Pay for Performance

I have been so worked up over this issue for so long, that I thought when I sat down to write this blog that it would practically write itself, and yet, I have been sitting here staring at an empty page and trying to decide what it is that I really want to say.

You see, when the idea of pay for performance first came out, I applauded it.  I thought it was about time that teachers that work so hard and care so much, who put passion and commitment into their work, should be recognized.  I was sick to death of seeing poor teachers continue in our profession.  I thought it was about time that we got rid of those teachers who were just there to earn a paycheck and didn't really care about their ethical responsibility to the children in their care.  It seemed like such a logical path and such an affirmative cause.

What  I didn't fully realize is that the decision for how the system would work would be left up to politicians and people who have never walked in a teacher's shoes. We would not be like doctors who police their own profession or lawyers who regulate their own membership, but we would be the pawns in a wicked game of political power and circumstance. 

I could give you all the little details of why this system hasn't worked, from personal experience, but it doesn't really matter.  The bottom line is that the formula for being a "highly effective" teacher, which is the road to performance pay in Florida, combines a principal's evaluation with student growth scores.  The problems with that formula are so enormous that it's hard to contain in a single blog. They have tried so hard to be fair, but a principal's evaluation, no matter how hard they try, is still subjective, and the growth scores are a crap shoot in any given year.  Sure, there's a state test to determine growth scores for some teachers but is that even that fair?  You can argue that the teachers have no way to control for what their students come to school with or you could argue that students who make a perfect score often count as "not making growth" when they make a perfect score the next year, so how can those growth scores be fair?  I could spend this entire blog just talking about things that effect the scores that are out of a teacher's control!

And to complicate it even more, there is no state test for K-1 students (and for many resource and specialty teachers).  I could tell you about the year that my growth score was dependent on a state test and that the communication was so poor at the state and county level that our school never got the word of how to open the portal to test high achieving children so... because our children made so high on the pretest and then just repeated their perfect scores on the post test, they were deemed not to make progress!  Of course, that certainly is water under the bridge. However, I guess I still haven't gotten over it, because I'm bringing it up here! It's just hard to live with because it effected a large number of extraordinary teachers.  That year most of those exemplary teachers were not highly effective, although they had very high Principal evaluations.  It wasn't because they didn't teach their heart out or because their students didn't make exceptional progress. It was because of a glitch and a line of  poor communication.

Or we could take this year's announcement of last year's scores.  My kindergarten group showed amazing progress as a group and individually.  I was so proud by the end of the year.  I won't go into all the individual successes we had, but they were numerous.   Our growth score for last year was determined by a county-written test designed for pre and post testing.   The test had never been field tested.  It was a new test, designed by "somebody"  - hmmmmm...  Anybody see a problem?  This was also the year that we were told at the beginning of the year that kindergartners would be pre and post tested and monitored each nine weeks in Language Arts, Math and Science and pre and post tested in Art, Music P.E. - I don't even remember all the absurd testing that we were suppose to do.  When I first heard it, I thought it was a joke, but no, "someone" had decided that this made sense for five year olds?  About sixty days into the school year, the county finally "listened" to the outcry and came down to a more reasonable testing schedule but by then, much of the damage had been done.  We had complied with the original requirement so we had essentially lost 60 days of initial instructional time.  As the data began to arrive, it was full of mistakes.  We had students with scores over 100%, missing data, and missing students, so the data was useless.  We called... and called... and called... the Testing Office to have the obvious inaccuracies fixed.  I'll bet they flipped a coin in the testing office and the loser had to take our calls!  It would really have been comical, except it affected children and our reputations as teacher! The data was basically unreliable - and this was going to be our growth scores to determine if we were highly effective?

I shouldn't have been surprised  that when the growth scores came in, that I was called into the Principal's Office.  The Principal explained to me that I had a 1% growth score.  1%!!!!!!!  That means that exactly 1% of my kinder students made progress last year!  I had about a second of absolute panic when I thought - could I really suck that bad?  But then reality began to set in.  No... this was a class that had made incredible progress. I could go student by student and rattle off the amazing things that I had witnessed. We had worked so hard. I looped this class, so I still had most of these students as first graders.  No way! No, this was not possible...  As I began to put it together, I noticed my Principal sort of smile.  "I know," she said, "there has to be something wrong with the data."  OH MY GOSH!  A 1% growth score put me in the "Needs Improvement" category! I am a National Board Certified Teacher with over 30 years experience. I am a former Florida Teacher of the Year.  I have published 19 books for teachers and now, I was in the "Needs Improvement" category!  Really?!! Thankfully, the Principal and Assistant Principal went right to work to begin notifying the Testing Office that there had to be something wrong with the data.  It ended up that there was a large group of teachers at my school - and I later learned at other schools - that were effected.

