"In for a penny, in for a pound..."

During a recent weekend getaway with my wife and some new friends, I was reminded yet again that public perception of education and educators has not changed all that much.

The old saying is that those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach.

In the minds of many, those of us who work as teachers are still the people who get a full year pay for a nine month job. We are the workers who don't really work. We work from 8 till 3, monday through friday, get every holiday off, and take 2-hour delays or even whole days off when the weather is too bad.

And those are the less hostile perceptions.

The professional organizations that represent us as teachers do little to improve how the general public feels about us and our work. I think most people would say that the greatest deterrent to significant changes to public education in America is the teacher's union. We want better pay, we want smaller class sizes, but we don't want to stop doing things the way we've always done them, even though it is clear to the rest of the world that we are no longer living in the 1950's and 60's anymore.

Now please don't get me wrong. I love my profession and I have enormous respect for all the men and women who dedicate their lives to educating our young men and women. There are far more of us who are dedicated and passionate than there are those who are lazy and just getting by. As the decades have passed and times have changed, teachers have consistently been asked to become more and more things to the children who populate our classrooms. At the same time, federal and state initiatives have frequently done little more than add obstacles to the educational process.

But there is a way to change.

And it's going to take a buy in by all those involved in public education...including teachers.

It's long past time that we had a set of national standards for public education. It's never made any sense to me why each state needed their own set of standards for basic public education. The reality is that government, both State and Federal, pours enormous amounts of money into public education. Why then can we not all agree on what our students should be learning?

Well, it looks like this is finally changing. The Common Core State Standards Inititiative is a set of standards that are rapidly being adopted by states across the country. I believe there are nearly 40 states that have already adopted them, and others are following. This I believe is a step in the right direction.

But where the rubber meets the road in education is in the classroom. What takes place between teacher and students over the course of a year is what really matters, not what set of standards a school or state claims to hold themselves to. If teachers are not leading their students to knowledge in those standards, if teachers are not holding themselves accountable for faithfully fulfilling their role in guiding and inspiring students in their content areas, standards are just another document gathering dust on a shelf.

The question is, how do we make sure that teachers are effectively fulfilling their role?

And the answer is where we find out if teachers and their associations are truly ready to buy in.

Most teacher evaluation systems are ineffective and nothing more than paper pushing. There, I've said it. I've taught in four different school systems, mixture of private and public, middle school and high school, small and large. In some cases I taught under administrators who truly tried to evaluate effectively. In other cases I received paper evaluations even though I never saw an administrator in my classroom. In all cases, my evaluation was perfunctory. Yes I knew my content area, yes I seemed to be in control of my class, yes I was positive and encouraging with my students. I've found out that I had a good sense of humor, a fine rapport with young people, and that my manner of dress was considered professional and in good taste.

Never once, in nearly 15 years of teaching, has my evaluation ever addressed whether or not I was actually being successful in helping my students learn.

Tying teacher evaluations to student performance has long been anathema to teachers and teachers unions. But I'm telling you - it's time for that to change. If a salesman doesn't make sales, he is let go. If a hairdresser botches up haircuts consistently, he is let go. If the line manager at the factory cannot get his group to perform to standard, he is replaced.

Effectiveness is what evaluation is all about. It should be no different with educators.

For years I agreed with colleagues as we claimed to have no control over the quality of the young men and women who came to our classes. How could we be held accountable for the academic success of our students, when academic success was really up to what THEY were willing to do, we would ask. But that argument is disingenuous.

A true test of a teachers effectiveness is the difference that the teacher makes in the success of their students. Success is measured by progress, not necessarily by achieving the highest mark. No teacher worth their salt should ever have any problem with being held accountable for at least provoking improvement in their students. The truth is that we DO have some control over the children who spend at least an hour a day in our classes. In fact we will proudly point out to those who will listen those wonderful stories of students who share with us the profound difference we made in their lives. Teachers DO have influence on their students - in some cases incredible influence.

As we move towards adopting a set of national standards, I hope we will have the courage to go for the brass ring. Instead of just a nationally accepted paper document, how about we go so far as to implement a system that will allow us to assess our students on a regular basis as to how they are faring in accomplishing those standards? I'm no fan of high stakes standardized testing, but how nice would it be to have the ability to test our students at the START of the year, again at the END of the year, and even several times DURING the year to better understand what they are getting and what they are not getting?

