Leave a comment Posted on journalism, students

A Student with a Go After It Attitude

I often encourage my student journalists not to feel fearful or intimidated when selling advertisements or speaking to adults for articles.   However, it remains challenging for many of these young people to assert themselves.   A small minority do have a natural “go after it” attitude. One such person is Melody Shahsavarani.

A senior at Hoover High, I have known Melody for three years, first as an honors English student and now as a budding journalist working for the school newspaper, the Tornado Times. She always has a smile on her face that attracts the listener to whatever topic she is discussing.

During winter break, Melody emailed the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team to see if she could cover one of their games as a sports journalist. After not receiving a reply back, she remembered how welcoming new Clipper owner and Microsoft billionaire Steve Ballmer was to the fans so she contacted him directly.

Within a couple of days, she was sitting in the back seat of her friend’s car when she noticed an email on her cell phone with the words “high school” in the message line.

“I thought it was an ASB thing,” Melody said since she is a member of the Associated Student Body serving as Senior Class President.

When she opened up the correspondence, she could not believe the opening words “Steve forwarded me your email.”

“I died right there,” Melody said with an excitable cadence.

President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker responded on behalf of Ballmer and was impressed with her spunk and tenacity so much that Melody was indeed invited to cover the Clipper game last week against the Dallas Mavericks at Staples Center. She would be afforded all privileges of the working press, from the media parking lot to attendance at press conferences as well watching the game from the official press box.

Like a dream, Melody found herself sitting in front of head coach Doc Rivers at the pre-game conference and Chris Paul and her idol Blake Griffin at the post-game conference. While she was unable to ask a question due to a prior selection protocol, she still found the event fascinating.

“I couldn’t believe how tall Michael Smith was,” Melody said of the 6’10” Clipper radio and TV color commentator who does the Clipper games alongside legendary play-by-play announcer Ralph Lawler. “I stood right at his waist.”

She describes the experience as the biggest thrill of her life, with a clearer understanding of “the adrenaline rush of what it’s like to be a sports journalist.”

What these students may not realize is how much more excited I am for their accomplishments.   Few things bring more pleasure to teachers than when students have breakthrough moments.

Hopefully Melody will continue pursuing other endeavors with the same zeal as she did with covering the Clipper game. Her only regret was not being able to take a photo of herself with Griffin.

“They told me that as a reporter I had to be neutral,” Melody said even though she wore her Clipper sweatshirt to the game.

“Honestly, I almost died when Blake Griffin looked at me courtside when he was practicing before the game.”   In fact, she requested that I change her last name to Shahsavarani-Griffin, but that would be inaccurate (at least as of press time).

Leave a comment Posted on teaching, winter break

What Happens When You Have Too Much Time on Your Hands

Writing a blog post right between the end of one year and the start of another is tricky.   Typically writers come up with “the list of the [fill in the blank] of 2014.”   I thought about selecting the top education stories of the year but got a bit depressed.

So before we continue examining challenges of public education for 2015, allow me to share how I spent part of my winter break.

While I am not a fan of starting school in early August, I do like finishing the semester before Christmas.   Students take final exams in middle and high schools so when they return on January 7 they don’t have to turn in projects since a new semester will commence (though a few of my students did mention work assigned by some teachers over vacation).

There really are only two times when my mind is not “on” when it comes to my job: winter break and summer break.   Since spring break occurs in the middle of the semester, it feels more like a pause in learning, rather than a true mental vacation.

Over the years I have noticed that it takes a few days for my body and mind to work at a slower more natural pace.   When I am in work mode, it is difficult even on weekends for me not to think about lessons or students.

So when I am at rest, one of the pleasures I indulge in is to allow my mind to wander, sparked with curiosity, on a number of topics.

In the past week, I read Billy Crystal’s memoir Still Foolin’ ’Em and Jane Leavy’s biography on Mickey Mantle, The Last Boy. How are the two connected?

It started with Crystal discussing his friendship with Mantle in the remaining years of the ballplayer’s life.   In fact, Crystal attended Mantle’s funeral in 1995.   I double-checked this by watching the video of the ceremony on YouTube and there is Bob Costas pointing him out in the audience.

Coincidentally in 2001, Crystal ended up directing the film 61* about Mantle’s and fellow New York Yankee Roger Maris’s pursuit of Babe Ruth’s record (at the time) of 60 homeruns in a season.   This sparked an interest to watch again the Ken Burns’ 1994 PBS documentary series Baseball, a first viewing for my baseball-loving teenaged son.

