AV #221 - School accountability - and our annual physical: did we pass?

 

Commissioner Katy Anthes - From “State of Reopening Education in Colorado,” put on by the Colorado Education Initiative and the Colorado Children’s Campaign, Nov. 13, 2020

“We’re taking a pause on accountability this year, and we might be taking a pause on accountability next year. That decision does still need to be made by legislators…

“And so now is a good time to think about bold ideas about what is the right balance … between state and local accountability.                                       

“What does that look like?                                           

“What does the state need to know?

“Legislators do have a right to hold us accountable. Education is the largest budget item in the state of Colorado. We should have some dipsticks around how we are doing as a state, or a system, and what policies may need to change or adjust or support at the system level. Maybe we’ve gotten that balance out of whack over time, so let’s think about what that balance now between state accountability is - and local accountability is, and what that can look like.”

This is my own unofficial transcript – any errors are my own.  https://vimeo.com/479128702?mc_cid=a3921d47e2&mc_eid=ec856232d9

                                             

If we value our annual physical check-up, why don’t schools feel that way too?

In thinking about “that balance,” and trying to answer the question, “What does the state need to know?”, I offer an analogy. Please forgive me if this newsletter is too personal—inviting you to my annual physical. But for this to work I have to expose myself. So to speak.

The state needs to know a few key facts. Not school climate. Not how well the school is fulfilling its distinct mission. Not how well the school communicates with parents. Not how well teachers are mentored or evaluated. These are all incredibly important. But not at the state level.

Schools, principals, teachers, and parents have a wide range of emotions about the School Performance Framework (SPF) and the state’s accountability ratings. Top performers are thrilled; they raise banners above the front entrance: On Performance! Low scores stir much grousing: it’s punishment, it’s mean-spirited, it’s designed to make us look bad. In the latter case, little buy-in (or is it denial?) can cause a school community to ignore the facts presented to them in the SPF reports. What does the SPF show on page 1, that only 6% of our elementary students met expectations in math? So harsh! So unfair! Is the state trying to persecute us?

There is plenty of valid criticism of the SPF, I believe, much that we can do to improve it. I will present one specific concern in my January 2021 newsletter. Here, though, is an effort to say, quite simply, isn’t some kind of annual check-up, by someone other than ourselves, necessary?  

Few of us are thrilled about going in for the annual physical. If you are 71, you are certainly aware of “a few issues”—the phrase I used not long ago about my father, then in his mid-80’s, on his visits to the doctor. What will my own doctor see and tell me that I am not prepared for? I think I know how my body responds to exercise … which is not how it used to… But I’m ok, aren’t I? We cannot deny an element of … apprehension? Even fear? What will surprise us?  What don’t we know about ourselves?

Our school looks in the mirror on a regular basis. We might use district assessments several times a year to gauge how students are doing, so what the state reports next August on the Colorado Measures of Academic Progress won’t be a total surprise to us. Even so, when August approaches we are apprehensive. Even fearful. As teachers we might not buy into everything about the statewide tests and yet … What don’t we know about how our students are performing? What will the scores reveal about their growth? What will the parents, the district, the media have to say when word gets out…?

The “scores” on my physical stay private. I am your common man, there will be no press release from my communications director: Huidekoper is fit as a (71-year-old) fiddle.  Only the doctor, my computer, and I know. The next day I open my laptop and see what Kaiser calls “the test results.” I hit: “Graph of past results.” Is the pattern good or bad? Cholesterol level headed down? Blood sugar levels better this year? How’s my bone density? My PSA?            

The SPF, of course, is less personal. It paints with a broad brush when reporting average scores on the SAT. For example, at Cherry Creek High School, taken by nearly 800 juniors, the SPF reads, average math score: 604; Rating, Exceeds. The SPF for Simla High School is more intimate: it shows the average in math for the 21 juniors who took the SAT: 514; Rating, Meets. Still, in both cases, we get something meaningful about the school’s academic performance. Something meaningful about student achievement in reading, writing, and math.

The numbers—on the SPF, from the doctor’s office—third-party presentations that provide a few key pieces of information, an outside check on how we’re doing.  Much in common, true? Not all one might want to know, but the basics. What does the state need to know? Perhaps it is enough. 

Top 10 list for annual review: for our school ……………………….……for ourselves

	School Performance Framework – Middle School	Checklist/tests doctor ordered
1	Academic Achievement – overall*	Blood pressure
2	CMAS – English Language Arts**	Temperature
3	CMAS - Math	Weight
4	CMAS - Science	BMI
5	Student groups for #2 - #4 above: English Learners, FR Lunch, Minority Students, Students w/ Disabilities	Pulse
6	Academic Growth – overall*	Cholesterol, HDL, non-HDL*
7	CMAS - English Language Arts	Complete Blood Count with Differential
8	CMAS - Math	Comprehensive Metabolic Panel
9	Student groups for #7 & # 8 above: English Learners, FR Lunch, Minority Students, Students w/ Disabilities	Lipid Panel
10	English Language Proficiency/On Track to Proficiency	Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA)
	*Results reported: % pts earned and Rating (Exceeds, Meets, Approaching, Does Not Meet); **CMAS: Mean Scale Score, % Rank, and Rating	*Example: My value - xx mgm/dl and standard range (e.g. 0–199 mgm/dl)

AV #220 - Unmask our students: Allow them—no, ask them—to write in the first person

 

      A good time to rethink how we teach writing. Let them speak from their hearts.

 The concerns expressed about Covid 19’s “large mental health cost to children” are ubiquitous (3 examples, p.2). To that end, I point to past newsletters that seem especially relevant to this moment. My criticism of the recent shift—discouraging students from writing of their personal experiences and, yes, their feelings—might now hit home. Students need to speak of how they are doing. Let them write it down. Unmask them.  