Wouldn't it be nice if the federal government would create a national education testing system that would be accessible by all public schools? Wouldn't it be nice if we could give our kids a pre-test to see what they know at the beginning of a course, then turn around and give them a similar test after a marking period to see how much progress they have made? And wouldn't it be even cooler if these tests were done in such a way that the results could be known immediately, so we didn't have to wait for weeks and months for the valuable feedback?

In such a system, teachers would have an invaluable tool for discovering much about both their students and themselves. And inevitably, this type of system would provide a way for our administrators to say, "Hey, you're doing a great job with the kids!" or maybe "Hey, I can see you need some help!" In that way, maybe teacher evaluations would actually begin to mean something.

In that way, maybe those few bad apples in the field of education would get the message that they should move on to another career.

And in that way, maybe the general public would begin to have a little bit more faith and trust in those who have chosen to take part in this most noble profession.

The Peculiar Bent...

"Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover the peculiar bent of the genius of each."
Plato


I am a "putting down roots" type of person. Big, sweeping life changes have never been high on my list of favorite things to do. Nevertheless, I have experienced many such changes in my life, much like most of you I suppose.

Recently I have moved thru yet another of these significant changes. My boys now both off to college, I have made a move of over 700 miles to begin life in North Carolina, leaving behind my sons and the place I called home for nearly 20 years. It was an emotionally difficult move, and at the same time, like many of these big changes, one that brought with it a certain level of excitement and anticipation for the new life ahead.

One of the surprises in store for me would speak directly to my profession as an educator.

Now one thing I have learned about educators in my 14 years in the classroom is that many of us are weary of change. There is a certain cynicism that comes with being told on a seemingly annual basis that there is a "new" educational initiative coming - one that turns out to look distressingly like one or more of the previous initiatives in new clothing.

This time though, I'm wondering if I have not stumbled upon a true paradigm shift in the focus of public education in America. And I honestly believe that last line was not hyperbole.

My new job is as a teacher in an Early College Academy. This program offers incoming high school students the opportunity to attend five years of high school (instead of the normal four) in return for two academic accomplishments at the end - a high school diploma and an Associates Degree in either Arts or Sciences.

This program is a part the New Schools Project in the state of North Carolina. There are currently over 100 such programs in the state, meaning that somewhere between one-fourth and one-third of all such programs in the United States are here in North Carolina. The New Schools Project is an initiative designed to re-think how public education works and what it's goals must be. The program aims to help high schools become "nimble, rigorous and focused institutions that graduate all students prepared for college, careers, and life."

The early college academies are designed primarily with preparing students to earn four year college degrees. Clearly though, this option is not for all students. Fortunately, unlike the seriously flawed No Child Left Behind initiative, this program acknowledges that not all students are preparing for college degrees. Rather than expect this goal from all students, only those who are willing to take on the rigor and challenges of such a program, and who prove such through an application process, are invited to participate.

Other new school projects exist in North Carolina as well. Some are situations where an entire school has been segmented into specific stand-alone programs. Others are simply portions of existing schools that have been focused on a particular program such as Health and Life Sciences, or Science and Engineering.

I'm still new to the experience and the process. But it looks very much to me as though the folks here have taken bold steps to acknowledge and address the fact that kids are different today and that no two of them are the same in their abilities or aspirations.

What a startling concept, eh?

The days of the "one size fits all" approach to public education are hopefully slowly fading away. The good men and women who I have taught alongside for 14 years have long understood that expecting all students to follow the same path and achieve at the same level made little sense. Now, for the first time, I am seeing first hand an effort to meet these kids at the place that, as Plato said, "amuses" them.

Exciting and interesting times, it seems to me.

More to come...

King No More...

I'm no big fan of NBA basketball, anyone who knows me will tell you that. At the same time, it is hard to deny the sheer athleticism present in the men who play the game at that level.

I was fortunate enough to be living in the midwest when Michael Jordan transformed the Chicago Bulls from an NBA afterthought to perennial league champions. While I'm not quite old enough to remember and appreciate the talent that existed in the days of Bob Cousy, Wilt Chamberlain, and Jerry West, I have had the opportunity to see the likes of Julius Irving, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson make the game of basketball appear to be a thing of grace and elegance.

