NC Legislative Staffer Calls Concerned Teacher an Idiot? Say It Isn't So!

The question of the evening is, "Did a staffer in North Carolina Representative Tim Moore's office call a teacher concerned about about the recently passed North Carolina budget an "idiot?" According to a a recent post to my Facebook timeline, a teacher in Cleveland County, North Carolina  described what it was like to call her state representative and express concerns about the budget. Here's her post:

Post by Julia Clore-Laurich.

Perhaps this incident really illustrates how this legislature really feels about teachers in general. To call a teacher, who happens to be citizen, an "idiot" says a great deal about how this representative really feels about teachers. My fear is that such sentiments extend throughout the legislature and our state's governor's office as well. Their past actions have shown they are no friends to public education. They certainly have proved during this session that they are no friends to veteran teachers.

NC Gov McCrory & Legislature Approves Budget with Hidden Anti-Public Ed Agenda

Today, North Carolina Governor McCroy signed the budget presented to him by the legislature. What amazes me is how our state political leaders can say with a straight face, that they have given teachers a "historical pay raise." Teacher raises are actually between 18% and .3%, depending on years experience. From what I can see, here's what this budget really does.

• It takes away longevity pay for experienced teachers and then returns it back to them in what the Legislature is calling an "average 7% raise." In other words, the actual raise is lower than what they brag about because they are taking pay away that teachers earn because of their years of service.
• This budget sets up a donation fund to collect donations for those would like to donate money to future teacher pay raises, because we have political leaders unwilling to use tax money to fund future teacher raises.
• The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is cut by 10%.
• There were no direct cuts to teacher assistant jobs, but the wording of this part of the budget has an odor difficult to identify.
• Textbook funding was increased only by $1 million, bringing to to a whopping total of $25 million, yet our legislature was able to somehow find another $840,000 for school vouchers. Compare this to the fact that the textbook budget pre-2010 recession was around $125 million.
• Monetary allotments for salaries and benefits to district offices were decreased by 3%.
• The North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program, an excellent program designed to provide scholarships to promising high school students who want to become teachers was also cut.
• The budget directs funding toward for-profit virtual charter schools, even though there questions about their effectiveness.

This budget is what I would call a "grudge" budget, which is a budget that uses mirrors and smokescreens to hide this legislature's continued anti-public education agenda. It is sad that Governor Pat McCroy, Thom Tillis, and Phil Berger would resort to deception in an election year, but then again being able to deceive others is a valued trait in American politicians of every stripe. It's too bad that children will continue to suffer under these kinds of budgetary decisions and public education will still continue to deteriorate. 

Perverse Practice of Focusing on 'Bubble Students': Malpractice in the Schools

One of the most insidious by-products of the age of testing and accountability is the suggestion that educators should "focus on bubble students" in order to raise a school's test scores. For those who might not know what the term "bubble student" is, in education lingo, the bubble student is the student who has the greatest chance of demonstrating growth or an increase in test scores. Many a scheme has been devised to determine who these students are, and talk to any educational or curricular material salesmen, and you are more than likely going to hear this phrase: "Our materials will help you identify those students who have the greatest chance of demonstrating growth, and we give you the materials to focus on them."

Is there not anyone else who feels a bit of disgust at this sleazy sales pitch and idea? Basically, the suggestion is this: you can identify those kids who have the greatest chance of demonstrating higher test scores and focus on them. This also implies that "less focus" will be on other students for whom gains will be harder and more resource-intensive. Whatever happened to teaching "all students?

We have our testing and accountability culture to thank for this perversion. Because test scores become the ultimate indicator of quality, any strategy is on the table, including ignoring some students in order to help those who show the greatest promise of demonstrating growth. If I were a parent of a lower-ability student or a gifted student, who are usually likely victims of "bubble-student" strategies, I would hire a lawyer immediately. There's a pretty good chance that behind the use of such talk is the idea that the school is going to purposefully focus on "money students", that is, students who have the greatest chance of producing test scores, and neglect those at the very bottom and the very top who aren't going to demonstrate the greatest test score gains.

