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When You Care Enough to Send the Very Worst

Last weekend I went shopping at a Hallmark store to buy a birthday card for my youngest son.   I had a hard time finding one appropriate. The “son” cards fell into two categories: for little boys and for grown men.   Hardly anything fitting a child between 8 and 20.

What I had no trouble in finding, however, were raunchy cards which have taken over a sizeable portion of the shelf space.

One card showed a young boy discovering his mother’s tattoo near her rear end. Another one said “wishing you a birthday full of knockers, jugs, and hooters.”

Then there was a card with a drawing of excrement on the front with a saying inside not suitable for a family newspaper.

By the way, all of these tasteless cards were displayed at a child’s eye level with nothing to shield the front of them.

Years ago, there were alternative card shops whose specialty were risqué greeting cards. Never did I think I’d see those products in a Hallmark store.

In the press release for the re-launch of this Shoebox line, the company freely admits that “the entire collection has been updated with . . . language reflected in today’s world” and

“reflects how people today talk, text, tweet and post.”

If the litmus test is “language that reflects today’s world” then why not just delete any level of decency and publish cards with f-bombs and drugs?

On their website, Hallmark states “that our products and services must enrich people’s lives” and that we “are committed to . . . high standards of ethics and integrity.”

How do these repulsive cards follow those guidelines?

I contacted Hallmark to see how they can justify offering such an off-color line of cards and still uphold their company’s core values so explicitly expressed on their website.

Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Steve Doyal told me that “our goal is to appeal to a wide range of people who want to connect with one another through laughter.” It appears that Hallmark is hiding behind the “humor” rationale to explain away the crass words and images that appears on several of their cards today.

Some of the high school sophomores I teach to laugh at immature jokes that are not suitable for young kids. But they are 15-year-olds.   So when companies create sophomoric material, ignoring that there are impressionable children among us, it boggles the mind.

Anyone who wishes to provide feedback on these vulgar products can comment on Hallmark’s website. Curiously, when I submitted a comment mentioning a card with multiple uses of the f-word that is slang for flatulence, the following error message appeared: “We’re sorry, but we have encountered the following issue(s): your text contains inappropriate language.”

Exactly my point.

According to company spokesperson Jaci Twidwell, Hallmark does have taste guidelines, yet strives to provide a “wide breadth of products” to their consumer base.

Even if one allows it is in good taste to print a greeting card depicting excrement, why not at the very least instruct your merchants to display these cards in some way so children don’t see them?

So in order to sell more cards, the standard has to be lowered, the content edgy.

The company’s long-standing slogan “when you care enough to send the very best” seems to have been forgotten.

I wonder what Hallmark CEO Donald J. Hall, Jr.’s grandfather and company founder J.C. Hall would think of this new line of greeting cards. His reaction might be so objectionable that it would fit right in among the other Shoebox offerings.

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Parent Input is a Must in Developing a School Calendar

Last month I wrote about the early start of school in Glendale and now there is an online petition, Save Our GUSD Schools, for parents to sign who want to push it back closer to Labor Day. Currently, the petition has surpassed 2,000 signatures, nearing their goal of 2,500.

As previously explained, the shift of the school year from September to August has to do with secondary students finishing their fall semester final exams before Winter Break, as well as providing more time to learn material before the Advanced Placement Exams in May.

While all school districts have 180 days of instruction, Glendale schools begin earlier than all other neighboring districts in Burbank, Pasadena, La Canada, and Los Angeles because of the extra days off within the start and end dates, thus stretching school over 296 days compared to Burbank which begins one week later but ends almost a week earlier due to fewer days off.

For the past two years, Glendale schools have closed on the Friday before Labor Day weekend. If this trend of lengthening 3-day weekends into 4-day weekends continues, schools may have to start in late July.

Next year’s first day of school will be the earliest ever: August 8.

Besides the early start date, here is another curious characteristic of Glendale’s calendar. Looking at a month-by-month breakdown of the number of school days, notice that the 180-day year is split unevenly, with 85 days in Fall and 95 days in Spring, a 2 week difference.

