Five Pieces to Read Over Spring Break

It's spring break, and I thought I would give you a few things to read!

1. Local superintendent (well, sort of local) Rod Rock from Clarkston got featured in Diane Ravitch's blog for an awesome letter he wrote to his staff. It starts out, 

I know that I write often to you and I hope that you will tolerate one more rambling (at least until the next one). Also, I may have said this already to you, so I apologize if this is a repeat.
When my daughter, Haley, who is now a freshman at MSU, was in third grade, she stood one evening in our tiny, outdated kitchen, leaning against the wall next to the refrigerator and cried. When we asked her what was the matter, she said that she was certain she wouldn’t do very well on the MEAP test the next day and that she didn’t want to let anyone down.
At that moment, I said to her that no test will ever define her. I said that she is Haley Rock and that she is talented in many ways. No matter how she performs on any test at any point in her life, I stated, she will always be Haley Rock and possess many talents. No test, person, or relationship, I reiterated, will ever define who she is or what she is capable of becoming... 

And it gets better from there. Read the whole thing here.  And as Diane Ravitch says, "Don't you wish there were more like him?"

2. Seattle Schools Superintendent Jose Banda has said that he will not discipline the teachers who worked to oppose the MAP testing. 

Seattle schools supt. Jose Banda has backed off on his promise to discipline teachers who boycotted the MAP test and has additionally agreed to scale back the use of the MPA with students. The teachers at Seattle's Garfield High School had boycotted the administration of the MPA, saying it was a waste of money and "child abuse."
In a message to all school staff, Banda stated that the "community" had had a discussion. By changing around those staff who were required to administer the test and using some other doubletalk, Banda was able to continue supporting the MAP. But buried down in his memo a recounting of an unprecedented amount of teacher resistance and parent boycott. "We did see a higher than usual number of high school students and families who opted out of taking the test," Banda wrote. "Districtwide, a total of 459 parents and 133 students opted-out. Of these opt-outs, 265 parents (58% of total) were from two district high schools (Garfield and Ingraham), and 129 students (97% of total) were from one high school (Garfield)..."

Read the rest at substancenews.net.

What is particularly interesting to me about this is that the parents and students were opting out of the test. Ann Arbor parents have been asking for the right to opt out of the NWEA MAP test, which is in no way state mandated. For a few more days you can still sign the "Stop Overtesting" petition.

3. Title IX blog has a post about transgender students at women's college. There is some very important information buried in there: 

I am, however, concerned about the role Title IX has played in public debate generally about single-sex colleges and transgender students.  Here in Northampton, our local paper ran a story this week in which the President of Mount Holyoke College, a women's college in neighboring Amherst, said that admitting someone who is not legally female would remove women's colleges from the Title IX exception for single sex colleges:  “We’re constrained by the law,” Pasquerella said. “If someone is not legally female, we can’t admit them and keep our federal funding.”This is not correct, for two reason.  First, Title IX does not contain an exception for single-sex colleges...

Another reason why it's wrong to suggest that Title IX prevents Smith or Mount Holyoke from considering transgender students from admissions is that the statute does not incorporate a legal definition of sex.  Therefore, even if the statute did require Smith to "traditionally and continually" admit women, the law does not prevent Smith from considering transgender women to be women.  In fact, the law in other, analogous contexts may be bending toward a definition of sex that would require such inclusion.  

Read the full post here.

4. Cheating around high stakes testing in Atlanta made the New York Times this week. If you haven't already read this article, I recommend you take the time. And then ask yourself, what would make teachers and superintendents cheat like this? Oh, wait, I gave you a clue. . . high stakes. . . we need to keep saying NO to high stakes testing. 

5. Last, but not least, there is a terrific list from Nancy Flanagan of "Ten Things Legislators Should Know and Do When Making Education Policy." There is a lot of good advice there--and not just for legislators, actually, but for parents, teachers, and taxpayers as well. 

She starts out,

A couple of days ago, I had coffee with Betsy Coffia, who ran last November--unsuccessfully--for a seat representing the 104th district in the Michigan House of Representatives. Coffia and I had never met, although we have several mutual friends. We found each other on-line, in a Facebook argument over Detroit Public Schools' Emergency Manager. She liked what I had to say, and suggested we meet.
It was a great conversation. Coffia plans to run again, and asked lots of questions: What did I think about cyber-schools? Charter chains? The value of early childhood programs? Well-known education non-profits in Michigan? Although she worked for a time in a Head Start program, she admitted there were lots of theories and ideas in education policy she found murky.
Then she said this: Wouldn't it be great if there were a guide for legislators to making useful education policy? So here it is:

Read the rest here.

Title IX in My Life--And Yours

A few weeks ago I was talking to my daughter's track coach about the SHARP Title IX conference that took place in Ann Arbor. Yes, she said, she had gotten an email about it. But in the course of our conversation it became clear that she (who was born after Title IX) really didn't understand the impact of Title IX. Two weeks later, it became clear to me that my son didn't either. Maybe that's not surprising, given that he's only twelve, but he did reject it as an interesting topic to write about as a sportswriter for the school newspaper. And then last night, it became clear to me that another mom on my son's baseball team--of a similar age to me--had only the vaguest notion of how her daughter's educational opportunities were affected by Title IX. Yet in the case of the track coach, in the case of my son and his classmates, and in the case of my friend's daughter, Title IX has had a tremendous impact on their opportunities.