That was October.  We had to submit an appeal and were told "someone" would look into the matter, but for months, we were to hang out, having nothing to go on but a 1% growth score.  How did we know that anybody was even looking into the problem?  What would the parents in my class think, if that news got out?  I looped this class so I still taught most of the same students.  Would the parents trust the success they had witnessed in their students or would there be that little seed of doubt?  Would they wonder?  Would it get out  that a former Florida Teacher of the Year had a 1% growth score and was an ineffective teacher?  Would my name be published in the paper?  I know all of that seems a little irrational, but I am sure that in some way, it went through the mind of every teacher involved.  It's embarrassing.  This is our life's work... Our county had allowed our reputations to be defined by a poorly written test with no history and a data system that was untested and obviously full of inadequacies and inaccuracies...

Just last week, the new scores FINALLY came back - We had waited four months - FOUR MONTHS! - and I am thrilled to say that my growth score was 95%, which does put me back in the "highly effective" category, but you know what?  Who's to say that those scores are right either?  I am suppose to learn something from this process that will make me a better teacher,  but what I've learned is that this state is not ready for pay for performance.  They don't have the structure in place to make decisions that effect a teacher's morale, pay, and reputation, because each of those things in its own way effects the children that we teach... and they deserve better.

Did the state or county learn anything from this debacle?  It doesn't look like it... because this year K-1 teachers in our county have yet another new test.  This time it's a computer-based test - for kindergartners... hmmmm... see any problems?  To start with, our school simply doesn't have the technology to support a computer-based  program of this magnitude, so the very foundation is full of holes.  We have one tech lab that supports 1300 students and with the intermediate testing schedule, we might get into the lab a handful of times a year.  I have three computers in my classroom  (for 36 students!), just recently bumped up to six, but what instruction do I want my students to miss while they get on the computer?  I already have students come in before and after school and give up my planning time to help accommodate, but it's still not enough.  Of course, students can get on the programs at home, but that just widens the divide between the haves and the have nots!  The students that need the most instruction are the very ones that don't have computers at home.  But none of that  really matters, I guess, because once again, my ability to teach will be judged on the scores from a computer-based program - that even the designers of the program say was never its purpose...

Pay for performance can still be a good idea , but it's an idea that we are obviously not ready for... It's time has NOT come...

Mayor's Education Summit

Spent the day at the Mayor's Education Summit hosted by Jacksonville's Mayor and the Superintendent.  I was invited to participate in a workshop about How to Increase Parental Involvement in our Schools - a topic I certainly care about.

The room included many high profile  people including the School Board, PTA, and head of many of the non-profit and faith-based groups in our county.  Our own MARC was represented by our own Liz Duncan.  The idea was to get everyone together, identify the problems and make recommendations for solutions.

A couple of things hit me at the conference: 1) With our growing Hispanic population, that minority group seemed to be grossly underrepresented.  2) There seemed to be lots of fragmented and duplicated services and there certainly is a need - and a cry for - some type of local Clearinghouse.  There is a huge lack of infrastructure for communicating what is available and how to access services. 3)  The MARC should be the prototype for the type of grassroots services that work - that combine school (Chets Creek), community (ARC), faith (BUMC, Eleven 22, Church at Chets Creek), and funding (Mckenzie Wilson Foundation) to provide holistic services on-site.  They should be the model for how to get and support services that meet a community's need!

I've lived in Jacksonville for a long time and the problems in education have always been huge, seemingly insurmountable in some areas as evidenced by our continuing failing school.  It seems like every so often the bigwigs get together and put a lot of lip service to all that is going to be done and then the results... dismal and fragmented.  It always seemed like a lot of posturing and egos to me without real community passion or support.  So, is there any reason to believe this time will be different?  We do have a new Superintendent and we do have a Mayor with passion... and I guess being an optimist, I always have hope. I have to believe that the destiny of these two men is intertwined for such a time as this.  I want the district to shine as bright from the inside out as I think my school shines.  I want the same collegial, family feel in every school that I have each and every day and I want every teacher, parent and child to know that if there is a problem, there is someone there to help.  Is that too much to ask?

State of the Union

As I'm listening to President's Obamam's State of the Union tonight, I wanted to stand up and applaud (or maybe scream and jump up and down) when he got to this part...

At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced States to lay off thousands of teachers. We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000. A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance. Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives. Most teachers work tirelessly, with modest pay, sometimes digging into their own pocket for school supplies – just to make a difference.

Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.

Where can I sign on the line?  I believe Chets Creek would take that deal tomorrow.  Give us the resources just to teach so that we don't have to spend our time figuring out how to get technology that works or even how to supply toilet paper, for heaven's sake!   Let us use the amazing gold mine of talent that we have to teach creatively and with the passion that is inside us. Free us from teaching to a test so that we may once again teach children to love losing themselves in a book.   Make it easy for us to get rid of teachers who need to find their paycheck in another profession.  Is it possible that these ideas can become our reality... or are we just caught up in another season of political retoric?  How I want to believe...

What are they thinking?