Aug. = 16, Sept. = 20, Oct. = 21, Nov. = 15, Dec. = 13, Jan. = 16, Feb. = 19, Mar. = 17, Apr. = 21, May = 21, June = 1

If GUSD kept Labor Day as a single holiday, and Thanksgiving as a two-day holiday, there would be 89 days in Fall and 91 in Spring, close to an even split.

Also peculiar is that students need to return to school for only two days following Memorial Day.   Again, cut out two of the oddball days so children and their families can celebrate the end of the school year along with high school graduations right before the Memorial Day weekend.

Christine Walters, school board president, said that the GUSD calendar is “a contract item which has to be negotiated” with GTA (Glendale Teachers Association). So how much weight will the parent petition carry in deciding any changes?

Last year, BUSD sent out an electronic survey on their calendar. What they discovered was that the majority of parents did not want a whole week off for Thanksgiving because it would extend the school year into June. So the board members listened to their constituents and, with the approval of the district’s unions, had the calendar reflect the wishes of the parents.

There are some Glendale and Burbank district employees who have to scramble for child care due to their children attending the other city’s schools, each district’s Spring Break often occurring on different weeks.

Here is a proposal. Have All BUSD and GUSD school board members, PTA presidents of all schools, and teacher union presidents of BTA and GTA meet to discuss a common calendar.   Develop a few sample calendars and present them at public forums. Then, email parents in both cities to vote on them. The calendar with the most votes gets implemented.

Nayiri Nahabedian, Glendale School Board Member, said that she is “not opposed” to a common calendar, while Roberta Reynolds, Burbank School Board Member, thinks that having the same calendar is “an interesting idea.”

If such a meeting would occur in the near future, there would be plenty of time to go through this process and have a unified calendar in place before June.

The calendar issue will be discussed at Tuesday’s GUSD school board meeting so any interested parents or employees should attend.

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Memorizing 200 names: Part of a Teacher’s First Day

My head is throbbing, my throat’s on fire, and my limbs are numb.

The cause of these symptoms? The opening day of the school year.

While I’m beginning my 27th year as a teacher, each start of school gets more challenging.

One would think with more experience, the easier it would get; however, with each year, I learn more, and in sharing all that I know with students, it causes stress on how to fit it all in.

Plus, there are the usual tasks that require completion within the first few days such as creating spreadsheets with the rosters, typing seating charts with the correct names students wish to be called (not the ones on the rosters), collecting signed parent forms, and photocopying handouts that cover the entire school year.

Since I’m teaching an extra class this term, I have even more students than normal. I discussed this challenge with my students, one of whom asked me, “How do you memorize the names of 200 students?”

It’s funny how it takes a 15-year-old to remind me how numb I’ve become to the reality of that number.

For years now, California ranks near the bottom among states in per pupil spending and in key education factors.   However, according to the most recent National Center for Education Statistics report, the state can lay claim to one category: the highest student to teacher ratio in the country of 23 to 1.

But that number is deflated since “teacher” includes educators who are specialists. The reality is that most classrooms average in the mid-30s.

It makes sense why some parents remove their kids from public schools and go the private school route where ratios are less than half.

Whether or not class size makes a difference in the learning process is an issue that has no clear evidence to support either viewpoint.

Still, there are the raw numbers that can’t be disputed in terms of the alarming amount of work that is required of public school teachers: the ability to know 200 vs. 100 students’ names, the amount of time to evaluate 200 papers vs. 100 papers and to modify lesson plans, the cost of additional books, supplies, and equipment, the lack of mobility to move about in a room with 40 vs. 20 students, and the warmer the rooms are due to the additional body heat.

It also is difficult to call on 40 students in an hour-long class than one of 20, meaning a larger share of kids remain mute each day.

Imagine an attorney meeting with 200 clients every day. Or a physician seeing 200 patients a day. It does not happen.

If a doctor were to see one patient for only 5 minutes at a time, it would take him nearly 17 hours to get to 200 patients without any breaks. And who would think 5 minutes qualifies as a quality healthcare visit?

In a state with a large non-native English speaking population, expecting that educators with their extraordinary workload can have all their students meet the Common Core standards is quite an undertaking.

It is time for Californians to question how much longer can such overcrowding continue when schools are held to high accountability measures.

