Tag Archives: state accountability

No, Your Child Shouldn’t Attend a Failing School

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There is lots of propaganda these days about vouchers and school choice.  A favorite line to stir the masses on the topic is to say how children shouldn’t have to attend failing schools.

I think we have to consider what a failing school in NOT:

  • A Title I school-“Title I” is just a designation that states a certain portion of the school’s population is economically disadvantaged.  Because of this, the school receives additional funds to train teachers and provide additional resources so that students who may have entered school behind because of lack of opportunity.  If a Title I school is considered “school-wide” than even those children who are not economically disadvantaged benefit.  It is actually a huge benefit to attending a Title I school because these teachers are highly skilled in making a difference with all students, not just the students who learn easily. I took my own child to a Title I screen-shot-2016-09-25-at-1-33-31-pmschool rather than his affluent neighborhood school because I knew they would grow him, wherever he started from.  Being economically disadvantaged is not contagious.  You can’t catch it by attending a Title I school.  Children in Title I schools learn the value of diversity and are more likely to learn to know how to function with others who are different than themselves in the real world.
  • A school whose state test scores are below ninety percent –Just because a school appears to have high passing rates doesn’t mean they are a great school. It may simply mean that the students walked into the school with a good amount of skills learned from home. Right now on the Texas accountability test, passing rates are fairly low.  The test has changed to reflect higher-level thinking, and they are gradually building the passing rate as schools make the shift from “strategies” to “thinking.”  
    A high passing rate (or a low one for that matter) doesn’t tell you if a school is adding value to students.
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    The score in and of itself doesn’t show you for sure if a student is performing higher than they were when they arrived.  Sometimes when a student enters school with large gaps, the score may not yet be passing, but it is showing astounding growth.  An overall passing rate doesn’t tell you if a school can make a difference with all students.  
    A great school should be able to teach any child, any day, and grow their academic ability and their social-emotional health.
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  • A school with diverse ethnicities, cultures, religions, and backgrounds- Our world is changing and becoming more and more diverse.  Groups that were once majority are finding that is no longer the case.  To prepare children for the 21st-century world, they need to develop the skills to value and collaborate with others from all backgrounds, including those that are significantly different from their own.  Students who attend “homogenous” schools are more likely to struggle in college and beyond because the haven’t developed the skill set to work with others besides those who are most like themselves.

Here is what I think a failing school IS:

  • A school that doesn’t put children first – Schools should filter every decision they make through what is best for their students.  If it isn’t making a difference for children in a school, it shouldn’t matter.
  • A school that doesn’t value partnerships with their families –Schools should always be working to invite their parents in, ask their opinions and build relationships so that they can partner in the child’s education.
    If parents don’t matter, you might be in a failing school.
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    Does your school provide opportunities to be involved other than fundraisers? Does it have a parent involvement policy?  If not, it should.
  • A school that doesn’t grow EVERY student – It’s easy to appear to be a good school if all the students are the same and performing on high levels.  However, if a child walks in the door with lots of skills, a school should be able to grow the student from that point, not rest on their laurels A failing school is one that takes advantage of the fact that students may already be able to perform skills and doesn’t attempt to grow them more.  They may also not be able to grow students that have more difficulty learning.  They resort to labels and excuses of why it is the child that is the problem, rather than accepting the challenge and ensuring learning happens.

real-world

  • A school that doesn’t seek to teach problem-solving, higher level thinking, and 21st-century skills necessary to survive in a future that we cannot yet fully define – Our world has changed drastically, just since I was in school.  There are jobs and technology we couldn’t have even dreamed of at the time I was in elementary school.  We have to intentionally think about this world that doesn’t exist.  We have to make sure that our students are proficient readers, writers, and mathematicians, but we also have to make sure they are thinkers, problem-solvers, collaborators, and have skills to persist when things get challenging, while also being willing to grow.  Students can no longer live in a world of “perfection” because learning is messy and they don’t need to waste time memorizing things that they can access easily through technology.
  • A school using technology in learning only to consume information –To often schools have lots of technology available, but they are only using it to access programs that allow for practice of skills or looking up information.  Truly great schools are teaching students the programs that not only allow access to information but applications that allow them to create and demonstrate their understanding of concepts.  Research is showing that this type of creativity is critical for the future.
  • A school driven by high stakes testing and preparation –Too many schools these days are trying to prove their worth through high scores on high stakes tests.  The problem is that these schools are abandoning real learning for test preparation and cartoon5_2_13drills of skills rather than relevant learning grounded in real-life application.  Before you assume a good score means a good school, you may need to look deeper to find out exactly how those scores are being achieved and what may be sacrificed for the performance on a single day.
  • A school that doesn’t function as a learning organization –  A successful school is one where everyone grows and learns: leaders, teachers, students, parents, and community.  Administration and teachers should constantly be learning and evolving to meet the needs of the students and an ever-changing future.  They ways students are learning shouldn’t look like the ways we taught them 20, 10, or even five years ago.  There should be opportunities for parents and the community to participate in the learning as well. If the only learning is that of the students, there is definitely a problem.

Yes, no child should have to attend a failing school.  We just need to be careful to make sure we really know what a “failing school” really is.