Last week, out of the blue, we received an e-mail with an "invitation" or rather a command appearance at an in-service.  I teach in a very large county and the leadership had decided that ALL K-2 teachers would attend a half day in-service conducted by the state.  The time was to be spent learning about the FAIR, our state K-2 assessment and how to plan for instruction.  I was actually excited.  I have been to several state workshops and in-services over the years and they are usually presented by very knowledgeable presenters.  I figured if the county was making EVERY teacher go then it must be something new and cutting edge.  Why else would the county take on the expense of substitutes for every single teacher and moving so many teachers in and out of the city over the course of an entire week?

So... today I sat through three hours of the most basic in-service.  I think the presenters were very knowledgeable but the information presented was not that different from the information that we were presented three or four years ago and every year since then.  Will the county ever quit presenting on beginning professional development? In my county, performance pay for K-2 teachers will be based on this assessment so I can understand why you would need to have every teacher have a basic foundational knowledge of this assessment but the focus was "using the data to focus instruction, to differentiate for groups".  The presentation was one PowerPoint slide after another with a couple of demonstrations - several Elkonin box examples (are there really K-2 teachers who don't know about Elkonin boxes?)  It was... boring...  It scares me to think what must be going on in my county that that was the level of presentation someone in our leadership thought we needed...

One of the things that I have learned as a presenter is that if you want teachers to really "get all it" then you need to model what it is that you want them to do.  There was a lot of talk about explicit instruction today but surely they also know the research on basic lecture methods and their ineffectiveness.  Of course, they did throw in a couple of "turn and talks."  In my opinion, if you want teachers to differentiate in their instruction with kids then the presentation itself should have been differentiated.  It doesn't seem to me that it would have been too hard to give a quick assessment that teachers could have used to self-assess and then choose a workshop that was appropriate to their need and interest. There were certainly enough instructors from the sate in the room that the session could have been divided into many smaller groups.  For example, I would love to have asked these real state experts about some of the questions that we are wrestling with such as how to best use the FAIR data in the RtI process or how better to use the vocabulary percentiles and what the best interventions might be that match the data or exactly how to group students using the comprehension data in the early grades.  Instead we spent time looking at the same basic scores that we were taught to analyze three years ago. I hate to say it was a waste of time, because maybe it wasn't for some teachers.  But... for me, I could have been much more productive working with children in my classroom this morning.

I REALLY HATE complaining... but I hate wasting my time even more...

When It's Just Too HOT!

This is Florida!  And it's hot people!  In this time of budget cuts, the county has upped acceptable temperatures in our building.  There is also some type of  motion sensor in our rooms that turns off the air when there is no movement, so... when you leave for lunch or recess or a Resource, the air turns off.  When you return, the room's heated up in your absence and never quite cools back down.  The air is also off until the last minute in the morning so if you come early to plan, you are reinforced for giving of your time freely by sweating!  The same is true in the afternoons, the air is turned off around 4:00 even though we have Extended Day in the building until 6 and Monday mornings - when the air has been off all weekend - oh my!  The point is the building has been unbelievable hot this August.  By 9:30 in the morning my hair in the back from my ears down is actually wet and in ringlets!  I can feel the beads of sweat drip down my back.

To be fair, they did finally decide that there was some trouble with one of the chillers in our building, but even after it was patched back together, it was still hot.  Yesterday a teacher told me that she had decided to forgo lunch because she was just too hot to eat.  She also said that she didn't blame her kids for not wanting to write at the end of the day because all she really wanted to do was go to sleep.  Opening the door to her room was like opening a sauna.  The PTA ladies won't even do their work in my room because they complain about the heat.  Another of our teachers wrote on Facebook that she went right home and took a shower because she had been sweating all day and her clothes were sticking to her.  Professional dress is a joke when you're wet and smelly!  This is Florida folks!  We are looking at days easily in the high 90's.  When I got in my car one day to go home last week, the temp read 101 outside!  It's HOT!

Now think about that as you think about all of the assessment that is going on in the building.  In the heat that just makes us all tired and cranky, we, Kindergarten teachers, are evaluating the Voluntary Pre-K program in our state.  Is this really fair to our Pre-K colleagues?  We are also beginning the state's FAIR testing and our own county's writing assessments and benchmark testing in upper grades.  With heat and tempers rising, do we really have the best testing environments?  Are these really the results that we want to drive our instructional decisions? When we cut educational budgets, what are we REALLY sacrificing?

A New Evaluation System for Teachers?

Administrators in my county have recently been out of their buildings for three days to learn, yet another, new teacher evaluation system. I believe it was negotiated by our union and will be the foundation for identifying effective teachers and part of the formula for paying them accordingly. I have always been an advocate for accountability and I believe that performance and evaluation should be somewhere in the formula for pay, but spending this time and attention on an evaluation system seems to be trying to solve the problem by looking at just a tiny part of the problem. It's like the blind man who picks up the elephant's tail and thinks the animal looks like a snake!

