Swimming Lessons

My heart aches tonight for a child I didn't know. 

Billy Dunn was about to turn 19, and he loved fishing and swimming, and he drowned in Ford Lake.

Billy knew how to swim, but I have had friends tell me how--even though they were good swimmers--they almost drowned in open water.

Billy Dunn

In fact, the Talmud (the compendium of Jewish law) says that one of the obligations of being a parent is teaching your children to swim.

Summertime is a great time for swim lessons!

Since Memorial Day is this weekend, it seems like a good time to say: Summertime is a great time for swim lessons!


Here are some options:

The Ann Arbor YMCA is offering Free SPLASH Safety Around Water classes at local pools at apartment complexes in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor this summer. Find out more here.

They also have private and group swim lessons for adults, and private and group swim lessons for kids, and private and group swim lessons for teens.

The City of Ann Arbor pools have joined the USA Swimming Foundation’s water safety initiative, Make a Splash. The USA Swimming Foundation launched Make a Splash in 2007 with the goal to teach every child to learn to swim. We aim to spread awareness of the importance to learn to swim and be safe around water. As a Make a Splash local partner, we are dedicated to providing quality swim instruction and the common goal of saving lives and getting children in better shape.

Rutherford Pool, Ypsilanti--offers four levels of swim lessons

Goldfish Swim School

One more thing--think about becoming a lifeguard or a swim teacher if you like hanging out around the pool! It's a great summer job, and you might be able to save a life.

May Billy Dunn's memory be a blessing.



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Guest Post: A Parent Reviews Her Child's M-STEP Results, and Learns...

A guest post by Naomi Zikmund-Fisher about the M-STEP results, and what they mean.

Last week, we finally received my children’s scores from the M-STEP test they took last spring. My son, a fourth grader at the time (now 5th) and my daughter, a high school Junior (now senior) both took the test. For more on that decision, you can read here.

In the interest of maintaining some of their privacy, I’m not going to share how my kids did on the test. More to the point, it probably doesn’t matter how they did on the test, as their performance on this first round appears to be being largely discarded.

As a former teacher and administrator, I probably know more about how to read a score report than most parents. Theoretically, I should be able to get all there is to get out of these scores. So, here’s what I learned from looking at my children’s score reports:

1. Last spring, my children were doing about as well in their academic progress as their teachers said they were. There were no real surprises. You could have looked at their report cards and gotten the same information that M-STEP gives you.

2. That information is wildly out of date. They took this test in a window from March to May. I got the scores in January. Whatever new information may have been useful in the scores is no longer pertinent.

3. The science and social studies tests measure curriculum alignment more than anything else. They are broken out by different smaller subjects (e.g. physical science, life science or economics, geography). You can see that in this sample of a child’s 4th grade science scores.

Sample M-Step information provided to parents, in this case for the science test.

When they say a child is proficient, what does that mean?

My children did best in areas that they had studied recently and worst in those from previous years. In other words, this test measured what classes they were taking, not anything about my children or about whether their teachers were teaching well.

4. The target area for “proficient” is, in some cases, shockingly small. Scores are reported graphically (among other ways) on a continuum of four ranges. Proficient is the second to the top and is the smallest area, sometimes by quite a bit.

But shouldn’t “just fine” be a fairly broad range of kids? When did we stop recognizing that “normal” isn’t a single point, it’s a spectrum?

Sample of information provided to parents. Note that the grey "margin of error" overlaps both the "partially proficient" and advanced categories, meaning that a child who scores in the yellow/gray overlap as "partially proficient" might actually be "proficient" on another day. Note also that the green ball of "proficient" is a much smaller area than the bars for not proficient, partially proficient, or advanced.

This picture shows the score graphic for the same student whose subject scores were above. This child is supposedly proficient in 4th grade science [the score is right in the middle of the green bubble]. As you can see, this is quite a feat, since the “Proficient” range is about 5.5% of the total.

What’s more, while it’s great that the score report acknowledges a “margin of error” around the score, that margin is substantially larger than the target itself. This means that three kids who score as “partially proficient,” “proficient,” and “advanced” might all know exactly the same amount of science. We sing the praises of one (and the wonderful teacher who taught her) while wringing our hands about another (and the mediocre educator she had) when there is truly no difference at all.

In the end, what I realize once again is that this data is designed to measure districts and schools much more than to give us any useful information about individual children. Even without the huge delay in score reporting, the amount of useful information, that you can’t find more easily somewhere else, about a single child is minimal.

