Schargel Consulting Group

More Than A Test Score

Franklin — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:41:04 +0000

My friend, Dr. Melinda Strickland, runs the fantastic Floyd County Education Center, an alternative school in Rome, Georgia. I am honored that she asked that I write the forward to her new book, More Than A Test Score, published today by Rowman and Littlefield.

No matter what variety of educational program is used to motivate students the bottom line knows the people within the circle of influence are behind every effort the student faces. Our students are the future leaders, parents, workers and citizens of our society. While tests and accountability are very important; the outcome is far greater than basing achievement on individual performance on tests. Information included in this book, derives from educators who empower students to take ownership in their educational journey by using a variety of strategies and programs to meet the needs of the students.

The strategies target academic, behavioral and social components in education. Each successful program has one common element that rises above anything else and that is the element called empowerment! Building relationships is one of the main keys to success in school and every endeavor faced by the youth of our society. Success stories showed how caring about the individuals has made a difference.

Education needs to refocus on the lives of the students. Accountability is important and testing a crucial part of education; however, it is not the ONLY part that should be measured. True accountability would be to look at the students five years upon completion of their chosen pathway and see where they fit in society. Are they productive members? Are they self-sufficient, reliable, and strong in work ethic?

We need to continue to develop strategies that will empower the students to become adults that are making a difference in society. Listen to what the students are saying. Let each one buy into their trek toward success. Teach them the best way to learn and allow the world of digitalization to be part of the process. Surround yourself with positive people that will support and help develop your dream. Most of all, remember the students have hopes, dreams and ambitions. They need you to help guide them and encourage them to be the best each one can be. Meet them where they are and set high expectations. Believe in the youth and challenge education to be the bright spot in the lives of the learners. Be the adult that each student will say played a significant role in influencing their life. Don’t judge the success of the students, or the teaching, based on test results. These students are our future – they are MORE THAN A TEST SCORE!

Diane Ravitch on Teacher Demoralization

Franklin — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:14:31 +0000

What Do Teachers Want?

By Diane Ravitch on April 10, 2012 9:54 AM

Deborah Myers and Diane Ravitch regularly exchange public letters dealing with their views of education and educational reform.

Dear Deborah,

We heard a lot last month about the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher. It showed that teachers across the nation are demoralized and that their job satisfaction has dropped precipitously since 2009. The proportion thinking of leaving teaching has gone from 17 percent to 29 percent, a 70 percent increase in only two years. If this is accurate, it would mean the exit of one million teachers. I hope it is not true.

What has happened in the past two years? Let’s see: Race to the Top promoted the idea that teachers should be evaluated by the test scores of their students; “Waiting for ‘Superman’” portrayed teachers as the singular cause of low student test scores; many states, including Wisconsin, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio have passed anti-teacher legislation, reducing or eliminating teachers’ rights to due process and their right to bargain collectively; the Obama administration insists that schools can be “turned around” by firing some or all of the staff. These events have combined to produce a rising tide of public hostility to educators, as well as the unfounded beliefs that schools alone can end poverty and can produce 100 percent proficiency and 100 percent graduation rates if only “failing schools” are closed, “bad” educators are dismissed, and “effective” teachers get bonuses.

Is it any wonder that teachers and principals are demoralized?

Another survey, released about the same time, has not gotten the attention it deserves. This one conducted by Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is called Primary Sources: 2012. It contains valuable information about what teachers think.

Among other things, the survey asked teachers what they believe will have the greatest impact on improving academic achievement.

This is what teachers said were the most important factors:

1. Family involvement and support (84 percent said it would have a “very strong impact”);
2. High expectations for all students (71 percent said it would have a “very strong impact”);
3. Fewer students in each class (62 percent said it would have a “very strong impact”);
4. Effective and engaged principals and building-level leaders (57 percent said it would have a “very strong impact”).

These were the factors that teachers said were least important in improving academic achievement:

1. A longer school day (6 percent);
2. Monetary rewards for teachers based on the performance of the entire school (8 percent);
3. Monetary rewards for teachers based on their individual performance (9 percent);
4. A longer school year (10 percent).

