It was data review time again this week at my school--probably the country's most popular PD activity of today.  My AP handed me a print out that included each teacher in our grades 6-12 school and the percentage of students he or she passed for the first semester.  What I saw was, for me, shocking. Teachers had wildly disparate pass rates for their classes.  Some teachers passed 100% of their students or very close to it.  Other teachers passed 50-60% of their students for the semester.  These rates did not seem to correlate in any coherent way to other things I knew about these teachers, such as number of years of experience, level of commitment to student learning, or general skill level as a teacher.  But looking at the data it was also clear that the disparities indicated more about the perspectives of teachers than they did about students.  And once again my discomfort with grading reared its bumbling head.

I realize I have surprisingly little knowledge of most of my colleagues' grading practices.  I know we all have some sort of grading schema, with categories, each weighted a certain percentage, all adding up to 100%.  Some teachers weight homework heavily, others don't.  Some teachers weight tests heavily, others don't.  Some teachers enter a zero for a missed homework, others enter a 55%, and still others leave the assignment out of the student's average altogether as if it never existed.  I know for my class, reading is a non-negotiable, so I set up my grading schema such that it's impossible to pass the class without doing a substantial amount of reading.  So a failing grade often indicates a student didn't complete a certain minimum amount of reading.  But the same is likely not true in another class, even of the same subject.  
The more I think about, the less certain I am of what "pass" actually means.  I spoke to two of my close colleagues, both of whom attended NYC public schools themselves.  These are two teachers I respect very much and whose students work hard and clearly learn a lot in their classes.  
The first teacher has a near 100% pass rate for all of her classes.  She said she calculates her grades based on a grading schema on our online grading system.  But then, she compares the number grade to what she thinks about the student.  She looks for evidence of what the student learned and knows how to do.  Whenever possible, she passes the student, even if the numbers don't add up.  When I asked her why, she explained that middle school grades are used to determine what high school a student gets into in NYC.  She would hate to doom a student's future based on choices they make in seventh grade, a time where adolescents are growing in so many ways and are often not aware of the impact of their behavior.  Mistakes made in seventh grade--that often have nothing to do with academic ability and everything to do with social-emotional development, which most middle schools currently give little attention and support--should not keep a student out of a competitive high school, she reasons.  Having taught seventh grade before, (and having been one myself) I do understand her point.  
The second teacher has one of the lowest rates I saw, around 60%.  She says she sets a high standard for her students, and doesn't budge on her expectations.  She works hard to modify her instruction based on the needs of the students, but expects all students to work hard consistently--she herself worked hard to achieve at a high level in NYC public schools despite many obstacles.  If her students meet her standards, they will be prepared for any high school, whereas if she lowers her standards, she is certain many students won't be able to succeed in competitive high schools.  If students fail her class, they are learning a hard lesson sooner rather than later, she reasons.  This too, makes sense to me.
Earlier in the year the administration asked each grade team to make a goal for the school year for our student pass rates.  As an 8th grade teacher, the pass or fail line becomes especially significant, because it determines who participates in the graduation ceremony and activities, and who is sent to summer school or retained for a second year of eighth grade. My grade team came up with a goal of a 90% (on-time) pass rate this year.  The number was somewhat arbitrary, but we chose it because we thought we could beat our rate from last year, which was around 80%, through better communication with students, parents, and increased interventions.

But the real can of worms we need to open up--if pass rates is going to be a key data point for our school--is how we understand and assess passing and failing, and how this definition fits into the mission of our school.  I don't have the answer, but we should start by opening up dialogue on the topic.  
Do any of your schools have a strong consensus on this issue?  If so, I would love to hear how you arrived at it.  I am concerned that, once again, we come up against the limitations of ascribing one number to stand for a student's learning over a period of time.  Narrative evaluations, least in middle school, might do a better job of capturing the complexity of any one student.
[image credit: http://blogs.courierpostonline.com/eagles/files/2008/11/pass_fail1.jpg]

Over the past three weeks I had the wonderful opportunity to
work with an undergraduate intern in her sophomore year from Amherst
College.  She dedicated this
portion of her January recess to observe, assist, and finally try a few days of
teaching in my classroom, during a tough stretch of preparation for the state
ELA test.