If the goal of public education is to house students, consider what we are doing a success. But if the charge of schools is to illuminate ideas in the minds of young people, to enable them to realize the potential of their abilities, deep-rooted changes must take place.

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Parents Who Don’t Vaccinate Their Children Are Abusive

What began as a curious story of a small measles outbreak in, of all places, the so-called Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland, has stretched to nearly 100 cases across 8 states and into Mexico.

With all the health problems that can befall people, the last thing we need is for people themselves to harm each other by not getting vaccinated against scourges that modern medicine has already eradicated.

Parents who choose not to give their children vaccinations due to irrational mistrust of medical science not only put their own children in harm’s way, but allow diseases which should remain in history books to resurrect.

As an educator who works in a public school, I have no choice but to be tested for tuberculosis every 4 years. Why? So if I am infected I don’t pass it along to children. I can’t opt out.

However, parents do have that option by filling out the California Department of Public Health’s Personal Beliefs Exemption to Required Immunizations or PBE. Last year, the PBE was revised to require the signature of an “authorized health care practitioner.” While this requirement was intended to make it harder for the form to be completed, all a parent has to do is check off the “religious beliefs” box which requires no medical employee to sign it.

A few short months ago the Ebola hysteria consumed the nation.   Yet there is much more likelihood of a child catching measles than Ebola in this country, a disease with a 90% chance of transference when in contact with an infected individual.

Luckily, the Glendale-Burbank area has been spared thus far. Glendale Unified School District Health Services Coordinator Lynda Burlison said that in the nearly 20 years she was worked in the district, “the last case of measles that I can recall was back in 2000.”

Very few parents have submitted PBEs. Still, there are some schools which have a significant number of children who do not have all their shots.

By visiting the California Department of Education’s (CDE) website and navigating to the Shots for School link, anybody can type in a zip code and click on a specific preschool, elementary, or middle school to receive immediate information.

Schools with fewer than 70% of fully vaccinated students earn a “most vulnerable” rating by the CDE.   Based on the most current information available from the 2013-14 school year, Burbank has one such school, Walt Disney Elementary (how ironic), with 62.8% of the kids there vaccinated.

Glendale, however, has four elementary schools ranked “most vulnerable” with an “increased risk for outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases”: Thomas Jefferson at 68.7%, John Muir at 63.8%, Benjamin Franklin at 60%, and Columbus Elementary at 56.1%.

Just south of Glendale in the Los Angeles Unified School District is Fletcher Drive Elementary where just 40.4% of children have all the required shots meaning more than half of the student population lacks full vaccination. There is an outbreak ready to happen.

If one occurs, those with waivers would be expected to remain home for up to 21 days, the incubation period for measles. This Wednesday nearly 70 non-immunized Palm Desert High School students have been required to stay home for at least two weeks due to an infected teen.

It is a cruel irony that since diseases such as polio and measles have for the most part been eradicated for so long, there exist few eyewitness accounts of people who have had to battle these ailments, leading some to think they are safe.

Maybe the government needs to blast billboards and websites with photos of children afflicted with measles to get people’s attention.

Ultimately, parents who don’t immunize their children exhibit the highest form of selfish behavior. They are taking for granted that the herd immunity of the community will protect their own children.

These militant parents are more than just anti-vaccinators—they are anti-society. As a parent, yes, job number one is protecting your child. But once a parent’s actions go beyond the boundaries of one’s home and will cause harm to other people’s children, the concept of one’s right to do whatever you want no longer applies.

It’s a small world after all.

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Saying goodbye to your child and his childhood is hard to do

Just a few weeks ago Dads Take Your Child to School day occurred in New York City. Another one of those head-scratching official proclamations that makes one wonder: do we really need to remind parents to do parent-like things?

For me, taking my youngest son to school is a pleasure, especially since I rarely do it due to my work schedule; my wife usually drops him off.

Whenever my wife can’t, I get to take my little 5th grader to his elementary school.   Only it is not a drop off.

After we get out of the car, we walk to the school gate, the closest point outside school grounds where parents are allowed to congregate.   Past the gate, parents must remain behind as their children walk on alone.