There are strong teachers and there are weak teachers in education - no argument there. That might be the problem but the solution is not to identify those weak teachers and then pay them a substandard wage to drum them out of the profession. The problem is systemic and has been a part of education for... ever. After graduation, there is no system for lifelong learning.

The problem starts in the beginning of a teacher's career. The problem is that after teachers graduate from college, their learning stops! There is no system in place to make sure that a beginning teacher has the support that she needs in those first years to figure out how to put that book knowledge that she has gained into practice. Yeah, we give beginning teachers a "mentor" but in most cases that comes with no release time and really just means it might, or might not, be someone you can ask a few questions and who might check on you every now and then. Good teachers search out a real "mentor", someone that they can align themselves with. They watch her every move, get into her classroom as often as possible and ask a million questions. But that's not a system, that's an individual teacher figuring it out on her own.

Not only that, there's not an improvement model for teachers in the midst of their career, when they have the basics under their belt, to grow and learn, so they just continue to do what they have always done - good or bad. They might get a new little nugget here and there and if they have the money and time, they might attend conferences and really seek out educational opportunities. On-line opportunities abound for the eager learner, but it's not easy. There is no system to help you navigate the opportunties or encourage you. You often pay your own money and spend your own time for benefits that are self-motivating and self-gratifying, but not necessarily rewarded monetarily.

As you move into the sunset of your career, I guess everyone just assumes you already know everything. You've had years of experience, but if you've simply been repeating the same things year after year, without growing, are you really any better? There is always so much more to learn.

An evaluation system might hunt out the weaker links in our schools, but a better way might be to put the time and money into quality professional development offered in an array of opportunities that could be self-directed or even self-designed. If the money and time being put toward designing evaluation systems could be put instead toward providing quality, empowering professional development, then the changes would be tenfold.

I know because I was part of a reform design that provided that type of on-going, job-embedded, quality professional development. The buy-in by teachers was exciting. I believe that we were able to turn very ordinary teachers into exceptional teachers because of the support that we were able to provide. One of the things about good professional development is that it changes a teacher's practice from then on. Most teachers really want to improve their skills. They didn't go into teaching because of the money they were going to make. Most became teachers because they want to make a difference in the lives of the children they teach and unless they become disillusioned along the way, they continue to believe and are eager to learn new techniques that work. So instead of spending our time on designing a complex evaluation system that labels teachers proficient and failing (haven't we seen how well that has worked with our school?), why not spend the time and money on a system that supports lifelong learning ?

If I Were In Charge of Summer School

If I were in charge of Summer School (and I certainly am not), I would make some changes.

The first change I would make would be where we have Summer School. I would designate a single school in an area to be the Summer School site and that same location would be used year after year. Of course, there would have to be a financial incentive for a single school to step up to the plate (such as access to the Summer School materials by the home school or extra pay for the administrators, office staff and custodial staff who have to do extra work because of summer school). What I see as Summer Schools moves from school to school is that nobody owns the process and therefore, the process and systems weak. For instance, I was expected to do guided reading with 3rd graders but no guided reading levels were sent, because the summer school administrator wasn't in on curriculum decisions and didn't know that would be needed. If the same school had summer school, they would know from experience what was needed. Right now no school administrator wants to be designated as the Summer School site - it's just extra work for no real benefit to the school or administrator. It's a unwanted step child. If a single school owned the process, they wouldn't waste lots of time each summer figuring it out all over again - valuable time lost for students. An administrator might look forward to having summer school because of the incentives instead of every administrator dreading his turn in the cycle.

The second change would be who teaches Summer School. I am sure the process now is negotiated by our Union because it meets the needs of teachers first. If I were in charge it would meet the needs of children first. Only accomplished teachers who had proven results in that particular grade level would be eligible to teach a particular grade. From that list of accomplished teachers, those who wanted to apply could. They would be interviewed by the principal so the teachers that were selected would know the administrator's expectation instead of having teachers who were there simply for the money. Summer school would be staffed with teachers who really want to make a difference and who know what is expected of them. Right now teachers have no reason to really come together and work for a common goal. They are simply putting in their time. I would also want teachers to teach in summer school the grade they had taught during the year so that they are well aware of what a student needs to know to go to the next grade. They would readily have materials, ideas, games and materials to fill in any holes or a wealth of knowledge for reteaching. Right now teachers teach in areas where they are certified. In my case I am teaching a grade I have never actually taught. Am I really the most qualified person?

The last change I would make would be what we teach. I would open the school's media center for a few hours each week. In fact I would open it to the entire neighborhood! When you are teaching children reading that really don't like to read, you need to have the widest possible selection of books on their reading level that are of interest to them. If you are going to convince a struggling reader that he can really learn to enjoy reading, then he needs things to read that really draw him in and awaken his interest. There is no way a single program of books can keep a variety of students' interests in independent reading for an entire six weeks. These children need an expanded selection. The books are there but the Media Centers are closed to summer school. How sad is that?