My intern was from the Midwest, and had never spent time in
the “inner city” or in a public middle school (in fact, she was home-schooled
for most of her own education). 
But the sometimes-rough edges of my classroom, the school, and its
surrounding neighborhood did not seem to deter her.  She was incredibly committed, non-judgmental, and
enthusiastic about teaching.  My
students and I came to truly appreciate her calm presence and thoughtful
observations and suggestions. 
Though she came in a little shy to work with the entire class at once,
she got past it.  She wrote in a
letter to me, “You…gave me confidence to get up in front of the class and
actually teach.  I surprised myself
by hardly being nervous at all!”

I was thrilled when at the end of three weeks she shared
that she would like to become a teacher in a public school, and was strongly
considering teaching middle school! 
Score one for the team! 

I was also pleased when she told me she would like to get
her masters degree before entering the classroom.  In her words, “I just think I would be so much more
confident that way.”  She mentioned
that she knows her experience at my school was positive in large part because
of all the work us teachers had put into setting up our classrooms to be how
they are. 

It was somehow relieving to me to realize that this very
young (age nineteen? twenty?), aspiring teacher understands the immense amount
of work and skill it takes to teach, and that she is still so excited about
doing it.  I know one day, not so
far from now, her students will be very lucky to learn from her.  That I had anything to do with this
(and during test prep no less!) really makes me really happy.

A few notes about undergraduates and the choice to teach
today:

At some point, my intern mentioned that Amherst College does
not have an education department and offers only a few related courses through
other departments (like Literature and the Teaching of Writing--or something
close to that).  This was strange
to me, because my alma mater, Brown University had a vibrant education
department with which many undergraduates were involved. 

When I asked her if she knew why there was no education
department at Amherst, she said, “Well I guess the idea behind it is that since
we are paying so much for our college education, most people would choose
careers that pay more than teaching does.”  Wow, I thought. 
I completely understand what she is saying, but it came as a blow
nonetheless, and reminded me once again that I make a significant quality of
life sacrifice in remaining a classroom teacher, when so many other,
higher-paying professions are available to me.

On the other hand, she mentioned that, due to the
current economic crisis, a major shift is occurring on campus.  Normally a high percentage of Amherst
students go into banking.  Since
this is not an easy option today, many more students are considering programs
like Teach For America or NYC, DC, or Chicago Teaching Fellows, which promise
an unusual amount of job security in troubled times.  The result is that said programs are becoming increasingly
competitive.  Ironically, candidates are looking for ways to improve their
resumes—some undergraduate interns attempt to become more competitive
applicants for these programs by showing an early interest in teaching. 

I wonder how increased competition for one of the more
secure jobs in the nation will play out for our profession and schools over the
next few years.  Will it up the
standards for who gets to enter the classroom without training and what kind of
commitment they will need to demonstrate? 
Will it influence many potential candidates to spend time in schools
prior to applying; and will some make the choice, like my intern, to get a
master’s first? 

[first image is the author's: taken of a previous student teacher I worked with in a different school  second image found at blog.derekjansen.com]

As you probably know, I'm not a big fan of multiple choice tests, especially the annual high stakes ELA test.  (Check out my last post, The New ELA Test, for some more discussion of this.)  That said, I spent the last week analyzing my students' choices of A B C or D on the sample tests and I think I've come up with a handy tool for helping students to choose more wisely. 

It started when I went through to take the tests myself.  Very few questions had clear-cut correct answers.  Instead, I found that most questions had two or even three answers that had some validity.  To make my final choice, I had to go back to the passage and weigh each answer against its competition.  Which one had the MOST evidence to support it?  That was the one I chose, even if I had not initially favored it.  Later, I came across the answer key online and found that my answers were all "correct." (Big sigh of relief!) 

I hypothesized that many of my students were choosing the first answer that seemed to line up with what they had read, instead of recognizing the multiple possibilities and carefully reasoning through their choices. In fact, a number of my students admitted they had not fully read the passages.  Instead they read the questions first and looked for the answers in the passages.  Indeed, they chose the first answer for which they had found evidence.  These students answered the questions with less than 50% accuracy.  
I created a template to give students a process for reasoning through their answers, as I had done.  For each question students had to explain their choice of answer using this format:
[Note: students should number the paragraphs of the reading selection to do this activity.]

