Weather Man

Many years ago, I had a fascinating conversation with Walt, a friend who worked in marketing for a cigarette company.  (This was back when working for a company providing legal, but politically incorrect, products was a matter of personal conscience, rather than an invitation to be the target of hate mail, death threats, physical harassment and occasionally even violence.)  He told me a story about the company's research department presenting an advertising research study and concluding Ad A was better than Ad B because of its higher recall scores, higher favorable ratings, etc. Walt stopped them, and said he wanted to see the scores of the "Marlboro Man" ads using the same methodology.  (Marlboro wasn't a brand owned by Walt's company, but it went from an also-ran in the category to a dominant number 1 when Philip Morris introduced the now iconic rugged cowboy image.) Turns out, Marlboro's ad scored lower than either A or B, which was what Walt expected.  He told the research people that, until they began basing their conclusions on the results of studies in which Marlboro was the clear winner, those conclusions could not possibly be considered reliable.

The point here is this: so far this year, I've given my kids 11 state-, district- or school-mandated tests (2 more scheduled next week) so that we have pre- and interim-assessments on our kids, in order to better guide our instruction so that they will perform better on the one that actually counts (sort of), at the end of the year.  But no one is able to determine whether the assessments actually measure anything of value, and even if they do, whether the results can be effectively used to improve the kids' test grades on the end of year assessment, and even if it does, whether that translates to improved quality of education.  Of course, on a macro level, only one thing is absolutely crystal clear:  whatever we've been doing hasn't been working.

Everyone, it seems, understands public education is in deep trouble.  From teachers in classrooms to principals in schools to Superintendents of county school systems to the President of the United States, each individual in that chain cares about, and is actively working on, improving education.  This has probably been true since 1647 (the year Massachusetts began requiring towns of at least 50 families to hire school teachers to educate their children), but has certainly been true for the past 30 years.  For the most part, these people are well-intentioned and reasonably bright.  Sure, there are snakes in the woodpile, but no more, and no more venomous, than the snakes in woodpiles elsewhere in America.  So why has American public education been declining rapidly, by all accounts, and reached a point where America's students are near the bottom of virtually every list of industrialized countries in terms of math and science skills, reading comprehension, and probably several other measures I haven't stumbled across in my quest to find data on the subject?

The issue cannot be money.  According to TIMSS (Trends in Mathematics and Science Study), the US is educating its students in mathematics on a par with the Russian Federation, Slovenia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic.  And while our spending on public education as a percent of GDP is a "middle of the pack" 5.85%, it is roughly equal to Slovenia's 6.02% and well ahead of Lithuania's 5.18%, the Czech Republic's 4.55% and Russia's 3.67%. Japan, which kills the US (and everyone else) on all these lists of best educated students, spends less than Russia on a GDP basis.

Here's one possibility.  I work in District A.  District A is one of (if not the) worst districts in the state, as measured by drop-out rates and state-mandated standardized test scores.  An adjoining district, cleverly named District B, is the best district in the state on these measures.  Now, admittedly, District B is much richer than District A, and that's always the rationale one hears when people discuss the stark difference between the districts.  But I'm not buying it.  Yes, I think parental involvement is hugely important, and without question, parents in poorer districts are less involved (mostly because they're running as fast as they can just to keep food on the table, or the kid is living with his older sister and her boyfriend, or a dozen other reasons that are money-driven, not concern-driven).  But I teach honors classes this year, and the parents are very involved, for the most part, but their kids are still not doing as well as anyone would like.

However, there's another phenomenon that is very different between the districts that I believe has been completely overlooked, but may be enormously important.  District A has 17 high schools, of which 3 are academic magnet programs.  Those 3 academic magnets are very successful - on a grading scale, they're all A's - whereas of the remaining 14 high schools, 9 are D's and F's, and the other 5 are C's.  District B has 6 high schools, none of which are academic magnets, but one of which is a "technical" high school, where kids who are not academically inclined go to learn the standard subjects, but also to be trained in culinary arts, automobile repair, HVAC maintenance, etc.  Essentially, it's a trade school. Of the 6 high schools in District B, 5 are A's and 1 is an F.  Even the F school - the trade school, of course - is comfortable with its place in the hierarchy.  They understand that their students will not perform well on the standardized tests, but they make an effort to prepare the kids to do well enough, and to give them skills they can use when they finish high school.  So about 85% of the kids in District B get a very solid high school education in a traditional academic setting, and the other 15% get a decent education and some skills.  Whereas in District A, about 15% of kids get a top quality high school education and 85% get at best a mediocre education and no particular skills.