While most kids carry their backpacks as they walk to school, I willingly carry my son’s; after all, the backpack is much too heavy for his still growing spine.

When I hand off the bundle that would be charged extra if checked onto an airplane, I give him a tight hug, encourage him to do well on that day’s assignments, remind him that “Daddy loves you,” stand away from the small group of guardians in order to be better seen, make eye contact with him through the apertures of the chain link fence, and wave both of my arms as if I’m doing jumping jacks.   Looking ridiculous to others around me is the last thing on my mind.

My son is at an age where a full blown wave might make him look too much like daddy’s little boy to his peers so he settles for a half-wave with his left hand, arm bent at the elbow. He turns towards where his classmates line up, and every 10 seconds repeats his turning back with the half-wave as he maintains his forward march.

This dance of ours continues until he blends in with a sea of other blue/green backpacks 40 yards away.

Not until I am secure that he can no longer see me do I walk away.

What races through my mind is a mosaic of memories from my own childhood and from his, of saying goodbye to parents and children.

How quickly they outgrow the cute sailor suit in the window of the children’s clothing store, the swings on the playground, the annual trip to Legoland.

The next transformation will occur when the little boy skin symbolically falls away replaced with an adolescent armor, impenetrable by hugs and kisses.

With my oldest boy, I’m lucky if I get in a pat on the back goodbye.

What a shame that childhood can’t be twice as long, shielding them from the ugliness of the world that seems to worsen with each tomorrow, from Ebola epidemics to ISIS beheadings, before their enchantment of life evaporates.

Only 145 days remain of the current school year.   Hopefully I get to take my son to school a few more times before his wave turns into a shrug, his glance back is no more when he moves on to middle school. If only every day was a Dads Take Your Child day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Teachers, the ultimate DIYers

Years ago doctors took blood pressure, drew blood, and administered medicine. Today, medical assistants perform these duties.

Years ago teachers took attendance, collected parent forms, and tutored students. Today, teachers still perform these duties.

The teacher remains the sole adult in the classroom working with students even though the job has grown increasingly more challenging over the decades.

Oh sure, there are adult aides in special education classes, and up until a few years ago GUSD used to provide ed assistants in English Language Development classes, but for the vast majority of the country’s three million public school teachers, they go it alone.

Ideally, a new para-educator position should be created, an aide who would assist teachers with the tasks that don’t necessitate five years of college. One para-educator could serve several teachers, so while it would cost additional money to pay them, it wouldn’t be astronomical.

A less expensive and more realistic alternative would be to restructure the clerks already in place at a school, assigning one to be the sole teacher secretary.

Administrators, the smallest employee group on campus, usually have at least two secretaries, the counselors, the next smallest, have one, yet teachers, the largest group of workers with the most student contact, have none.

Here are some things that a clerk could do for teachers that would go a long way towards making the profession more efficient.

Taking attendance, uploading homework and grades. Nowadays parents expect their children’s assignments and grades to be posted online.   Such a task requires hours of work, time outside the teaching day. How helpful it would be to email a secretary this information.

Arranging field trips.   Teachers are required to do all the work involved with organizing field trips, including filling out forms, calling the bus company, collecting money from students to pay for the bus, and beseeching parents to go as chaperones.   With a dedicated teacher secretary, more kids would have enriching experiences beyond the four-walled classroom.

Making photocopies. Up until two years ago, my workplace had a clerk who would make photocopies for teachers. Now, teachers are on their own to take paper to a copy machine, punch in a code, and then remove the paper.   Think of the time wasted for a teacher to do this instead of helping a student in his classroom.

The other day I needed to make 24 copies, an amount that normally would take a few minutes at most.   However, by the time I went downstairs to the copy machine, inputted my code (yes, we have a quota) and loaded my paper, a misfeed occurred.   After removing the crumbled piece of paper, the machine never reset.

Not wanting to leave the machine in that condition, I told a secretary nearest the room about the misfeed.   She told me she wasn’t the correct person to contact and for me to find the clerk in charge of photocopying.

Meanwhile, my 15-minute morning break was now down to 8—and I still hadn’t used the restroom. Sometimes those who don’t work in classrooms forget that those of us who do cannot leave our rooms while students are in them.

