The GLAMorous World of Educational Reform

Currently, American public education may be in the beginning throes of extinction as it experiences unprecedented and calamitous reforms in regard to testing, teacher accountability, and curriculum reform.  Teachers are overburdened to the point of becoming incapable of doing not just all that is asked, but anything that is asked.  I imagine there was a time in education when teachers could plan, teach, assess, and interact with students.  Those days are long gone and beyond the reaches of memory for most teachers working today.

Testing has gotten so far out of control that a school district can have some sort of assessment going on just about any given day.  In Miami-Dade County the district uses 154 of the 180 days of student attendance for some sort of testing.  Even though any individual student may only be testing for a total of 8 hours on any state-mandated test in any given year, that student will also be given an assortment of district-issued assessments in order to address legislation that mandates interventions to get students up to speed.  Tests are not the exception, they are the norm. They occur continually and interfere with instruction to the point instruction becomes almost impossible at times.  

For example, during the first weeks of school a district typically has students take diagnostic tests in order to determine baseline scores and benchmarks in most core subjects.  As the year progresses, these students are then called back to test each quarter to gather data to identify areas of need and to see if progress toward mastery is being made.  In ed-speak this is called “progress-monitoring.”    In English classes, for example, districts mandate writing tests in addition to reading tests so students can be given some sort of mandated test more than 3 times in any given quarter, for a single core subject.   As the legislature lowered the penalties for the class size amendment, districts are cutting teacher positions and are filling classes to the brim with students.  Core classes are being reported to contain student counts over 30 and electives as big as 40.  Computer labs are not large enough to accommodate classes of such size so testing for any given class may be broken up over the course of two or three days.  What this ultimately means is that instruction can be impeded for up to 3 days while testing occurs, and a teacher cannot teach a class fully when at least a third of that class is not present.  If this happens three times per quarter, instruction is basically lost for up to 9 days per quarter, which amounts to more than 20 percent of instructional time.  This is not to mention the other resources lost to testing.  Usually it is the guidance counselors who end up administering these tests, so students are also losing essential guidance in addition to classroom instruction.  In short, schools are not providing the basic services they were designed to do.  They are intentionally being set up to fail (https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3286777759911046485#editor/target=post;postID=7551337420457621865;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=1;src=postname

Besides dealing with the interminable testing (not to mention having a portion of salary based upon student tests even if that teacher doesn’t teach a subject in which his/her students are being tested) teachers are also being forced to collaborate at unprecedented levels.  Many districts are forcing teachers to collaborate in Professional Learning Communities which meet for at least one hour per week.  Apparently management felt that teachers weren’t already doing this and therefore mandated it.  These PLCs occur in addition to faculty meetings, department meetings, district meetings, parent conferences, and weekly academy meetings.  The inherent problem with such excessive meeting is twofold: first, teachers are unavailable after school for tutoring and providing extra-help and second, teachers now have less time to plan and grade.  Between testing and meeting, teachers have very little time on the job to actually do the job, but ironically are held more personally accountable than ever before by holding a portion of the paycheck ransom to test scores. It’s a veritable educational catch 22 if you will.

Seemingly the rationale behind PLCs seems to be only that someone in upper-management had an all-expenses paid trip to observe a model-school and needs an end product to justify the expense or it’s that someone just simply read about a district in Singapore that has high test scores and figured “what the hell, let’s try this.”  The truth is upper administration really seems to have no real reason other than it seems to work in some other places.  “Let’s try it,” they say and if you question the merits of any new initiative you’re labeled out of touch, old-fashioned, and unwilling to change with the times.  In district level meetings they set the agendas and the “norms” of the meetings, keeping negative criticisms and any real thorough analysis of the new ideas at bay.   The new idea in education is always the best idea if you are in middle or upper management.   

But the problem with adopting such practices is that American districts don’t adhere to a full and complete adoption of foreign practices.  For instance, in Singapore and Shanghai, teachers spend 10 to 18 hours per week with students.  In America teachers spend 25 to 32 hours on average with students.   And by adopting the PLC collaboration model but not doing a single thing to lessen other burdens, management only creates more hindrances upon the teachers.    They don’t initiate real, substantive change.  They don’t really care about making real change because if they really wanted to it wouldn’t be done in such a half-assed manner.  They fling shit at the wall to see what sticks.  They piggyback on precursors by plagiarizing and imitating.  There is no actual concern about these ideas actually working because those who initiate will have moved on by the time they fail and the next movement comes along.  And even worse, recent research has shown that there IS ABSOLUTELY NO BENEFIT FROM DISTRICT MANDATED TEACHER TRAINING.  (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/study-billions-of-dollars-in-annual-teacher-training-is-largely-a-waste/2015/08/03/c4e1f322-39ff-11e5-9c2d-ed991d848c48_story.html)