Michael Jordan was something more.

In a game that, for me at least, can too often turn in to little more than a human ping pong game, Jordan made the game come alive. True that he brought great athleticism to the court, but even more significant was his ability - through tenacity, fierce competitiveness, and sheer force of will - to make those around him greater than they perhaps could or should have been. Jordan lead Chicago, step by step and piece by piece, from nothing to a playoff team, from a playoff team to a contender, and from a contender to a perennial Champion. Despite his frustration in the early years, he stayed with the franchise and allowed the work to be done that would eventually lead to the championship fruit born both by his own labor and the efforts of the team management.

For quite some time it seemed to me that I would likely never see another player who could do what Jordan had done in Chicago. Some have suggested that perhaps Kobe was a player close to Jordan's ability, but what Kobe would always lack was the opportunity to so completely transform a team and a city the way that Jordan did.

And then came LeBron...

I remember the Sports Illustrated issue that had the cover picture of a still High School aged LeBron James, and the story that suggested perhaps we were seeing the dawning of a new NBA king. I remember the high school games broadcast on ESPN, showcasing the amazing physical specimen of LeBron, and how he seemed to be literally a man among boys.

Cleveland was indeed a perfect stage if LeBron were to become the next Jordan. It even had the added storybook factor of becoming a "home town boy makes good" scenario. Surely the Cavaliers were every bit as hapless as the Bulls had been prior to Jordan's arrival. And while there was significantly greater hype surrounding LeBron's arrival to the team than there was with Jordan's arrival in Chicago, it was still certainly a case where the potential success of the Cav's was going to rest heavily on what LeBron would be able and willing to do in the coming years.

Jordan and James do not play the same position. Their games are not really even all that similar except in one respect - both are fierce competitors who hate to lose, and who had shown the ability to make others around them better.

The beginning years of LeBron's NBA career seemed to be unfolding in a very Jordan-esque way. Slowly but surely the Cavaliers began rising in stature in the NBA. The team's management, much in the manner of the Bulls and Jordan, began the process of trying to put the right complimentary pieces around the driving force of their young star. Much in the way of his hero, LeBron bristled at the slow pace of the rebuilding, leaning on the team to work harder at building a better team around him.

Soon there were playoffs on a regular basis, and even an almost surprise NBA finals. Unfortunately, in their first trip to the final series, the Cav's fell short. It was about this time that word began spreading through the media that LeBron would not be patient in Cleveland forever, that perhaps he was destined to move to a bigger media market where his many talents would be even more on display.

When the Cav's made an earlier than expected exit from this year's playoffs, the frenzy was on. Speculation ran rampant throughout the press that now was the time for LeBron to make his move.

And then...the debacle of Thursday nights LeBron Special on ESPN.

It's no surprise that professional athletes have egos. I'm not even sure that it's possible to be an athlete at such a high level without having a certain level of ego and arrogance about your abilities and what you can do. But I think that most of us have an unspoken mental line over which we expect even our professional athletes will not cross.

The LeBron show blew that line away for me.

The fact that one of the best players in the league has chosen a new location to take his game is not the problem. When I was a kid, players played for their team forever, but that reality has been long gone from professional sports since the 70's.

The problem for me is that LeBron has tossed away any chance that he can ever become the new king of NBA basketball. The problem is that no matter what he does in the coming years, LeBron can never claim to have done what his hero Michael Jordan did.

No one will be surprised if Miami wins a championship. Few will be surprised if they don't indeed win several championships.

But LeBron will not have been the driving force that compelled this team to championship status.

He will never be able to lay claim to have perservered and led this team from nothingness to greatness.

We will never be able to marvel at his patience and cooperation in working with this teams owners as they built a perennial NBA championship team.

LeBron James will undoubtedly go down in NBA history as one of the great players in the league.

But I think it's safe to say that we can finally and definitively remove the label "King" from his name.

"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past."

It was Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels who said "If you tell a lie big enough, and repeat it often enough, people will eventually come to believe it."

Suddenly tenure has become the root of all evil in American public education. In a time of shifting educational priorities, dramatic fiscal cuts, and massive teacher layoffs, somehow this practice has become the focal point for all that is wrong with education today.

