AV#105 - Teaching our students to write: Why I believe we’re headed in the wrong direction

Dec. 3, 2013

Colorado’s writing standards and high school expectations frown on students finding their voice

You might say I write like a teenager because I use the first person and can’t get away from writing about myself even when the topic doesn’t call for such egocentric intrusions. You may be right.

Does voice matter in good writing? Literacy.W.9-10.1d - “Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.” --From the Common Core State Standards, which—in the pages on Writing for grades 7-12 on Writing—do not mention VOICE. Not once. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/W/introduction-for-6-12

But my experience as a writer, and as a writing teacher, says voice matters, and that we do a disservice to our middle and high school students if we discourage them from using their voice, to speak of their lives, and to address these issues—when appropriate—in the first person.  And yet the writing assignments we give our students often fail to do this.  The trend—from what I have seen as a tutor the past three years, and now gathering steam with Colorado’s new writing standards (see box on the right; more detail in the Addendum)—is to ignore the personal essay.  A trend almost as alarming as the steady decline in the percentage of students Colorado proficient in writing as they move through our schools. 

YES, HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM: % PROFICIENT IN WRITING HITS LOW MARK IN 10^th GRADE

In 7^th grade, roughly 60% of Colorado’s students are proficient in writing, but by the time they reach

10^th grade – two years before they would like to be college-ready – that percentage falls below 50%

4-5 year trend - % proficient and advanced (P/A)

TCAP - WRITING	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	Decline for this class in % P/A over last few years
Overall score – proficient and advanced	6th grade 61%	7th grade 58%	8th grade 54%	9th grade 51%	10th grade 49%	-12%
	7th grade 62%	8th grade 55%	9th grade 53%	10th grade 48%		-14%

Writing teachers must ask why this is so.  I suspect it is partly because we do little to help students find their voice as writers.  Moreover, we confuse them.  Juniors and seniors work on their personal statement for their college application, even as their AP Language and Composition course insists they write in the third person and bring “a detached point of view.”  Another irony: We know it is critical to build strong relationships to keep our students in school and engaged, but the English teacher—rather than inviting teenagers to share their lives through journal writing, personal essays, and reflections on the readings—steers clear of such assignments.

I realize we should teach students how to express opinions without using the first person. I applaud the strong features in the new standards: of course, let’s be sure student writing is “grounded in evidence from the text.”  And I am not suggesting we return to the day when we thought the best way to reach self-absorbed high school students was to meet them on those terms—as William Zinsser[1] puts it, “the let-it-all-hang-out version of the 60’s,” let them spill their guts about every complaint known to The American Teenager.  It’s almost comical how confident we were that THIS was how we’d help students enjoy the writing process, evnifthayculdntspellforbeens, and even, if, their, punctuation, was, appalling.

But there is something sterile in all the recent assignments I see for 10^th and 11^th graders. 

·         The generic: Analyze character, conflict, and theme in Catcher in the Rye.

·         The esoteric: In Virginia Woolf’s essay, “Death of a Moth,” identify five rhetorical devices she used and explain how they helped her achieve her purpose.   

·         And, now a common task I see from more than one high school of late (derived from Aristotle’s Rhetoric): Examine the appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos in this persuasive essay.

What about asking for a response that demands some self-reflection and a personal connection to the reading?  What about questions that address our 15- and 16-year-olds on a more basic level?

Three cheers to Bradford Intermediate in Jeffco Don’t miss last week’s great story by Jenny Brundin on the writing by sixth grades, students encouraged to write honestly about success—and failure. http://www.cpr.org/news/story/want-know-how-preteens-really-feel-ask-them-tell-you-story

·         Do you or do you not identify with Holden’s struggles? Explain why or why not.

·         “Life is fragile.” Woolf is saying something on this idea.  Does her perspective ring true for you? Why or why not?   

·         Provide three reasons why you do or do not disagree with this persuasive essay calling for (as one example) greater gun control measures.  

The course syllabus – again, virtually silent on voice

Read the course syllabus for English classes for 10^th and 11^th graders.  I am NOT making this up; it is available on the web site from the English Department at a local high school.  Hardly a word asking students to find their voice, to write about themselves.  It all sounds so academic—in the driest sense of the word—just when, as a college advisor notes, “these teenagers are a bundle of emotions.” 

