Wal-Mart High?

Will our students be going to Wal-Mart High?
Tomorrow, Winter Break ends, and Cat and I go back to our respective schools for "Records Day", a day to finish up last semester's grading and prepare for the spring semester, which starts on Tuesday.

At my school, we will be facing even more pressure than we did in the fall semester since this will be the semester that we do our "End of Instruction" (EOI) testing. This testing is the biggest factor in determing our school's performance under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. The feeling is that if our school does not show significant improvement in this year's EOIs over last year, when we were the lowest scoring school in the OKC school district, the school will be placed under one of the programs NCLB has mandated for failing schools, likely the so-called "transformative" model where by the administration is replaced and all of the school certified instructors have to reapply for their jobs. No more than 50% or fewer of the former instructors of a transformative school may be rehired. A third option, making the school a charter school, is also an option, but not considered likely.

We have been closely watched by the district and by the state department of education. Administrators and other facilitators constantly monitor teachers' instructional techniques. We must show that we are following "best practices" including having "word walls", "exemplary work displays", "data walls", "artifacts" and other displays of learning. Students are quizzed as to whether they have "mastered" necessary skills. Students are also constantly tested, and their test results thoroughly analyzed.

Some will say that this is only an effort to produce the type of pedagogy our school should have been doing all along. There is truth to that, but I am beginning to feel as though our school and those like us are becoming educational Wal-Marts or MacDonalds, a place where every class resembles every other class. Educational specialists, who seem to be running the show in public schools now, argue that students need this type of uniformity to keep instruction at a high level and help students master their subjects through uniformity and repetition. But teaching is as much art as it is science, many would argue more art than science. And it seems tht we are in danger of driving out the art of teaching in favor of "research based, best practice" science.

I am willing to do whatever I am asked as a teacher, so I have done what I have been told to do to the best of my abilities. I know, though, that teachers alone cannot transform schools whose students live in poverty. When we compare our American schools to those of other industrialized countries like Finland, Germany or Japan, what is left out of the comparison is this rather disturbing statistic, on average only about 5% of school-age children in other industrialized countries live in poverty, In Finland, the percentage is 3%. In the United States, however, 23% of our nation's school-age children live in poverty. And poverty is the number one factor that determines a child's success or failure in school.

That factor will not be overcome by having our children go to "Wal-Mart High".

OKC Public Schools Amends Its Bullying Policy

The Oklahoma City Public Schools voted last night to add "Sexual Orientation" to its anti-bullying policy. My friend Joe Quigley has fought a long battle to extend protection to GLBT students in our district. I am glad to see his work pay off finally.

Cold Number Two

Well, I managed, somehow, to get another cold. I thought it was only one per customer per season. The only difference I can tell between this cold and the one I got a few weeks ago is that this one seems to be mainly in my chest while the other was more in my sinuses.

Chest colds concern me more, particularly at my age, because of the danger of coming down with pneumonia. So I have been coughing liberally (how else would I cough?). And I've been watching for any signs in difficulty with breathing. So far so good, but I am thinking that I will take off another day from school just to be on the safe side.

There was a time when I toughed these things out, but I often made myself worse in doing so. There is also the danger of spreading my bugs to others. So I think erring on the side of caution works out best for all.

Thank the Lord for sick days in our contract.

Will Our Planning Time Be Cut in Half?

A Teacher's Responsibilities

On Monday a group of Regional Education Directors will present to the Oklahoma City School board a plan to lower high school credits from 28 to 26. This is being done in order to implement a 7 period day as opposed to the 4 period a day “block scheduling.” The Regional Education Directors, REDs for short, are "super principals" who oversee the high schools and their "feeder patterns," the schools that send their graduates onto the high schools.

Presently, high schools use block schedules where classes meet every other day for around 80-85 minutes. The new schedule would call for 5 instruction periods, one planning period, and one "collaborative" period. It's the last part of this proposal that has me fuming, but first, I need to address the move away from block scheduling to a daily schedule, which I favor.

I've never thought that block scheduling is good for high school students. In the modern, "over-stimulated" world of adolescents, I find it difficult for them to remember concepts we have covered during a class period much less those covered the day before yesterday. It is also difficult to schedule tests to see how much the students have learned in a unit since invariably some students miss a class and complain that they did not get a chance to cover the material being tested. Also when they miss a period, they have missed at least a day and a half of instruction.

Meeting students daily is more difficult and stressful for teachers, but far better for students. We get to review daily. Scheduling homework and tests can be a matter of routine. You can tell your students to expect homework during the first part of the week and a test during the latter part (or even vice versa), and the students will know what to expect. Since one has less class time, students can be focused on one or two concepts to be taught and reinforced on a daily basis. I applaud the idea of going to daily classroom instruction.