The 5 "A" schools in District B have very high academic expectations - higher than I can even dream about in District A.  I think it's worth looking at the "technical" vs. "academic magnet" high school model to see if one of them is better for the overall educational level in the district.  My money's on "technical."

Turns out, sleep IS important.

I lost my cool on Wednesday, and yelled at the principal.  In a faculty meeting.  And used the f-bomb.  Truth is, it had virtually nothing to do with the subject we were, um, discussing, as I suppose these things usually don't... I was frustrated with my classes, hadn't slept more than about 3 hours a night since Sunday, and troubled by a number of other things that aren't going the way I want them to.  Nothing big, just a bunch of minor annoyances.

One of my minor annoyances is that I don't feel we (the teachers) get very much support from our administration.    For example, this happened a couple of weeks ago:

I had a student transfer into my class about 2 or 3 weeks into the quarter, a few days before the first test.  He had (he claims) a 93 in the class he left, but I knew he hadn't taken any tests, so his 93 was in homework and classwork, which counts for only 20% of the grade.  Skipping to the end of the story, he failed my class miserably, by virtue of not doing any work and not passing any of several tests and retests.  When I told him he was going to fail, he said his 93 should be averaged in, to give him a good grade.  I explained that it didn't count for much, because the tests were weighted at 80%.  So he went first to the counselor to complain.  He then told his father I wasn't counting his transfer grade, and his father called the counselor.  After I explained to the counselor what was going on, she (I assume) told him he was out of luck.  So he went to the principal.  Now, at this point, if I'm the principal, my response to the kid is to say "I'll look into it," then actually have somebody look into it and get back to the kid with the answer.  But my principal walks out of his office with the kid in tow, tracks me down (on my planning period), and confronts me about it.  I was taken aback, but explained that when he transfered into my class, he hadn't taken any assessments, so his grade was just classwork and homework.  The principal then starts probing... "What about pre-assessments?  What did he get on the pre-assessments?"  I responded that I had no idea, but that he hadn't passed any of my actual assessments.  He left me with, "Well, you need to count pre-assessments if they help."

I later looked up the actual grade he had in his previous class (I'd assumed he was telling the truth and gave him a 100 homework grade rather than deal with further complaints, and because it didn't matter - he still flunked).  Turns out, his grade in the previous class was (wait for it...) "0."  He'd done nothing.

So a few days later I ran into the principal and told him I was a little upset with him confronting me with the kid at his side, and he said "Hey, I'm here for the kids.  It's all about the kids." He then went on to claim that once he heard my side of the story, he immediately turned to the kid and sided with me, which isn't the way I recall it happening.

This was, as lack of support goes, pretty minor, but indicative of the larger issue -- it feels to me that if there is a choice between the student's word and the teacher's, they go with the student's.  Moreover, all issues seem to me have the same solution:

Kids aren't paying attention?  The teacher isn't engaging the students well enough.  The teacher needs to work harder.
Kids are talking or texting in class?  The teacher hasn't made the policies and procedures clear enough. The teacher needs to work harder.
Kids aren't doing the work?  The teacher hasn't made the content relevant enough. The teacher needs to work harder.
Kids don't understand the material?  The teacher hasn't unpacked the content and chunked the learning effectively enough. The teacher needs to work harder.
I believe it was once the case that if a kid flunked a class, it was an indication the kid wasn't working hard enough.  Now, it's the teacher who isn't working hard enough.  The principal visited my room during my planning period about a week ago, and questioned me about the 14 kids in the pre-IB program I'd flunked.

Which is why I had been getting about 3 hours of sleep a night, and was cranky when my students didn't even make an effort to do the classwork I'd given them.  Which is why I should have stayed in my room, as I seriously considered doing, when the faculty meeting started.

Within 10 minutes, the principal was talking about teachers giving out too many hall passes, so I piped up with a "But Mr. Teacher, it's an emergency."  He responded "You'll just have to wait."  I piped up again with "But it's an emergency."  This continued for several iterations (with both of us getting more upset) until finally we're yelling at each other, and he yells (something to the effect of) "I can't do your job for you.  You have to have control of your classroom," while stabbing his finger my direction.  To which I responded (loudly) "So I'm begging you for help, and you're saying 'Fuck you, you're on your own.'"

At that point, he kicked me out of the room.  It remains to be seen what the fallout from this will be.  He can't fire me, but he can make life miserable.