Of course, I have lots of other suggestions. I'm sure that most of the teachers teaching have suggestions too, but I doubt anyone will listen or even ask. (A senior district administrator did come through recently and ask my opinion, but she's not the person really making these decisions... unfortunately.) It seems that decisions are being made by those that have little access to the actual trenches where the work is being done. Today I was told by a teacher (infromation that I hope is incorrect) that we won't even know how the students do on the final benchmark because it has to be sent in to a county office as a scantron. So we will leave summer school, after developing relationships with students (relationships that I intend to take into the school year by sending postcards and giving them my cell number and e-mail), and not even know if they passed of failed that final test. Wow, do you see the same disconnect that I see?

Look out world!

Each year our first graders work on a unit of persuasive writing. As we work through the unit we ask each child to choose a topic that he is passionate about and then to write a letter stating his position and then trying to persuade the reader to come around to his Point of view. We actually mail the letter that is chosen as a final polished copy. The children often write to their parents asking for a pet or video game or some other "thing" that they desire. They promise to clean for weeks, to do chores and even not to hit their little brothers and sisters anymore if their parents will just consider their most earnest request. Often a few children will break our hearts. One child this year asked for a house with a backyard so he would have a place for his little brother to play and another child asked for more food because he is often hungry and his refrigerator is empty. A few children always write to the Dining Room manager to ask for a change in our Dining Room's food and many children write to the Principal asking for everything from a water park on the playground to shorter school days. They must think she is a Superhero with unlimited powers! Occasionally a child will want to write the President or the Humane Society or some other popular person or agency. We never discourage the children, even though we are often doubtful that the party will reply. Our little writers believe that they can change the world (and so do we!) I pray each year as we mail out the letters that the parents will listen and value what their children say, even if their response is "No!" I always hope that the Dining Room Manager will reply in some way although that hasn't happened yet and that the Principal and school personnel will value the childrens' words and will show them, by responding to them, that their words matter.

"This year the most remarkable thing happened. Jardale decided that he wanted to write the Mayor. He decided that we need to go to school for six days instead of five to keep children out of trouble. His "P.S." was that he would like to be Mayor one day. Much to our surprise, Jardale received a reply from Mayor Peyton. It included everything that we would ever want in a response. The Mayor valued Jardale's thoughts and ideas and then gave him some reasons why he didn't think six days of school a week was the best idea. He closed by acknowledging Jardale's dream of some day becoming Mayor. How does it get any better than that?

I am totally impressed with a Mayor or any public figure that would take the time to read and then thoughtfully respond to the ideas of anyone - much less a first grader. This is a powerful lesson in our little classroom. Our children realize that their words really do make a difference. Look out world!

Such a time as this...

I have always believed that you must live your passion - that if you find love in what you do, you will never work a day in your life. I have believed that if you don't work in that place that you are suppose to be that you die a little each day. I KNOW where I am suppose to be - Teaching and school have always been that place for me.

But recently, I have been feeling a little beat down. Last week I spent $68 on soil and seeds and planters and celery and lima beans for activities to teach my student a unit on planting. No money in a school budget for that type of hands-on teaching, but certainly the expectation is that it's the type of teaching that makes a difference. And then yesterday it was $16 worth of stamps to mail all the letters that my little ones have been so passionately writing. They believe their little voices can change the world... and so do I. I want them to mail their letters to their parents, to the Principal and the Dining room staff and to the Mayor and the Editor of the Newspaper. I hope every child gets a response so they know someone is listening , someone cares. There is power in words. I had asked parents to donate stamps but in this tight economy 2 stamps came in - not near enough for their mountain of thoughts. Today it was another $28 in Easter eggs and egg stuffings because so many of the families were simply unable to send in a dozen stuffed eggs for tomorrow's Easter egg hunt and holiday activities. Normally those little extras don't bother me one bit - just part of the job...

This week, however, I have felt a little like I can't quite catch my breath - smothered by politicians who are looking at the 101 ways to decrease a teacher's worth. It's not ALL about money but money seems to be the way that policy makers are currently judging our worth. I don't really remember when we last had a raise. National Boards, which was such a great promise for professionalism, has now whittled away to almost nothing. We have been told we will take a single digit percentage hit next year to pay for more of our own benefits. Then there are the furlough days - at a time when we need more planning and professional development we are looking at cutting the very thing that makes us the most successful and helps us grow as learners. How does that make sense? Now there's talk about "associate" teachers - taking a certified teacher and just paying them less if they are in a co-teaching situation. Just think about how that might play out... I can't think of any real gains in cooperative learning that are inherent in unequal yokes.