7.  In this article, the author’s purpose is
most likely to

            A   analyze the secrets of business success

            B   explain the power of advertising

            C   tell about the life of an inventor

            D
  describe the history of an invention

We chose this answer, because ______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

Evidence that our answer is the best one is in paragraph # (s) _____________________

We also thought the answer might be
_____ , but we did NOT choose this answer, because    

______________________________________________________________ 

I first asked my students read the passage with a partner and work together to complete the multiple choice questions using the template.  The next day I gave students another passage and had them work individually using the template.  The next day, I gave them their second multiple choice practice test without the template.  On the first practice test--before using the template above--the class had answered questions with an average of 59% accuracy.  Three days later, after practicing with this template the class average had increased to 68% accuracy, with a number of individual students making startling increases of 20-30%.  I shared the activity with a few other teachers at my school, who reported it to be helpful for their students.  
In my scoring, incomplete questions were marked incorrect, as they are on the actual exam, so my students' rate of accuracy on questions attempted could actually be higher than these numbers show. The next step is to identify the students who regularly run out of time and give them some strategies to help them finish faster. I will continue to encourage everyone else to continue reading as carefully as possible--the risk of skimming for answers is higher than most of them realize. 

[image credits:http://www.i-italy.org/files/imagecache/600x/files/still_photos/Test_1205948884.jpg http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/progressionmaps/images/english/supplementary/traffic_lights.jpg]  

In my previous post, The Cloud Factor, I compare the uneven conditions affecting teaching and learning at my school, a small five-year-old public school in Brooklyn, with those of a KIPP charter school, where a former colleague of mine works. I argue that the job of teaching in these two disparate environments is not the same. I also suggest that it may not be fair to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers in these two schools with a single identical test, because of all of the "X factors" that teachers at my school must become adept at dealing with in order to survive and succeed.  (One commenter pointed out that using a single measure of teacher effectiveness in two very different environments is not only unfair, but unscientific, because the teacher is not the only variable being measured. Nice point!)
I received some comments both on my blog page, but also at other sites, such as the NYC-based Gotham Schools, suggesting that I transfer to a charter school, and one that even congratulated me on "my decision" to move to a charter school. I appreciate that charter schools provide a variety of alternative models of education and think they play an important role in our country's education system. If I were to start my own school, I would certainly weigh the benefits of opening a charter school over a regular public school because of the freedom charters can provide. As a teacher, freedom over my curriculum and methods and having a voice in decisions made at my school are really important to me. I left my first school with a broken heart when those opportunities were taken away from teachers in a frantic effort to raise standardized test scores.  
Right now, however, NYC public schools that elect to be part of the "Empowerment Zone" have very similar freedoms to those of charter schools. Principals manage their own budgets entirely and can structure their schools and curriculum as they like, as long as they comply with the union contract and state standards. This freedom allows my school's administration to create a progressive environment for teaching and learning. We have an unusually collaborative culture made possible by innovative scheduling and teacher-centered professional development as well as many opportunities for teacher voice and leadership in the ongoing shaping of the school. I have autonomy over my curriculum and opportunities to share best practices with and get constructive feedback from colleagues and administrators. (See my post "Excited About Teacher Leadership" for a better description.)  
In the time that I've worked there (1.5 years), I've seen my school make siginificant progress toward offering a quality education to all of its students, which is why I have no plans to leave. I do wish to point out the particular conditions under which my school, its teachers, and its students make progress. We do so despite the x factors, which I think deserves some consideration.
As I described before, most charter schools seem to benefit from a few advantages that my school does not: the power to counsel out difficult students, and, in many cases, extra private funding to offset the inadequate public funding of schools serving high needs populations. (Urban schools with wealthier student populations usually have active PTO's which raise lots of money from parents and the connections parents have, and in suburban areas these schools are adequately funded through property taxes.)

Now, a regular DOE school can receive private donations, right? But it seems to be far more common for charter schools to receive large-scale private funding. Why is this? Why don't wealthy philanthropists "adopt" a neighborhood public school and help level the playing field there? Does starting or promoting a charter school carry a certain cachet that PS## or MS## doesn't? Are regular public schools going out of style?
If so, what could be behind this? Could it be that funders feel (consciously or unconsciously) that charter schools will deliver faster surer results because they don't have to work with non-compliant students (and/or parents) and don't necessarily have to build relationships with the communities that surround them?
On the other hand, is private funding even a reasonable or viable way to ensure that every student gets a quality public education?

[image credit: thegreenguy.typepad.com]

Last week I had my second unusual opportunity to attend a
policy meeting on recruiting and retaining high quality teachers in high need
public schools.  This meeting was
convened by Center For American Progress (CAP) in Washington, D.C., and was
meant to shape recommendations to the new federal administration on this
critical issue in education. 
Teachers and students at my school were excited that I would be able to
advocate for them at such a “high” level, and my principal was wonderful to
allow me the day away from school for the cause. 