Other factors that teachers thought were relatively less important: common assessments across all states (20 percent thought these would have a “very strong impact” on academic achievement); and common standards across all states (29 percent).

Teachers believe that families are crucial for improving student academic performance, but about half of the teachers surveyed say that parent participation in their school has declined, and only about 10 percent said that parent participation had increased.

Sixty-two percent of teachers say that the best measures of student performance are ongoing, formative assessments, the kinds that are integrated into daily instruction and give the teacher immediate feedback. Fifty-five percent of teachers say that class participation is “absolutely essential” as a measure of student performance. Performance on class assignments” is viewed as “absolutely essential” by 47 percent of teachers.

The least valuable measures of student academic achievement, according to teachers, are: tests from textbooks (4 percent); district-required tests (6 percent); state-required standardized tests (7 percent); and final exams (10 percent).

When teachers were asked whether the state standardized tests were “meaningful benchmarks” to measure students’ progress or to compare schools, only 5 percent agreed strongly.

It is interesting that the least useful measures, in the eyes of teachers, are the state-required standardized tests that policymakers use to punish and reward students, teachers, principals, and schools. Only 7 percent of teachers consider them to be “absolutely essential” measures of their students’ academic performance. Yet, to policymakers, this same measure is the only one that matters.

Teachers are quite willing to be evaluated, contrary to popular myth spread by politicians. But they want to be evaluated in a professional manner, by principal observation and review, by formal self-evaluation, by peer observation and review, by their department chair’s observation and review, and by assessment of their content-area knowledge.

When asked about the challenges they face, 62 percent of teachers say they have more students “with behavioral problems that interfere with teaching” than in the past; 56 percent say they have more students living in poverty; 50 percent say they have more English-language learners; 49 percent say they have more students who arrive at school hungry; and 36 percent say they have more students who are homeless. Policymakers tend to dismiss all these social and economic issues as unimportant. Teachers don’t, because they see them every day in real time.

Our policymakers often say that merit pay will lead to the retention of the best teachers. Teachers don’t agree. They say that the factors that are “absolutely essential” to keeping them in the classroom are “supportive leadership” (68 percent); “more family involvement in students’ education” (63 percent); “more help for students who have behavioral or other problems that interfere with learning” (53 percent); and “time for teachers to collaborate” (50 percent).

By contrast, teachers rank the following factors as least important in keeping them in the classroom: “pay tied to teachers’ performance” (4 percent); “in-school teaching mentors/coaches for first 3 years of teaching” (15 percent); “opportunities for additional responsibility and advancement while staying in the classroom” (15 percent).

What do teachers want? They want to spend less time on discipline and more time collaborating with their colleagues and preparing lessons. They want more resources for the students with the greatest needs. They want more training to reach every student in their care.

Unlike the MetLife survey, the Scholastic-Gates survey found that 51 percent of teachers plan to teach “as long as I am able,” even past retirement age, and another 32 percent expect to teach until they reach retirement age. So while MetLife concluded that 29 percent were ready to quit, Scholastic-Gates tallied this group as 16-17 percent.

To the policymakers who seem to think that teaching is an easy job, and to those who write letters to the editor asserting that teachers don’t work hard enough or long enough, consider this: The Scholastic-Gates survey says in its conclusion that “On average, teachers work about 11 hours and 25 minutes a day.” (Although on Page 13 of the report, the survey says that “teachers work an average of 10 hours and 40 minutes a day, three hours and 20 minutes beyond the average required work day in public schools nationwide.”) Whether it is one or the other doesn’t really matter. This is a demanding job that requires enormous dedication and gets inadequate support from families, from policymakers, from elected officials, and from the public.

The teacher comments that accompany each page of the report are illuminating. One teacher says, “In my school, we are feeding the children, clothing the children, and keeping many of them from 7:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m.” Another says, “I am a general education teacher, but at least 50 percent of my class each year has special needs. At least 25 percent of these students have extreme behavior problems which interfere with teaching the other students to learn.”