·         10^th grade English - The focus sophomore year is “POWER, SOCIETY, & THE INDIVIDUAL.”

“Students will compare and contrast perspectives developed in multiple informational and persuasive texts/forms of media by citing strong textual evidence to draw conclusions about the role of power in society.”

       (COMMENT: It is discouraging to see language like this, from English teachers. But there’s more like it….)

A parable The need to find the words about a meaningful event or someone important, even if “they” (teachers, parents, adults) aren’t listening. from J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Chapter 2 - When “‘old Spencer” lectures Holden on his failures (“I flunked you in history because you knew absolutely nothing.”), our hero tries to respond, but comments on his teacher: “He wasn’t even listening. He hardly ever listened to you when you said something.” Chapters 4 & 5 – Holden—even as he prepares to flunk out of his fourth school—can write.  His roommate asks Holden to draft a composition for him.  “What on?” Holden asks. “Anything.  Anything descriptive. A room. Or a house. Or something you once lived in or something – you know. Just as long as it’s descriptive as hell.” Holden sits down to work on the essay. “I’m not too crazy about describing rooms and houses anyway. So what I did, I wrote about my brother Allie’s baseball mitt. It was a very descriptive subject. It really was…. He’s dead now. He got leukemia and died when we were up in Maine, on July 18, 1946. You’d have liked him…. God, he was a nice kid, though. He used to laugh so hard at something he thought of at the dinner table that he just about fell off his chair. I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. I don’t blame them. I really don’t…. It was a very stupid thing to do, I’ll admit, but I hardly didn’t even know I was doing it, and you didn’t know Allie….”

“Students will use comparative language to synthesize how different texts examine power to reflect on the authors’ differing perspectives.”

Welcome the young person—not just the student   “The children who came into my classrooms were also perceptive—they caught on quickly whether school was going to be a place where they should bring their whole selves, or leave most of themselves at the schoolhouse door.”  Deborah Meier, Nov. 21, 2013, http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences.

“Students will recognize literary components and analyze the author’s use of these components in creating a message about the human condition.” 

·                11^th grade English -

“Students will develop and/or refine their academic writing styles (i.e. formal writing) to analyze and respond to text.”

“Students will learn, develop, and utilize critical literacy skills to answer the following questions:

How do readers use critical reading strategies to analyze and evaluate text, and how does a writer use formal register to create an academic persona?”

The AP Language course, as several juniors we tutor have discovered, is especially strict about eliminating the “I” in their essays. A student hears this message: In order to teach you how to write a college essay, we have to unteach all you’ve learned about expressing your feelings in the first person…. 

          AP Language and Composition – On completing the class successfully, the AP student will:

“Make stylistic choices about diction, syntax, figurative language etc with an awareness of purpose and audience for writing. Use local and global revision to make changes in text for reasons of clarity or style.”

“… take inventory of what he or she knows about a topic to guide research and achieve intended effect for purpose and audience.”

Common Core State Standards AND (not versus) Six Traits + 1

A recent look at the implementation of CCSS in seven states, including Colorado, paints a hopeful view of the transformation under way (http://hechingerreport.org/content/six-ways-common-core-changes-english-and-math-classrooms_13330/  Oct. 15, 2013).  One section of the report lists several “Ways Common Core changes English and math classrooms,” including:

Before	Common Core
Students asked about personal reactions and experiences in response to literature	Students must base arguments and essays on evidence  from the reading, not their own opinions or experiences

This change is presented as good news, a step forward.  My question: must it be either/or?

Like many teachers in Colorado and across the country, I found the Six Traits +1 Writing Model of Instruction & Assessment (designed by Education Northwest) an excellent guide to teach student writing.  It helps a school, grade by grade, focus on six key traits: ideas and content, organization, voice, sentence fluency, word choice, and conventions. New teachers will be especially grateful for the Six Traits’ material, such as succinct descriptions of what to look for in evaluating student work.  For voice:

·         Sounds like a person wrote it; sounds like this writer – (no one else sounds like this!)