I then read Leavy’s book on Mantle.   I found myself interrupting my reading in order to view aspects of Mantle’s life online such as a local television video of his retirement ceremony at Yankee Stadium on June 8, 1969.

This exploration of Mantle led me to the ESPN 2007 miniseries “The Bronx is Burning” exploring the tumultuous year of 1977 for New Yorkers through the dual stories of the Yankees’ World Series season with the Son of Sam serial killings. One of Mantle’s closest friends and fellow drinking buddy was Billy Martin who managed the team that year.

And as I watched the TV show, I found out that the lead New York City police detective on the Son of Sam case, Timothy Dowd, who is prominently portrayed in the program, died last week at age 99.

Whether the connections mean anything or not, they do mean that life can be quite fascinating once your mind isn’t preoccupied with regular daily duties. Or maybe I need to return to work before I began exploring other New York crime waves.

Leave a comment Posted on ASCAP, Christmas Songs, Mariah Carey, Walter Afanasieff

The Story Behind “All I Want for Christmas is You”

Nearly seventy years ago a music teacher filling in for his wife’s second grade class asked the children what they wanted for Christmas.   When hearing the sibilant sounds erupting all over the room, it inspired the man, Donald Yetter Gardner, to compose “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.” Two years later, the song was number one in the country.

So I decided to ask my students the same thing. I told them to fill in the blank: “All I want for Christmas is . . .” and as if they had rehearsed their answer for hours, the chorus of voices came back loud and clear, “. . . YOU!” Obviously, the Mariah Carey song had left an indelible impression on their minds. To millennials, “All I Want” is their “White Christmas.”

“All I Want” is on the Top 30 Holiday Songs of the Century list compiled by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) [ascap.com/press/2014/1203-top-holiday-songs-100-years], the newest song on the list.

Commemorating its 20th anniversary, the 1994 composition was co-written and co-produced by Walter Afanasieff. If his name doesn’t ring a Christmas bell, look at some of the recording artists he has worked with: Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Savage Garden, Beyoncé, Michael Bolton, Josh Groban, Luther Vandross.

Multiple Grammy award winner and nominee, Afanasieff won his first for producing Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” from “Titanic.” Within the last couple of months he has produced Barbra Streisand’s latest album “Partners” which is nominated for a Grammy Award this year, and Idina Menzel’s “Holiday Wishes.”  Menzel, who made a name for herself in “Wicked,” also sang “Let it Go” in the Disney animated film “Frozen.”

What’s interesting is that while Afanasieff worked on the Oscar-winning songs “Beauty and the Beast” and “A Whole New World,” the Disney executives who knew him had left the company so he wasn’t on the radar when “Frozen” was made.

He is currently working on a Broadway musical for Menzel revolving around Julia Butterfly Hill, the activist who sat in a redwood tree for 738 days back in the late 1990s.

Afanasieff is no stranger to producing Christmas albums. The first one he did with Kenny G called “Miracles” has sold over 10 million copies.

A modest and gracious person, Afanasieff said that when he and Carey wrote “All I Want” in New York during the summertime they never expected it would become a classic.

“I thought ‘Miss You Most (at Christmas Time)’ was going to be the big hit off the album,” Afanasieff said.

“‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ is basically a simple song; it took form quickly, no more than an hour or so for the music, and Mariah had the lyrics soon after that.”  All of the instruments heard on the recording is “just me playing all of the parts sequenced from the keyboard.”

One quality unique about “All I Want” is that “we created probably the only uptempo Christmas love song . . . that everybody can relate to.”

Afanasieff feels “very appreciative of the legacy of the song.”

“When I hear the song playing during Christmas, in a mall or someplace, it makes me feel quite proud.”

Perhaps someone out there will end up writing a new Christmas classic that in 2035 will be marking its 20th anniversary, part of the canon of carols.

Perhaps it may even be Afanasieff himself.

Leave a comment Posted on Christmas Songs, mel tormé, teaching

It’s Christmas Time so Let’s Remember Mel Tormé

For years now on most Fridays I begin class not with a grammar or writing exercise but with a music lesson as a way to broaden my students’ musical knowledge by playing for them some of the great singers and composers of the 20th century, artists I know they don’t have on their iPods.   Why waste their time playing the latest Taylor Swift song from “1989” when I can introduce them to an entertainer born in 1899?

Around this time of year I usually do my Mel Tormé lesson.   When I ask my students if they have heard of him or know “The Christmas Song,” not an arm goes up.   However, when I play Nat King Cole singing the opening words “chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” smiles and nods appear.