But the thing that pinches my heart and almost brings me to tears is that I have a daughter, a beloved daughter, who is a second year teacher... and I wonder if she were trying to make the decision today to pursue education - what advice would I give her? Even though I have had the most meaningful times of my life in search of learning and giving in the classroom, I think I would tell her to search her heart and soul and think about her other options. It's hard for me to even write those words for the truth of those words are so raw that they physically hurt. They sting my tongue and are sour in my back of my throat. I have never felt so powerless. I can write no more. I am overwhelmed with sadness... What are we doing to this profession?

The scores are in! The scores are in!

As much as I hate the idea that so much depends on a single day of testing, I have to admit that the day the scores begin to come in is an exciting time! As the Principal sprinted into her office today (she rarely sprints!) she called for the Leadership team and a pack of highlighters. We waited impatiently as she powered up her computer to pull up the school scores. At this point we simply get the scores of each third grader from the state. It's up to us to figure out the rough percentages and then to figure out which kids will not count in the school score (because we didn't have them in both attendance periods or because they are active second language learners or Special Education students). We will get a final score from the state much later, but we simply cannot wait! Each of us takes a list and we figure the grade level percentages and then the percentages for each homeroom in both Math and Reading before the Principal calls the grade level together. Of course, during the hour that it takes to figure it all out, the buzz has run through the building that the 3rd grade scores are in! As the grade level gathers, teachers look stressed. Some are anxious and others look like they might get sick. A few are really excited! As soon as the percentages are unveiled with the grade level, you can hear teachers talking among themselves, congratulating themselves on their successes. They are both proud and relieved! Very few disappointing scores come as a surprise. We did notice for this grade level that of the 16 or so students who scored a Level 1 or 2, over half of those students live in the community that we have just decided to target for some intensive academic support!

There's nothing like a young teacher who has 100% of her students score 3 or better or the seasoned inclusion teacher who will spend hours tonight going through the scores of every single student to decided what worked and what didn't and how to tweak instruction for some of her most needy students. Many teachers will look at when the children came to Chets Creek because historically, it's the students that come new to us that are the ones that struggle the most. I'll never believe that the one test should determine passing and failing or should ever be the largest factor in a teacher's pay but there is something very satisfying and validating about seeing in black and white that all of your hard work has made a difference! Wow! What a day!

The Principal and the Politician

This has been a busy week! Yesterday we had a Principal-for-the-Day! We were fortunate to host Neptune Beach Mayor Frank Lee. Also spending a day with us shadowing our principal was Audrey Ferrell, an Assistant Principal in the Leadership Academy who is visiting our school and other schools as part of her quest to eventually lead her own school. On Monday and Tuesday we hosted 12 teachers and administrators from Arkansas. It's not at all unusual for us to have visitors in the building. I think from Chets Creek's inception our founding Principal, Dr. Terri Stahlman, imprinted on our hearts that it was our obligation to share what we were learning. She believed "to whom much is given, much is expected," and we have taken that directive to heart for these many years. It's not always easy. Hosting visitors can be a challenge. It often consumes Standard Coach Suzanne's Shall's entire day which means something in our own school doesn't get done, but it is our way of taking the time and being committed to the larger profession- our way of giving back and of being thankful for all we have been given. We give back in other ways - by sharing our work with anyone that asks in both written and digital form, by sharing our assessments and the many lessons we write, by doing demo lessons for anyone that asks, by taping many lessons and putting them on the Ning, by writing blogs and articles about our work... We are committed to being transparent. In the scheme of things, it may very well be the most important thing that we do, but there are push backs. Because teachers historically are more competitive than collaborative, I think they sometimes doubt our motives. More than once our own teachers have been verbally attacked at county in-services where they hear other teachers in the room say, often under their breath, but sometimes loud and clear, "I am sick of Chets Creek." Maybe I understand that at some level but it doesn't stop my belief that there are others who really want to be part of our international collaboration.

In conversation with Mr. Lee yesterday, who is also running for the School Board in our area, we were able to share some of our thoughts about education's needs and challenges. One of things that I realized during my year as state Teacher of the Year is that education is political. Like it or not, we must become advocates for our children. We have an obligation to educate our stakeholders because we are the ones who work in the trenches everyday and have the real scoop. I admire someone like Mr. Lee who comes to see for himself. I enjoyed hearing his views from a politician's point of view. We have much to learn from the political arena if we are to make the gains in student achievement that we all want. Mr. Lee would like to rotate his office among school sites if he is elected! (sort of reminds me of Undercover Boss! - Imagine what he could learn!) I admire our Principal, Susan Phillips, for taking a day out of her busy schedule to help an elected official understand our priorities and challenges. I admire Suzanne Shall for spending countless hours with visitors and for Susan Phillips for believing that she should! Understand that we get nothing from the hours and hours that we accommodate visitors except to take time away from the needs at our own school. We don't have a grant or anything else that provides extra money or time or personnel. What we do have is a mission. For me, that mission is crystal clear...

A BLACK Day!

