Recently our county mandated that the Guidance Counselor could no longer be in charge of testing. So, as a Leadership Team, we began to talk about what the Testing Coordinator job for our very large school entailed and who in our school could pick up that responsibility. Although I have known for some time that we are testing our children to death, I had no idea that 60 days of our Guidance Counselor's 180 school days involve TESTING - the county's three times a year benchmark testing in Reading, Math and Science to monitor our progress toward FCAT, the week and a half of actual FCAT testing, gifted screenings, annual testing for Music, Art, and PE so that we can hold our Resource teachers accountable, and the list goes on and on. 60 DAYS of testing!
I certainly realize that Guidance Counselors should not shoulder this responsibility because she gives up actual counselling and small groups to push papers, but I wonder just who in the school the county thinks has an extra 60 days to unpack, dispense, report, and pack up assessments! The Principal is already spending two hours on every teacher, much of it in paperwork, to make sure we have a new evaluation system. (That's another post!) In a school of over 80 employees, this is a major added responsibility this year on top of running a school. Coaches are non-existent, at least at our school, which means we have already given up the professional development needed to make the testing and results really beneficial to instruction. We gave them up with class size. We don't have an Assistant Principal, even though we have over 1200 students, but even if we did, how could he spend 60 days with testing. Should he just let the school's discipline wait while he packs and unpacks papers? To think it could be a teacher, who this year added lunch supervision to her responsibilities and gave up all of her common planning and half her planning overall, is not even a consideration. In a school this size, the testing for a single grade level can completely paper a small office.
Maybe the answer is to take a better look at the ridiculous amount of testing that we are doing in our state and in our county. It is changing what teachers teach. It is changing attitudes toward learning in our classrooms. Children who once loved reading now dread it because we test everything that they read. They can't just read for the thrill of getting into the story of a good book. Teachers are changing as they are forced to teach in a way that they don't believe is good for children. There are certainly teachers who are holding to their beliefs, but even they are getting beat down. I do feel fortunate to be in a school where people still believe in the possibiities but as we are asked each year to do more with less, I begin to feel the edges get rough and in some cases begin to unravel, even in this Camelot... We MUST make our thoughts known... before it is too late...
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Florida's 4th Grade Writing Scores
This week the Florida Department of Education released scores on the state's writing test that showed a drastic drap in this year's scores, with only 27% of fourth-graders receiving a passing score of 4, on a 6-point scale, compared with 81% last year. The Board of Education quickly met to address the problem and decided to lower the passing score to 3, which put proficiency back at 81% for this year's test. The change is significant because it is used to calculate school grades and may be used to calculate teachers' pay.
So why did this happen in Florida? It seems to me that Florida is doing the right thing by trying to provide more rigor in its schools. Nobody would argue that our graduates need and deserve to be completing with the best graduates from all over the world. We know that education is one of the key factors in making our children competitive in the national marketplace. However, to just raise the expectation without providing the foundation is a ridiculous way to the top. I don't think any teacher that is in the trenches is surprised that the road crumbled along the way.
Teachers have known for a while that spelling and conventions would be taken into account this year on the writing test, but where was the professional development, the curriculum, the expertise that helped teachers make that transition? It was just a couple of years ago that teacher were told that content was everything and that spelling and conventions didn't matter at all, so teachers changed what made good sense to most of them and began to emphasize content over spelling and grammar. You can't expect 4th graders to all of sudden have four years of knowledge about spelling and conventions after teachers were told to de-emphasize it.
The state has said that one of the changes would be the quality of details expected this year so you would assume that if the scores fell so drastically this would be a place that students did not meet the expectation. Again I ask where was the professional development for teachers to help them make this transition? The state has said that one of the prompts that 4th graders were expected to write was, "Suppose someone had a chance to ride a camel and to write a story about what happens on this camel ride." If details were to count for so much this year, why would the powers that be choose a prompt that might be so foreign to Florida's children? This was a FLORIDA prompt so wouldn't something about manatees or dolphins or even alligators be something that Florida 4th graders might be more familiar with and be able to provide more details about? If the expectations is that details be provided wouldn't something that most Florida children have some background knowledge about be a better starting place? Camels!!! Really?
Most of the teachers that I know are ready and willing to work hard on behalf of our children. Most of the 4th grade teachers I know have said that they taught every single minute and taught their children every single that they know to teach. They couldn't have done any more to get them ready. They didn't get into this profession because of the money (of which there is little) or the great vacations. They came because they cared and because they are service-oriented. They want to make a difference. They want to touch lives. As cliche as that sounds, it is the simple truth. Teachers are willing to do whatever they need to do to provide a quality education to their charges. For many of them, it is their own personal children that are being effected. They cannot, however, continually be the scapegoat for every disastrous decision that is made, of which they have no input and little power to change. Give them strong leadership with a well thoought out path. Give them the proper, continuous, on the clock, quality professional development to make the expected changes and they will rise to the occasion and rigor WILL increase in our state.
Our children simply deserve better than the ridiculous political back and forth that is swirling over their heads right now.
So why did this happen in Florida? It seems to me that Florida is doing the right thing by trying to provide more rigor in its schools. Nobody would argue that our graduates need and deserve to be completing with the best graduates from all over the world. We know that education is one of the key factors in making our children competitive in the national marketplace. However, to just raise the expectation without providing the foundation is a ridiculous way to the top. I don't think any teacher that is in the trenches is surprised that the road crumbled along the way.