What especially gets my students’ attention is when I inform them that Tormé was their age when he wrote his first hit song. Then I tell them the story of how he visited his then songwriting collaborator Bob Wells at his house in Toluca Lake on a 100-degree day in 1945.

As a way of escaping the stifling heat (the house had no air conditioning), Wells decided to cool himself off by writing a poem about Christmas. Those 25 words ended up becoming the beginning lines to “The Christmas Song,” completed after just 45 minutes.

That composition has remained a part of the holiday soundtrack after 69 years and counting.

Following my own advice to my students about contacting famous people who they admire, I reached out to Daisy Tormé, one of Mel’s five children, and an actor and a singer in her own right, who frequently hosts KCET’s special programming.   I wanted to find out how special her family Christmases were considering her father had a great deal to do with making the season bright.

It is something that the public easily forgets when it comes to celebrities, that after their work is done, they go back to being husbands and wives, fathers and mothers.   And to Daisy, Mel was a daddy first, “the best dad.”

She has cherished memories of Christmas with her father who would purposely not schedule any work during the holidays in order to spend time with his family.   She describes “The Christmas Song” as “an American Song, magical for all of us.”

Wall Street Journal’s drama critic Terry Teachout describes “The Christmas Song” as “one of the most harmonically complex songs ever to become a hit.” Still, if it weren’t for Christmas songs heard on the radio and in the stores this time of year, how many people under the age of 50 would know who Mel Tormé or Bing Crosby were? It is a shame how quickly artists who were once extremely popular over the course of decades can be quickly forgotten.

To further illustrate this, Daisy related a story about her father who was at the storied Farmer’s Market when carolers strolled by singing “The Christmas Song” which they knew he had written though ignorant that he was a renaissance man in the industry: songwriter, singer, actor, musician.

After joining the singers in finishing the song, one of them told him that he “wasn’t that bad of a singer.” When Tormé said that he had recorded a few records in his time, the young man asked, “how many?” “Ninety.”

One of the main reasons why the song resonates so deeply is the line “and so I’m offering this simple phrase to kids from one to ninety-two,” an unusual use of first person point of view where the songwriter directly addresses the listener.

Daisy wistfully reveals that “every time I hear the song, I get emotional because it is like getting a hug from my father.”

And while Tormé never did make it to “ninety-two” having passed away in 1999 at age 73, his song has been around for almost as long as he was—and will certainly go on as long as people wish to hear beautiful music at Christmas time.   To quote Messrs. Tormé and Wells, “Merry Christmas to you.”

Leave a comment Posted on Common Core, influential teacher, Public Education, teacher competence, teacher salary, teaching

Good Teachers Still Deserve Six Figure Salaries

Back in 1998 when I was embarking on my 10th year as a teacher, I had an op-ed piece published in the Los Angeles Times about paying good teachers six figure salaries.

In the 16 years since then, little has changed.

The argument for more money is based on respect, not greed. In society, how much a person earns is directly related to how that person is perceived.   Teachers have little leverage in their profession and that is due to their pay. Higher teacher salaries would translate into increased clout.

As President Obama referenced in his 2011 State of the Union address, in South Korea teachers are known as “nation builders.”   A significant reason they have this perception is that their salaries are equivalent to other professions in that country; not so in America.

Here a teacher’s salary is not only less than comparative careers, but is ranked third out of four pay divisions at a school: administrator, counselor, teacher, clerk in high to low order.

In Glendale Unified School District, the fourth largest district in Los Angeles County,, the starting salary of a teacher is $46,868, of a counselor is $49,391, and an administrator is $63,622, while the highest salary for each category is $90,802, $106,862, and $142,337, respectively.

The salary of a first-year administrator is equivalent to that of a 12-year veteran classroom teacher.   Twelve years is about one-third of a person’s working life. No wonder many administrators exit teaching after a short stint in the classroom.

Over the course of their careers, a teacher can’t quite double her salary, a counselor can double her salary plus $8,000, and an administrator can more than double her salary plus $15,000.

At the bottom of the pay scale, the salary of two administrators doesn’t quite equal the salary of three teachers.   However, at the top of the pay scale, two administrators’ salaries surpass that of three teachers.   In other words, with more experience, the separation between administrators and teachers lengthens, implying that the value of an experienced administrator is worth more than the value of an experienced teacher.

It is interesting to note that the turnover rate among administrators is higher than that of teachers even though they are paid more.

And, don’t forget, counselors and administrators have secretaries to assist them. Not teachers.