The practice of focusing on "bubble students" or "money students" as its also called is unethical and perverse. No one would suggest to a physician that he only treat those who have the greatest chance of healing. I certainly don't want a mechanic who only takes the easiest cases of repair, and writes the others off as too resource intensive. Any suggestion of this strategy for raising test scores has zero place in schools.

The practice of focusing on bubble students is a direct consequence of this fetishization and idolization of tests present in education today. Make test scores the ultimate goal, and you get perverse educational practices like focusing on the bubble students and ignoring other students because they are less likely to "bring the gains desired." By the way, any sales person who uses that in pitching his products, has immediately lost a sale.

Time to Dethrone Testing from Its Godly Position in Public Education

"We would like to dethrone measurement from its godly position, to reveal the false god it has been. We want instead to offer measurement a new job—that of helpful servant. We want to use measurement to give us the kind and quality of feedback that supports and welcomes people to step forward with their desire to contribute, to learn, and to achieve." Margaret Wheatley, Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time

Want to know what's wrong with testing and accountability today? It's more about a "gotcha game" than really trying to help teachers improve their craft. Over and over ad nauseam, those pushing these tests talk about using test data to improve teaching and thereby student learning, but that's not what is happening at all.

In American education, despite what many testing and accountability advocates say, testing is driving our education system. Decision after decision is based on what will "produce the best test scores." What's wrong with that? Nothing at all, if those tests truly and accurately capture worthwhile learning, but sadly, our quest for the "Holy Grail" of tests has not been productive. All the tests and bubble sheets we subject students to are incapable of capturing real learning. I don't have the same faith in testing that many educators have. There will never be a test, nor a set of standards that saves education.

I suggest that we do as Wheatley suggests in her book Finding Our Way. Let's "dethrone measurement," in this case testing and reveal that it is a "false god." We've had well over 10 years of "test worship" and absolutely nothing to show for it. No Child Left Behind began elevating testing to deity levels, and Race to the Top has only elevated testing even higher, to the point that we're now deciding the fate of teacher assistants, teacher careers, student promotions, even the status of whole schools based on single test scores. We have made "tests" our crystal balls through which we can identify a bad teacher or bad school. We have test scores to tell us how much impact a kindergarten teacher might have on future earnings. Really? Do we really believe in the power of tests and the power of data that much?

We do need to dethrone testing a bit and make it a servant of good education rather than the dictator it has become. I'm afraid that won't happen until this fundamental faith in the infallibility of test scores ends. Let's hope our education system isn't destroyed first.

Vegetarianism, Exercise, and 21st Century Leadership---Thoughts On Being Healthy

"We all know we should be eating more vegetables---it's the advice given by every nutritionist and on every food pyramid. Becoming vegetarian, even if it's only part time, is a great opportunity to do just that." The Vegetarian Bible

Most of us grew up with admonitions from our parents to "Eat your vegetables" while we stared at our plates piled with green peas, carrots, or green beans. The inevitable second part to that statement was almost always, "They're good for you." The problem with that justification, at least as I remember it, was that it did not work, especially with the green peas. Most of us did not eat them because we thought they were good for us; we ate them because they were on our plate.

Don't get me wrong, there were some vegetables that I enjoyed. I have always liked green beans. Black-eye peas were good too. I actually did eat most vegetables, except for green peas, which for some reason I did not care for.

Fast forward years later, and most would find it difficult that I have chosen to become a vegetarian. I have always been a heavy meat-eater. Give me a sloppy cheese burger, and I was happy. But times have changed for me, I have been a vegetarian for the past few months, and I am glad I made the change. I have never felt better and have more energy to boot. In addition to becoming a vegetarian, I also have been walking over 4 miles per day for exercise. This all came about because I realized I was not being very good to myself with what I was eating and with what I was not doing with physical exercise. I felt bad physically a large part of time. A visit to my physician and the scales was the final straw that convinced me I was on a crash course for obesity and bad health.