To an outsider, this issue is far more complicated than this verbose explication can ever clarify and address so perhaps a simple analogy might be more apropos.   Sometimes the new shiny thing isn’t always the best thing and my point can probably be clarified most simply with some images related to American popular music.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  Sometimes, images can leave you speechless.  Somewhere back in the late 1980s a few rock and roll bands involved in the West Coast music scene began garnering attention and filling clubs. The full clubs soon translated to records sales and the dollars began flowing into the record labels.  Soon record label management signed everyone and everything they could market and exploit.  Established, credible acts with reputations built upon artistic merit and tenure in the industry were even forced by management to move in the direction of the new, alluring tide.  Veterans of the industry KISS, Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper were not immune.

It doesn’t take too much to get the point. Grown men in bands, some with previous artistic integrity, had been forced by the free market and executive desire to exploit the next, new, fresh idea.  Looking at these pictures should illustrate just how asinine this is.  And doing the same in education should be looked upon in just the same fashion.  You can’t hide behind a bad idea and use children as your shield.  I cannot count the times I’ve heard management say that each new directive and initiative is for the children.  And if you resist a new idea because you realize it’s not going to be effective you’re labeled as being selfish and uncaring.  But it’s not about the children; it’s about politics, career advancement, and money.  Teaching isn’t a mystery and it doesn’t take any modern miracle or reform to help.  We need some common sense, some latitude, and some funding.  It’s a very simple formula. And if you REALLY want to reform education, you address poverty in America because that’s the number one factor when looking to the cause of student failures.  You can’t put a turd of an idea in a shiny jacket and make it glamorous.  Some people prefer the lipstick on a pig idiom but I think calling these ideas turds is more suitable since they are all stinkers.  PLCS, Merit Pay, Wall to Wall Academies, technology in the classroom, Florida’s Best and Brightest Scholarship, word walls, Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, FCAT parties and carnivals, classroom libraries, Marquez, Marzano, Criss, and Foundations….all of it is just simply plain crap with no substance to it, pure drivel without intent…. but dressed up in a glitzy jacket with hair that will set your pants on fire.   

A Day in the Life (of a Teacher)

A Day in the Life (of a Teacher)...

**note.  this was originally posted on another blog back in 2011.  I am the author.   

Today I decided that I'd start logging in all of my activities while at work and home. During last year's legislative session, the messages on the news bombarded the nation with this and that about "lazy teachers" living with their "fat pensions" and "cushy hours." I've been at this for almost 15 years and I'm good at it. I like it. And I hate everything about it that's not involved with classroom instruction with students. Everything else it involves is total and complete nonsense.

And how did we get here? That's a long story for another time. My current focus is on what goes daily in an ordinary high school classroom in a public school. Somehow, since everyone has spent some time in a classroom they think they can teach. Or at least tell teachers how to teach.

All of the public accolades go to police and firemen. I'm not saying they don't deserve it but if teachers were unable to reach as many students as they do imagine how many more people the police would have to deal with. Ignorance is at the root of so many social ills and being an educator, a truly driven and motivated teacher, can be the solution to this all-encompassing problem. Dealing with the problems after they have already become problems is not a solution. It's the same with American medicine, we wait until someone is sick before we try to cure/fix them. If we could change lifestyle and eating habits before a patient becomes sick, we've cured the problem before it even comes into existence. So why all of the negative press and lack of attention to the truly inspired and effective teacher? Aren't we trying to extinguish society's ills before they begin to form?

Police, firemen, and professional athletes are heralded as champions of our society because their deeds are far more dramatic than the teacher's. Even when we turn to fictional characters we find the flawed everyman embodying heroic values through the occupations of firefighting and policing. Look no further than Jimmy McNulty or Tommy Gavin, characters from The Wire and Rescue Me. They have the stuff main characters are made of. Integrity. Honor. An ability to cut through nonsense and do the job the way the job is meant to be done. They butt heads with bosses and bureaucrats. They ignore horseshit policy in the name of common sense and doing what's right.