The goal of the survey “is to place teachers’ voices at the center of the conversation on education reform by sharing their thoughts and opinions with the public, the media, and education leaders.” Is anyone listening?

Diane
Bonnie Bracey Sutton 3:18pm Apr 19
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From Education Week [American Education's Newspaper of Record / Bridging Differences], Tuesday, April 10, 2012. See http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2012/04/what_do_teachers_want.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BridgingDifferences+%28Education+Week+Blog%3A+Bridging+Differences%29

Teacher Morale At Its Lowest Point in More Than 20 Years

Franklin — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:10:27 +0000

In a new survey, the annual MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, indicated that the nation’s teachers’ morale is at its lowest point in more than 20 years. The report goes on to indicate that the slump in the economy, coupled with the acrimonious discourse over how much weight test results and seniority should be given in determining a teacher’s worth, have conspired to bring morale down.

More than half of teachers expressed at least some reservation about their jobs, their highest level of dissatisfaction since 1989, the survey found. Also, roughly one in three said they were likely to leave the profession in the next five years, citing concerns over job security, as well as the effects of increased class size and deep cuts to services and programs. Just three years ago, the rate was one in four.

About 40 percent of the teachers and parents surveyed said they were pessimistic that levels of student achievement would increase in the coming years, despite the focus on test scores as a primary measure of quality of a teacher’s work.

More than 75 percent of the teachers surveyed said the schools where they teach had undergone budget cuts last year, and about as many of them said the cuts included layoffs — of teachers and others, like school aides and counselors. Roughly one in three teachers said their schools lost arts, music and foreign language programs. A similar proportion noted that technology and materials used in the schools had not been kept up to date to meet students’ needs.

The survey, in its 28th year, showed similar attitudes among teachers working in poor and stable neighborhoods; in schools serving large numbers of immigrant students who are not proficient in English, as well as native speakers from middle-class backgrounds. The race and ethnicity of the students, and length of a teacher’s experience, had little bearing on the results.

Nonetheless, teachers in urban schools and in schools with a large proportion of minority students tended to be less satisfied about their jobs.

Teachers with high job satisfaction were more likely to feel secure in their jobs, and to have more opportunities for professional development, more time to prepare their lessons and greater parental involvement in their schools, the survey found.

It seems that the attack on education by governors, business people, Arnie Duncan, the Obama Administration, and the George W. Bush Administration has had an impact on education. I do not think it has the impact that they desired, but it has had an impact. Where will America find the people to replace those who are leaving? I think that is an answer that we must ask the people who dreamed up high stakes testing, No Child Left Behind, and Race to the Top.

Franklin Schargel

The Real Meaning of Teacher Appreciation Week

Franklin — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:18:33 +0000

I am indebted to Bonnie Bracy-Sutton and Valerie Strauss from the Washington Post for this material.

What does Teacher Appreciation Week really mean to those in power?

The Ironies of Teacher Appreciation Week

By Valerie Strauss

Last Friday, the Friday before the start of Teacher Appreciation Week and two business days before National Teacher Day, D.C. Public Schools officials sent out notices to 333 teachers saying that their jobs had effectively been eliminated. This should be considered better form than last year, when they sent out “excessing” notices on the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week.

But Washington D.C. is hardly the only place that could be cited for violating the spirit of the week so close to it. In state after state, legislatures are considering and passing laws to restrict or end teacher tenure, cut teachers’ collective bargaining rights, unfairly evaluate teachers in part by student standard test scores, and take other actions that teachers consider hostile.

There is too, the warm embrace of school reformers and the Obama administration of Teach for America — to which teachers take particular offense. TFA recruits newly minted college graduates who are not education majors and gives them five weeks of summer training before placing them in classrooms in high-poverty and rural schools, the very schools you’d think would need the most highly trained teachers.

One of the official events on Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s schedule this week, as he goes around honoring teachers, is to appear at Teach for America’s second annual gala. Of course he did; the Education Department has showered millions of dollars on the organization in the last few years, and last September, Duncan said at an event with Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp and National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel: “I don’t think anyone in the country has done more over the past 15 to 20 years than Wendy Kopp to identify the talents and characteristics that lead to great teaching.”

