From MIPFS: Don't Let It Happen Quietly

I got this email from Michigan Parents For Schools Today, about (surprise!) the Michigan schools budget:

Don't let it happen quietly - we need to fund all public schools adequately!

Where's your school funding?
State budget continues to dis-invest in education
Don't let it happen quietly! Our state lawmakers are about to pass a budget that keeps K-12 spending essentially flat, despite debilitating cuts over the last few years. [Update, 5/30: The word from Lansing is that the school aid budget will give a $120 per pupil one-time increase, or "equity payment" to 378 districts and 70 charters that currently receive the minium allowance. That $80 million earmark will reach about 43% of Michigan's public school students. Other chunks of money will be available to districts that meet six of eight so-called "best practices" ($80 million), technology grants ($50 million), and performance grants ($30 million). At the same time, the scheduled reduction in the income tax rate has been moved up from January to October.] This election-year gambit to claim to be "helping" schools is not very convincing, since all districts have been cut by at least $470 per pupil over the last two years. But cutting taxes again was the top priority of the legislative leadership. Let them know that we are watching: watching as they slowly strangulate our local public schools, watching as they quietly delete the promises made to K-12 as part of Proposal A, and watching as they show where their true priorities are. Speak out today! Take Action!

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? 

The Accidental Essay: Thoughts About Ypsilanti's Budget

A few weeks ago, I asked a person who sometimes comments on this blog as YpsiAnon to write about the potential consolidation of the Ypsilanti and Willow Run schools. She said she would when she had time, in about a month. In the meantime, there has been a lot of discussion in Ypsilanti about some very draconian budget cuts, and when she came back to me, it was with what she called an "accidental essay." I think it's fantastic and thought-provoking, and I hope you will too. It's my first guest post! (You, by the way, are welcome to contact me directly if you are interested in writing a guest post.)

Thanks YpsiAnon!

You know how you can hear about a terrible disaster that kills thousands of people and it doesn’t affect you nearly as much as knowing one person who has died from the same thing?  The former is just too big to comprehend, while the latter is much more meaningful.  It’s kind of like this with the school district’s financial crisis.  We’ve heard for years about the deficit elimination plan, and sort of understood that millions of dollars were involved.  We’ve heard for months about the budget crisis being worse than we understood, and that now $14 million would need to be cut.  $14 million is just impossible to fathom.  But when the cuts are announced, and it’s your school or your band program that’s affected, then it is real. 

How dire are things in Ypsilanti?  Here is an example that hits close to home for me, since I have a band student at Ypsilanti High School.  (Please note that the figures below were shared with me by a couple of YHS sources.  I trust, but cannot presently verify, their accuracy.)

In Ypsi, the budgets have become building-based, where a lump sum is given to the building principal, who must determine how it is spent.  Next year, for Ypsi High School, I am told that this amount is in the $65,000 neighborhood.  This money is intended to cover all expenses, which have typically included copier costs (paper and ink), textbooks, phone service, mailings (including report cards), band instrument repair, band transportation, choir camp, science class supplies, and even light bulbs.  It also includes substitute teacher costs, which are estimated at about $60,000 for next year.  Go ahead and do the math.  Yes, that would mean that $5,000 remains for all those other expenses (plus some I didn’t mention) once you deduct the sub costs, and I imagine sub costs are less negotiable, perhaps due to contract issues.

I’m told that copy-related costs are around $80,000.  Should we go without copies?  Currently, a monthly limit of 250 copies/teacher has been allotted, regardless of whether teachers provide their own paper—toner is expensive, too!  (There goes my plan to give the teachers a ream of paper each fall instead of Kleenex.)  Teachers are trying to be creative, doing what they can online, for example, but most classrooms have about 4 student computers, so that’s not usually a viable option for an entire class. 

I’m also told that phone service for the building costs about $5,000.  Should we go without phones?

Should we not replace and/or replenish textbooks?  How about light bulbs?