·         Makes you feel something

·         Punch, flair, style, courage (I’m not afraid to say what I really think)

Education Northwest has written a “Crosswalk Between 6+1 Traits and CCSS Writing and Language Standards” (http://educationnorthwest.org/webfm_send/1252), no doubt to reassure districts and schools that Six Traits still “fits in” with Common Core guidelines.  It looks like a stretch to me.  This teacher would fight to see that my English Department did not put compliance with the new standards ahead of what we know to be true—and what our students should know: strong voice is essential to good writing.  

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

Give our students great examples of first-person work – then let do try their hand at it too MLK Jr. - “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” and “I Have a Dream” E.B. White - “Death of a Pig” Rachel Carson - “The Marginal World” John McPhee - “Under the Snow” Malcolm X – “On African Self-Hatred” Maya Angelou – selection from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Zora Neale Hurston – selections from Dust Tracks on the Road Richard Rodriguez – selection from Hunger of Memory

A young writer learns from the best writers.  I loved teaching exceptional works like those listed here (see box) in a Parker charter school, and I often created writing tasks using such works as models for my 8^th grade students. These essays (non-fiction), speeches, and selections from autobiographies come from the Core Knowledge guidelines.  All employ the first-person “I”—suggesting we might do well to let students do the same. (NOTE: The Common Core reading standards ask teachers to assign exactly this kind of literary nonfiction, “texts that provide appropriately complex language.”  See http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/standard-10-range-quality-complexity/texts-illustrating-the-complexity-quality-range-of-student-reading-6-12.)

The most helpful writing teacher I had was Mr. Lambert, junior year.  We read many novels in his class, but we also read most of Essays Old and New, a collection including works from Bacon, Swift, Emerson, and nearly 40 others.[2]  Many classic essays that endure in part because we hear an individual speaking to us.  I open that book now and discover one writer after another addressing us in the first-person singular—and on occasion in the first-person plural. (When a third-person voice is used, as in William Allen White’s tribute to his dead daughter, it is all the more poignant for this choice.)  

Oh, but you say, these writers—like Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt, and Helen Keller—were important people.  They had something worth saying to the world, which is not true of your average 16-year-old.   To which I reply:

1) Nothing worth saying? See my recent piece about 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai, whose voice is now heard around the world (http://www.ednewscolorado.org/voices/voices-motivating-words-from-malala-for-her-fellow-16-year-old-girls). See Anne Frank’s diary, written from age 13 to 15, which still speaks so powerfully to us, 70 years later.  See your daughter’s essay (Eliza’s mom, I remember!) about what her grandmother meant to her….

2) Did our great essayists learn to write with such sincerity, wit, and insight by always writing in the third person?  It takes practice.  Can’t we practice in middle and high school?  Must we ask 15-year-olds to assume a scholarly stance when we know they will “speak”—in their own voice, with far greater energy and care—if the topic touches their lives?

Common Core’s mission statement assures us that “the standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world.”  Sounds good.   But a tenth grader looks at the assignment and asks: what about me? Isn’t my world “the real world”?  Aren’t my experiences and feelings relevant?

I wonder how many students, like a Holden Caulfield, have something well worth saying—the chance to say it might even make English class matter!—but our assignments tell them: sorry, we aren’t listening. What if we were the teacher given a composition such as the one Holden wrote about his dead brother?

“My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder’s mitt. He was left-handed. The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that it had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he’d have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up at bat.”

I hope we would say: “Holden, this is great! Thank you!”

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

I understand that the Colorado Academic Standards are not to be equated with but are informed by the Common Core State Standards.  Still, you can see how much the latter has influenced the former when you search the Common Core English Language Arts Standards for Writing, Grades 6-12, to see if VOICE is mentioned.  No, not once. (http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/W/introduction)

Now search the Colorado Academic Standards for Reading Writing, and Communicating (http://www.cde.state.co.us/CoReadingWriting/), grades 9-12.  VOICE is barely mentioned:

Standard 3 – Writing and Composition – Includes grade level expectations for each grade

12^th grade – Voice appears twice (bold mine)

Concepts and skills students master:

1. Style, detail, expressive language, and genre create a well-crafted statement directed at an intended audience and purpose

Students Can:  Critique own writing and the writing of others from the perspective of the intended audience to guide revisions, improve voice and style (word choice, sentence variety, figurative language) and achieve intended purpose and effect

In the column on the right, on “21st Century Skills and Readiness Competencies,” we read:

Writers can persuade readers and voice opinions through various forms of writing (such as an editorial for the school or local news source).