Even though these gentlemen are fictional characters, they are the embodiment of my fundamental beliefs. They are archetypes who have a true sense of right from wrong. Honor lies in doing the job well, not for money nor glory but rather because doing something well is a reward in and of itself. That's something these nincompoops in Tallahassee and Washington know nothing of. And what's the price a man has to pay for trying to wade through oceans of excrement in order to stay afloat and do the righteous thing? As art so often imitates life, we find our protagonists frequently self-destructing. In Hollywood this provides drama and allows for empathy. But in real life the disconnect between what is and what should be is so often disconcerting and it has to be dulled some how. Some people turn to god, others to doctor's prescriptions, and we Irish tend to self-medicate.

As this is drifting off into philosophical pondering not originally intended, I'll end that here and give you a glimpse into a single day of my life a teacher. There's nothing extraordinary here. There's nothing exaggerated or embellished to make it more dazzling or eye opening. Just straight up 1st person narrative of a single day. A day that runs in direct opposition to everything we heard last winter/spring regarding the failure of America's "lazy teachers."

9/19/2011
As the day begins at midnight, I am asleep. This lasts until my 3 year old daughter wakes me and my wife up at a little after 1am as she's been having nightmares lately. We get her back to bed and find ourselves awake again in less than an hour. Another nightmare. This time it takes me over and hour to get back to sleep. I think about work for most of this time. I have a lot to get done this week including communicating the summary of my department meeting to my principal, ordering supplies for my department, leaving plans for my sub for Tuesday, grading papers, and getting union info out to schools in my district.

When my alarm initially goes off at 530am, I hit snooze. There's no way I'm getting up. I'm beat. The second time it goes off I hit snooze again. I get up before it goes off again though. Once up I get myself washed and dressed, let the dog out and feed him and then proceed to make my lunch. I pack several items into a cooler and then go up to get my kids up. Getting them out of bed takes about 2 or 3 minutes. They go off to brush their teeth. My daughter returns to me to ask for help getting toothpaste on the toothbrush. I help get their shoes on and help them tie them. My son can tie his own shoes but his laces are very short and he can't get them tied hard enough to make it last the day. His teacher won't tie shoes at school, so I help him with the double knot. My daughter puts her pants on backwards. I help her with them. I help my son wet and brush his hair. Again, he can do this himself but he has a terrible cowlick that he just can't manage. I grab my cooler and my backpack of clothes for the gym and put them in my car. I return to get my coffee mug and a breakfast bar which I will eat on the drive into work. I hug my kids, kiss them, tell them I love them and kiss my wife goodbye. It's 630.

On the 15 minute drive to work I again mull over the most important tasks of the day. I listen to music very loudly to get the blood pumping and come alive. But I mostly think about what I need to do when I walk in the door and mentally prioritize.

From 7 to 715 I check my email. There are 16 new ones. I respond to 2. While composing the second one a former student comes in to ask about a recommendation to the naval academy. After a few minutes I get back to the second response. I cut it short so I can send it off and move on to other tasks.

Around 715 I move out into the hallway to supervise student travel and keep an eye out for any "issues." At 720 class starts and I then begin "sweeping" students who are tardy. I jot their names onto an index card to be turned in to our In School Suspension Dude and write them tardy passes to 1st period. Today I only get two. There are more students in the halls but I also have cart duty that requires me to drive a golf cart around campus to secure two gates and check the campus for any suspicious activity and check student passes if they are roaming campus. I am also supposed to ticket illegally parked cars.  I do not. Our contract stipulates 15 minutes of duty during our planning period. I get back to my room at 740.

From 740 until 816 I grade papers, organize my desk and classroom, post assignments on the board, review the day's lesson plans/assignments, check my emails again, and complete a leave form for a professional development workshop I will be attending next week.

At 816 I have hall duty as students change classes. During this time I discuss a "chunking" strategy that was presented at the last department meeting and is a school-wide requirement to meet the goals of our school improvement plan and our response to intervention guidelines. A student interrupts discussion to talk about his weekend. He's new to the school and has no friends. I ask one question about his weekend and then send him back into the classroom to begin the day's work. I finish the conversation about "chunking."

I am back in my room at 821. While students are completing their grammar warm-up activity, I grade some more papers after taking attendance and putting it in the computer. After about 4 minutes when they should be finishing, I get up and pass out the week's vocabulary assignment. I then recirculate the room to put a stamp on completed grammar warmups. We then spend about 5 minutes going over the activity. I call on students to answer and praise correct answers and prompt students to explain why they answered how they did. When students were wrong I thanked them for giving a response but turned to others asking for corrections and explanations as to why the answers were wrong.