As the abstraction of $14 million becomes concrete, the public will be in shock, which will quickly turn to anger and blame.  “Cut the administration!  They are overpaid and incompetent!”  “Cut sports!  They don’t help our test scores!”  “Cut transportation!  My kid doesn’t ride the bus!”  “Cut everything—except the things I value!”  And then it is just a reflection of the divisiveness of the greater world.  Hard as it may be, this is not the time to divide; instead, we need to find ways to work together and try to solve this problem.

The band budget used to include $5,000 for repairs, $5,000 for equipment, and $14,000 for band transportation (most of it to/from band camp).  It’s difficult to imagine that any of that will exist, given the circumstances.  What do we, as band families, do next?  Some might try to influence the district’s decision-makers by pleading our case.  (Frankly, I think band costs should be part of the public relations budget, for as much as marching band and jazz band represent the school district to the greater community.)  Some might try to find new sources of money, such as grants.  Some might launch new fundraisers.  Some might plan to kick in more money when the band camp bill comes due.  Some might even think about running for school board… Whatever it is, we need to do something, not nothing.Whether you are from Ypsilanti or Ann Arbor or Chelsea, this story either describes what your district is going through now, or what it will be going through.  Maybe it will reassure you that your activism is justified, or maybe it will motivate you to become more involved.  I hope something good will come of it.

Roberto Clemente: It Starts When You Care to Act

By now you have probably heard that Roberto Clemente will stay open for (at least) another year. Over the next year the board will thoroughly evaluate both Roberto Clemente and and Ann Arbor Tech. And that is good news. But that is not the real victory.

The real victory is that a group of students who--for the most part--have never seen the power of community organizing and social action, have now seen how that can make a difference. I was so impressed by the speeches that these kids wrote--and delivered--in front of the school board.

Project-based education research suggests that you need a) meaningful projects; b) hands-on experiences; and c) performance-based presentations. Although this was thrust upon them, this turned out to be a great and meaningful learning experience for those students who decided to participate. Kudos to the parents, teachers/staff, and principal who facilitated this experience (and who spoke up themselves)

I hope that is the lesson these "at-risk" kids take from this. When you see something you want to change, you can advocate, agitate, and organize. And yes, it is worth it. (By the way, sometimes it is worth it even if you feel you will lose.)

From newlabor.org

In their honor, a poem by Marge Piercy: The Low Road.

Picnic Pops: Saturday, May 19th, 2012

A fun, outdoor, ice cream social type event, with lots and lots of music. Join in the fun--free! Did I mention music? At Pioneer High School. Saturday, May 19th, 2012.

Here is the schedule:

Following is the full schedule of Picnic Pops:

10:30 AM Skyline Symphony Band
11:15 AM Huron Symphony Band
12:00 PM Forsythe
12:30 PM Skyline Concert Band
1:00 PM Huron Concert Band
1:30 PM Clague
2:00 PM Huron Varsity Band
2:30 PM Skyline Varsity Band
3:00 PM Slauson
3:30 PM AA Open
4:00 PM Pioneer Concert Band
4:30 PM Pioneer Varsity Band
5:00 PM Pioneer Symphony Band

A Few, Quick Budget Thoughts This Week

I don't have a lot of time to write this week, but here are a couple of thoughts.

1. As a parent at my table at the budget meeting said on Monday (and I agree), "It's important that we don't start ganging up on each other for our own personal interests."

2. It's important that we keep demading answers from an administration that seems not to have very much supporting detail in their proposals. Keep asking for the details. So you want to cut the middle school athletic directors? What is the plan for getting that work done? Who is going to hire and supervise coaches? Schedule fields and games? Is it feasible?

3. I was surprised to hear, the other night, that the staff (well-represented at my table) felt that they weren't able to get information either. That sucks, but it's also poor management. We have a superintendent who is very "green" to the district (pun intended), and much of the cabinet is new. There is a lot of institutional memory in the schools, but apparently there is not much information flow. That does not bode well for implementation of any changes.