11^th grade – Voice does not appear

10^th grade – Voice appears three times

Concepts and skills students master:

3. Grammar, language usage, mechanics, and clarity are the basis of ongoing refinements and revisions within the writing process

Students can: Distinguish between the active and passive voice, and write in the active voice

Over to the right, in the column called “21st Century Skills and Readiness Competencies,” we see four Inquiry Questions for students.  One is: 

How does voice make writing more interesting?

(COMMENT: I find the other three equally bland—or inane.)

1.       What would writing look like if there were no punctuation?

2.       Why would it be difficult to read texts that do not have correct punctuation?

3.       Why is correct grammar important to the reader? )

9^th grade - Voice appears once

Concepts and skills students master:

1. Literary and narrative texts develop a controlling idea or theme with descriptive and expressive language

Students can:  Refine the expression of voice and tone in a text by selecting and using appropriate vocabulary, sentence structure, and sentence organization

---

[1]Zinsser’s On Writing Well, a modern classic, would tell our English Departments: welcome each student’s voice. Two examples: 1) “No teacher wants twenty-five copies of the same person, writing about the same topic. What we’re all looking for—what we want to see pop out of your papers—is individuality. We’re looking for whatever it is that makes you unique. Write about what you know and what you think.”  2) “If you’re a writing teacher, make your students believe in the validity of their lives.”

[2] E.B. White’s Elements of Style was another text we studied with Mr. Lambert.  As a master of the personal essay, E.B. White gets the final word here on the importance of voice. See chapter 5: “Every writer, by the way he uses the language, reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacities, his bias.  This is inevitable as well as enjoyable.  All writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation—it is the Self escaping into the open. No writer long remains incognito.” 

AV#151 - One person’s listening tour – from that “other” Colorado: rural school districts

                                                                                                                                 August 11, 2016

One person’s listening tour – from that “other” Colorado: rural school districts

Can you hear me now?

See page 5 for comments from rural districts during the Listening Tour.

This spring the Colorado Department of Education conducted its Listening Tour “to solicit feedback from the community regarding key provisions of the new law,” Every Student Succeeds Act. CDE has compiled well over 100 pages of comments from those of us who attended one of the 14 meetings around the state[1].  It created a committee of 20 “to develop a first draft of the state plan”; they held their first meeting this week.  The goal: to submit a Colorado ESSA plan “to the State Board of Education and governor for approval before being delivered to the U.S. Department of Education,” a plan “that is clearly understood and can be supported by all.” (http://www.cde.state.co.us/fedprograms/ESSABlogPosts/statewidelisteningtour).

Are we hearing from the MAJORITY of Colorado school districts – i.e., the rural voice?

It is hard to listen to all the voices in Colorado, not so much because of our population size, 22^nd in the country, but because of our geography.  We are a big state: 8^th largest in the country.  No small task, to hear what those far-away voices—in rural Colorado—want to tell those setting policy in Denver.

Any educator who spent most of his life in New England—I lived or worked in five of the six states—is still amazed at the size of Colorado.  Those six New England states cover a total of 71,992 square miles.  The Centennial state alone—103,718 square miles—makes my “home region” look mighty small.

As a student or teacher in over 10 New England schools, I gave little thought to rural versus urban schools.  I never lived more than 2 ½ hours from the state capital any of those states.  The notion of “a rural perspective” on schools, as distinct from the pressing concerns in urban districts, well—let’s just say Vermonters would find that idea laughable.