That was news to many teachers and education researchers in this field.

It would be interesting to see the reaction of education policymakers if they were told that one or more of their children’s teachers had five weeks of training and wasn’t really interested in the teaching profession.

TFA recruits are asked to commit to only two years of teaching, helping to create turnover in schools where teacher instability is most harmful. (TFA itself and its critics cite different numbers when talking about the number of corps members who stay in education beyond a few years.)

This isn’t to say, of course, that some TFA recruits don’t turn out to be wonderful teachers. I know some who have. Still, America is not going to improve its teaching force with an army of itinerant young teachers.

There is a deep irony in the fact that school reformers talk so much about successful education systems in other countries, such as Finland, which have tough standards for entry into the profession, and their strong backing for Teach for America. Something is wrong with this picture.

All of this helps explain why teachers’ job satisfaction has sharply dropped since 2009, and the proportion who are thinking of leaving teaching has gone from 17 percent to 29 percent — a 70 percent increase in only two years, according to the most recent Metlife Survey of the American Teacher.

There is no question that there is a lot about the teaching profession that can and should be improved. Plenty of teacher training programs are inadequate, and there are teachers in classrooms who shouldn’t be. Most teacher evaluation systems need to be improved, and there is work under way toward that end.

But the unfortunate reality is that a lot of the “reforms” undertaken recently to “fix the profession” won’t work, and are more than likely to drive more teachers out of the profession.

The U.S. Education Department, in what it says is an effort to elevate the teaching profession to help students and teachers alike, released on Monday a 14-page “vision document” for transforming the education profession.

There are some good ideas in the document, but, try as it might, the Education Department can’t get out of its own way. In Section VII, Teacher Evaluation and Development, it includes as one of the teacher evaluation tools “measurements of student growth data.” In Education Department lingo, that means, at least in part, student standardized test scores.

Among the 3.2 million teachers now working in K-12 schools, there are certainly some who are not opposed to using test scores for evaluation. That doesn’t make it a good or fair idea, and it continues to make standardized tests the driving force in public education, a role these exams weren’t designed to have and which many — and I’d wager most — teachers think is inappropriate.

One of the comments on the Education Department website announcing the vision document says the following:

“Unless the public is persuaded that teachers are critical for our democratic society, the profession will continue to suffer economically and socially. After basking in the attention from stories of the positive influence they have had on on the lives of individual students during Teacher Appreciation Week, teachers need to integrate one more lesson to their repertoire. How ironic that teachers must teach the significance of teaching.”

And that’s where we stand during Teacher Appreciation Week 2012.

New Principal Dropout Rate = 23 Percent Over Two Years

Franklin — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:13:30 +0000

While the nation has been focusing on the student dropout rate (30%) and the teacher dropout rate (46 percent in 5 years), a new study conducted by the RAND Corporation found that of the 519 principals studied, almost 12 percent left in the first year and nearly 11 percent left in the second year. Principals in schools that had met their adequate yearly progress achievement targets in the years prior to their placement were less likely to leave, as were principals placed in start-up schools. New principals were more likely to leave if test scores dipped in their first year. And when those schools hired a new principal, they usually continued to under-perform in the following year, the report noted.

RAND Education, a unit of the Santa Monica, Calif.-based RAND Corp., gathered its data from four sources: a web-based survey of 65 principals administered in 2008, a set of 20 case studies of schools led by first-year principals; district-level data on principal placements for 519 principals, and student-level achievement test scores. For the purposes of this research, first-year principals included professionals in their first school leadership position, as well as principals who were new to a school but may have been principals elsewhere.

The survey also delved into how leaders allocated their time to see if there was a connection between how much time they spent on certain tasks and student achievement. All the principals said they focused most or all of their time on: promoting data use, observing classrooms, creating a healthy school culture, forming leadership teams, and promoting teacher professional development.