4. It seemed to me that there were a fair number of budget cuts that nobody had a problem with. Adjust the starting times of Skyline, or Bryant/Pattengill, by 15 or 20 minutes, to make it easier to coordinate transportation? Go for it. Phase 5 Energy Conservation Services? Awesome.

5. I didn't even hear that much grumbling about cutting 32 teachers, given that most of them would be cuts from retirements--and let's remember that although Plans A, B, and C were presented as cuts of 32, 48, or 64 teachers, it's not really a fixed number. We could agree to have 36 teachers cut instead of 32 or 48. . .



The areas I have been hearing the most conversations about:
1. Closing Roberto Clemente. My questions: Why are we discussing this with six weeks left in the school year? This should be part of a much longer planning process. Why am I hearing *rumors* that Clemente would be put into a wing of Pioneer? Why does Ann Arbor Tech survive over Clemente? How many kids have identified special education needs at Clemente? Who are we trying to serve? One thing I've wondered is, although on paper the Ann Arbor Tech and Clemente students look kind of similar, are they really functionally different populations? Is the Ann Arbor Tech population an older, less-tied-to-a-family kind of population? And please, please, please: can the schools detail where those supposed savings would come from? I've asked for the details, but I haven't gotten it yet.

2. Cutting busing to Ann Arbor Open, Community High School, Skyline, and Roberto Clemente. My questions: Is it legal to cut busing to the magnet programs, but maintain busing for non-public schools like St. Francis? These are magnet programs, not "schools of choice." How many kids would you lose from Skyline, Ann Arbor Open, Community, Roberto Clemente if it was legal and this was done? Would your savings be erased by that? (Skyline did lose about twenty students last year just from the reductions that were made at the beginning of the year.)

3. Cutting middle school athletic directors. It's scheduled to save a miniscule amount of money ($37,000) and how will middle school athletics continue? I'm not saying that it can't, or won't, but I haven't seen any plan. More distressing? The middle school athletic directors have not seen any plan. Even more distressing? From the last round of budget cuts, they had developed a list of possible cuts--but nobody asked them to share the list.

Read these articles, if you haven't already.
From the Ann Arbor Chronicle: 

Budget Forum #2 (May 14, 2012)
May 9th AAPS Board Meeting
Budget Forum #1 (May 7, 2012)

From annarbor.com:

Possible Transportation Cuts
Budget Forum #2 (May 14, 2012)
May 9th AAPS Board Meeting


By the way, as late as these budget presentations are, I think they would have been even later if Board of Education member Christine Stead had not kept asking for the budget presentation to come earlier. Christine also has a blog post detailing a revenue conference about the School Aid Fund that took place in Lansing today. The news is not good. You have to understand this in the context that there are some parts of the state legislature that simply want to destroy public schools. We have let them get the upper hand and they are doing a pretty good job at it. In addition to dealing with individual districts' budget issues, we need to operate on a second cylinder that works on influencing the shenanigans at the state Capitol.

Bottom Line: Keep talking to the school board. Email them at boe@aaps.k12.mi.us.

AAPS Budget and FOIA: Transparency, Where Art Thou?

If you've been following the AAPS budget proposals, then you know that one of the proposed cuts is to cut busing to Ann Arbor Open. The co-chairs of the Ann Arbor Open Coordinating Committee immediately started brainstorming a) how to stop this and b) if cuts were needed, what could the school offer instead as alternatives?

Fair enough. The only thing is, the budget proposal had a round number estimate for all savings from transportation cuts, and that included cuts at several other schools. What portion of that is related to Ann Arbor Open?

The co-chairs put in a request to the Ann Arbor schools. Then they received--in the mail, not by email (even though they submitted the request by email)--the district's form FOIA response asking for an additional ten days to respond. (And they could get even more time, under the FOIA process.)

