunch?”  A lady sitting at the table directly behind me raised her hand.

Pink walked over, handed her a bag with a bagel and orange juice, and said “Being hungry is one motivation. We eat when we’re hungry, drink when we’re thirsty, and we have sex to satisfy our carnal needs. But that’s not all we need as humans, except if you’re a man between ages of 15 to 17.” 

As an example of a second type of drive, Pink then held a ten dollar bill up over his head and said “I’ll give anyone $10 if they come up here and hold my book up for 30 seconds.” A school board guy from Ohio did just that. 

Pink described this as an example of a second drive – how humans respond to rewards and punishments.  

But it’s the third drive that Pink spent most of the session discussing with us — the concept that people will do things because it’s interesting, because people want to get better at it, or because people inherently want to make a difference in the world. 

According to Pink, the problem with business and schools is that they tend to stop at the second drive.  He said too many tend to reward or punish by either offering a carrot or a stick, instead of going on to the third and most important drive. 

Pink drove home his point, saying, “If you doubt the importance of the third drive, then let me ask you this: What are you doing here? — Why do you serve on a school board? You do it because it matters — because it contributes to your community.”

Pink said that studies about performance incentives show that:

1. Bonuses that reward mechanical skills tend to lead to the desired outcome of increased performance.
2. But, once a task calls for even rudimentary cognitive skills, rewards tend to lead to a totally different outcome – reduced performance. For creative or complicated tasks, the reward tends to narrow the focus of the task.  This, according to Pink, typically reduces desired outcomes – like performance – instead of increasing it.

To build on the third drive, Pink said organizations need to provide employees time for self-directed work.  He gave examples of companies that have devoting time for employee autonomy (self-directed time) and as a result have shown improved productivity.  For example, he said Google provides its employees 20% of their time to do anything they want – and that almost all its good ideas have come from its “20% time.”

The session ended with discussion about the implications for education, an especially timely topic since the O’Bama administration is currently advancing teacher performance pay as a consideration for ESEA reauthorization.  After listenig to Pink, the idea doesn’t sound too hot.  What do you think?

The Watertown School Board will meet this Monday for its monthly meeting.  Items on the agenda include updates on the LATI construction project.

On the k-12 side, discussion items include reviewing results from a district-wide teacher survey about technical skills proficiency (using computers and other equipment, educational applications of the Internet, etc.), the budget calendar for 2010-2011, and the latest information on the state’s high school 2025 program. 

Action intems will inclue authorization of bids on a new school bus, and opening ups bids to remodel and expand our kitchen at the high school. 

I’ll also include a brief report of my upcoming lobbying trip to Washington DC.  And following the meeting we’ll have an executive session to discuss contractual issues.

The bummer of the meeting is that it conflicts with both girls and boys basketball games that were rescheduled from this week due to the frigid weather.

South Dakota has come up with a proposal for the DOE’s Race to the Top competition.  The state Ed Department’s news release descrribes a plan to close the gap for our state’s most impoverished student population, American Indians.  Read the news release here.

This video stirred me. 

When people say one-to-one laptop programs can’t work, I just shake my head.  Of course they can work – just look at us! 

 The Watertown School District is currently in the seventh year of a 1:1 program.  We’ve gone through growing pains that are associated with any type of change, but today, 1:1 is simply how we do business – its part and parcel of our normal everyday life and culture at the high school. 

 My perspective on a one-to-one program is necessarily different than a teacher’s or administrator’s perspective.  As a school board member, my charge is to not only promote the best educational opportunities for our students, but to also balance that with the interests of taxpayers.  The information I provide below is hopefully a balanced and honest presentation of our district’s experiences.

 So how did the program come to be?  Roll back the clock eight to nine years and at the core was a group of motivated teachers and administrators who believed 1:1 was an important component of educating students in the 21^st Century, and was necessary to successfully accomplish our district’s mission of educating all students.  Their most significant initial hurdle was to sell the school board on the concept – and the cost.  After lengthy debate, the program was approved with unanimous school board support.  Resources were realigned to accommodate our district’s new priority. 

 Today, our annual board discussions are no longer “do we need the program,” but “how can we make it better.”  Each of us on the school board have come to understand a 1:1 laptop program is much more than simply issuing the tool to every high school student and staff, it’s about creating a new educational environment and providing the infrastructure to allow our classrooms and curriculums to be transformed by the technology.