Title IX is a law passed in 1972 that requires gender equity for boys and girls in every educational program that receives federal funding.
Many people have never heard of Title IX.  Most people who know about Title IX think it applies only to sports, but athletics is only one of 10 key areas addressed by the law. These areas are: Access to Higher Education, Career Education, Education for Pregnant and Parenting Students, Employment, Learning Environment, Math and Science, Sexual Harassment, Standardized Testing and Technology. (From TitleIX.info)

So I thought I'd set down, for the record, some ways in which I am aware that Title IX directly affected my life, and the life of the girls in my hometown. The Title IX blog recently had a post where they described these as the "little moments" of Title IX. We do need to document these! I know I was not alone. Thousands of girls around the country had similar experiences.

1. I went to a middle school that was run separately from the high school, but was physically attached to the high school and was simply in a different wing of the building. There were two gyms in the building. The small gym was in the middle school wing, and the large gym was in the high school. When I was in seventh grade, all of the girls, grades 7-12, had gym in the small gym; all of the boys had gym in the large gym. In eighth grade, the building use changed. The middle schoolers got the small gym; the high schoolers got the large gym. (Also in eighth grade, we got to stop wearing silly one-piece uniforms in gym, but that is besides the Title IX point--although it did definitely affect my enjoyment of gym, which we had four days a week!)

2. In seventh grade, I took home economics (cooking). All of the girls did. It was a requirement. All of the boys took wood shop. I didn't mind cooking, but I didn't want to take sewing. That was the eighth grade home ec. requirement for girls. They wouldn't let me sign up for metal shop though. I was a girl. My father appealed to the assistant principal. Said assistant principal told him it was against the law to let girls take industrial arts. My father asked him to cite the law. When he couldn't find it, my father left--and called the ACLU. The ACLU informed him about Title IX (which at that point was a few years old), and they wrote a letter to the school district threatening further action. They must have also put out a press release, because I remember that the issue made it into the local newspaper. The district changed its policy.

We can't leave aside the part that in the end, I was the only girl in the class, and if my dad hadn't gone to a lot of trouble for me I would have dropped out of industrial arts, because I was somewhat shy. Because the point is that my parents did go to bat for me, and actually, parent advocacy is a huge part of Title IX's success.

We can't leave aside the part that the teacher gave me an "A" for a project that was, objectively, terrible. This was an action I didn't understand until a few years later, when I realized it was his way of being supportive of the fact that I took a risk. And I do think that the industrial arts teachers--and probably the home ec. teachers too--were very supportive. If you think about it, giving students choices doubled their potential audience of students. In fact, when my brother, two years later, took home ec., one-third of the class was boys; and when he took industrial arts, one-third of the class was girls. In other words, because of one apparently small decision, things changed rather quickly.

3. I ran track in high school, but there was no girls' cross country team. When a group of us decided we wanted to start a girls' cross country team, Coach Miller was able to say yes. He was able to say yes because of the Title IX mandate.

4. And after years of advocacy on the part of my friends Denise and Anne, in our twelfth grade year the district agreed to add girls' soccer. We were on the first team. That was because of Title IX. It's not an accident that a couple of years ago the soccer team I helped start won the New York state championships. It's a legacy of Title IX.  (Two years ago I wrote about soccer, Title IX, and the Skyline soccer team here.)

What's your Title IX story? 

Gender Role Models in the Classroom (My Sister Writes...)

My sister recently wrote this facebook message to her friends, and I'm reposting it with her permission, because it says so very much about the way subtle information about role models gets shared.

So last night I went to my (10th grade) daughter's back to school night. Her very passionate English teacher had the walls plastered with black/white photocopied pictures of well known figures. They spanned history and included artists, writers, politicians, activists, etc. It was a very cool display, with the big caveat being that 85% of the pictures were of men, and as we all know, 52% (or thereabouts) of the population are women.
On my way out, I asked him what the pictures were for. He said they were for inspiration--pictures of inspiring or influential people who had influenced the thinking of himself and of his students over the years. I said--it's great, but you know, there are a lot more men up there than women. He kind of winced and said-- "I know. I'm kind of pained about it." Feeling somewhat dissatisfied with that answer, I said, "Well, knowing's the first step..." and left it at that, running to the other side of the high school to get to my "next class."
Apparently, today at school he asked my daughter to relay a message to me--Tell your mom to send me names of inspiring influential women. :) I have some, of course, but I'd like to send him a BIG list.
So now I ask you all to help--please send me the names of women who have inspired or influenced your thinking- I think they need to be of the somewhat famous or public figure variety.....thanks!

And in response to a friend's comment, she says:

The pictures are added as students (and he) come up with ideas so the problem is that people often don't think of the women! Not that he is being lazy. He was asking for my own ideas about it. I am simply broadening to the next. Also, to note--Anne Frank, Rosa Parks and Oprah Winfrey were represented. Not sure about the others......

When I told my sister that my daughter doesn't like it when I get involved with her teachers, and that when my daughter heard this story, she said sarcastically, "Oh, I'll bet my cousin loved that," my sister wrote me that,

Yes, she hates it too, but I couldn't let it pass by. It was too blatant. She actually took it relatively in stride.

Parents, sometimes you have to take action. (Sorry, kids! I think my daughter learned from this story that this is a family trait.) And I'll bet that this teacher will a) learn from this experience and b) really appreciate the list--and isn't teaching really about learning as well?
 
So--help us out. 
 
Share your ideas for women who should be up on this illustrious wall in the comments. I'll share them with my sister, and she in turn will share the Big List she is compiling, and I'll post it.

To get you started, I'll put up these ideas: Billie Jean King, Susan B. Anthony, Aung Suu Kyi, Louisa May Alcott, Abigail Adams, Willa Cather, Mary Shelby, Marie Curie...