But it is real here. MOST Colorado school districts are rural; MOST enroll under 1,000 students.  Of late I have listened to several leaders from rural districts share their insights. I summarize what I have heard—their views, not mine.  And of course, not meant to be representative of communities as diverse as Cortez, Holly, and Wray.  Still, perspectives that I hope are given their due as we develop our new state plan.[2]

To begin, a few “Rural Facts” from the Rural Education Council Fact Sheet:[3]

·         178 school districts (total)

·         109 of the 178 are small rural

·         38 of the 178 are rural districts

·         Approximately 130,500 rural students

·         14 districts with less than 100 students

·         53 districts with less than 250 students

·         85 districts with less than 500 students

·         Approx. 60 districts are at one K-12 site and/or one K-12 building

What I heard

Recruiting and retaining teachers

     The Colorado Department of Higher Education reported a recent drop, from 3,700 to 2,500 (a 25% decline in just 4-5 years), of those completing teacher education programs.  But location matters. 

   1)  If Denver hires 1,300 teachers each year, that’s going to be large percentage of the new teachers being trained from Colorado universities. 

   2)  If Cherry Creek sees a 30% drop in would-be teachers, it will still get over 100 people applying for a position, so it won’t have a huge impact there. But in our small rural districts we are often lucky to have a handful of applicants for certain jobs.  When we see fewer teachers going into teaching in our state–and expect a large number of older teachers will soon retire, we wonder—in five years, where are we going to find high quality teachers for our rural schools? Especially (see below) when the pay is $26,000 and you qualify for food stamps? 

(See Colorado Public Radio’s powerful story, “A Colorado Teacher Shortage Puts Rural Schools On The Brink Of Crisis.” Excerpts, Addendum B.)

Rural Colorado Overall Cost of Living: 9% above national average Average Overall Cost of Living in CO: 7% above national average Category w/ Highest Index: Healthcare (26% above national average) Annual Cost for a Single Adult with No Children: $31,576 Annual Cost for a Married Couple with One Child: $61,713 Annual Cost for a Married Couple with Four Children: $89,916                                     http://cost-of-living.careertrends.com/l/78/Rural

Cost of living in rural Colorado

                                       

   Do policymakers in Denver believe that it is easy to live on less in the small towns around the state?  Consider the evidence—see box—that it is not cheaper to live far from the big city. 

Teacher salaries

   Last winter the Colorado Legislative Council produced an analysis of the Cost of Living (COL), for each school district (Feb. 2016 - https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/2015%20Cost%20of%20Living%20Study%20-%20Pacey%20Economics.pdf). In July, at the CASE Rural Pre-Conference, Elizabeth Superintendent Douglas Bissonette presented a study comparing the average teacher salary in 2015-16 with the COL—in each district.  In 14 rural districts the average teacher salary (less than $32,000) was $15,000 less than the cost of living (say $47,000 or above) in that community. In 60 rural districts the gap between the average salary and the Cost of Living is over $10,000.

5 examples from “lowest 100” – from lowest average salaries in the state, on up

#	County	School district	Total FTE	Average Salary	2015 COL	Amount -/+ COL	Percent -/+ COL
3	Washington	OTIS R-3	24.8	$27,814	$47,021	-$19,207	-40.85%
22	Kit Carson	BURLINGTON RE-6J	50.8	$34,623	$48,111	-$13,488	-28.03%
40	Custer	CUSTER CTY	32.1	$36,634	$50,216	-$13,582	-27.05%
76	Adams	BENNETT 29J	54.9	$38,884	$50,405	-$11,521	-22.86%
96	Grand	WEST GRAND 1-JT	36.9	$40,469	$52,751	-$12,282	-23.28%

   That a teacher’s salary falls short of the Cost of Living in his or her community is not a shock.  When the average salary and the COL are both between $47,000 and $50,000, as we see in districts like Academy 20, Brighton, Greeley 6, Mapleton, and Platte Valley most will say: this is not a crisis.  But when the gap puts teachers $15,000 below the cost of living?  Or, far worse—puts many below the poverty level?  

   On a more hopeful note: One district told me of teacher turnover, up to nearly 30% a couple of years ago, is now down to 17%.  Increasing pay – offering a pay scale now ranges as high as $48,000 – gives younger teachers a sense that their salary can grow well above the previous maximum.

