Aging

Today is "back to school" day for teachers, but the subject of this post stems from the fact that my daughter is freaking out about Hillary Duff being pregnant, because "Hillary Duff can't be pregnant. She's Lizzy McGuire."  (I started this post a LONG time ago, and never finished it. Here it is.)

So I started thinking about the things that served as a "yes, you're really that old" slap in my face over the years. Here's the list as I can think of it now; I might edit it as I think of other things. Feel free to chime in.

Watching a baseball game and realizing the starting pitcher was younger than I was.

Learning that someone I knew pretty well at P&G was now CMO of the company. (And a handful of others I knew at P&G being CEOs of fairly significant enterprises.)

My daughter going to college.

My daughter getting married.

1/20/2009, when, for the first time, the President of the United States was younger than me.

My son starting to drive. (For some reason, my older daughters starting to drive didn't hit me the same way. Maybe it's related to my concern about the driving skills of teenage boys versus teenage girls...)

New School

So the first week is done, and I feel much as I did at the end of the first week last year - we're five days in and I'm five weeks behind already. I haven't put attendance into the electronic grade book. I haven't set up the electronic grade book to accept scores for the homework assignments I've given, or for the quiz on Monday (which I haven't written yet). I indicated to students I'd get their homework back to them within 24 hours and I'm already 2 days behind on the promise. Et cetera, et cetera.

On the other hand, I was standing in the hallway at the end of the day on Thursday, and one of the other math teachers said I seemed remarkably calm and relaxed. She assumed it was a facade. In truth, it was liberation from the battlefield that is the school from whence I came. I've assigned homework every day and not only has no one complained, virtually everyone has turned it in. I got no pushback from any student about my cell phone policy (the first time I see it, I take it and keep it until I speak with the parents), and I have yet to see a cell phone in my class. The problem child in my Algebra I / Intensive Math class, with whom I've had two stern discussions, seems to believe she actually needs to do the work, rather than fight with me all year.

Also, it's hard to describe the difference in attitude with respect to the administration. They seem clearly on the side of trying to make teachers' jobs easier, not harder, where possible. They seem clearly to believe that the teachers here at NHS are really good at what they do, and the kids are lucky to have them. As one example, according to other teachers, the administration backs up teachers who flunk students. Importantly, the students know that, too. I had one student say he was going to flunk math, and when I asked him why he believed that, he noted he'd gotten grade recovery 4 times in middle school, but "now that I'm in high school, that's not going to happen anymore."

One more similarity to last year - I spent the entire week saying "If I can just make it to the weekend, I'll be able to catch up on this," and now I'm realizing I have 6 or 8 days worth of things to catch up on. I'll be lucky if I have the homework checked by Monday. But hey, why should that be any different this year?

Happy New Year!

A couple of new things...

I have a new gig, teaching in the district immediately south of the one I was in previously. My old district was one of the worst in the state, which is one of the worst states in the nation relative to SAT and ACT scores. The 17 high schools in Old District can be grouped into 4 categories, with about 4 schools in each. My old high school was in the middle of the 3rd best group.

My new district has been the best in the state for each of the past 3 years, based on scores on the state-mandated tests. My new high school is essentially tied for worst in the district, although there are only six. For perspective, Old District has 4 magnet high schools. Three of the 4 magnets, plus one "standard" school, are the upper echelon of Old District. My new school, worst in New District, would be in the upper echelon in math and just outside it in English in Old District. (New District has no magnets, but does have one technical high school.)

New District is very rich and very white. New High School (hereinafter referred to as NHS) is much, much poorer than the rest of the district and also less white, although whites still comprise roughly 80% of the student body. The area is very rural, whereas the rest of the county is very suburban. So I'm still teaching a somewhat disadvantaged group of kids, although without the oppressive environmental issues associated with urban poverty (e.g., single family households, students having significant out-of-school family responsibilities, relatively low value placed on education). We'll see how big a difference that makes.

The other interesting thing about this year is I'll be teaching Algebra I + Intensive Math, the lowest of the low in terms of math skill. It's a challenge I'm actually looking forward to, although I fear I may change my tune in a month or two. In the meantime, however, I can't wait to get to work.

So if you quadruple the number of exams taken, the number passed will... ?

I was browsing a few old files in preparing to clean up my hard drive, and noticed this one... 

In 2006-2007, a huge push was made to get more students to take AP courses, because (I love this) students who take AP courses are more likely to graduate than those who don't. So being in AP courses obviously motivates kids to stay in school. Move along, logicians -nothin' to see here. Principals were given incentives to increase AP enrollment as much as possible.

What harm could it do? Even if a bunch of kids who didn't really belong in the course were in it, the ones who did belong would still get what they needed, right? And the kids who didn't belong would realize that and either drop out or struggle through.

But wait, there's more. If a senior is taking a core course - say, in math, English or science - that is also an AP course, they generally must pass that class to graduate. Principals are also highly incentivized to increase the graduation rate. So flunking, say, 8 or 10 seniors who don't belong in your AP course is  (a) a great way to never teach another AP course, and (b) futile, since the administration will find a way to pass them in the final 3 weeks of school anyway.