It's a BLACK day for Florida schools as we wrestle with the news that is coming out of our state capital each day. Rumors are flying and "doom and gloom" is spreading among teachers who hear the message as a lack of confidence in their abilities. As a teacher it seems that all of the woes of the world have been heaped onto our shoulders. In the worst case scenario it looks like pay will be mostly dependent on test scores. How sad is that? Can you imagine teaching with a goal of making sure that your kids do well on a test instead of a goal of teaching children to love reading and writing? That really makes my heart hurt! While test prep seems to be creeping over every inch of our state, it's a cancer that our school has really resisted. However, if teachers decide that the only way they can improve their pay is to drill and kill, then that's exactly what they will feel like they have will do. Can you blame them?

A letter from our Superintendent's Office today says that "In order to pay for this new requirement (which refers to the $42 million in unfunded mandates), districts will have to turn current salary scales upside-down, severely reducing salaries for experienced teachers." The bill also prohibits any compensation be given for experience or for advanced degrees! What does that say to how our state values its experienced teachers?

Also on the chopping block is teacher tenure. Now I have never been a proponent on tenure. I have long believed that it has protected some really bad teachers over time, but I'm also not a proponent of teachers having one year contracts with principals having the ability to fire without cause. Can't you just see how that might be abused?

It seems everything coming down right now is stuff that makes your blood boil. While I am sure there are arguments on both sides that are sane and well meaning (at least I hope there are!), the interpretations that we are now hearing are unreasonable and absurd. It's hard to find the truth and the real intention in all of the hysterics. In the meantime, how many hours of quality instruction are lost as teachers worry about their job, their security, their family's security? Is this really what we all signed up for? When we decided that we wanted to make a difference in the lives of children, did we think we would have to justify our very life's work and sacrifice our families? What do we say to our students when they tell us they want to be just like us - they want to be teachers? What a sad time to be an educator...

Just for the record, on April 15, 2010 Florida's Govenor Charlie Crist vetoed the education reform bill!! Hooray!

Performance Pay

Performance Pay is one of those ideas that I have endorsed over the years. I do believe that teachers who go above and beyond should be rewarded for their work, but in order for Performance Pay to work it has to be fair. TLN did an excellent report "Performance Pay for Teachers" that was written by 18 highly accomplished teachers suggesting ways that performance pay could be used to make that crucial difference.

Unfortunately very few of their models can be found in our county's program. Our system was a collaboration between the county and our Union and is approved by our state. Extra money, a one time $2330 minus taxes, is paid to the top 25% of teachers in our county. As I understand it, teachers are placed in different "silos" depending on what they teach and then the top 25% in each silo receive the extra compensation. While the system is designed around student achievement and teacher performance evaluation, unfortunately that means the weight is on a single day of testing. FCAT, our state test is used for teachers where it is possible. Other assessments, such as the DIBELS for K-2 teachers or county-made Music, PE, Art pre- and post-tests, are used in the elementary school and I'm sure any number of other assessments so that every teacher can put their name in the pot. That every teacher has a shot at the bonus is one of the positives.

With only 25% of teachers compensated county-wide, I'm glad to say that about 50% of the teachers at my school will receive the bonus. We are an A school and one of the few in our county that met AYP. However, these are some true, but strange circumstances.

1) We have a first grade classroom where two teachers team taught the same group of students all day. One took two months maternity leave during the year. The teacher that took maternity leave got performance pay. Her team teacher, that was with her side-by-side including teaching the class during the maternity leave, did not get the compensation.

2) We have two kindergarten teachers who team taught side-by-side the same group of students for the entire year. One got performance pay. The other did not.

3) Our second grade teachers are departmentalized. That means that one teacher teaches the Language Arts and her co-teacher teaches Math/Science/Social Studies. Each teacher has a homeroom and they switch classes mid day. Because most 2nd grades in my county are not departmentalized, there is not a silo for 2nd grade math teachers, so our 2nd grade Math teachers got their performance pay depending on how their homeroom did on the Language Arts DIBELS - no Math involved! Mind you, they never teach a single period of Language Arts but their performance pay depends on what is taught by someone else. If you are the Language Arts teacher in 2nd grade, your performance pay depends on your homeroom. In other words it only depends on what you do with half your students. I guess the other half don't count!

4) Or take this final example. Two fourth grade math teachers teach side-by-side. They have two sections of Math. One section includes a homeroom for each of them. Because of the way the class size amendment information has to be inputted into the computer, they each have a list of their own students in their homeroom, although they never have the homerooms divided for Math instruction. They always teach together. Two other homerooms (headed by two Language Arts teachers) make up their other section. So when performance pay is distributed, the Language Arts teachers and one of the math teachers gets performance pay and the other Math teacher didn't. Understand that these two Math teachers have worked with the exact same children in a room together all year, but because the children were required to be divided in the computer, one homeroom made the mark and the other didn't! One teacher gets the money, the other doesn't!