   Colorado has good reason to assume education funding will remain below the national average for years to come.  Those of us in rural districts feel these gaps; it makes us eager to focus our limited dollars on what is most important. If attracting quality teachers into our classrooms–and keeping them—is near the top of that list, is the chief “reform” in our state, SB 191, helping – or not?

Teacher Evaluation and Education Effectiveness

   Dissenting voices sometimes pose the most fundamental questions, as when a rural leader asks: Is SB 191 achieving its goal of improving teaching?  Has the new law increased student success?  (Let’s recall, those were among the bill’s stated goals: feedback for educators “aimed at continuously improving their performance and student results”; “opportunities for … professional development and growth”; to “ensure effective teachers in every classroom…” (https://www.cde.state.co.us/educatoreffectiveness/sb191factsheet).

   Yes, today we now have more well-articulated steps for evaluation, which can play a meaningful role in rehiring, etc. –but at its heart, do the many hours on the part of evaluators and teachers (compiling all they do to show the district that they are fulfilling new requirements) improve classroom instruction?  Is checking off the 70 (count’em![4]) boxes to show proficiency efficient? Is it meaningful?   

Local control, freedom from regulations – Rural Agility Project

    Educators in rural districts note how the state has responded positively to the charter school movement – 12% of Colorado students attend charter schools; in Denver, it’s over 18%.  They see how charters have used their waivers from state and district regulations to gain greater control over the budget, curriculum, hiring—and much more.  Some suggest, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, that the freedom and local control of charters actually has its roots in the way small towns have “owned” and advocated for their schools since Abraham Lincoln entered the White House!  In a comparison of rural and charter schools, the Colorado Rural Schools Alliance stated: “The school choice design imitates the culture and characteristics of Colorado’s small, rural community schools.”[5] 

    Two years ago the Colorado Association of School Boards initiated the Rural Agility Project—“Recovering Rural Colorado’s Freedom to Govern Locally.”[6] Rural communities continue to explore elements in waiver statutes, the Innovation Schools Act, and the Charter Schools Act that might serve them well. As the metro population grows and the number of folks representing rural Colorado at the legislature declines, the perception persists that bills are introduced and passed to tackle the issues faced, above all, by the bigger districts.  Without seeking to skirt requirements to be accountable, rural schools boards seek to “recover the freedom to exert meaningful local control” (Rural Agility Project).

Data collection (For examples of too much paperwork see Mark Hillman’s opinion piece, next page,)

    Leaders in rural districts examine and use data, but are not afraid to ask:

·         Will collecting all this data be the avenue for change?  To what extent can we act on what the data tells us? What can we do about it?  Will it make for better school boards, principals, teachers? 

·         Do legislators and state department folks acknowledge the amount of time and resources needed to carry out the new policies that were put in place this past decade (e.g. SB 163–Accountability Act; SB 191–Effective Educator Act; HB 1238–The READ Act), especially for small districts staffed by only three or four people? 

Too much paperwork: from Mark Hillman, former Colorado Senate majority leader and state treasurer “Data collection strangling schools, especially small ones,” (The Denver Post), March 17, 2016    “One small school tabulated a list of 57 mandatory reports that must be submitted regularly to state or federal agencies and another 63 reports that are required to obtain funding for certain programs….     “Elementary schools are also grappling with Teaching Strategies Gold, a data-collection behemoth intended to track the progress of students. TS Gold demands that teachers instantaneously document the progress of every student in 38 different categories using pictures or specific examples.      “It’s common for our elementary teachers to work late into the nights and on weekends just to keep up with required reporting. In our local preschool, a staff of four teachers and aides reports spending roughly 15 hours a week to document just 32 students.”        http://www.denverpost.com/2016/03/17/data-collection-strangling-schools-especially-small-ones/

School Performance Frameworks, ESSA, and adding other factors – a vote for simplicity

   Everyone agrees Colorado’s School Performance Framework (SPF) fails to tell the full story of a school, and many are pleased the new federal law “requires that states ... add at least one new indicator of school quality or student success.”  And yet rural leaders remind us: there is no end to what else we could add.  Consider the dashboard in your car: you get a few key indicators. Not the full story, but it gives us the essentials.  Policymakers may be trying to produce a school report that gives the whole picture—as if that were possible! Let’s accept that no SPF can be fully comprehensive. Less is more.