It’s reasonable to say that the measure of a school or a district is how well its children are prepared for the next phase of life. The problem is, we’re substituting this test for the real answer to that question. We’re asking our kids to take hours upon hours of tests – time they could spend actually learning something – in service of measuring their school system.

If we already know how they’re going to do on the tests, then we already know what the answer we’re going to get will be. And if we don’t already know how they’re going to do on the tests, it’s either a really bad test or a school so out of touch with students that it should be obvious in multiple other ways.

I can say unequivocally, however, as an educator and as a parent, that the M-STEP given last spring was just plain a waste of my children’s time.

If Teaching Were A Sport...

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this TeachingCenter spoof by Key and Peele...if you are a fan of ESPN's SportsCenter you will recognize a lot of themes (and if you haven't seen SportsCenter, watch it after you watch this).

This reminds me a bit of the bumper sticker quote (apparently by Robert Fulghum), "It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber."




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Politicians, Debates, and State Standards

Another guest post from A3 Teacher:

A large part of teaching students how to think, read, and write is getting them to express their opinions through verbal communication.  In class my students debate topics, have whole-class as well as small-group discussions.  They also present (both formally and informally) to an audience of their peers.  Public speaking is a necessary skill, not only for the speaker but also for those listening.  It allows the audience to understand the individual and to engage in a larger dialogue.  Democracy is built on the concept of various voices interacting, listening, debating, disagreeing and agreeing, and ultimately moving forward.

For this reason, I am extremely disturbed by the fact that there might not be any gubernatorial or senate debates before the November election.  Both Republican candidates sidestepped planned debates on September 8th and 10th.  Both Democratic candidates have expressed desire for multiple debates while the Republican candidates seem to be doing everything in their power to avoid these public appearances.  Over the last few days, Terri Lynn Land has hinted at the fact that she may be amenable to at least one debate with Gary Peters.  In a repeat move from the 2010 election, one meeting has been scheduled for the gubernatorial race in a town hall format.  While one town hall meeting is a start, as a Michigan citizen I expect more.  As a teacher, I expect all students to participate and engage in multiple dialogues, debates, and speeches.  In fact, our state has them built into the standards; we expect that our students engage in discussions and debates and we hold school districts accountable for this.  I do not let students opt-out and avoid these assignments (perhaps there are modifications or accommodations).  All students are held to this standard.  

Being an active speaker and listener is part of being an active member of a healthy democracy. We should expect our leaders to engage in debate and discussion instead of avoiding it.  I expect my students to meet this standard, and we should expect our leaders to do the same.

If our candidates have enough time to record videos (Snyder, Schauer for the ALS ice bucket challenge), I give them another challenge: Meet the standards that we set for our own students in the state of Michigan and debate multiple times so that the public can hear your voice.  Since we expect the same from students, surely all of our candidates can meet the same standards as well. 

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Five Things You'll Want to Know--In No Particular Order

1. Jenna Bacolor, Director of Ann Arbor Public Schools Rec & Ed, asked me to post this: 

The Ann Arbor Public Schools and the City of Ann Arbor have a joint Recreation Advisory Commission. The RAC meets four times a year, and they have a few (four!) openings right now--these are all for City of Ann Arbor residents. (For some openings, you can live in the school district and not in the city.) They are looking for dependable, interested people who can bring some expertise to the advisory commission.

This is your opportunity to win friends and influence people! (Or, influence policy, maybe.)

Here is the Frequently Asked Questions page. If you are interested, please contact Jenna Bacolor at bacolor@aaps.k12.mi.us and ask for an application.

2. You may have read that two teachers and an assistant principal lost their jobs because they didn't renew their teaching certifications. People are asking how I feel about it. 

a. I feel bad that they lost their jobs because they couldn't keep up with their paperwork.

b. I have mixed feelings about certification in general (based on my experiences with it--which I probably should write about sometime--I think it's mostly a way for universities and the state to make some extra money), but that is not the point. The point is, it's the law. The teachers in question had been warned multiple times that they needed to renew their certifications.

c. Yes, it does cost money--and time--to renew certifications. 99.9% of teachers who stay in teaching make sure to do that, but the general public should know that teachers have to spend their own money--often thousands of dollars on additional coursework--to keep up their certifications. See my qualms about certification in b, above. But still, the point is, it's the law. I hope they can get their certifications back.

3. Saline schools moved homecoming to accommodate Yom Kippur. 

That's progress, but next year, I hope that they check the calendar in advance of scheduling events like homecoming! Actually, I urge Saline Schools to adopt the same type of holiday policy that the Ann Arbor schools have. As Saline becomes more diverse (which it is), this becomes even more important.