Three months later, I've lost 34 pounds and feel 100% better.

I won't try to convince you to become a vegetarian. One thing I've learned by choosing this course is American society is based on carnivorous eating. When you go to dinner parties, unless they happen to know you eat vegetarian, you are likely to find yourself sucking on a piece of parsley and sipping water. Restaurants are almost entirely based on meat-eating too, and if there are vegetarian choices, you either are relegated to choosing a dish and tell them to "Hold the meat," or there's a small section in the menu with three or four choices are labeled "Vegetarian." This is no dig at gracious hosts of these parties, nor the owners of fine restaurants who serve great food, but Americans assume Americans eat meat and that's the way it is.

Still, I can't help but wonder that we as school leaders, models of being good citizens, should also not be modeling making good choices about our eating and about exercising. We become quite adept at solving problems in our schools, but we ignore the problem that we aren't being very kind to our physical selves, and what's worse, we're modeling that for our students. I am certainly not advocating that we somehow mandate healthy eating and exercise for education leaders because they are "role models." Being a "role model" means you do things because they are the right thing to do, not because you have to do it, so mandates aren't going to solve this problem.

In the end, we all have to make the choices about how we treat ourselves. We don't have to be vegetarian, but we can be mindful of what we eat and avoid excess and eating things that aren't good for us. We can also get some exercise. The excuse of the busy schedule should not prevent this. You walk, run, jog, or swim as a part of normal everyday routine. Make it a habit as something you just do. If we don't take care of ourselves by with mindful eating and exercise, we will probably shorten our careers as school leaders, and we might not be modeling good decision-making in these areas for our students.

2 Things That Really Matter When Leading Your School, District, or Organization This Year

At the end of the day, we can set up all the policies and procedures we want; our schools or organizations still may not be successful. All the goals, strategic plans, visions, and missions we establish are meaningless and will not spur success if the people do not feel what they are doing is meaningful and worthwhile, and they do not feel valued. I like this quote from Margaret Wheatley's book Find Our Way: Leadership for Uncertain Times.

"During this period of random unpredictable change, any organization that distances itself from its employees and refuses to cultivate meaningful relationships with them is destined to fail. Those organizations who will succeed are those that evoke our greatest human capacities---our need to be in good relationships, and our desire to contribute something beyond ourselves. These qualities cannot be evoked through procedures and policies. They are only available in organizations where people feel trusted and welcome, and where people know that their work matters."

 If your life as a school leader is like mine, we are in a swirl of change, especially as we prepare to enter a new school year. Try as we might to plan for every contingency, you can bet things will not go as we planned; that's the only certainty about the future. As Wheatley reminds us, what we can do is make sure to connect with those in our school or district; that does not mean connecting from the perspective of supervisor to subordinate either. It means genuinely having conversations with others about the things that do matter to them. In this, we show them that we care. We must pay attention to the relationships.

In the swirl of change we find ourselves in, we can't shield people from the wind gusts and driving rain. We can't create some rule or policy that will hold back the floods. What we can do are two things. 

First, we can be human and work on "cultivating meaningful and authentic relationships." As a school level principal, I am guilty of getting so lost in the swirl and blast of change that I forget that it is people with whom I work. We need each other more than we need anything else in those times. We need our schools and districts to be the places where people feel trusted and welcome. If everyone has hidden agendas and only displays their inauthentic selves, there can't be an atmosphere of trust and respect.

Second, we need to make sure our staff know they are engaged in work that matters. I think that's one thing testing and accountability folks really struggle with. They can't quite understand why teachers and educators don't see that goal of "raising test scores" as meaningful. I didn't become a teacher to raise students' test scores. I also taught long enough to know tests can't measure all learning. In fact, tests often can't measure the most meaningful learning. We need to make sure that our purposes are higher than making sure our End of Course test scores increase, or whether our graduation cohort rate is higher. Those who find that such things are most meaningful are perhaps short-sighted. If we pay attention to shaping students' minds, these things take care of themselves, or don't seem quite as important. Often, what is most meaningful to me is when a student comes back and tells me about her life.