Funds

  Part 1: resources, buildings, BEST – Do legislators understand how unlikely it is for our districts to come up with a mill levy override? (See the high percentage of rural districts where recent requests for a mill levy override failed - https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdefinance/sfmilllevy.) Without such overrides, do policymakers appreciate how hard it is to make rural teacher salaries competitive with the metro area?

   The Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) funds for school construction are great for small districts, and it was good to see the legislature raise its commitment last spring.  But BEST cannot begin to address the size of the problem; in rural communities throughout the state, far too many students attend inadequate facilities. It would shock you to see the conditions in some of these buildings, over 100 years old, where there is no way these communities can raise the dollars needed to rebuild….

  Part 2: poverty, equity - Too many equate equity issues with urban schools—only.  There is another kind of poverty in rural communities that might be invisible to policymakers in Denver.  Low-income communities in the metro area have access to resources unavailable in small towns. Hospitals, mental health centers, museums, a host of nonprofits—so many opportunities for kids to play and learn and find support ….  Do policymakers realize how the setting alone, in an impoverished rural community, can lead to risk factors not accounted for by traditional measures?   If the kids in our rural schools are to have an equal shot at achieving their potential, we need more resources.   

The media and “happy news” for rural schools

   On May 11 Colorado Chalkbeat produced an article, “Legislative session ends on hopeful note for rural schools.”  One rural leader dismissed the headline with a shrug, mocking it as “happy news.” A bill to support 40 prospective teachers in rural districts? A drop in the bucket.  Another leader cheered the $2,800 stipend for these student teachers, but was convinced the teaching shortage will only get worse.  That same day, another headline, from The Colorado Independent, more accurately captured the mood of rural districts at the close of the session: “Rural school funding axed in School Finance Act deal.”

Another View is a newsletter by Peter Huidekoper Jr.  Comments are welcome. 303-757-1225 - peterhdkpr@gmail.com

Listening Tour: comments from rural districts (from meetings in Durango, Limon, and Pueblo)

What supports and services can CDE provide that would be helpful to districts with schools on improvement?

Come visit – spend time in rural districts – come to understand our problems.

Other comments about quality instruction & leadership and supports for student success:  

It’s my understanding that there are tribal consultations that are required.  What is the plan for that?  Will these consultations actually take place on the Reservations or through (Mr. X) in Denver?  Keeping in mind that the two federally recognized tribes in Colorado are in this room and not Denver. So while we certainly want to include (him), it should be here, not there.

Other comments about standards, assessments, and accountability: 

Title III – how are we to implement change when small districts can’t afford to even join a [consortium] since the funds we get far outweigh the cost to manage?                       from Durango meeting, May 12, 2016)

What supports and services can CDE provide that would be helpful to districts with schools on improvement?

From the conversation today, it sounded as if there may be a need for a rural school improvement network. With approximately 150 rural districts serving about 15% of the student population, there are many unique needs of these districts opposed to the front-range serving approximately 30 districts and 85% of the student population.                                                  

What measures of school quality or student success should be included in the school accountability system?

·         Going to college isn’t always the most appropriate measure, especially for our rural communities.

·         If you’re going to compare, you’ve got to level the playing field. Matching demographics matters. It should be left up to the community. Nobody knows these communities better than we do. You don’t know the problems we are dealing with, so leave it up to local control. Extra-curricular activities (not athletics) participation would be a good alternative measure to take into account. Our participation in our district is at like 92%.

How should the state consider the 95% assessment participation requirement?

·         Rural districts have challenges – just several students may throw off percentage. Now that parents and students have opted out – will be difficult to get them to “buy in” to state assessment again….

·         Issue of metro vs. rural schools. 95% unfair for rural schools. Can be too few students.

                                                                                                                                (from Limon meeting, May 20, 2016)

What additional opportunities should we create for stakeholders to provide input?

If teams from rural school districts could be in on the planning and allow them to construct what is best for them.  

Should school improvement funds be awarded as formula or competitive grants?