I oppose having half my planning time being taken away from me without so much as a "by your leave." When I first taught in the district, we were on a 6 period day with one period being my planning time when I had no classes. Planning time is needed to grade papers, contact parents, set up instruction, catch a breather, and, oh yes, plan lessons. Going to block scheduling increased my planning time and decreased my daily instruction load by two classes. Good for teachers, bad for students, in my opinion.

However, with the 7 period schedule, the REDs want us to teach 5 classes in 45 minute periods (a bit short in my opinion), have one planning time, and one hour for "collaborative" work. Usually, this would mean a period for department meetings, committee and team meetings, and professional development. However, the devil, as they say, is in the details. Principals could use this period in any way they feel they can use it such as for doing hall duty, detention duty, or covering and teaching classes. More teachers may be needed to implement this schedule change, and in light of state budget problems, we may face greatly increased class sizes come fall.

Some principals have said that they would not abuse the collaborative period in their buildings, but they may not have a choice given the fact that they may not be given the staff to handle their school's increased responsibilities. And that is hardly the point. The point is that the REDs (one person who works at the Admin building told me the REDs are "running amok" in the absence of a real superintendent) want to cut teacher's planning time in half and increase our load and stress.

I would be more than willing to have 2 of the 5 collaborative periods be used for meetings and professional development opportunities. However, using all 5 would be tantamount to adding an extra period of instruction and/or responsibilities to our day. Classroom teachers are under increasing stress due a host of state and federal mandates, most of them woefully unfunded. The district should not "collaborate" to heap more stress on our workload.

The school board needs to look closely at the details before they unloose this devil on the classroom teachers in this district.

Should OHLAP Pay For Remediation? Are We Begging the Question?

Oklahoma's Promise
Today's Oklahoman had an editorial concerning the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program known as OHLAP. The editorial criticized the fact that some OHLAP funds, less than 2%, are being used for students in need of college remediation courses which typically carry no college credit. Many people question why students are in need of such remediation. To me, and to many high school teachers, this begs the question as to why we feel that all students should be given a college preperatory curriculum when many do not want to go to college and perhaps should not, at least not right out of high school. Below is my response to the editorial:

To the Editor:

Recently, you criticized the use of OHLAP scholarships to pay for remedial college courses. You feel that taxpayers should not pay for "high school courses." You also state these students have been "short changed" in high school.

OHLAP makes no distinction between those high school students who have prepared themselves for college and those who have not. High schools do not make a distinction between students wanting to go to college and those who do not want this or are unwilling to do the preparation needed. Why don’t school allow students to make this decision for themselves? Students who wish to prepare themselves for college and do the work needed would be enrolled in college prep classes. Those who do not can take a general curriculum along with career tech classes to gain needed work skills. Oh wait, that would be tracking! Bad teacher! Bad teacher!

Looking Ahead Part IV: Leading a democratic School District

What does it mean to lead an American school district? One of the chief considerations is that American public schools are by design democratic in nature. (Note the small "d") By this I mean that we have in no true sense of the term, a national school system as can be found in countries like Japan, Germany, or China, countries to which American school children are often unfavorably compared.

We do have a Federal Department of Education, but if the Secretary of Education were to say, "All elementary students in America must be taught phonics.", the thousands of school districts in this country would be free to ignore the mandate and set their own curriculum. Nor do we have any sort of national pass examination as is the case in Germany where students take exams to determine whether they will be allowed to go into the country's college prep schools (the "Gymnasium") or into one of the vocational schools (Hauptschule, Realschule). (Once we had a group of teachers from Germany visitng our school under an exchange program. One of them remarked to us, "I don't see how you can teach a class with students who have so many different levels of intelligence in it.")

States have more control over the schools than does the federal government since they provide more direct funding and can set standards like the school year, the graduation requirements, teacher certification requirements and so forth. However, the real power resides in the local school boards who set the curriculum, oversea the administration, make decisions on attendance zones and aprove all purchasing.

In America, we like this local control and the fact that we avoid "tracking" children. We like to feel as if any child can, if the child chooses, go onto college or technical training after high school. We like to feel that this reflects our values of individual initiative, free enterprise, and personal liberty. However, our methodology is not without cost.

For one, American schools try to give every child, regardless of aptitude or intelligence level, the equivalency of a college prep education. We try to make concessions to those who do not have the intelligence or the desire to go on to college through offering special education courses and vocational/technical training, but our core curriculum is geared towards college prep.