Does this sound as ridiculous to you as it does to me? Can you see where this could be divisive? Let's face it, the economy is tough. Teachers are not exempt from the financial stresses that are seen throughout our country. We have teachers whose homes are in foreclosure, whose husbands have lost there jobs, and money, especially right now, can be a dividing issue. Of course, really nice things happen too. I overheard the teacher in the first instance say to her partner that if they couldn't figure out how to get the money for both of them, then she would split hers. Such a generous gesture, but how ridiculous that they would even need to have that conversation. I am sure the first two will appeal, but if history is any indicator, it won't make any difference (if it does, I'll post a comment). They will be told there simply is no more money. It's all been given out.

One of the most disturbing trends over the years in my small sampling at my own school is fewer inclusion classes and Special Education teachers getting the bonus than the regular population teachers. That's not to say that none of the inclusion teachers ever get the extra money but it seems to be a lower percentage. I am bothered about how this will effect our inclusion teachers over time. Will they begin to feel that all the extra effort that they give in taking the most difficult children in our school is not worth it?

I decided to try to help figure out how compensation for Special Education teachers was designed so that our Special Education teachers could see why they are falling short (4 of the 7 are Nationally Board Certified). If at least 25% of Special Education teachers were getting better results than we were, I wanted to know how we could improve, but it was one brick wall after another. First of all the list is not published so you can't go to the high performers to search for strategies to improve your own student achievement. When I e-mailed our Special Education Department for information, thinking that there must be someone looking at high achievers and how to replicate their work, I received no response at all. And when I tried to question the process (Which children counted for me? If a child was in both Survey periods in my school but did not transfer to my class until the end of the second survey period, did that child count for me? Did all of the special education kids count for the general education teacher? How about those students who were on special standards? Who else was in my silo? Was I just considered with other inclusion classes or also with self-contained classes? Were all special Education teachers, regardless of what they teach, lumped together? and the list goes on), I was sent from person to person and really never got accurate answers. For the most part, it really seemed like they didn't know the answers, which begs the question, "Does anyone have their finger on the big picture?" When I went to the Union I was sent generic answers that basically said "see the web site." I yearn for a system of performance pay that would be an incentive to improve student achievement, instead of a mysterious system where teachers say, "I have no idea why I got it," and "I have no idea why I didn't get it." Transparency would go a long way.

With all that said, I am glad that some of our teachers will get a bonus because I believe that teachers certainly deserve it, but this is such a flawed system that you have to begin to ask, "Is it really worth it?" There are so many better ways to distribute performance pay, but our pay is so entwined in the political process, I wonder if it's possible to ever get it right? Our children deserve better!

P.S. - If any of my facts are incorrect, it is because the system is so cloaked in mystery and misinformation that it is difficult to get accurate facts. If I have misquoted in any way, I would be more than happy to write a retraction.

Funding Education

There has been so much in the news recently. Financial institutions, companies and stores that I have known all my life seem to be closing and crumbling at an alarming rate. I see families all over our school who are stressed as a member loses a job or work hours are cut back. Families in all walks of life are worried about how the "doom and gloom" of the economy might trickle down to their own lives. Forced retirements, increased medical expenses, mortgages, lack of credit are all common topics of conversation. I can't but help and wonder how all of this will effect education.

Our own county expects a $150 million deficit for next year. The fluff was the first to go, but there is not enough "excess" left to cover that kind of cut. Guidance (at a time when we may need it the most), Media, Art, Music and PE may be cut! My own husband, a PE teacher, just took and passed the Elementary Education test in preparation for a round of anticipated PE cuts. I can't even imagine schools without music and art and a media specialist to help us navigate the information highway- a school without health and sports... Essential supplies and materials could disappear altogether! We have always joked about having to bring our own toilet paper to school, but maybe it's not a joke after all!

While this crisis is world wide, it seems to hit Florida education especially hard because our state has not always funded education as a top priority. The Lottery, with its promise of education plenty, has merely supplanted funds. It was obvious recently just how short sighted our legislators are with the proposed cuts in National Board supplements (some of which the Governor recently vetoed to restore). Our legislators don't seem to understand the research that supports the strength of candidates who have been Nationally Board certified. They don't seem to get the depth that is needed to actually teach a child to read. We have endured years of underfunding in our state and now we are paying the price. Recently our Superintendent explained that Florida is ranked 50th in the nation for funds allocated and spent on education! 50th! How is it possible that we could have allowed that to happen?!

It is time for us, as educators, to lead the way and use our collective voice to demand that our legislators listen. In all of the rhetoric that we hear among the law makers, we cannot allow our voices to be minimized or silenced. We must advocate for the children in our care. It is our moral and ethical responsibility to the next generation. Whatever we do, it will be our legacy to the future. We cannot just stand here and accept what happens. We must make the public understand that education matters and that in a state where money is already at the bottom of the barrel for education, there simply is no more room for cuts. If it really matters to you, how will you make sure your voice is heard?