The main argument opposed to higher pay for teachers is that there is no money for it.

Yet, there is money for so many other things whose impact on student learning is questionable including extensive diagnostic testing. One cannot minimize the impact that a qualified teacher has on a young person’s life.

And the competency of that instructor rests on a wing and a prayer.

Without financial incentives, principals can’t motivate their teachers to work harder because they can’t offer a bonus or a promotion.   Principals can’t threaten teachers if they don’t perform at a certain level of competence since teacher tenure locks in instructors for life.

Paying teachers solely based on experience and education breeds a lack of quality control.   With no reward for more effective work, the only variable separating a good teacher from a poor one is that teacher’s personal work ethic, a trait not taught in credential courses or staff development, meaning that too much of quality teaching hinges on pure luck.

I am not proposing that the salaries of my colleagues in the counseling and administration departments decrease.   However, as long as teachers rank third out of four pay classifications, the power they wield will remain minimal, and the prestige of the teaching profession will continue to languish.

No matter how often people articulate the importance of teachers, the proof is in the pay scale.

Nation builders?   Not in America.

Leave a comment Posted on Chicago, Common Core, Public Education, teaching

Without parent involvement, NYC Mayor de Blasio’s $150 community school plan is bound to fail

Lost in the middle of the midterm election coverage this week was a major press conference on Monday by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announcing a $150 million infusion into the Big Apple’s 94 worst performing schools, creating community schools.

What is a community school?   Officially named “The School Renewal Program,”

the Mayor calls it his “whole child, whole school, whole community” concept. By “whole child” he means that schools will not just meet students’ academic needs but “all of their needs.”

In addition to providing children with books, desks, and supplies, they will also be given free food, including a pantry, free medical care for both physical and mental needs, weekly check-ups by dentists including cleanings, and free eyeglasses. One school already has a washer and dryer for families to use.

Frankly, it is surprising the bill for this “whole” thing is only $150 million.

This is a significant proposal.   Not in terms of money, but in terms of influence.

If the nation’s largest public school system is headed in this direction, how many more districts will follow suit?

The only thing that these schools will not be doing is clothe and house the students.   Hey, why not just build dormitories on school campuses?   Having students live directly on school property would cut down the tardies. Sure, the living quarters may take away playground space, but kids these days have little time to be kids; they need to be inside, on computers, learning the Common Core standards.

A cradle to career approach is a disturbing trend where the government takes care of children from the time that they are born through their entire K-16 schooling and beyond. Schools will evolve into social service hubs, their original role as learning centers receding.

The view that schools should do more than just teach kids is nothing new. As an extension to the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), President Obama signed the Community Eligibility Provision in 2010 allowing school districts to provide free or reduced-fee lunches to all students.   This program feeds 31 million school children each day costing $11.6 billion.   The cost has almost doubled since 2000 when it was at $6.1 billion.

This year Chicago Public Schools, the third largest in the nation, is expected to serve 72 million breakfast and lunch meals.

Statewide, 58% of school children participate in NSLP, 66.2% in Los Angeles County.

Public schools rarely seem to have sufficient funds as it is.   If monies that should go into higher teacher salaries, improved school facilities, and up to date computer technology get diverted into paying doctors, dentists, washers, and dryers, the future of America’s public schools may be bleaker than it already is.

Politicians excel at concocting education initiatives for failing schools without addressing the root of the problem:   at-home parenting.

Mayor de Blasio plans on holding the principals and teachers accountable, but no where in his speech did he speak of the accountability of the parents.   You know, parents who are supposed to rear their children, feed and house them, and, yes, push them to do well in school.

Parent involvement is not just attending PTA meetings; it is talking to their children, checking their homework, partnering with the teacher.

Without parent involvement, no amount of money or ideas to fix struggling schools will ever work.

The old saying about give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime needs to apply here.

Leave a comment Posted on Public Education, students, writing

Writing any Book is an Accomplishment

Last week I was invited to participate in the Local Authors’ Showcase held at the Buena Vista Library in Burbank.

For me, the event gave me an opportunity to talk shop with fellow writers, and to meet interesting people such as the executor of famed film director and screenwriter Richard Brooks who made films such as “Elmer Gantry,” “In Cold Blood,” “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” and “The Blackboard Jungle” (whose title I adapted for the title of my column).

Another encounter involved a former long-time substitute teacher who gave me an earful about how awful teaching kids are nowadays.   I stood there with a non-committal expression, politely letting her finish her rant, hoping that by not engaging in a debate with her I would encourage a sale. No such luck.