From a small, rural district, my concern is that we don’t have time to put a grant together that has “bling” and so how can we be competitive with Cherry Creek or Denver? Are these grants going to be allocated regionally and geographically?                                         (from Pueblo meeting, May 4, 2016)

Addendum A – Recommendations for “Collaborative Stakeholder Engagement”

To help states as they develop a new ESSA plan, the Education Commission of the States recently published a special report, “Collaborative Stakeholder Engagement,” a 5-pager with recommendations on how to make the process most effective. These two bullets suggest—Be sure to hear the rural voice!

• ·          Through meaningful collaboration among a diverse group of stakeholders–including the “unusual voices” that aren’t always actively engaged–states are more likely to achieve long-lasting positive effects in student achievement, educator satisfaction and cooperation from special interest groups.
• ·         Whose work is it? - Look for stakeholders who share responsibility for the current situation, are affected by the issues and must be part of the solution…. Engaging all stakeholders early and often, including those who bring critical and differing views, is important to creating an open process. http://www.ecs.org/ec-content/uploads/Collaborative_Stakeholder_Engagement_June-2016.pdf

Addendum B – “Colorado teacher shortage puts rural schools on brink of crisis,” by Jenny Brundin

Colorado Public Radio, http://www.cpr.org/news/story/colorado-teacher-shortage-puts-rural-schools-brink-crisis

“About 1,000 freshly minted teachers graduated in Colorado last year with credentials in elementary education.

“Genoa-Hugo Elementary school, an hour east of Denver, only needed one of them. But, ‘they had zero applications last year,’ said Robert Mitchell, Academic Policy Officer for Educator Preparation with the Colorado Department of Higher Education. ‘That is somewhat telling.’ He says Colorado’s rural school districts are on the brink of crisis when it comes to finding enough teachers to lead classrooms….

Rural Colorado Struggles The Most

“Urban Colorado has its struggles – but elsewhere, it’s worse.

“‘I don't use the word crisis very often but we are on the brink of crisis in the rural school districts,’ Mitchell said.

“Rural Colorado already had some big hurdles. First, there’s the isolation. When the East Central Board of Cooperative Educational Services' Don Anderson was a principal in Burlington, he’d often travel to career fairs with a prop. ‘I took a map so they could see, you are 2.5 hours from Denver and 3.5 from the mountains so you need to know where you are going!’” he laughs.

“Low salaries in rural Colorado ‘kill us out here,’ Anderson said. Starting pay in many rural districts is around $30,000, or even less than $25,000 in a few. They can’t compete with Front Range districts, he says. And some northern Colorado districts can’t compete with Wyoming, which pays up to $20,000 more.

“Anderson planned a career fair in Limon last April. Twenty-five rural districts wanted to be there.

“‘We had three teaching applicants,’ he said.

“So it was canceled.

“Perennial shortages used to just be in math, science and special education, ‘but today, it’s the entire gamut, its history, PE, elementary,’ he laments.”

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[1] http://www.cde.state.co.us/fedprograms/essa - Examples: Denver-78 pages; Durango-19 pages; Pueblo-17 pages; Limon-15 pages; and more!

[2] See – Recommendations for “Collaborative Stakeholder Engagement,” Addendum A.

[3] http://www.cde.state.co.us/communications/ruraleducationcouncilfactsheet - This Rural Fact sheet is slightly dated. In 2015-16 there were 100 “small rural districts” (enrolling fewer than 1,000 students each - but together, over 37,000 students).

[4] 2015-16 Rubric for Evaluating Colorado Teachers (18 pages) http://www.cde.state.co.us/educatoreffectiveness/rubric-for-colorado-teachers

[5] Talking Points, 2015, Colorado Rural Schools Alliance.

[6]  http://www.casb.org/cms/lib07/CO01923145/Centricity/Domain/81/RS2-Update%20RAP%20Discussion.pdf. See also http://www.casb.org/Domain/133 - “CASB ...launched a collaborative effort to achieve more flexibility for small and rural districts by supporting them through the waiver process. After decades of mounting legislation designed to solve big problems in big school districts, small and rural school districts are struggling to operate under a legislative scheme that simply doesn’t fit….”