4. In one of Amy Biolchini's last articles for the Ann Arbor News, she posted some predicted school count numbers for enrollment. 

She focused only on the school districts, not the charters.  Ann Arbor gained a lot of students--including many who live in the district already. Some of the other districts lost. I feel a little squeamish about schools of choice when I think of us "poaching" other districts students, although the realist in me feels that this is what we have to do to survive. On the other hand, I am hoping that we mostly gain back students from charters. You can't tell from this article whether that is what is happening. But I did get hopeful since even a few days into school, one of our local charters (Fortis Academy) was still showing up on my facebook feed with "we have a few more spots available." And I think they used to have a waiting list. Hope springs eternal!

5. What does Ferguson, Missouri have to do with our public schools?

Steve Norton does a nice job here explaining the connection. I'll leave you with this excerpt, but suggest you read the whole thing (bonus! it's short!):

We have a powerful remedy to the fear born of isolation and separation: community-governed public schools, which can serve to knit together communities and serve as their investment in the future. But the schools in Ferguson have been a victim of the same forces at work across the country, which insist that private control is better than community governance; that segregation is acceptable as long as it is voluntary; that it's ok to demand that our money not be spent to help someone else's child. Cheaper is always better, we are told; schools are just for job training. And poverty is simply an excuse. But this simply is not true. Public schools help shape the citizens of the future. Public schools can help heal the wounds we still carry, or they can deepen them. Public schools can bring us together or drive us apart.

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Can an On-line Course Teach Poetry Slams? A Guest Post by A3 Teacher

This is Part 2 of two posts about online learning by A3 Teacher. Here is Part 1.

Last week I wrote about my experience as a student taking an online course. In my experiences, as both a student and teacher, critical thinking skills are better developed in a traditional classroom.

Many on-line schools would like to give you the idea that you can teach or do (almost) anything virtually that you can do in person. For example, for the past several years, the Michigan Virtual University has hosted a Poetry Slam Contest.  Check out the video below.

Anyone who has been to an Ann Arbor Poetry Slam will be able to clearly see, hear, and feel the difference.  

Screen shot from a Communicator article which featured
the high school poetry slam. Videos are embedded
in the article.

[Editor's Note: I couldn't figure out how to embed any of these videos, BUT if you click on the link you can watch several videos from an Ann Arbor Poetry Slam.]

In this case, I believe that the coaching, mentoring, and collaboration of face-to-face meetings results in a drastic comparison.  This is just one comparison that is an example of the depth of learning and skill-building that can happen in a classroom.  

Classrooms benefit from face-to-face interaction and discussions.  Most private schools in the Ann Arbor area do not offer online classes but instead focus on the development of relationships and cultivating inquiry and deep critical thinking skills.  Some classes are taught “seminar-style” where discussion about topics and texts is in-depth and focuses on critical engagement and theory work.  Programs such as International Baccalaureate build on the concept of mastery through the intense development of discussion, verbal practice, and depth of knowledge. Certain assessments for the IB are audio recorded and sent to other countries for objective assessment.  

I am not yet convinced that online learning has reached the ability to adequately serve even the highest achieving students.

Something different happens in a classroom discussion that cannot be replicated online.  In the on-line class I took, most of the time I spent posting to the online discussion took 5-10 minutes each.  I could also be very selective in what I read (whose posts I read) and which posts I responded to.  In contrast, a Socratic Seminar, or a discussion that pulls in students’ perceptions and opinions, or a real-time discussion that can go on for over an hour is an important skill for students to master (this being said, discussions can also go very poorly without clear parameters or an instructor who knows how to guide students).  

When students engage in sustained reading, writing, and thinking, they develop critical thinking skills that develop true depth and mastery.  A Harvard professor has students spend three hours in an art gallery staring at a painting as part of an assignment.  She states that “Every external pressure, social and technological, is pushing students in the other direction, toward immediacy, rapidity, and spontaneity—and against this other kind of opportunity. I want to give them the permission and the structures to slow down.”  This is crucial.  

When a student spends 45 minutes with a primary document, or 70 minutes discussing a 10-line poem, or 50 minutes debating the ethics of cloning, students learn how to slow down, listen, and think.  This does not mean that discussions won’t get messy (sometimes good discussions have no definite result or a clear decisive outcome), but it means that students will develop deep critical thinking skills that will benefit them in a variety of areas in life.  Students learn impulse control and to consider multiple viewpoints as opposed to seeing the world in a reactionary and simplistic way. 