The move has not come without cost.  For example, this past summer our board approved a four-year lease for 1300 new Macs.  Our commitment to the project?  Nearly $1.4 million.  Of course, that’s in addition to ongoing staffing needs that come with a project like this.  In our district, that translates into a staff of technology integrationists to provide integration support for curriculum, and network and computer technical support people.

We recoup some money through the savings associated with no longer needing to purchase textbooks – texts are now provided by CDs or DVD’s, and a great deal of teacher curricular resources are now online.  But to a large extent, the program has been paid for through a shifting of priorities.  For example, we’d love to put air conditioning in each of our buildings, but our priority is to provide funding for the 1:1 program.

ASSESSING OUR NEEDS 

Five years ago, we began surveying our 9-12 students, a random sample of high school parents, and staff members to gather information relating to the 1:1 program.  The school worked with TIE staff members, who served as outside evaluators, in order to share with the community the outcomes of the initiative based on our district’s goals.  This information is now collected each spring and is used to helped us solve some of the problems that we encountered (e.g. classroom management), as well as help plan for summer and school year staff development. 

CURRICULUM INTEGRATION

Our school district has an extensive scope and sequencing process for all areas of curriculum development.  New technology integration (software and hardware) occurs mainly through the curriculum cycle.  During the period of study (science, for example), software and hardware is a high priority for the K-12 staff members teaching the science curriculum and technology integrationists.  The summer that the curriculum is being studied, technology is also the focus.  The integrationistorders the technology for preview, and the staff views the technology.  Decisions are then made regarding the hardware/software based on teaching staff and technology staff input. The district has a five year curriculum cycle that continues to include a strong component for technology integration. 

STAFF DEVELOPMENT

If a school district can have an attitude, ours is that staff development is at the heart of student learning.  The better the staff development programs are prepared, delivered and implemented with our staff, the more advanced learning will occur for our students.  The district also understands that true staff development does not occur as one time events.  Most staff development programming is on a 3-5 year cycle, and in fact some of our training programs continue each year in order to update new staff members and refresh some of our veteran staff.  Staff development surrounding technology is no different.

At the building level, a technology integrationist provides integration support for curriculum through one-on-one meetings, team meetings, and building level trainings.   The technology integrationists support teachers using different methods of staff development.  For example, they may team teach with the classroom teacher, or help the classroom teacher plan individual lessons integrating technology, and/or support the classroom teacher by being physically present when technology is used in the lesson implementation.

Additionally, after school and summer courses are also offered by the district.  These courses are taught by the technology integrationists or classroom teachers.  These courses are generally offered for college credit, and we support the 1:1program by providing teachers curriculum pay to attend staff development workshops. 

At the 9-12 level, a laptop leadership team meets monthly to discuss curriculum staff development needs and infrastructure needs.  Team members attend National Technology Learning Conferences to gain new information regarding curriculum software.  Several staff members attend the Technology In Education (TIE) conferences on a yearly basis, and a few staff members attend the annual National Technology Conferences.  All of these opportunities help the district continue in advancing the learning for students within the curriculum developed.

 FUNDING

Our school district has several sources for funding.   We utilize the district’s capital outlay fund for the purchase of technology.  We purchase technology (hardware and software) on an annual review cycle that is written as a part of the technology plan.  Our school board continues to support the need to keep the equipment up-to-date and also to help keep our students and staff progressing with the use of technology. 

 The general budget also supports the technology for this district, mainly by supporting the personnel, but also by supporting some of the technology needs such as purchased services (maintenance, etc.), travel (national conferences, state conferences, etc.), supplies, and training (certification training, etc.).  The general fund also supports the salaries and benefits for 8.5 FTE contracts. We also utilize Title IIA and Title IID funding.  This funding supports the staff development for the technology training.  We fund staff development trainers, trainings, and support teachers in the laptop initiative by funding staff development programs. 

THE FUTURE

 Our 1:1 laptop program continues to evolve.   Who knows what the next five or ten years will bring?  But this much I do know — I’m glad we’re at year seven in the program, not sitting back pondering the concept.  That would have been seven years lost – seven years without providing our young people the very best we have to offer for their success.

Are there hurdles to overcome with a project like this ?  Absolutely — finances, staff attitudes, commitment to development, etc.  However as with anything in education, the cost versus the benefits has to be weighed.  When put in that context, to me, the future is clear – the benefits of a 1:1 program far outweigh the costs.  My gut instinct is that the 1:1 laptop program will be in Watertown a very long time. 

What are your thoughts?  Does your school district have a 1:1 program?  If not, what hurdles are keeping you back?   Please feel free to let me know.