Dejected, I returned upstairs without a single copy made. Imagine a school principal or a district administrator using his time in this fashion.

With creative restructuring of the current clerks on hand, even a single employee that serves only teachers would relieve the burden upon educators’ shoulders.   However for this to happen would require a rethinking of the teacher’s placement on the education hierarchy, more of a challenge than assigning a secretary to help teachers.

In the meantime, teachers continue to be the ultimate DIYers in the professional world.

 

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What’s Better for Students: Dynamic Teachers or Diagnostic Testing?

This summer has not been kind to California educators with increased deductions from their paychecks to pay for the pension fund, and tenure and job protection ruled illegal by a Superior Court judge.

So it was refreshing to hear good things said about teachers at last week’s district kickoff meeting from keynote speaker Rebecca Mieliwocki, the 2012 National Teacher of the Year who still teaches 7th grade English teacher at Luther Burbank Middle School.

Ms. Mieliwocki spoke about her experiences traveling around the world as the U.S. teacher ambassador. Since so much attention in recent years has centered on how students from other nations score higher on tests than American children, she wanted to find what magic was being performed in other countries’ classrooms.

Ironically, Ms. Mieliwocki discovered that it was the American teachers who “were the envy of every teacher I met.”   The foreign instructors queried her about the methods of her homeland colleagues.

She went on to tell stories about the importance of teachers accepting students for who they are.  

One young girl in her class always wore the same cowboy boots with flowers on them every day to school.   Some students wondered why she didn’t have another pair of shoes to wear.   It turned out that her father had passed away and the boots were the last item they had bought together. When she wore the boots, she felt close to her dad.

Once her powerful message had been delivered, and teachers were inspired, on came the next speaker, a representative from a testing company called i-Ready.   Too bad the district didn’t seem ready to properly unroll this new program of testing all K-12 students three times a year beginning in a couple of weeks.

When Rebecca spoke, she had the full attention of the teacher throng. When the spokesperson for the new i-Ready testing program presented, a sea of LED lanterns erupted as teachers got out their phones, quickly feeling disconnected including one male teacher sitting in front of me shopping for a thong.

I had to go to i-Ready’s website to get basic information of what was behind the new diagnostic testing: “i-Ready provides data-driven insights and support for successful implementation of the new standards.”  

On top of new Common Core standards that teachers are still adjusting to, now we have this intrusive testing schedule that will devour at least 2 hours for each test.

It’s sad, really, that the district folks don’t get it.   Teachers don’t need more information on kids because we are not provided the necessary time to analyze the data we already have. Students march in and out of classrooms day after day.   Except for an hour long meeting here and there, teachers have no regularly scheduled full work days to examine data with their colleagues.

The kickoff meeting was a clash of two conflicting approaches to education: the inspiration of a dynamic teacher versus the top-down implementation of mandatory testing. The latter presentation quashed the excitement of the one that preceded it.

If only the district brass had the foresight to end the all-staff meeting immediately following Ms. Mieliwocki’s speech, releasing them to use the rest of the day to set up their classrooms for the students.

It reminds one of Charles Dickens’ powerful opening to A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

As Ms. Mieliwocki said, people “have to be brave to take on the work of an educator.”

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Teacher, er, Staff Appreciation Week

May is “thank your local teacher” month: Teacher Appreciation Week (May 5-9), National Teacher Day (May 6) and California’s Day of the Teacher (May 14).

While it is nice to have one’s vocation be singled out, it would be nicer if teaching did not have to be put on the calendar of Hallmark card celebrations. Even See’s Candies designs a Teacher Appreciation Box squeezed among the Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Flag Day assortments.

The unsaid message beneath such recognition is that since teachers are underpaid and underappreciated, scheduling a once a year time to make them feel special makes everyone feel better.

Well, here are some actual trinkets that I’ve received, each with an attached message. While well meaning, they often come across as demeaning:  

–                a penny: “we are the lucky ones”

–                a compact mirror: “you are looking at a VERY SPECIAL PERSON!”

–                a miniature fan: “you are fan-tastic!”