The case goes something like this:

a) Tenure protects bad teachers, making it impossible to get rid of any poor teacher
b) Tenure therefore eliminates good teachers who happen to be lower on the seniority list

Sounds like a pretty good case...except for the fact that it is based on only partial truths.

Tenure in secondary schools across this country is far from permanent job security. The fact is that tenure is a two part process that starts with a school corporation having a period of years to determine whether or not to make a new staff member "permanent." This period of time can vary, though it typically seems to be two or three years in length. During the "semi-permanent" phase of your employment, the school can simply choose not to offer you a contract for the next year for just about any reason.

At the end of the last "semi-permanent" year, the school corporation either lets the teacher go, or chooses to retain the teacher and have their classification changed to "permanent." It is at this point that the teacher is said to have tenure.

It is important to understand that the teacher is not guaranteed a job for life at this point. A permanent teacher could still be subject to reduction in force (RIF) due to down-sizing. Also, a permanent teacher can still be let go from their position - but now the school must show due cause for the release. This means the burden falls on the administration of the school to do a consistent and thorough job of evaluating and documenting teacher performance. If evidence can be shown that a teacher has been notified of deficiencies in their work, and those deficiencies are not satisfactorily addressed in a reasonable period of time, the tenured teacher can be fired.

The very purpose of tenure as a benefit to teachers was to ensure that school corporations could not simply let a teacher go for just any reason. A two or three year period of employment, including regular evaluation and observation, should give administration a sufficient picture of the teacher's abilities to enable them to make a decision on whether or not to want the teacher to be a permanent part of the school's staff. Tenure then ensures that a change in administration at any level does not lead to a personality conflict of some kind that might lead an administrator to make a hasty decision to terminate.

The tenure system and a seniority system are not necessarily linked systems. Once tenure is granted, all such tenured teachers are effectively equal. When new teachers are RIF'ed due to staff reductions, there is nothing inherently wrong about first terminating teachers who have not yet completed their probationary or evaluation period before terminating permanent staff. At the same time, there is no particular reason for sticking to a seniority list once reductions move into the permanent staff list. This is perhaps an area where local teacher's associations could find some flexibility in RIF procedures.

The problems faced by public education today are vast and complex. There is no one single issue that is a potential cure-all for the shortcomings we face. An honest appraisal of current education would include acknowledging that societal changes, particularly in terms of family structure and socio-economic pressures, contribute much to the challenges in educating today's youth.

It is long past time that all sides in the education arena stop fixating on hot-button issues designed to appeal to inflammatory rhetoric but with little potential to produce positive results in the lives of students.

"Will It Go Round in Circles..."

" The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself"
Archibald MacLeish - American poet and Librarian of Congress


I've spent the past several days trying to educate myself on the recently passed Health Care Act. Sadly, in all too typical fashion, response to this legislation has been heavy on partisan political rhetoric and light on honest and thoughtful discussion of it's pros and cons. Just try, as I have done recently, to find an unbiased and factual presentation of the content of this bill - it's practically impossible.

My intention was to record some of my thoughts on the merits and drawbacks of this monumental bill. But along the way I found myself more struck by the inability of so many to do anything more than toe a particular party line. Being a political conservative myself, it's been frustrating to hear one conservative mouthpiece after another proclaim the end of America as we know it, the socialization of our country, or a prediction of the economic collapse that this bill will bring.

When did the land of the free become the wasteland of independent thought?

I know that most of us are smarter than to be swayed by the hyperbole that comes from the media. Sensational sells - rational thought does not. The likes of Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly, et al, make their living by providing the sensational, not by providing measured and reasonable analysis of issues. Surely we all know and understand this. Surely...

Our federal government has looked seriously at the prospects of national health insurance throughout most of the 20th century. President Roosevelt called for a study of a national health insurance plan in the 1930's as part of the legislation that would eventually become the Social Security Act of 1935.

President Truman won re-election in 1948 in part by campaigning on a pledge to provide medical insurance to all citizens. At that time the AMA was a chief opponent, being one of the first to label such a program as "socialized medicine." That campaign, along with a then growing anti-communist sentiment pushed a national health insurance plan to the side.