In teaching writing, of course it was my job to do much more than to ask students to write about their emotions. But how we feel and how well we write and how honest we can be with ourselves—and our reader: these are not unrelated matters. I taught entries from Anne Frank’s timeless journal while she was in much more than lockdown, as well as powerful personal essays or excerpts from autobiographies by Martin Luther King Jr., E.B. White, Richard Rodriguez, or Maya Angelou. Their words speak to us, I would tell my classes, in part because they open up their hearts, because they have the courage to write so honestly of their experiences and their anger, fear, sadness, and hope. And so I tried to be sure to give my students a chance to write about themselves. A chance to nurture their own writing voice.

If interested, if you have the time, perhaps you will find it worthwhile to take a look at one of these.

·        AV #105 – Teaching our students to write: Why I believe we’re headed in the wrong direction (Dec. 2013)  – Colorado’s writing standards and high school expectations frown on students finding their voice

 p.3 - Example – English class syllabus: eliminate the “I” in your essays. Common Core: “Students must base arguments and essays on evidence from the reading, not their own opinions or experiences.”

p.4 - Teaching the essay – examples show it can, at times must, be first person to achieve its purpose

p.5 – Addendum – If VOICE matters, you wouldn’t know it by the standards

 

·        AV #182 – Schools & the English classroom; depression & suicide (Aug. 2018)

   “If I were teaching again this year, I would find it impossible not to be thinking, more than ever, about the mental health of my students… it feels especially important to acknowledge [their] emotional struggles …”

 

·        AV #190 - Why our school needs The Imagine Project - as told by 5^th graders  (Feb. 2019)

       — Inviting students to tell their story, safely, in a way that builds trust and offers hope.

p.1  - Writing /brainstorming – Step 3: “Choose one challenging experience in your life…”

p.2  - Step 4: “… imagine new possibilities in your life. What is the ending you would like to have…?”

p.3 – Excerpts from The Imagine Project – Empowering Kids to Rise Above Drama, Trauma, and Stress

   From “The Value of Expressive Writing” – “Kids and teens hold so much in their minds and hearts. When troubles are kept under cover, they remain unprocessed, take up too much space, and prevent kids from moving forward… Fortunately, expressive writing is an effective tool that can help kids process and let go of their stories so they aren’t defined by or limited by them.” 

 All three are at the website for Another View – https://anotherviewphj.blogspot.com/ -  peterhdkpr@gmail.com

 

·        ALSO: Chalkbeat Colorado, “… don’t be afraid to tell students, we want to know you.” (Aug. 2016)

For incoming 9^th graders: “… that first week of school, I asked my students to produce three journal entries. No magic there. But perhaps the big high school becomes less scary when one adult says, I care. I’d like to know who you are and what’s on your mind. Tell me. Here are some writing assignment ideas…” https://co.chalkbeat.org/2016/8/23/21100228/on-week-one-after-a-tense-summer-don-t-be-afraid-to-tell-students-we-want-to-know-you

Concern for our students’ well-being - three examples 

Keeping students safe in Denver area schools as coronavirus lurks is a delicate dance

The Denver Post, by John Aguilar, Aug. 21, 2020

 

   Dr. Douglas Newton, chief medical officer for SonderMind, a company that matches certified therapists with patients, said loneliness and isolation is a “huge factor” with children, especially during a pandemic.

   “We are social animals and when we don’t have connections, not only can you have developmental delays but emotional impacts,” Newton said. “What we’re seeing out of this from kids is they’re feeling a little less hopeful.”

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/08/23/covid-colorado-schools-students-safe-cherry-creek-westminster/

 

Parents across Colorado express concerns over quality of children’s remote education

Fox 31/KDVR, by Nicole Fierro, Nov. 30, 2020

 

   Deteriorating mental health with isolation at home is a major concern these parents tell FOX31 they are seeing unlike ever before.

   [One parent spoke of being “scared to death” over the anxiety he sees in his children.] “Our kids want to go out for a drive just to get outside and clear their heads. I don’t want them out alone at night, I don’t know what they are going to do.”

https://kdvr.com/news/coronavirus/parents-across-colorado-express-concerns-over-quality-of-childrens-remote-education/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cb_bureau_colorado

 

Online Learning Isn’t Easy, Even When You’re Colorado’s Teacher Of The Year

Colorado Matters, Colorado Public Radio, by Michelle P. Fulcher, Dec. 1, 2020

 

From an interview with Gerardo Muñoz, Colorado Teacher of the Year 2021

 

   The students’ isolation has led to a “significant uptick” in depression among middle and high schoolers, said Muñoz. [He teaches social studies at the Denver Center for International Studies.]

[who teaches at the Denver Center for International Studies].

   In regular school, "there are always their peer groups that they can cling to, that they can laugh with, that they can complain with,” he said.

   Still, things are better than they were last spring when schools shut with only a few days notice and some kids simply disappeared. At the school district’s direction, teachers are now doubling down to make sure their students are coping emotionally.

https://www.cpr.org/2020/12/01/online-learning-isnt-easy-even-when-youre-colorados-teacher-of-the-year/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cb_bureau_colorado

 

 

From the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

Among the “Guidelines for Educators, Parents, and Caregivers during the Covid-19 pandemic”

Listen to young people.  Give children and youth opportunities to share their concerns, and address the difficult questions on their minds in age-appropriate ways.  

Incorporate social and emotional skill building into learning.  Educators can use familiar strategies from an SEL program used at the school …to provide opportunities for students to reflect and contribute, pause to process their emotions and thoughts… With independent work, include open-ended questions that require young people to reflect on their personal experience and feelings to strengthen self-awareness and communication.  https://casel.org/resources-covid/