Something different happens in the human brain when students spend long amounts of time thinking, reading, writing, and listening. These processes - reading, writing, and thinking - go hand in hand. Isn't that what we want?

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My Experience with Online Learning: A Guest Post by A3 Teacher

This is Part 1 of two posts about online learning by A3 Teacher.

Online learning opportunities abound now. How well do they work?

This past spring, Jamey Fitzpatrick, CEO and president of Michigan Virtual University (a not-for-profit corporation), was interviewed on Michigan Radio about online classes for high school students. In a candid interview he talked about the benefits and drawbacks to online learning.  I was struck by the honest statement from Mr. Fitzpatrick when he stated that online learning is currently producing “a mixed set of results."

Mr. Fitzpatrick acknowledged that “lower-achieving kids are being directed to online learning” and as a result many Michigan schools are using online learning as a form of credit recovery (Credit recovery is when a student does not pass a class and must retake it in order to receive credit for graduation).  He further states that 

The concept of allowing high-achieving kids to use online learning as, really, a vehicle to go farther faster, doesn’t appear to be a strategy that Michigan schools are using in large numbers, which really, really surprised us.  We thought this was about how to help young people go farther faster, not necessarily help the kids that are struggling. 

This last quote struck me as I thought about the high achieving students that I have worked with.  While there is a presumption that online learning is a way to learn more at a quicker pace, I would argue that face-to-face learning is very beneficial to all types of learners.

My Own Experience: "Easy to Fake"

This spring I took a class, along with many other AAPS teachers, through the Michigan Virtual University.  The class was called “Teaching in the Online and Blended Classroom.”  I went in trying my best to keep an open mind--I wanted to be convinced that I could get on board with online learning.  Having used Blackboard, Edmodo, Turnitin.com, and other online platforms, I consider myself a teacher who embraces technology when it augments student learning and growth.  I wanted to be surprised and perhaps even inspired to delve deeper into teaching through an online or blended option (I should note that I am still interested in blended learning and think that there are some viable options with this model).

"My biggest criticism of online learning is that it
is pretty easy to fake."

My biggest criticism of online learning is that it is pretty easy to fake.  It was easy for me to not do all of the readings, not watch the cheesy videos, and still complete assignments.  The “discussions” required me to post a response to an initial question and then respond to three others.  It was very easy to pull from a bank of canned responses:  

"I agree with your comments about…," 

"I thought it was really interesting when you said…,"  

"I find the same is true in my classroom...."

What About Developing Critical Thinking Skills?

These responses, I found, required little critical thinking on my part.  Often times I felt that I was doing them just to complete the assignment.  At the beginning of the class I would check back to see others’ responses to my posts, but after a few weeks the novelty of it wore off.  I found myself completing the required number of posting and not logging back in (what would be my incentive besides genuine interest?).

I completed the writing assignments as well, and as with the discussions, I stopped reading feedback from the teacher.  I just checked the number score and moved on (perhaps this part isn’t so different from what students can do in the classroom).  I found that the written feedback seemed canned (It felt as if perhaps it was cut and pasted) and impersonal.  Additionally, the feedback was almost exclusively positive with little challenging or constructive criticism.  Some of the writing assignments felt like they were using technology for technology’s sake (like pinning images to a Pinterest page that no one else would look at).  While I received full-credit for the course, I felt like I slid my way through with little interaction or struggle.

While there is potential with online learning, I have yet to be convinced that students--including myself--can develop the deep critical thinking skills that can happen with the combination of a traditional classroom and a highly skilled educator.     

Have you had an experience with online learning? 
How did it work for you? (Comments, please.)

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Testing, Testing, Testing: Tale #1

1. About cartooning

I admit, I love my little cartoon, The Parable of the Hammer. But I would hate to be as obscure as Bezonki (although I wouldn't mind drawing/painting as well as Alvey Jones). My husband thought the moral of the story of my cartoon, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" was obvious. And he sort of understood the references to testing being overused. But, he said, it wasn't obvious why you couldn't use a test like the NWEA MAP test--that was built for assessing individual students--to also assess teachers. Why shouldn't teachers be assessed by their students' improvement?  And this is, in fact, such a common misunderstanding of testing that I thought maybe I should address it again. [For this explanation, assume that the MAP test does a good job of assessing students, ok? A hammer, after all, does a good job pounding in nails.]

And I started thinking about this (again) because in an mlive.com article school board member Andy Thomas said that "NWEA testing that the district has engaged in will help show if there are advantages or disadvantages to a combined class." 