Yesterday, I experienced firsthand why teaching and education is meaningful to me. I was in the line at the grocery store in my neighborhood, preparing to check out. I was placing items on the conveyor when a former student of mine I will call Amber (Not her real name) came up and excitedly started telling me about her 100 on her latest college paper. She was beside herself as she hugged me, and she said it was because she had such a "great English teacher" referring to me. Of course, we all enjoy it when former students do such things, and I am no different. We all like to hear stories about the success of our former students. But this story has much more to it; more "data" than Amber's score on her paper, or her assessment of me as an English teacher. There's also the fact that I know this young lady has had to endure quite a bit diversity and works hard at this store. She has a young child. With all this going on, she decided to go back to a local community college to earn her degree. Despite circumstances, she is thriving and perhaps using something of what we learned together ten or fifteen years ago. You can bet that "something" was not the content found on a standardized test. This former student reminded me once again that I am involved in something greater than myself. My work mattered to someone else.

This post is in some ways more a challenge to myself to remember what really matters this coming year. It is reminder that chances are, I am going to find myself and my staff in that swirl of change again this year. What is important is that I remember we have each other and that we are engaged in a purpose that really matters.

How Test Scores Have Become 'Infallible Indicators of Teaching & Learning Quality'

Veteran Educator and education writer Marion Brady had some thought provoking words in this recent post on Valarie Strauss' Washington Post Answer Sheet blog. (See "What do standardized tests really measure?") In that post, Brady provides some gems that should provoke more discussion on the damage to public education that is occurring by those who insist, as Brady puts it, "Test scores are infallible indicators of quality."

Yesterday, in my post about how the use of value-added measures in teacher evaluations in Tennessee has perverted both education practice and teacher evaluation, I called these individuals who insist on the "infallibility of test scores" as fundamentalists. The dictionary definition of "fundamentalist" is:

"Fundamentalist: strict adherence to any set of basic ideas or principles"

In the case of the testing fundamentalists, there is a strict adherence in the belief that tests scores are infallible indicators of quality of both teaching and learning. Why they might argue that they don't believe test scores are "infallible," they still use them as if they were infallible.  While I called them "fundamentalists" as a jest in part, but there is some truth to that statement. Too easily educators, politicians, businesses, and the general public have come to view "test scores as indicators of quality" and take the attitude "that numbers don't lie" and that they are "objective" and that belief is driving much of the strict adherence to current testing and accountability reform.

Get into an honest discussion with a true believer in test-scores-as-indicators-of-quality, and they sometimes acknowledge the problems with tests, the testing process. But, and this always happen, they resort to the argument, "Well, that's the best we've got." It's easy to see what's wrong with that argument. Basing the future of a child and a teacher on test scores and defining "teaching quality" as only test score results ignores the real complexity of learning.

When test scores are worshipped (or used in a fundamentalist manner) as the "true and infallible" indicator of teaching and learning quality, both are reduced to simplistic, rote activities. As Brady points out, "Teaching---trying to shape minds---is hard complicated work." But herein is the problem. Those who worship at the altar of bubble sheets, Pearson, and College Board, don't see learning as "trying to shape minds." They see learning as a simple imparting of knowledge from teacher to student. Brady points that out when he says that Bill Gates sees "learning as a product of teaching." By reducing teaching to a process of product delivery in the form of test scores, then all this blather about testing, accountability, and value-added measures makes sense. But if anyone argues against these beliefs that are labeled as "status-quo supporters" as if they were some kind of heretic to question this doctrine.

Test scores are only test scores. They might sometimes tell us something about teaching and learning, and sometimes they tell us more about a student's socioeconomic status, or the kinds of support the child is getting at home. Test scores are and always will be subject to error, and they aren't as "objective" as the true believers believe. We can't use test scores "as if they were infallible indicators of learning."