The results also point to a common element among successful principals: high levels of staff cohesion. One way to promote that cohesion is to respect prior practices and culture, the study suggests.

“Rather than changing everything or making independent decisions, principals and teachers reported that principals were more successful in garnering teacher buy-in when they consulted with staff to gain information on perceived strengths and weaknesses at the school. Beyond the initial diagnosis, these principals honored school philosophies by incorporating them into their school-improvement strategies,” it notes.

Susan M. Gates, a co-author and a senior economist for RAND, said that “The principal can have great ideas, be great at data-driven decision making, great even at instruction,” she said. But helping the staff buy into major changes is a subtle skill, she said. “You have to be able to get people on board with your vision.”

Based on the results of this study, Schools of Education need to restructure the way they prepare new principals. Is it possible to prepare potential principals with the skills they need to address staff concerns as well as prepare them to deal with the demands being placed on education?

Stop Blaming Schools

Franklin — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:49:21 +0000

It appears that schools get blamed for so many things, the failure of the economy, poor reading and writing, the inability to produce productive workers, etc. I was drawn to this article by Walt Gardner. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Franklin

Don’t Blame Schools for the Economy Again

By Walt Gardner on May 2, 2012 7:23 AM

It’s not often that intellectual heavyweights disagree so fundamentally about the same issue in commentaries published days apart in the nation’s two most respected newspapers. I’m referring to Paul Krugman, whose column “Wasting Our Minds” appeared on Apr. 29 in The New York Times, and to George P. Schultz and Eric A. Hanushek, whose essay “Education Is the Key to a Healthy Economy” appeared in The Wall Street Journal on May 1. The subject was the relationship between educational outcomes and economic growth.

Let’s start with Schultz and Hanushek. They wrote: “Over the past half century, countries with higher math and science skills have grown faster than those with lower-skilled populations.” As scores rise (presumably on tests of international competition) so does economic growth. The only reason the U.S. is still in the game, according to Schultz and Hanushek, is that it has benefited from the free movement of labor and capital, strong property rights, limited government intrusion in the economy, and excellent colleges and universities.

But if test scores reflecting math and science skills are indispensable to a healthy economy, then how do Schultz and Hanushek explain what happened to Japan? Although its students consistently score high in math and science, Japan’s economy tanked in 1990 and has never fully recovered. I think what Singapore’s Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said in an interview with Newsweek on Jan. 9, 2006 is closer to the truth: “We both have meritocracies. Yours is a talent meritocracy, ours is an exam meritocracy. There are some parts of the intellect that we are not able to test well – like creativity, curiosity, a sense of adventure, ambition. Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if that means challenging authority.”

Even if the U.S. produced countless more graduates in science, technology, engineering and math, the relationship between their presence and the nation’s economic growth would not be causal. The more likely villains are companies themselves, according to Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the Wharton School. There is an abundance of workers to choose from, but employers want to find perfect candidates who won’t require training (“Why Companies Aren’t Getting the Employees They Need,” The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 24, 2011). As for the complaint about skill shortages in STEM fields, Cappelli says it exists only because candidates won’t accept jobs at the wages offered. That’s why companies want more H-1B visas issued. They know that STEM workers from abroad are willing to work for lower salaries.

Paul Krugman agrees with Cappelli about the disconnect between education and the economy. Although the U.S. is producing more college graduates than ever before, they can’t find work commensurate with their education. He blames economic policies. As Lawrence Mishel wrote almost five years ago: “The singular obsession with schools deflects political attention from policy failures in … other realms” (“Schools as Scapegoats,” The American Prospect, Sept. 24, 2007). Critics say that the high number of graduates in the U.S. contributes to a false sense of accomplishment because it too easily masks the number of strategic majors. However, Iris C. Rotberg, editor of Balancing Change and Tradition in Global Education Reform (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), counters that the U.S. has a “large pool of students with the academic credentials needed to enter science and engineering fields and an ample supply – and sometimes an oversupply (for example, of chemistry Ph.D.s) – to meet labor-market demand.”