So in fact Andy Thomas got stuck in the same type of thinking that my husband was stuck in--that if a test can assess individual students, it can assess something else. In my husband's case, he was thinking it could assess the teacher; in Andy's case, he was thinking that it could assess types of classrooms. 

But it can't. Here's why. Students are not randomly assigned to classrooms. If a principal thinks a teacher is competent, (s)he might get--or volunteer to take--students who are perceived as more difficult.

In addition, students are not randomly assigned to schools. [Andy was talking about comparing Ann Arbor Open to other schools, and that is obviously not random since Ann Arbor Open is a magnet school.] But even if we look only at neighborhood schools, it is pretty clear that neighborhoods like Burns Park and the area near King School are in general wealthier than the area near Pittsfield or Mitchell schools.

And last, but not least, sample size is important and in general the sample sizes are too small and not at all random. Read the Northwest Evaluation Association's own memo on the subject.

So we can debate whether we should be using the NWEA MAP test to evaluate individual student progress [and you know that I'm a NO voice for that] but let's try to use the right tools for the right jobs. 

It's Constitution Day!

United States Post Office Department,
via Wikimedia Commons

Looking for resources on the Constitution, for today or the future?

Here is the ACLUs Constitution Day page. They've got lots of activities and ideas for teachers. I haven't really looked at it, so I don't know what is on it, but I'm sure at least some of it is worthwhile.

Tinker Tour USA is starting on Constitution Day. Some of you may know the Tinkerhess family from Ann Arbor (think 4th Ave. Birkenstock). Paul Tinkerhess's family was involved in a famous school free speech/peace protest that went all the way to the Supreme Court as Tinker v. Des Moines, 1969.

The Tinker Tour, a way of drawing attention to free speech issues, is starting at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, with Paul's sister Mary Beth Tinker and brother John Tinker.

You can follow along their tour here.

Standardized Testing Season: Did You Want to Opt Out?

It's standardized testing season and I have a whole lot to say about that (very little time, though!). But my friend Heather shared her "I am opting my child out of standardized testing" letter, and since you might want a sample letter, here it is. She says you can share it.

Dear _________ Public Schools, 

Last school year our family “opted out” or withdrew our child from some of the standardized assessments imposed on children across the state. Our decision to “opt out” in no way reflected on the teachers, administration, or school board. This was not an easy decision for us, but we feel that we had no other choice. We simply see these tests as harmful, expensive, and a waste of time and valuable resources.
This year we will continue our effort to eliminate unnecessary and harmful assessments in our public schools. Our child will not participate in any assessments other than those solely for the use of the individual classroom teacher. 

We refuse to allow any data to be used for purposes other than the individual teacher’s own formative or cumulative assessment. Any assessment whose data is used to determine school ranking, teacher effectiveness, state or federal longitudinal studies or any other purpose other than for the individual classroom teacher’s own use to improve his or her instruction will not be presented to our children. To be clear, our child will not participate in the following: 

• Any state assessments. 

• Any so-called “benchmark” exams whether they are teacher-designed or not, since these exams are imposed by entities other than the individual teacher. 

• Any surveys, or “field tests” given by corporate or government entities or testing companies  

• Any “standardized” test. 

We will be encouraging other parents to stand up against the testing fad and, more importantly, the corporate and government takeover of our schools. We believe in and trust our highly qualified and dedicated teachers and administrators. We believe that our child’s education should be trusted in the hands of those who are most experienced and who personally know the needs and individual requirements of each child. 

Teachers already know how to determine those needs and requirements without mandated standardized testing. Our schools will not suffer when these tests are finally gone. They will flourish.__________Public Schools should have a unified policy in place to address children who will be opting out of assessments. 

Thank you.

Blueberries and Kids

I will post about the superintendent search after both candidates have come for their final visits.

From Wikimedia Commons

In the meantime, I saw this piece--(I have read this story before)--and decided I would share it.

I may have been influenced by the fact that I just tasted the first blueberries from my yard. Without being judgmental... they may have been a little bit too tart.


In a Washington Post blog, "The Answer Sheet," Valerie Strauss recaps
Why Schools Aren't Businesses: The Blueberry Story.