In the 1960's, President Johnson's "Great Society" directed health insurance concerns towards the needs of the growing population of senior citizens and the indigent poor and disabled. Despite continued opposition from the AMA, this ultimately led to the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid as part of the Social Security Act.

President Nixon attempted to establish a national health plan in the 70's called the Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan, but proved unsuccessful in large part because of his failed presidency in light of Watergate.

Successive Presidents have each attempted, in one manner or another, to incorporate some type of national health plan. President Carter actually proposed a plan to have corporations provide insurance to all employees, continued national coverage for the elderly and disabled, and the creation of a public corporation to sell to all others. President Clinton attempted the Health Security Act which would have provided coverage to all Americans.


The point to the history above is that the idea of health coverage for all Americans has been around for nearly a century. This new legislation is not so new in concept, just new in the fact that it was successfully passed.


The new bill is not perfect. Even the Obama administration have admitted that much. But it is a strong and bold step in the right direction. The sensationalistic charges against it are just that. Which of these aspects of this legislation can any of us rightfully have significant problems with?

• The immediate end to lifetime and annual caps on coverages.
• The end of coverage being denied due to pre-existing conditions.
• Tax credits for small businesses to help with the cost of providing coverage to employees.
• Young adults being covered under parents policies until the age of 27.
• Check-ups and preventive care provided at no cost or co-pay.
• The end of discontinuing coverage due to onset of sickness.
• A requirement that insurers reveal overhead costs.
• Senior prescription costs shortfall is cut in half.
• Medicare coverage expanded to smaller hospitals and clinics.
• Negotiated insurance made available to uninsured on a sliding pay scale.

These are good things it would seem to me. All things that most of us should be glad to see happening.

That does not mean the bill is perfect or even without flaws. I personally am opposed to the requirement that all citizens must have insurance. I'm also not convinced that this plan will in fact lead to savings rather than an increase in our already substantial national debt.

But the fact is that this plan is a start. And, on the whole, I would say it's a pretty good start.

But maybe that's just the dissenter in me talking...

"It's coming around again..."

Let's call it cautious optimism...

President Obama recently announced his intention to overhaul the No Child Left Behind law. Just about any current educator would applaud an effort to redirect a law that has gone terribly wrong since it's inception. A law that punishes those who struggle, rather than focus on rewarding those who find ways to succeed never really had a chance to do what it was intended to do. That our current administration has recognized this, is encouraging to those teachers who are the front lines of educating our youth.

But punishment versus reward was not the most glaring fault of NCLB.

No two children are the same. Each has unique needs and abilities, and each have different futures that they are headed towards. NCLB was designed to treat each student exactly the same, to have the same educational goals for each student, and to assume the same future plans for every student. This fundamental flaw virtually ensured that many schools would be classified as underperforming.

Now President Obama talks about the need to adequately prepare students for either college or career. Finally! Common sense has long told us that not all students are bound for or interested in college. Yet NCLB all but insisted that all students be treated by our schools as though they were preparing for a college education. Student after student has been forced into an academic track in our schools in order to satisfy a goal that was never realistic.

It strikes me as a bit ironic that if President Obama's intentions are clearly expressed in his recent announcement, we may find ourselves moving back towards more what things were like when I was in school.

During my high school years, we were asked to choose an academic path for our education. We could choose Advanced Academic Prep, Academic Prep, or Vocational. Advanced was for those students who were likely to pursue at least four years of college and preparation for a professional degree. Academic Prep was a slightly less demanding course of study that would still prepare a student for the option of post-secondary education. And Vocational programs were offered for those students who intended to enter the workforce after graduation. A nearby Vocational School offered programs in construction, auto mechanics, cosmetology and other career fields.

It was a good system, and one that allowed students to use their high school years to best prepare them for their post-diploma years.

Somewhere along the way, we got caught up in worrying about how well the U.S. students were doing in competition with their counterparts around the world. Suddenly the ranking of our 8th graders with other 8th graders around the world on an academic test caused us to believe that we needed to lead all students towards an academic course of study. In the process we lost track of the fact that all students are unique, and that, in treating all students the same, we did a disservice to both the non-academic and academic students.