For the remainder of class we are watching a video on essay writing. It is a summary of the previous weeks' instruction. I remind students of the task at hand, comparing the video to my instruction. Their notes will be collected at the conclusion of the video. While the video is playing I grade more essays. I stop the video to discuss salient points at 845, 851, 856. I call a student to my desk to discuss his rough draft. He is a week behind. He finally has it right and I praise his work. At 859 I start putting grades into my computer. At 906 I check my email again. From 907-912 I conference with individual students showing them their grades and telling them what they can do to improve or praising them for great work and effort.

At 912 I am in the hall for the change of classes again. I discuss a failing student with a colleague who had her last year. He confirms my assessment of her. Smart but lazy. She will skate by with a D and be satisfied with it, as will her mother.

The start of 3rd period is much like 2nd: I circulate and grade and praise and go over answers and talk with one student quietly about her mother's recent recovery from a stroke. The student apologizes for falling behind. I tell that it's no problem and ask more about her mom. I tell her to take care of herself before worrying about classwork.

At 944 I put the video on and start grading more papers. Like last period I stop the video to discuss important points but this time I put a diagram on the board to illustrate. Every lesson improves after doing it once or twice. The best ideas usually pop into my head as I'm doing something else.

At 959 I am still grading papers and writing specific feedback on essays. I am still stopping the video from time to time to highlight points. At 1005 I call students up to discuss grades.

1008 -Hall duty for the change of classes. This time I discuss certification requirements with a colleague who has questions about a letter she received from the county office.

Fourth period is the same as the previous two until we start going over the grammar drill. These guys aren't getting it even though we've been doing it for almost a full week. As I call on students, they give incorrect responses. I have to give extra explanations while also calling out specific students to maintain attention. They are a chatty bunch more concerned with socialization than academic achievement and I have to refocus them at least 5 times. All of my classes are honors classes even though this class really isn't. They can't compete with the previous two periods. They are almost two weeks behind my other two English classes. It takes 15 minutes longer to complete a simple grammar activity regarding pronouns. I forgo the second part of the activity in an attempt to make up some time. Sometimes things have to be skipped or glossed over for the sake of time.

1104-11:11-hall duty. I skip it to grade a few more papers. I'm not even 1/2 way through the stack I have in front of me.

11:12 I give the instructions for my Speech class. They are to work in groups and finish the assignment we started on Friday. They have 10 minutes until they begin presentations.

11:13 I go to the bathroom for my first "relief" break of the day. I slip out and ask my colleague across the hall to keep an eye on my class.

11:15 I take attendance and then presentations begin. Between each group I provide immediate verbal assessment and feedback. At 1145 a student asks for a pass to guidance. At 1152 I have my 1st casual conversation of the day as our athletic director comes into my class to boast about his fantasy football victory over my team this week. Our conversation lasts 2 minutes. 1154 we are back into the presentations.

I eat my sandwich during the last presentation at 1158.

12;07 a student asks me to proof his college application essays. I confirm that I will but assert that I will need a bit of time. He leaves them with me. I put them off to the side of my desk. By the end of the day they are under piles of papers and books.

1210 I begin grading papers again as the presentations have concluded. I give my class 5 minutes of free time. 1212 I have to get students back into my room and close my door as they meander into the hall in hopes of leaving for lunch early so they can get to the front of the ever so alluring chicken nugget line.

1215 the bell rings for lunch. I have 30 minutes for lunch. I've already eaten. I grade papers as a student from 6th period pops in to drop her stuff off. She has an Individual Education Plan and is labelled as an Emotional Behavior Disorder or some such jargon. She talks and talks and laughs and I smile and nod but want to get my papers graded. She finally leaves.

1219 I finish with the work from period 3 and input numbers into the computer. I am finished with inputting at 1235 and proceed to pull materials to be scanned for department-wide "chunking" assessment. I scan the documents and then email. In the email I compose a directive regarding these assessments along with information about professional development. I solicit feedback for my future meetings with the principal and reading coach.

Students begin filtering into my room at 1243 for 6th period, another speech class. A boy wants to discuss the book he's reading. I ask him to wait until I am done with my email. He goes over to a couple of other students who lack interest and returns to me and begins talking. I continue my email and try to ignore him. He still goes on and I find my attention divided. I end the email without feeling it's complete but send it anyway. Check...something else off the list.

As class starts at 1250 I give the same directions as I did in the previous period. They work for 10 minutes while I circulate the room and provide assistance where needed. At 102 I return to my desk to check my email again and a student approaches with questions regarding my assessment of her last speech. We talk for a couple of minutes until her questions are answered. I receive an email from the YMCA regarding student youth in government. I have to meet with a colleague across campus to get her materials and discuss this info. I jot it in my appointment book and get back to class.