Larry Cuban’s 2004 book “The Blackboard and the Bottom Line: Why Schools Can’t be Businesses,” is nearly a decade old but still highly relevant to the education reform debate.
In the introduction, Cuban introduces readers to Jamie Vollmer, a former ice cream company executive who became an education advocate and author of the book ” Schools Cannot Do It Alone.” He quotes Vollmer about “an epiphany” he had in the 1980s:

“If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business very long! I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of inservice. Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife. I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an executive at an ice cream company that had become famous in the middle 1980s when People magazine chose our blueberry as the “Best Ice Cream in America.” I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and out of step with the needs of our emerging “knowledge society.” Second, educators were a major part of the problem: they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure, and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! TQM! Continuous improvement! In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced — equal parts ignorance and arrogance. As soon as I finished, a woman’s hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant. She was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran, high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload. She began quietly, “We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream.” I smugly replied, “Best ice cream in America, Ma’am.” “How nice,” she said. “Is it rich and smooth?” “Sixteen percent butterfat,” I crowed.
 “Premium ingredients?” she inquired. “Super-premium! Nothing but triple A.” I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming. “Mr. Vollmer,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?” In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap…. I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie. “I send them back.” She jumped to her feet. “That’s right!” she barked, “and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all! Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business. It’s school!”

Read the rest here.

Checking for Plagiarism

Last year, a friend of mine who was doing adjunct teaching at Eastern Michigan University posted on Facebook that in a class of 30 students who had just turned in papers, she had realized that five of them (5!!!) had turned in papers that they found on the internet. At least some of them downloaded the same paper! All of them had B or better averages before they turned in their final papers...

In any case, plagiarism is a problem, whether you teach middle school, high school, or college, and the Electric Educator (John Sowash) has a post with some suggested tools for checking for plagiarism.

He writes,

A free, simple, alternative that I have been using for several years is "The Plagiarism Checker" from dustball.com. Paste in a bunch of text from a suspect paper and The Plagiarism Checker will quickly perform a Google search of multiple portions of the submitted text."

Read the rest here.

Teachers: Paragon or Pariah?

Friday, I got an email from my sister at one in the afternoon.
"Lynn's kids were at that school. They are safe."

One of my sister's oldest friends has kids at Sandy Hook Elementary. They survived. The fact that I actually knew someone with kids at the school changed my relationship to the tragedy. Made it more personal, and less distant.

This weekend--like many of you, I am quite sure--I have spent quite a bit of time reading about Sandy Hook Elementary. And I have been thinking about the adults, all people who worked in the schools, with children.

I've been thinking about some of the ways we have talked about teachers and other school staff. In fact, I even heard one of the Sandy Hook parents say something along these lines in an NPR interview today. In lifting up one of the teachers who was murdered, she said something like this, "She wasn't one of those teachers who was done at 3 p.m. She always went the extra mile."

Speaking to teachers around here, many of them are feeling under attack and undervalued. Yet here we see the teachers and administrators at Sandy Hook lauded as heroes and wonderful teachers. [Don't get me wrong--they were heroes. But their heroic action has to do with the way they protected their students, and not how they taught their students.] Were they also all above-average teachers? [I have no idea. Is Newtown Lake Wobegon?]

In hindsight, everyone says yes. The truth is, even though a lot of so-called educational reformers are busy slamming teachers, it has been my experience that most people I know like and value their kids' teachers.

Now I wonder, is this more proof of the feminist analysis that says that in public discourse, women [and most teachers are women] are either put on a pedestal (described as a Madonna) or vilified (described as a whore).

If you haven't done so already this year, take a moment to thank your school's teachers, administrators, custodians, "lunch ladies." This doesn't require money--a handwritten note or even an email will do.

And if you like to make resolutions, might I suggest this one? Next year, pledge not to put school staff on pedestals as paragons of virtue, or vilify them as pariahs. Next year, pledge to treat them as the people with jobs that most of them are, people who are trying to do a good job and may sometimes fall short. Next year, pledge to thank them more, and support them when you can.

Back to Local News: Ypsilanti/Willow Run

It sometimes happens that I don't get to write about what I want. Limited time on my part, and the dramatic state legislative agenda have sapped my time and energy.

And yet--things keep happening locally. 

Tomorrow (Monday 12/17) at 6:30 p.m. there is another joint Willow Run/Ypsilanti school board meeting. This is the board for the consolidated district, although technically at this point there are two identical boards, one for Ypsilanti and one for Willow Run. (I know--confusing, right? This is scheduled to change July 1, when the consolidated district officially begins, and the board will represent the consolidated district.)

Contact information for the new board can be found here: https://www.ypsd.org/district/board/members/

In any case--a couple of weeks ago, after the second meeting of the combined Board of Education, Karen Siegel (the former* head of the teachers' union) sent out an email to the teachers, a portion of which is excerpted below. The meeting began with a financial presentation about Ypsilanti's finances. The audit was clean (that's good), the Ypsilanti deficit's 2012 increase was due in part to reduced state aid and in part to declining enrollment.

