A big, big problem

Recently there has been much chatter about the teacher's responsibility to protect the student.  We know that if a student shows any sign of abuse at home we are legally obligated to call DCFS.  We know that if that instance regrettably did occur we would do so immediately out love for the student - and because as educators our students health and well-being are far more important than their scores.

But what if the abuse comes from an administrator? What if an administrator is bullying students? Not necessarily physical abuse - I mean verbal abuse.  Name calling? Swearing? Threatening? Downright scary stuff!  We are familiar with examples where principals have used verbal abuse in an attempt to elicit a violent student response that triggers expulsion.  Principles are not wardens of disciplinary camps, they are responsible for the education and well being of all students.

If this abuse was coming from a fellow teacher, we would report directly to the principal.  But if it is coming from the principal...who do we go to?  Is evidence (audio/video) required?  If staff and students are aware of the problem by either seeing it in person or hearing complaints is this sufficient?  We need to think about and discuss these important questions.

What action would you take?  What are all the options?
Has anyone else experienced this problem?  As teachers we have the responsibility to protect our students - don't we?  How do we protect them when the fear of retaliation is real?  This issue is too important for status quo positions.

The Children! For God sakes, will someone think of the CHILDREN!

CPS is requiring principals and schools to submit a plan for the upcoming school year extended day (from 6.5-7.5 hours for HS and looking at about 90 minutes in length for grade schools) . The powers that be are trying to have “Approved Plans” by union members working with administration… sounds like fuel for contract negotiations.  


All of this to be done without:

• A contract
• an idea of how many positions will be funded
• how many classes will be offered due to lack of knowledge of teacher #'s
• no directive by administration as to how this time should spent

The only requirement?  That it NOT be spent on INSTRUCTIONAL TIME?  What the heck? Isn't the argument that schools are failing, test scores are low...think of the children!  But we cannot spend the time on instruction?  It must be "developmental" or for "enrichment" - whatever that means!


What is going on with schools and the "extended day" schedule proposals?  We have heard a variety of horror stories.  


How is this time being spent? What are the "creative ideas?"  Many schools are vying for the $100,000 reward for most creative schedule... and where is that money coming from? 30 schools get 100K?  Unbelievable! No money for paper, books, or positions - but get those creative juices flowing so no one realizes that we have no plan....at all.


What's going on at your schools? Let us know!


P.S. - Make sure your Delegate organizes and submits a signed Open Letter on the Extended School Day as soon as possible.  Download it at here.


This is incredibly important!  Make sure that the LSC's and the Board have on record our demands to make the mandated extended day work!

Turning the assessment tables...

How I love Diane Ravitch!  She strikes again with this latest piece evaluating Arne Duncan - giving him a "scorecard."

REPORT CARD: ARNE DUNCAN

Fidelity to the Constitution                       F

Doing what’s right for children                 F 

Doing what’s right for public education     F

          Respecting the limits of federalism            F
          Doing what’s right for teachers                 F
          Doing what’s right for education               F

We thought I'd take this opportunity to discuss how our administrators are "graded."  Aside from "My School My Voice" surveys - there really is little assessment of our leaders for public view.

How would we evaluate our administrators?  After all, effective and fair leadership makes all the difference. Some bright folks from the University of Texas released a study "Estimating the Effects of Leaders on Public Sector Productivity."   EdWeek summarized the findings briefly here - basically that good principals make a difference in high-poverty schools. Duh.

I'm not sure how the value-added assessment worked.  The data came from Texas Schools - however, the EdWeek blog post does not state when the data is from.  Either way - if you have the $5 to spend to get the actual study, feel free to forward it to me!  I won't tell ;)

Assessing the effectiveness and value of our principals is an issue that we would like to tackle here. The UT study summary states:

 "...there is little quantitative evidence due to the difficulty of separating the impact of leaders from other organizational components – particularly in the public sector."

Interesting. Other organizational components? Is that code for 'principals have no autonomy because they receive orders from on-high so frequently?' Perhaps.   I can remember a time when the staff would get hit one day with (insert screaming administrator here) ATTENDANCE!  Then another week...GRADES!  Then...STANDARDS!  Then....ATTENDANCE!  All in one quarter - as if the principal just got reamed on the phone by the Area.  We surely can't hold principals accountable with qualitative data because of those pesky "other organizational components."

** Unlike teachers and the mountain of initiatives we are pummeled with - yet held accountable for   without mention of the district, board, etc.    

At least for now we can turn to the qualitative.  How would you rate your principal?  If he/she is effective, what does that look like?  We at SCT have yet to experience it.

An idea of some principal effectiveness measures for discussion:

Shares leadership
Nurtures Students
Thoughtful of Professional Development Needs
Understands a balance of testing in education
Communicates effectively
Supports staff and shows respect (treats staff like professionals)
Consistent in decision-making
Follows through in initiatives/mandates brought to staff
Acts as an educator first
Puts students needs before the "appearance" of the school
Respects STU contract

Our principals would receive F's and D's across the board.  What are your thoughts on your leadership?  Does it matter?
Do you have strong leadership?  What does that look/feel like?  What kind of difference does it make?
We're dying to know!

Just another strategy...

We are exhausted.  Every year it feels like the same thing; Introduce initiative. Wait a few months. Problem still exists. Reprimand staff. Scrap initiative. Introduce initiative. Wait a few months....ad nauseum.

Here's a small example.  My principal first said that our evaluations included that we must have a learning objective written on the board.  Then we had to ensure we had an essential question on the board every day.  Now we must have a learning goal on the board every day.  What the difference is between a learning goal and objective I can't tell you.  And how these strategies are supposed to reinsure the administration that my students are learning - I couldn't tell you either.  However, it's really just a drop in the bucket of the strategies or best practices that are thrown in our face every month.

After being in this game for quite a while, we tried to remember as many initiatives, strategies, standards that were presented or implemented in PD - we were asked to implement/consider these just over the last 5 years.  To name a few: 

• Writing across the curriculum
• Reading to learn
• writing to learn
• learning how to learn
• leading to learn
• Data driven Instruction
• Experiential Learning
• Project Based Learning
• Brain-Based Learning
• Standards Driven Instruction
• No More Excuses
• Learning Walks
• Socratic Seminar
• RAFT
• Learning Objecitves
• Essential Questions
• AVID strategies 
• UBD
• Curriculum Mapping
• Differentiation
• ACT
• WorkKeys
• Illinois State Standards
• College Readiness Standards
• College Board Pre-AP alignment
• Common Core Standards

Now, individually these are all very good when used effectively and for their purpose.  In fact many of them we have had great success.  However, we are asked to implement the standards, master the strategies, or adapt our plans to fit the latest, hottest trend so often - and there is rarely an assessment as to the effectiveness or continued support for departments. No time to master anything.

No time to see whether or not they are working - we can't see the results because we are to busy trying to please our principal (who is busy trying to please the board),  keep our jobs, get those scores up, make sure the kids have eaten, talk to Billy about why it's wrong to hit, counsel Lupe on the dangers of joining the gang, evaluate our data while getting new data, helping Jenny's mom find aid so her electricity doesn't get cut off, make 5 different modifications for a quiz because in one class there are non-english speakers, autism, LD, CD, design a better assessment to meet the needs to 15 different reading stanines, trying to talk a kid down after the AP calls him a loser, losing the forest for the tree, etc. etc. etc.   

Is anyone else tired?