This wasn’t surprising when you think about it. Holding a “books for sale” event at a library is a hard sell (pun intended) since the people circulating from table to table are those who visit a library expressly because it is a public space with free wi-fi, books, and DVDs.

That’s why it made perfect sense when one elderly looky-loo told a fellow writer that she hasn’t bought a book in several years.

Having plenty of time sitting there watching people pick up my books and put them back down allowed me to ponder the plight of a writer.

While the vast majority of authors present were self-published (I was one of the few there who wasn’t), even the worst book took a certain level of dedication to complete.

If the ultimate goal of writing is to make a pot of gold, then most writers are failures.

Just as with other art forms, only the upper echelon of writers make the real money. That explains why publishers like Scribner pour millions into publicizing established moneymakers such as Stephen King, but will not fund the publicity of lesser known writers.   Why take a chance on a no-name when one can sell even more copies of what already works?

Yet success should not be measured by one’s Amazon sales ranking.

One writer with a walker, after receiving no takers at her table, decided to make the rounds of other writers, figuring she may as well make good use of her time by informing them of her memoir based on seven generations of her family.   This woman clearly poured her soul into this book even if no one was buying it.

By documenting her family’s history, she ensured that their lives mattered.

It’s the old philosophical question: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

If a book is published and no one reads it, does it exist?

Emphatically, yes.

This is the lesson I try teaching my students when they write their short memoirs. They get it “published” by having classmates read it. Knowing that there will be an audience, no matter the size, makes a big difference in the effort they put into the work.

So even though vanity presses and self-published books may be the step-children in the publishing world, there is some value to these works.   And that’s why events like a local authors’ showcase serve a purpose; even if it means no books are bought, stories are shared . . . and are worth hearing.

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on fathers, parents, Public Education

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on parents, Public Education, students, teaching

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.

 

Leave a comment Posted on Common Core, Public Education, standardized testing, students, teaching, Uncategorized

Teachers Need to be involved in Decision-Making

In the game of education, there are many players: students, parents, teachers, administrators, district officials, state and federal politicians.   Too often, the group that has the most contact with the students, the teachers, is not part of policy decision-making.

For example, sometime beginning in the late spring, the Glendale Unified School District went ahead with a major endeavor, signing a five-year contract worth $3.4 million with Massachusetts-based Curriculum Associates to use their i-Ready diagnostic testing program, evaluating each kindergartner through 12 grader three times a year.

What was quite startling about all this was how few of the major stakeholders were in the loop, including some administrators.

Glendale Teachers Association President Phyllis Miller said that GTA was not part of any discussions about this program as well.

Just as the Common Core standards seemingly came out of nowhere, so too has i-Ready that no one knows with certainty will benefit students.

The difference between the rollout of Common Core and i-Ready was that GUSD carefully involved teachers in introducing the new standards over a three-year period; the systematic testing came like a “Bam!” a la celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse.   In the past, the district has piloted new programs before committing to them.   Not this time.

Product Marketing Director for Curriculum Associates Susan Arcuri claims that there have been positive results in Glendale.   It’s a mystery how she came to that conclusion considering testing has just begun.

Miller said that many teachers who have used i-Ready say that the test itself is taking much longer than what was expected.

Where I work, the reading test is currently being administered, taking two class periods to complete. If that holds true for the math test, that would translate to a loss of 12 hours of direct instruction in arguably the most important subject classes.

And don’t forget the time it takes school administrators to organize the computer labs and monitor the testing, time better spent elsewhere.

It’s understandable the district wants to do something to help students perform well on the new Common Core based assessments.   The idea of providing teachers with individualized data to help shape future lesson planning sounds ideal.   The problem is that it is not practical.

Any teacher watching an i-Ready presentation espousing its benefits could inform upper management of this.   How are teachers going to find the time needed to analyze the data and then to modify lessons to meet the needs of each student? If a teacher were at the decision-making table, these legitimately difficult questions would have arisen.

One would have to make quite a convincing argument that spreadsheets of colored graphs is preferable to lessons taught by a qualified teacher.

Often overlooked is the analysis already occurring in the classroom on a daily basis facilitated by the expert in that field, the teacher.   Teachers don’t need third party testing results to understand that a student has difficulty understanding a Shakespearean passage.   They discover it through their lessons and assessments.

I have had the privilege of having thousands of students spend time in my classroom. I’d like to make an impact.   But the effect I could have on a child gets further diminished with each hour of standardized testing.

Teachers are very possessive of the time they have with their students so there needs to be a strong reason to justify taking that time away.