The meeting was at the very grand Regis Hotel. Fifty or so
people from foundations, institutes, companies, and organizations, all with an
interest in ed. policy, sat around a large rectangular configuration of tables
under a crystal chandelier and spoke through microphones when called on by a
moderator from CAP.  I must say,
many of the voices at this meeting were much more difficult to listen to than
those at the Ford Foundation meeting in NYC for a few reasons.  For one, the meeting was quite large
and I noticed that most participants said their pieces without responding to
other speakers’ points.  The
trajectory of the discussion was thus disjointed and very little real
conversation seemed to take place. 
Secondly, I was taken aback by just how removed most of the discussion
was from the realities of real teachers and students in high need schools,
which I thought would be the focus of the meeting.

As the sole practicing teachers in the room, Renee Moore
and I were each given five minutes toward the end of the agenda to provide a
“teacher’s perspective” on what it will take to keep us in the
profession.  We both talked about the need to recognize and build on the
expertise of effective teachers in high needs schools and the need to improve
the conditions under which teachers work from a variety of vantage points.  We agreed that attention to these two
points would be more powerful than the sole use of financial incentives for
teachers in high need schools, though increased compensation would be a
valuable component of any initiative to recruit and retain teachers in such
schools.  

I’m told that not long ago, teachers were not invited to
the annual CAP meeting, and until recently, not allotted formal time on the
agenda to speak.  So what I’m about
to say should be understood within a context of progress made in the ongoing
struggle for the inclusion of teacher voice in education policy.  It was a big step that, thanks to the
work of CTQ,

After Renee and I each spoke, participants focused their
discussion around the need to fine-tune existing data systems.  In fairness, these first few comments
were from people who had been called upon by the moderator before Renee and I
spoke, and had been told to wait until after our piece.  Nonetheless, except for one or two
comments that made reference to either of our points, our messages were all but
ignored.  Participants seemed to be
fighting to get their own last points made before the day was done.

The emphasis on data seemed questionable to me in a
discussion of recruiting and retaining teachers in high-need schools.  While I agree that good data is an
important piece in determining what changes need to be made, as a few
participants pointed out, we already have the data we need to know when and why
people leave high need schools. Considering how tight the budget will be in
today’s economy, and how many good teachers are leaving the profession each
year, immediate action is necessary to begin to fix the situation--not more looking at it from afar
under the light of a crystal chandelier.

While these policy-wonks [I now understand why that
expression is used] went around and around the mulberry bush about data, just
after Renee's and my points, and again after small group discussions, I felt my
blood pressure rising.  I actually had the heated thought, "Well
if this is what our profession is being turned into, maybe I will leave after
all.  Most of these people obviously wouldn’t care."  Though I’m a conscious resister of the forces that
propel so many teachers to leave the classroom, this feeling provided a window
into the depth of the problem with many of the people who
influence education policy.  Frankly, they are stuck in a
conversation with themselves.  It’s
the same problem that we see when teachers don’t think to include student voice
in their classrooms.  The
“learning” or progress falls short, because there is no real conversation.  (Interestingly, the national
high school dropout rate in urban areas is approximately equal to the national teacher attrition rate for teachers in the first five years: 50%. Coincedence? I think not.) 

A lot of people came up to me after the meeting and said
how great it was to "hear your story."  But soon enough, this compliment fell short.  Did they
understand what I was getting at? Were they willing to discuss the
issues? 

After one of the moderators was the fourth person
to say, “I’m so glad we got to hear your story,” I decided to speak
up. 

"Thank you so much for having me," I said, "but I was disappointed that the
concluding remarks of the meeting seemed to focus only on data [a tool to
diagnose problems and track progress] and not on any plans to actually address the issues
of teacher retention.” 

She replied, in a gentle tone, "Oh, but we talked
about those things..." 

"Yes,” I responded, “but I really didn't see those issues addressed in the recommendations for the new
administration, which was strange and surprising." 

I hope that I showed that I'm not satisfied JUST BEING at a fancy meeting.  I’m not a storyteller, and I'm not trying to be a celebrity teacher collecting feathers in my hat. I may be dazzled by a crystal chandelier, but
I don’t forget the reality that brought me there.  Most of all, I cannot justify taking a day away from my
students to be listened to, but not heard. 

So here I am, singing into the blogosphere… holler if you
hear me!

[image credit: http://ciclops.org/media/gl/2007/4076_9552_1.jpg]