–                a marble: “we think you’re simply marble-lous”

–                a Cup O’Noodles “you are SOUP-er” (at least I could eat that one)

I sincerely do thank all the parents who as part of their local PTA or booster club invest countless hours into showing how much they appreciate their children’s educators. Think about the time it took for a mom or dad to print out all of the tiny pieces of papers, cut and tape each one to each trinket, and sort them in all of the teachers’ mailboxes.  

At least their efforts took more thought than when school districts send out a mass email thanking everybody as if it is just another task to be checked off on a to-do list.

The governor of Georgia once gave each teacher a $100 gift card for office supplies, quite a practical gift considering teachers spend an average of $485 out of their pockets based on a 2012-2013 survey conducted by the National School Supply and Equipment Association.

Recently, corporations have jumped onboard such as Target who sponsors an All-Star Teachers contest that coincides with this year’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game, spotlighting 30 teachers.   Such national recognition is long overdue.

One of the best gifts I ever got came from former principal Don Duncan who gave his faculty members a coupon good for one hour off of work any day of the year (Don would personally cover the classes).   While I didn’t redeem all of the coupons I received, the gesture of allowing a teacher a short breather from the day to day energy drain of teaching was generous.

My main gripe is not with the local parents who participate in making their kids’ teachers feel good, but with the concept of prefabbed, programmed national events, a convenient way out of confronting the long-standing issues in whatever the celebration is about. An artificial annual ritual is no substitute for changing the shortcomings of the teaching profession.   These include teachers getting paid based on how long they’ve been working and not on how well they work, and teachers overlooked for their expertise whenever politicians implement sweeping education changes.

Look, we all like getting recognized for a job well done—an encouraging note, a pat on the back, even a bonus (though not in education).

But let’s put our efforts in reshaping the teaching profession, and make Teacher Appreciation Day obsolete.

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U for Parent Participation

Visit an elementary school at 10 in the morning in the middle of the week for a 3rd grade dance festival and you’d be lucky to find viewing space on the playground, standing among parents with cell phones and iPads extended out in order to record the event.

Fast forward to a high school Back to School Night (BTSN) and there are more empty chairs than ones filled with parents.

In the current climate of data collection and analysis, one would think that today’s school districts would compile statistics on how many parents attend these events.   Perhaps it is because the numbers would not look good.

When my wife and I went to our youngest son’s BTSN, I felt sadness for the tiny empty chairs with no parents in them, especially because the parents were asked to leave behind a handwritten note of encouragement for their child to read the next morning.   How would those kids react to a bare desktop when arriving to school?

At a recent Recruitment Night for the 8th grade parents of children who will soon attend my high school about a few dozen showed up.

Over a hundred current high school students and faculty were in attendance.

There are 450 8th graders at the local middle school; if 45 families were present that night, that would translate to a 10% return, with 90% no-shows.

This was a night for parents to find out what the neighboring high school has to offer their children, arguably the most critical 4 years of the K-12 educational journey, the years that greatly impact future success in college.

What message does it send to children when their parents don’t make an effort to care about their next four years of schooling?

There was no award show on TV that night, the Super Bowl was already over, and the Winter Olympics were a week away.

Sure some parents had to work, and some didn’t want to leave the house because it was drizzling that evening.   But what excuses the rest of them?

Flyers were distributed, info was prominently displayed on the website, and robocalls made.

Think of all the dedicated high school administrators, teachers, students, and support staff who sacrificed a couple of hours of their evening not eating dinner with their own families in order to provide critical information to their children’s success.

Students who had to get dressed in their pep team outfits, the marching band who had to carry the tubas and drums, the teachers from all departments packing and carrying materials to set up tables, then re-packing and returning the materials.

This was quite an effort.

Where were the parents?

At my most recent BTSN as a teacher, 44 parents showed up representing less than one-third of the 150 students I have.   And I teach advanced classes.

I polled my students to discover why their parents were absent. Some said that parents didn’t know their way around campus, all the more reason for schools to encourage students to attend BTSN (schools prefer parents only at BTSN unlike Open House).

It makes sense for children to accompany their parents in the middle and high school grades when one must locate 6 different classrooms with barely a handful of minutes between passing periods.   Those parents with limited English skills could use their children’s help translating for them as well.