At 107 a student approaches for a grade correction. I fix it.

At 109 I announce we are going to begin presentations. I evaluate and provide feedback like the previous period until 136 when presentations are finished. I check my email again. I have 8 new ones. I respond to 2.

At 140 students leave and I eat a snack at 141.

At 145 I begin typing up my directions for tomorrow's substitute as I will be at a committee meeting with the deputy superintendant, the director of human resources, and various other county administration regarding the development of the new assessment tool we created last year to comply with the Federal Race to the Top grant along with the new Florida Teacher Merit Pay Law.

I am interrupted immediately by the school's reading coach who requested a meeting with me on Friday through email. I told her I would find a time when things calmed down a bit. She apparently thought she should still come to meet me as English Dept. Chair in order to discuss future professional development. She talks for the majority of the 53 minutes she is in my room. I tell her honestly that the last strategy was a waste of time and we get into a philosophical discussion regarding the modern state of education. We discuss many notions and seem to agree on most. I ask why do we constantly rename and reuse the same old strategies with tweaks here and there and find no miracle cures and go on to suggest that maybe the strategies aren't flawed but perhaps it's the students who are flawed. It's the parents who are flawed. It's the testing that's flawed. It's the grading of schools that is flawed. In years past a good or bad teacher really wasn't the focus of instruction. Not in my day nor my father's. The onus was on the us as students. Read, study, do the assigned work, learn, pass the test. If not, there were consequences at home. Now, there is very little accountability for the student. It's all been placed up on the school and teacher. But once again, that's another discussion for another time.

241 she's gone and I check my email. There are 6 new. I reply to one about shoes and clothing donations for a needy student. The teachers at my wife's school have gotten her a bunch of stuff. I have to now get it to her teacher who originally inquired about a single pair of shoes because the girl didn't have any, just an old pair of busted flip flops.

At 252 I finish printing out my directions for the sub. I leave work and still have made absolutely no dent in any of the paperwork and grading awaiting me.

301 I am pulling out of the parking lot after being stopped by two more colleagues. One has questions about the new teacher evaluation system and the other confirms my pending absence tomorrow in order to check on the sub.

At 321 I am home. I get the mail, let the dog out, go to the bathroom, and change into my gym clothes.

340 I bike to the gym.

350 weight training at the gym

430 bike home

447 put bike in garage, hop in car, pick up kids from daycare. They talk ALL THE WAY HOME....my daughter cries twice on the ride. She's tired.

509 we are back in the house and by 511 I start dinner. My wife is now working at her second job. While the beef is browning in the pan, I usher my daughter into the shower. While she showers I wash the dishes from the morning/last night, empty my cooler and rinse its contents, and then have to return my daughter to the shower because she comes out telling me it's too cold. Less than one minute later she's scared of a bug and is out again. The beef is still browning.
522 I add the other ingredients to the beef...yea!!! hamburger helper in the skillet and a can of spinach drained and microwaved.

525 I wonder if I should make a cup of coffee or have a beer. I decide upon the coffee..it's the only way I'll make it through the night. A beer on a Monday would confirm the McNulty/Gavin syndrome.

534-my daughter has just said "Daddy" at least 15 times in the last 3 minutes. I set the coffee pot for the morning.

536 my son tells me that he "took a 12 minute bath" three times.

538 I tell the kids to stop talking or else I will have a nervous breakdown.

540 dinner is finished and served. I forgot to get their drinks. I pour two glasses of milk.

542 my daughter cries and says she doesn't like dinner.


544 my wife comes home

545 I sit to eat

549 I finish and begin cleaning up from cooking.

605 i am done cleaning. i help my kids video call their grandmother in NY.

615 they get to watch tv. I surf the internet.

630 we head upstairs for bed. I read to my son for about 10 minutes. Then I lay in bed with him and talk about school. He tells me about his tests and his work. We joke about stuff and I get silly and tickle him and kiss him goodnight. He hugs me and tells me what he tells me every night, "Please don't go, I love you so." I tell him that I still have to shower and shave and get ready for tomorrow.

I say goodnight to my daughter after playing "jump up and down. She then comes down out of her bed 3 times because she is overtired and crying.

By 715 I'm back downstairs and typing this up. I still have to recheck my school email for a couple of things and then I can shower, shave, and get into bed. it will be about 10 o'clock.

I just remembered that I forgot to marinate the steak that we're having for dinner tomorrow night. Off to the kitchen....