Given that, if you teach an AP course at my school, you have two options: (1) teach the course as a regular AP course, lose 1/3 to 1/2 of the class within 8 weeks, resign yourself to having those students stay lost for the next 30 weeks and thus learn absolutely nothing in your course, but give them a C anyway, or  (2) water down the content to the point that everybody learns a little something but only the most diligent have any hope of passing the exam, and then only by doing a lot of independent study.  For the past 7 years, AP Statistics was taught using option 2, and no one has passed the exam. I chose option 1. We'll find out in mid-July if I did any better.

But meanwhile, it seems clear that a lot of teachers choose option 2. (After all, who wants to teach a class every day in which half of the students have given up weeks ago, but know they're going to pass anyway?) Here's what that does to the number of students passing the AP exam:

In the first year (2007), exams passed increased by 9% while exams taken increased by 350%. After that, exams passed declined significantly, and is now at 60% of the number it was at prior to flooding the classes with unprepared students.

Addendum: I did have a student pass, which I'm told is the first time in 7 years anyone from MHS has done so. However, I only had one other student get a 2, with the other 18 in the class getting a 1. I was somewhat disappointed with this result, and would have loved to take another shot at it in 2011-12. Nonetheless, I did prove that Option 1 at least provides a few students the chance to pass the course. I'm convinced that if all AP classes were run that way, fewer unprepared students would take the course, but a much higher percentage would pass.

Another in a long, long line of excellent examples of unintended consequences. Although in this case, it should not have been (and wasn't, by some) unanticipated consequences.

Wired Loops

Wired is an awesome magazine (thanks, Abe!). This month, the cover story is about how our brains and behavior are driven by feedback loops. According to the story, in the 1960's, Albert Bandura "observed that giving individuals a clear goal and a means to evaluate their progress toward that goal (in real time) greatly increased the likelihood they would achieve it." (I added the parenthetical "in real time," because elsewhere in the article that element is shown to be critically important.)

We provide lots of feedback to students, but a lot of it is time-delayed, and very little of it is directly applicable to evaluating their progress (or the extent of their progress) toward the goal (which is often poorly defined anyway.)

So I've been thinking about (1) how to very clearly define the goal in a course, (2) what role interim goals should play, (3) how to measure progress toward the goal or interim goal, (4) how to give immediate feedback about that progress, and (5) how to publicly track my students' progress while keeping each individual's information private.

Here's where I am so far... (more as I think more about it)

Create a pre-test for each 3-week block of work.

Lay out the calendar for the next 3 weeks, showing what's going to be covered each day and which questions on the pre-test could then be answered based on what's been covered through that day.

Give exercises (via class work) on whatever got covered that day.

Have students self-grade that work, and turn in a slip of paper with their name and score so I can track and publish it (with the names stripped out).

Give homework based on their scores (higher score = less homework). Caveat: if their quiz grade is significantly lower than their self-reported class work grades, they automatically end up in the "most homework" category.

Give quizzes I can grade within 10 minutes (10 questions, answers are right or wrong, worksheet pre-configured to spit out grade after answers are typed in). Give an in-class assignment on quiz days so that the class looks like: 5 minute warm-up, 15 minute quiz, 15 minute in-class exercise (while I grade the quizzes), 10 minute quiz return and wrap-up.

Give tests I can grade during my planning period (45 minutes) so I can return them the next day.

The Incredible Shrinking Man

My principal doesn't want me back next year... OK, I can live with that. Thus, he'd rather not praise me at today's end-of-year luncheon... makes sense to me. Unfortunately for him, my kids did really well on the state-mandated exam, and he likes to use the luncheon to hand out awards to teachers for various accomplishments during the school year. So to avoid handing me a lovely inkjet-printed certificate, he made up a category for which I didn't qualify, available only to teachers of "standard" courses (since I taught only Honors). But he neglected to notice the person he gave it to instead of me also didn't teach any standard courses. Sad, really. If he'd just come to me before-hand, I'd have told him to make the category "Most gains by a teacher who isn't me," and we could have all enjoyed the award.

The Sociological Value of Understanding the Concept of a Local Maximum

To improve the quality of education in America, the graduation rate and the number of students passing the state-mandated tests must fall dramatically.

We've done an enormous disservice to our children by relaxing graduation standards, badgering teachers into passing students who shouldn't, enrolling students in classes they shouldn't be in (thus watering down the content for everyone in the course), focusing exclusively on the lowest-performing students' results on the state-mandated tests, and redirecting blame for failure from students to teachers.

The three step, no additional cost, plan for success:

1. Hold all students to much, much higher standards for passing classes in the core curriculum and for graduating from a "traditional" high school.

2. Provide alternative track educational opportunities for children who do not wish to or are not capable of completing a traditional high school education.

3. Get out of the way.

(Aside: I distinctly recall coming home from school with a bad grade on an English test and complaining that the teacher didn't explain the material. I suppose it's possible my parents called the school to complain and demand she be replaced with someone I could better relate to, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't their first response.)