We are thus admonished to hold "high standards" in our teaching, but at the same time leave no child "behind" the others. To do this, we are told to account for "multiple intelligences" do "interventions" on behalf of struggling students, and allow for "grade recovery" for those in danger of failing. (This is a part of the many mixed messages teachers get from those outside the classroom. I will address this problem in a later post.)

The result often is a sort of school that resembles the procedure used by the Merchant Marines during World War II where a convoy of Liberty Ships could only go as fast as the slowest ship in the convey so it would not be, well, "Left Behind!" Teachers, for the most part, do not teach to the slowest student in their classes, but they cannot teach only for to the "brightest and best" because that would deny those at the botton to their right to a proper college prep curriculum.

Another problem associated with a democratic school district is that as the local boards are free to ignore the directions of the Secretary of Education (sometimes at the risk of losing Federal Government funding), administrators and teachers often ignore the directions of superintendents (sometimes at the risk of their positions). This is why those who would model schools after businesses make a false analogy. In public school systems, especially urban schools, there is often more attention paid to due process on the part of administrators, teachers, parents, and even the students themselves. Some superintendents try to ignore this factor, but they do not tend to stay around for very long. A well know teacher attitude is "I was teaching before this guy came to the district. I'll be teaching when they get enough of him, and he leaves." I think part of the reason for our "short tenured" superintendents can be traced to this fact.

The most effective superintendents appear to me to be the ones who use a kind of "carrot and stick" approach: equal parts of praise and admonishment. Perhaps I like this because it matches my own approach to teaching as I discussed in my post where I described the fact that I tend to be tough on myself at times and forgiving at others. However, this seems to me the kind of approach that works in a democratic school system. We cannot ignore the need for change, and this requires vision, direction, and, yes, a little "butt kicking." Yet one cannot be negative all the time. One must look for the good and praise it. There must be proding and healing from the same source.

To me, this provides an additional reason to hire an "Insider" as our next superintendent. That person must be able to understand just where we are and how much we need to do to get to where we hope to be. As I have discussed before, this is what rhetoricians term "Ethos" or credibility. And as Aristotle pointed out his book The Rhetoric, Ethos is primary to any attempt to persuade, to lead, and to change. Without credbility, change is nigh to impossible.

More Rumors

Actually, this first one is sorta in the prelim stage of discussion. Some of the parents at Classen SAS want to turn the school into an "Enterprise School" as has been done with Belle Isle Middle School. Classen is already a "specialty school" with is OKC School Districtese for a school that can take who they want and reject who they don't want and kick out anyone who doesn't measure up. (My wife, Cat, says they get a lot of former Classen kids over at Northwest Classen this way.)

If Classen was an Enterprise School, thing would be pretty much the same except that the school's parents would have more control over the money they get for buying stuff. They could also secure a "patron" who could support the school, so if, say, Sonic Corp wanted to sponsor Classen, they could do it without jumping through many of the hoops with which other schools have to deal.

Some of the teachers at Classen are nervous, but teachers at Enterprise Schools still fall under the protection of the district's teacher contract unlike those at Charter Schools who have no such protection and have to worry about offending some or more of the parents and patrons who have organized the charter.

My question is, if this is good for schools like Classen, Belle Isle, then why isn't it good for all our schools? Why do some schools get to "cherry pick" while the rest of us have to deal with whoever shows up?

Anyone who works in schools can relate to this!

Gramd Avenue


I think I have said before how much I love this cartoon strip.

Let the School Go On

Let's Get Going!

I remember a old spiritual with the title "Let the Church Go On". I don't remember much of the lyrics other than the title phrase, but I recall the thrust of the song was that whatever problems we may have with one another in the church, the important thing is for the church to go on, keep moving forward.

I wish we could do that with our present crisis we are having in the Oklahoma City Public School District. Cannot we let the schools go on?

Rally for Dr. Porter--A Need for Atonement and Reconciliation

For Our Children's Sake

Last night at the Fairview Missionary Baptist Church there was a meeting and rally for Dr. John Q. Porter. About 600 people attended. Rev. Reed, the Fairview pastor, hosted the meeting. According to an article in The Oklahoman " 'We are all calling for his reinstatement. We are going to, as a community, work towards that end because his concern is children, not the politics,” the Rev. John Reed said" (The Oklahoman 1.9.08). I have much respect for Rev. Reed. He has been a big friend to labor and education.

I fear that if the Board fires Dr. Porter the harm caused in the community will last a long time. I think that we should work for reconciliation. Dr. Porter has shown that he is willing to acknowledge his mistakes. I think we should find the appropriate atonement for those mistake and, for our children's sake, move on.

Porter backers fight for his job