However, the most common reason given for parents not attending BTSN was that they “didn’t have the time.”

Yes, conflicts with jobs and child care may arise.   Yet all schools are asking is for parents to support their children twice a year. If a parent cannot commit to even do that, then it is quite discouraging.

Schools should consider holding report cards as carrots to encourage parents to come to BTSN.

At the elementary school level, parents schedule conferences with the teacher and go over a child’s report card.   This is doable due to the elementary school teacher having only one class all day.

It is not feasible for secondary school teachers who have 35 students in 5 classes totaling 175 to have one-on-one conferences. Even if an in-person meeting is scheduled for no more than 5 minutes, it would take 15 hours to hold all those meetings.

By distributing report cards in the child’s first period class, parents would get in hand their children’s grades and could sign-up for a conference as they make their rounds from classroom to classroom.

A study done by the National Center for Education Statistics from the mid-1990s showed that parent attendance at teacher conferences was higher than any other school event including Back to School and Open House nights.

Additionally, the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory discovered in their 2002 study, A New Wave of Evidence, that when parents get involved with their children’s schooling, kids have fewer absences and higher grades.

Schools traditionally grapple with student absenteeism, but parent absenteeism is more detrimental to a child’s academic success.

Children learn from their parents, and if parents aren’t involved with their children’s education, then the children likewise won’t be involved.

Educators can be staff developed on Common Core standards until they are blue in the face, taxpayers can pay higher property taxes to place iPads in the hands of students, but there is a limit to what schools can do for kids.   More parents need to show interest and take an active role.

The saying used to be that it takes a village to raise a child.   But that village cannot thrive without the citizenry of parents.

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Common Core Requires Patience

Years of neglect of not teaching music and other arts may have a deleterious effect on student success if a sample Common Core assessment is any indication.

Part of a sample 11th grade test developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium whose charge it is to design tests that will reflect mastery of the new Common Core standards ask students to write about the role of government-funded public art.  

First, students have to read four sources on the topic.   Then, they have to write out answers to questions about the readings (no multiple choices here).   Finally, students must write an argumentative letter.

The level of vocabulary and geography needed in order to understand the reading selections on the test include words that the majority of my honors English students did not know: city council, Florence, argumentative, iconic, Vatican City, masterpieces, national identity. Even understanding the idea of “public art” proved troublesome.

Most would agree that these words and phrases are important to know and that high school students should know them.   In case they don’t, then answering questions about the reading selections and writing about them would present a challenge.

Jacqueline King, spokesperson for Smarter Balanced, said that teachers would be given a 15-30 minute classroom activity the day before the assessment which would include definitions of specialized vocabulary (e.g., muralist).   However, students would be expected to know academic words such as “argumentative.” The teacher, unable to preview the assessment beforehand, would not be able to pull out words that her particular student population may have difficulty understanding.

Of course, if schools provided regular field trips to art museums or students studied art in general, they would have the prerequisite knowledge that this sample test demands.

In addition to awareness about art, the other aspect to this practice assessment is that it is asking students to read multiple sources in order to derive information for writing a research paper.

Over 20 years ago, GUSD had a requirement that all high school sophomores write a research paper.   The assumption was that reading and writing happen in the English classes, not necessarily in any other courses.

Now, with the Common Core standards and the new type of standardized testing, students will fail miserably unless they receive frequent instruction in careful reading and writing across the board, not just one hour a day in their English class.

Therefore, it is imperative that teachers of non-English courses have students practice these skills as well.

Next year, the new testing will be administered to grades 3 through 8 and 11.   This means that those 11th graders will have had one year of Common Core standards-based instruction so no one should be surprised if the results aren’t very good.

When next year’s third graders take the test as 11th graders in 2023, they will have had eight additional years of such instruction.   Meaning, that their test results would best reveal what impact the Common Core movement has had on education.   If the scores of this “first class” improve from year to year, then it would validate Common Core.

It is a noble endeavor to wish children excel at a high level.   It is ignoble to expect high results overnight.  

As educators continue learning more about Common Core, patience is needed before conclusions are drawn about its legitimacy.

Here’s hoping the bureaucrats will allow a sufficiently long learning curve before declaring the failure of yet another education trend.