Siegel then notes that the "surprise" discussion came during the Michigan Association of School Boards presentation. They were there to explain what services they would provide for a Superintendent search. That is because the board needs to choose a superintendent for the consolidated district.

Writes Siegel,

During the Q & A portion of the MASB presentation, Trustee Myers asks if the board can favor an internal candidate. 

 She continues,

Mark Wilde, former, long time WR board member has been recording the meetings.  He posts them on Youtube.  However, it is NOT easy to find them on youtube.   I have posted the links to the videos below.  You can also get the links on the FACEBOOK page, "Willow Run Community Schools."  The link for the FACEBOOK page is
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Willow-Run-Community-Schools/448391778539450?fref=ts.

I didn't know that anyone was taping the meetings, and I immediately went and "liked" the page that is linked above. I hope you will do that too. You can find all of the videos through the Willow Run facebook page, and I'm only linking the ones related to the superintendent search below.

Video 4 of 8
*MASB presentation continues.*
*Around 6:11 the board questions and comments for MASB rep. begins*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLFxdbrq2Dk
Video 5 of 8
*at 1:19, MASB cautions the board about making the superintendent
search too rushed and trading off speed for quality of search.*
*AT 2:25 the questions and comments about hiring INTERNAL CANDIDATES
begins.  Trustee Myers asks the question, stay tuned for Trustee
Raglin and Trustee Garrett's comments at 5:16 (Garrett) and 6:48
(Raglin).  Stay tuned all the way through to 7:42 for the full
commentary on this issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F46uwYPeoEE
Video 6 of 8
*MASB suggests doing a staff & community survey to see if there is
support for an internal candidate.*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0POVvDD8Rbs

So, here are a couple of things to think about. First of all, the superintendent issue is the first *big* thing the board has to tackle. And Willow Run, in particular, has been burned by choosing the wrong superintendent before. In fact, they are still being haunted by their (most recently former) Superintendent.

Doris Hope-Jackson was terminated by the Willow Run School District and she sued. The case went to arbitration where, according to Danielle Arndt's December 10, 2012 article in annarbor.com, 

[Hope-Jackson's] claims [against the district and former board president Sheri Washington] included allegations of breach of employee contract, verbal assault, retaliation, misconduct, the misappropriation of funds, a spurned lesbian advance, harassment, defamation of character and more.
The arbitrator did not agree with the majority of the school board’s reasons for firing Hope-Jackson, court documents show, but ruled in favor of the district in the end. He found the board’s decision to terminate Hope-Jackson was not retaliatory in nature and was not arbitrary and capricious.

 But wait, there's more! In arbitration, 

Documents filed in Circuit Court on Nov. 27 show that Washington paid Hope-Jackson $12,500 in sanctions, which arbitrator Fred M. Mester ordered after holding Washington in contempt of court during the arbitration proceedings on April 20.
That day, Washington was found to be lying under oath about her status as the administrator of the website WillowRunWatchdogs.org. This website frequently posted articles bashing Hope-Jackson under the anonymous pen names of “Administrator” and “Staff Writer.”
For lying under oath, Washington was forced to pay Hope-Jackson’s reasonable attorney fees and arbitration fees.

There are more details about the arbitration outcomes here.
As if that is not enough, there's even more! 

Additionally, Willow Run’s attorney filed a “motion to compel” in Circuit Court on Nov. 19. The motion asks the court to require that Hope-Jackson immediately return certain files, records and communications pertaining to students and parents in the Willow Run district, which Hope-Jackson retained after being fired.
Hope-Jackson testified to having these documents on Feb. 24, according to court filings.

So you can see why the issue of hiring a current superintendent is a sensitive topic. After all, so far it seems like Laura Lisiscki (Willow Run superintendent) and Dedrick Martin (Ypsilanti superintendent) are sane, and not thieves (remember former Willow Run superintendent Douglas Benit?). What more could you ask for?

Sure, I'm being facetious. You could ask for a lot more to make this consolidation a success--skills that the current superintendents may or may not have. And the issue is also sensitive because the Superintendent of the WISD, Scott Menzel, has said that all teachers will need to reapply for their jobs, and that there will most likely be cuts.

Remember, at the end of June the two districts will close, and thus their contracts with teachers, principals, etc. will all also end. I don't believe either of the teachers' unions took a position on the merger, and this is probably why: on the one hand, if they didn't merge, the districts would likely collapse of their own weight; on the other hand, if they did merge, teachers were not (and are not) guaranteed their jobs.