Throughout the years of NCLB, vast resources have been used to attempt to bring what would typically have been career minded students up to an academic prep level in their studies. This has been tantamount to beating our proverbial academic heads against the brick wall. It turns out that parents and students have known what was best for the individual student all along, but, because of NCLB and its expectations, schools were unwilling and unable to listen.

Here is to the hope that President Obama's recent announcement means a return to allowing parents and their children to decide what the best approach to a students individual education should be. And here is to the hope that we will slowly but surely see a return of the secondary education that prepares all students to do what is best for them to do.

Being a Teacher

I have alot of fond memories of my years growing up in Pennsylvania. While Mom and Dad expected the kids to do their share of chores around the house, they also were more than ok with me spending the rest of my free days playing with friends all around the neighborhood.

I remember lots of tennis ball baseball through the summer, pickup football games in our big field, and expeditions into the mountains that began not far from home. When I think today about how many kids do so little playing around the neighborhood, when I begin to wonder why so many of our kids are so much more house-bound than I was when growing up, the normal culprits come to mind. There are the video games, the internet, cell phones, and of course the fear that so many parents have of unsavory characters who might want to bring harm to their kids.

But I think there's another big difference these days that is just as responsible for our kids keeping closer to home. And I think this difference has a huge impact in another place - the school.

When I was a kid growing up, I learned very quickly that if I managed to get in to some mischief in the neighborhood, my parents would be receiving a call from any other adult in the area who discovered the mischief. And when that happened, I could be sure that my parents would bring me to task for it. Mom and Dad would not have questioned the neighbor who called. Mom and Dad would not have accused the neighbor of falsely accusing me or in any other way suggested that the neighbor was out of line for suggesting that I had done wrong. I would have been called on my behavior as reported by the neighbor and punished appropriately for what I had done.

Period. End of story.

A similar dynamic was carried out in terms of the relationship between my parents and my teachers and administrators at school. All it took was a call or a note home that indicated something I had done wrong, and my parents would almost immediately take corrective action. I'm not suggesting that my parents were not interested in my side of the story - they certainly were willing to listen. But if what I had to say did not directly refute what my teacher or principal had reported, there would be consequences. My parents were not interested in excuses on my part, and my parents had absolutely no interest in buying in to a suggestion on my part that a particular teacher or principal was somehow unreasonable or biased against me.

Let me tell you today it is a rare parent indeed who places such trust in their childs teacher or principal.

Now I know, the media is full of horror stories of bad teachers who have done dispicable things. These stories, which are brought to our attention so much more often and easily in today's technological age, have made many parents automatically skeptical and mistrusting of educators in general. Today it is far more likely that a parent will expect a teacher or principal to explain his/herself than that they would expect their child to explain his/herself.

I have had parents come to my school irate and boiling with vitriol towards me because I dared to call their child on their unacceptable behavior in school. I have had parents get mad at me because their son or daughter was not completing their assignments and as a result were failing or near failing. I have heard many times of parents who would find that their child had been skipping school or reporting tardy frequently, and then would proceed to write or come up with sick excuses rather than have their child suffer the consequences for their choices.

For nearly 7 years I taught beside a very experienced and extremely hard working and capable teacher who feared actually giving a student an F, solely because earlier in her career she had been pressured by administrators (who had been pressured by parents) because of holding students accountable for poor academic performance in class.

There are still parents out there who approach the educational process the way my parents did, please don't misunderstand me. More and more as time passes, it becomes easier and easier to tell who those parents are, because their kids are the kids who excel at school. They are the kids that you do not have trouble with, who regularly attend school, who do their assignments and turn them in on time, and who treat the adults they work with on a daily basis as professionals worthy of respect.

Ah, respect, the magic word. How many times have I been told by a parent that respect is something that must be earned, and not something that is automatically given? Too many times to count. And yet, it was not always this way. When I was a student, teachers WERE automatically given respect, not just by students, but by parents as well. I was raised being taught that your elders were automatically to be respected and treated with such. I fear that today, this is rarely the case.

Education is best when it is a partnership. And that partnership is one between teacher, student, AND parent. It is a partnership where each should be able to expect that the other will be respected and treated with propriety and dignity. It is a partnership where the adults involved must be working in tandem to ensure that the youth involved are learning ALL the lessons they have to learn through those growing years - lessons both academic and of life.