It’s easy to blame public schools for the economic ills of the nation. This is nothing new. What is different this time, however, is the intensity of the attacks. But they are misdirected. The demonstrations on May 1 in Oakland and Seattle are evidence that some voters understand the real cause of the protracted recession.

10 Educational Apps From Explore Knowledge Academy

Franklin — Sun, 06 May 2012 19:07:16 +0000

Explore Knowledge Academy in Nevada, has a 1-to-1 ratio of iPad tablets to students. Students as young as kindergartners use the iPad to learn traditional subjects in math, English, social studies, and science.

Here are the 10 iPad applications used by educators at the public charter school and recommended for other schools and families with iPads.

BrainPop

BrainPOP is a subscription-based application that brings 750 or more movies and quizzes in science, math, social studies, English, engineering, art, and health to the iPad. Users can watch an animated movie on a particular subject and then test their knowledge by taking an interactive quiz. The iPad application is free, but it costs between $1.99 and $6.99 per student, per month to access education materials.

Cell and Cell Structure

Cell and Cell Structure is a graphic application that teaches middle school students about cells, cell structure, and function. Users can view 3D interactive graphics on different cell types and parts, take quizzes to test their knowledge, and use flashcards to review and memorize information. Videos also give users a microscopic view of the cell. The app costs $2.99 in the App Store.

ConjuVerb

ConjuVerb is a foreign language application that allows students to look up more than 600 commonly used Spanish verbs and their conjugations. Quizzes and flashcards help students memorize and test their knowledge. It’s free in the App Store.

Dinopedia

Dinopedia is a reference guide created by National Geographic for dinosaur connoisseurs. Students can look up more than 700 dinosaur types using the application and get audio pronunciations, vital statistics, size comparison, and videos about each of the dinosaurs. A visual table of contents and an interactive family tree allow students to quickly search for their favorite dinosaurs. It costs $4.99 in the App Store.

Discover

Discover is a reference application for the iPad that repurposes Wikipedia articles for the tablet user. It’s free in the App Store.

Math Bingo

Math Bingo is an educational iPad game modeled after bingo. Elementary school students try to get five “Bingo Bugs” in a row by correctly answering math problems. Scores are determined by how fast students complete a game, and students are assessed a two-second penalty for every incorrect answer. It costs 99 cents in the App Store.

Math Drills

Math Drills is an educational application that tests up to 50 students in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Students can use number lines, wooden blocks, facts, and hints to solve problems. Teachers can view an individual student’s scores and test history to see which concepts need to be reviewed. The app costs $1.99 in the App Store.

Penultimate

Penultimate is a handwriting and note-taking application for the iPad. Students can scribble notes on digital pages and sort them into notebooks. They can also import photos into the application and annotate them. It costs 99 cents in the App Store.

Scientific Graphic Calculator

Scientific Graphic Calculator is a math application for the iPad that allows students to solve math problems needing a scientific calculator or a graphing calculator. The application also contains a triangle solver, which solves for a missing side or angle in geometry problems. Students can also use a unit converter and a constants reference to complete math problems. It costs $1.99 in the App Store.

Word Wizard

Word Wizard is a spelling application for the iPad that allows students to hear sounds of letters and words using an interactive alphabet. The application also provides a spelling quiz with more than 1,400 questions and answers. Elementary school students can tap on alphabetic or QWERTY keyboards. It costs $2.99 in the App Store.

Franklin Speaking on School Success

Franklin — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:25:41 +0000

Franklin is being interviewed on schoolbriefing.com on what it takes to be successful in schools.

http://www.schoolbriefing.com/3426/improving-school-success-and-raising-achievement/?code=schargel

Bullying

Franklin — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:33:14 +0000

As a result of the release of the film Bully, my publisher asked that I write a White Paper on the subject. You can access the PDF by going to the link below. Please disseminate it to anyone who can use it.

http://www.eyeoneducation.com/Online-Resources/White-Papers

Bullying White Paper

David — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:13:46 +0000

Here’s a White Paper that excerpts key information of my new book, “Preventing School Violence: A Guide for Educators, Students and Parents”.