A New Vision for Public Education in Texas and Beyond

Best Practice, Education, Leadership, Transformation, , , , , ,

 

Eight years ago I was exposed to a new piece of work created by superintendents across Texas who had a greater vision for public education than simple accountability based on high-stakes testing.  At the time, I don’t know if I appreciated the work for all that it was visioning-instituteworth and the enormous thought and innovation that went into this vision. It was kind of like how we sometimes take things for granted, like our freedom in America or breathing. It’s just something you have. The district leadership frequently brought this document to the forefront of our conversations and asked us to reflect on its purpose and relevance for our work.

Then the world changed.  “Freedom”  and “breathing” were no longer a part of our work as leaders.  Every trace of the Texas Visioning Document was erased from the district and the work we did, only to be replaced with conversations driven by student and teacher performance on the state assessment.  It is true that you do not always appreciate what you have until it is gone.  But nowchangingworld, like the freedom of a democratic society or the air needed for survival, I was missing a critical part of my profession. I began a mission to find a district whose work was driven by the principles of the Visioning Document.  I had to find a new source of oxygen for my career. I was thrilled to find so many districts who had not abandoned this work and quickly found a home with like purpose.

It is our moral imperative as educators to prepare students for a future that we can probably not accurately perceive…”
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Four years later, I have been selected as a principal to represent my district to focus specifically on this document.  I find myself on a new frontier, no longer to serve solely a receptacle for the information being learned from the vision of this text, but as a vehicle to take this information to others.  It is a great responsibility to help spread the mission and vision of a new face of education. This plan allows for ownership, flexibility, and  board-blended-learning-scale-up-presentation-2opportunity for learning “anywhere, anytime, any path, and any pace.” It is our moral imperative to have the grit and growth mindset needed to prepare students for a future that we can probably not accurately perceive, to stand against special interest groups that would promote learning for some, but not all, and to communicate to society about how the future of education needs to change.  While it is somewhat scary facing the uncertainty, it is also exciting and a challenge I gladly accept.

Resources:

Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas

A New Hope

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The concept of hope has become quite intriguing to me.  My campus uses the Gallup survey with our students and one of the measures is how much “hope” our students have.  Unfortunately, what we have seen is that the answer is not much.  It’s not just my school, but nationally, results show our students lack hope.  While I know that the world our children face is a challenge, their chances for success are minimal if they don’t have hope that they can overcome difficulties.  Gallup defines the opposite of having hope as being “stuck”.  Stuck means you can’t grow.  If you can’t grow and improve, you become more “stuck” and even discouraged.

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Gallup Survey 2015 National Results: Hope Index

As I have thought a great deal about this dilemma, I begin considering “hope” as a verb vs. “hope” as a noun.

  • Hope as a verb is just a wish left in the hands of fate. Hope as a noun is paired with the verb “believe”. You believe that what you desire will happen because you trust and believe that it can.
  • Hope as a verb causes you to hold back a little in case it doesn’t work out. Hope as a noun allows you to give it all because you KNOW it will work out.Screen Shot 2016-08-27 at 10.47.40 AM
  • Hope as a verb results in excuses for why it didn’t work. Hope as a noun results in facing brutal facts and making adjustments to move forward.
  • Hope as a verb makes you feel at mercy of the power of others. Hope as a noun gives you the power to accomplish your dreams.

 

I believe that being intentional in helping children develop hope is key.  That is why this year, as I enter my fourth year as principal (a.k.a. Episode IV), our theme is “A New Hope.”  I need to be clear jedi symbolthat it is not “Star Wars.”  Too often those attempting to make additional profit in high states testing attempt a play on words and market “STAAR Wars” products to educators. There is too much attention on this test which takes away from the focus on people.  Current accountability systems are often a vacuüm for hope. I have no fear of state assessment.  But “STAAR” is not what drives my school or our work with students.

On the contrary, my teachers are Jedi Master’s of Hope and work diligently to help  our young padawan cultivate their hope by helping them find pathways around barriers that stand in the way of the future they wish to create for themselves.  They do this using a Jedi

To prepare our students for a face-paced, ever-changing world, we must teach them to have hope.
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mindset and  building relationships, taking time for conversations to set goals, analyze progress toward those goals, and create new paths to achieve those goals to prevent becoming stuck.  They “feel the force” of  hope and help our students to do the same.

My campus has done intense training to become a “trauma sensitive” school.  Studies show one in four children are  to trauma prior to the age of four.  Trauma, especially ongoing trauma, can teach children at a very young age that they are stuck and have no control over their environment and thus create a mindset of “stuck”.  With much preparation and new tools, we will be a beacon of hope for these students until our students can find ways around their circumstances and stockpile some hope for themselves.

Public education is certainly different from when I was in school. It is even different from when I began my career.  However, we have to continue and adapt to prepare students for the world they face, which is fast-paced and constantly changing.  To do this, students must believe they can be successful in a world where the media floods them with stories that drain hope.  Yes, we must teach reading, writing, math, science, and social studies.  However, instruction in “hope” seems to be a new necessary course.

Obviously, hope is a important component for student success.  Ihopet is the precursor to other critical skills of grit and growth mindset.  Without hope, there can be no grit and willingness to stick to challenging tasks. Without the grit to stick to challenging tasks, there can be no growth.  Without growth and improvement, purpose is lost. Hope is not a wish or a dream, but the key to making dreams come true. Because of this, our schools have to be the source of a hope for our students, because our students are our new hope for the future.

Hope Resources:

Shane Lopez, The Hope Monger and Author of Making Hope Happen