So there are a lot of employees watching the Superintendent discussion--and all of the other discussions of the new school board--very closely. And I'm sure there are a lot of teachers, and other employees, on the job market. In fact, that's just what happened with Karen Siegel, the (now former) teachers' union president, and an English and Theater teacher at Ypsilanti High School. She has just taken a new job in the Plymouth-Canton school district.

It also seems likely that many of the most motivated and talented employees (not just teachers, but social workers, administrative staff, etc.) will be the first to leave--which spells trouble, unless the school board can quickly move to set up the "application/interview/re-hire" process in a way that is reassuring.

In any case, I'd encourage you to go to the consolidated school board meeting, Monday 12/17, 6:30 p.m. at Ypsilanti High School. They will be hearing from another group that does superintendent searches. And if you can't make it, I hope it will be taped and available via the Willow Run facebook page.

Sign of the Week

The Choosing, Looping, and Making of Teachers

My friend's daughter co-writes a blog about Jewish texts. (You can find it here.) In a recent post, Maya writes:

Our learning for this week was focused around the teaching from Pirkei Avot [Ethics of the Fathers, a collection of ethics and advice]: “aseh lecha rav, u’kneh lecha chaver, v’hevey dan et kol ha’adam l’chaf zchut. Make for yourself a teacher, acquire for yourself a friend, and judge every person with the scales tipped in his favor.”

When we learned this text over the summer, one of its aspects that I particularly liked was the use of the verb aseh (make) rather than kneh (acquire) in reference to finding teachers. A teacher, implies the text, is not discovered but cultivated. More so, anyone can be made into a teacher, as it is a process of relationship building rather than a swift act of obtaining. Avot d’Rabbi Natan [A commentary on Pirkei Avot/Ethics of the Fathers] reads this text a bit more literally. “Melamed she’ya’aseh lo rav kavua. This teaches us that a person should have a fixed teacher.” From this teacher, a student should learn [many different Jewish texts] Torah, Mishna, midrash, halachah, and aggadah. In this way, if a teacher forgets a detail when teaching Torah, for example, this detail will still ultimately be imparted to the student when the teacher teaches Mishna.

I know very few people who have a rav kavua, a fixed teacher. In my personal experience, I have not only had different teachers for Tanach, Mishnah, and the rest of my Jewish learning, but I also have a whole other set of teachers from whom I have learned English literature, calculus, physics, and history. . . . In speaking about students like me, Avot d’Rabbi Natan asserts that “nimtza adam ha’hu…b’lo tov u’vracha. A man like this will be found…to have neither goodness nor blessing.” Great…

I thought this was very thought-provoking because, in fact, in our public schools not only do we generally take the approach that it's best to have subject-specific teachers, but also, we don't even generally tell students who will be teaching their classes. I've always imagined this was because schools were afraid to share that information because people would "vote with their feet." One of the very popular aspects of Community High School in Ann Arbor is that students generally do know who will be teaching a class you might choose to take. Yet in college, many students are persuaded to take a class in a subject they didn't think they would be interested in [be it political science, philosophy, or physics] because of the caliber of the professor.

At the elementary school level, if you (and here I am referring, generally, to parents) have any choice at all, you are generally asked to "describe the characteristics you want" rather than the teacher you want. And even if you do have some control over who you get as a teacher, you will probably not have that teacher for year after year.

One exception would be the Rudolph Steiner schools, where the idea is that you "loop" with the teacher, so the teacher moves up the grades with the student. Even in the Steiner schools, though, I don't think you get to "choose" your teachers.

As an aside, when I student taught, I taught in a middle school classroom where the students looped for seventh and eighth grade. At the beginning of the year, I was astonished by how quickly the eighth grade students--who knew the teacher from the year before--settled into a comfortable routine.

Obviously there are some down sides to looping as well--if you have a weak teacher, or a teacher who is weak in one area, that could lead to problems down the road.

There are a few aspects of the text Maya discusses that I found interesting:
1. The idea that you can, and should, choose your teacher.
2. The idea that the teacher can, and should, teach multiple subjects. [Later on in the post, Maya points out that this would allow teachers to make connections between subjects.]
3. And last, but not least, the idea that you can, and should, "make" your teacher, and not just "acquire" your teacher. That, of course, implies that the teacher is also learning from the student.

So--that is food for thought. Have you had experiences where you got to choose your teacher? Where you stuck with a teacher for several years? Where you "made" your teacher? How did it work out for you?