Teachers have known for a while that spelling and conventions would be taken into account this year on the writing test, but where was the professional development, the curriculum, the expertise that helped teachers make that transition? It was just a couple of years ago that teacher were told that content was everything and that spelling and conventions didn't matter at all, so teachers changed what made good sense to most of them and began to emphasize content over spelling and grammar. You can't expect 4th graders to all of sudden have four years of knowledge about spelling and conventions after teachers were told to de-emphasize it.
The state has said that one of the changes would be the quality of details expected this year so you would assume that if the scores fell so drastically this would be a place that students did not meet the expectation. Again I ask where was the professional development for teachers to help them make this transition? The state has said that one of the prompts that 4th graders were expected to write was, "Suppose someone had a chance to ride a camel and to write a story about what happens on this camel ride." If details were to count for so much this year, why would the powers that be choose a prompt that might be so foreign to Florida's children? This was a FLORIDA prompt so wouldn't something about manatees or dolphins or even alligators be something that Florida 4th graders might be more familiar with and be able to provide more details about? If the expectations is that details be provided wouldn't something that most Florida children have some background knowledge about be a better starting place? Camels!!! Really?
Most of the teachers that I know are ready and willing to work hard on behalf of our children. Most of the 4th grade teachers I know have said that they taught every single minute and taught their children every single that they know to teach. They couldn't have done any more to get them ready. They didn't get into this profession because of the money (of which there is little) or the great vacations. They came because they cared and because they are service-oriented. They want to make a difference. They want to touch lives. As cliche as that sounds, it is the simple truth. Teachers are willing to do whatever they need to do to provide a quality education to their charges. For many of them, it is their own personal children that are being effected. They cannot, however, continually be the scapegoat for every disastrous decision that is made, of which they have no input and little power to change. Give them strong leadership with a well thoought out path. Give them the proper, continuous, on the clock, quality professional development to make the expected changes and they will rise to the occasion and rigor WILL increase in our state.
Our children simply deserve better than the ridiculous political back and forth that is swirling over their heads right now.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Parents' Celebration
It's that time of year when many classroom celebrate Mother's Day. In Mrs. Ruark and Mrs. Timmons' kindergarten classroom they combine Mothers and Fathers and have a "Parents Day" Celebration. They invite mothers and fathers in for a brunch between the two events. This year they decorated the desks with placemats made by the chidren and with "Happy Parents Day" cards. They added fresh flowers to each table. Each child practiced going to get his waiting parent in the hallway and invited them into the room. The children were so proud to be walking their parents into the room and showing them their placemats and cards.The agenda was posted on the board.
The parents and children started by eating!
They played a few games. For one of the games, the parents sent in baby pictures and as the pictures flashed on the screen each child and parent tried to guess who it was. The parent child combination with the most matches won a prize. I don't know who enjoyed the game more - the parents or the children!
The highlight of the morning was the booklet that the children presented to their parents. The children had worked on them all week in Writers' Workshop. Below is one example.
Such a wonderful morning of celebration!
Blessings in a Backpack
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Kindergarten Round-up
Welcome to Kindergarten Round up. You probably have that at your school too - a time when new kindergarten parents can come to the school, get a tour of the building and begin the registration process. About two weeks ago we had such a night at Chets Creek. Many parents came with their kindergartners, met the Principal and toured the building with one of our kindergarten teachers before they took the registration information home.
However, we have noticed over the years that our families from our neediest community do not come to Kindergarten Round-up. Instead they wait until school starts and come with their students on the first day or first week of school. We generally have 25-35 new kindergartners from this community each year and instead of having time to prepare for the new year they just walk in totally unprepared. This year we decided to address the problem by having a second Kindergarten Round-up in their community. Instead of them coming to the school, we went to the community. Since many of the families are second language, the Principal made sure to have an interpreter on hand to translate. The Principal started by introducing herself, just like she does at the traditional Round-up. She even brought her 8-month old daughter with her so the parents could see that she was a mom too. She explained the registration information and then gave the families a visual tour of the school through a PowerPoint of slides.
The night was quite successful with about 16 new kindergartners represented. The Principal gave the families other dates, one each for the next three months, that she would be at the Community Center to accept registration packets and answer questions. This is just one of the many attempts that the school has made to build a bridge that will make it easier for all of our children to be successful. Now we will be prepared for each of these new kindergartners. They will walk into school on the first day with their names on the class list outside the door, with their names on their cubbies and school supplies on their desk ready to go. They will know that they are expected and that they belong. What a great way to start!
However, we have noticed over the years that our families from our neediest community do not come to Kindergarten Round-up. Instead they wait until school starts and come with their students on the first day or first week of school. We generally have 25-35 new kindergartners from this community each year and instead of having time to prepare for the new year they just walk in totally unprepared. This year we decided to address the problem by having a second Kindergarten Round-up in their community. Instead of them coming to the school, we went to the community. Since many of the families are second language, the Principal made sure to have an interpreter on hand to translate. The Principal started by introducing herself, just like she does at the traditional Round-up. She even brought her 8-month old daughter with her so the parents could see that she was a mom too. She explained the registration information and then gave the families a visual tour of the school through a PowerPoint of slides.
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