You see the problem, don't you? The budget timeline and the FOIA timeline don't match up very well.

At tonight's board meeting, during public commentary, a member of the Ann Arbor Open community (perhaps more than one) brought up that they would like to present alternatives, but they don't know how much they would be asked to save, because they hadn't gotten the information they asked for about the transportation expenses.

After public comment, trustee Simone Lightfoot followed up with a question about how parents should get information, and Pat Green, the Superintendent, said that the proper process was to FOIA information, that would be "fairest" to all.

Actually, I would call that, most obstreperous and obstinate. And idiotic, too.

Honestly, since I started this blog, most of the time I've just asked nicely for information--from Ann Arbor, Saline, Ypsilanti, Willow Run, and the WISD--and I've gotten it. If it is to be easily gotten, what is the problem with just providing it? The one time I had to FOIA something, it was for detailed historic data--which does make sense.

But recently, Pat Lesko wrote about having to FOIA data on class sizes--data that she was told didn't exist, but actually did exist. I wrote about that here.

And now, Ann Arbor Open parents are told that they have to FOIA information about the projected savings from transportation cuts in a budget proposal?

Is this a new policy, promulgated by a new superintendent? You're not making any friends here with this policy, Pat Green. It's wrong.

If the district is basing expected savings in the budget on hard numbers, then it should be easy to provide those calculations to families whose lives will be affected by these proposals. It should be easy to explain what the savings will be for cutting transportation to the various schools--by school. It should be easy to detail the savings from closing or moving Roberto Clemente.  Unless they are based on. . . data that doesn't exist?

Let's assume for now that data does exist.

There's a reason for a formal FOIA process. But there is also a reason that an informal process is often the preferred alternative, not just for the ask-ers, but also for the ask-ees. 
If a policy is necessary, I can imagine a school district policy that matches what the district has done previously.
If it's relatively easy to get the data, just respond to the request.
If it's difficult or complicated in some way, ask for a FOIA request. Ed Vielmetti pointed out to me, for instance, that in the teacher contract there is language around FOIA'ing lesson plans.

Obviously, lesson plans are not current budget proposals that are being debated by the current school board and that have a timeliness factor involved.

I could get my friends to flood the district with FOIA requests. I don't want to do that. And I'm quite sure the district doesn't want to have to respond to tons of FOIA requests. That might prove my point, but it's not particularly helpful.

No--what I want is a district that is responsive to parents' and taxpayers' requests, with the least drama possible. 

By the way, I've learned a lot about the FOIA process from Ed Vielmetti. Read my post about FOIA, and more, (with links to some of his posts) right here.

Tuesday's Election Day, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti

Let's start with the tech bond in the Ann Arbor schools. I started out ambivalent about supporting it. After all, philosophically I think most of the technology should be funded through operating funds. I expressed this feeling (and got some good discussion) in this previous post, How Should Schools Pay For Technology? (Read the comments, too, I think they are helpful.)

I still believe that--but I've also become convinced that in this current "climate"--by which I mean the state's continued cutting of funding to our public schools--that it is simply not feasible to expect technology funding to come from operating funds and not seriously affect our schools by taking money away from other things.

I've gotten seriously annoyed at our new Superintendent because every time we've raised the issue of the NWEA MAP test, she has responded that the "problems" are due to our old technology. Well, that's only true if you accept that the test itself is a good thing. If you think the test itself is a bad thing, then technology is not the problem, and it's not the solution either. Nonetheless--I'm not voting against the bond even though I'm unhappy with the testing, and unhappy with the pay increases for administration. I'm voting for the bond because I think it's a way to limit the destructiveness of current state policies around education. I'm voting for the bond because I think our students and teachers will benefit.

I wish that this bond was to support a county-wide operating millage for all school districts--but it's not. If that's put on the ballot in November, I'll support it then--in addition to this bond.

I also want to mention the Ypsilanti votes. I'd encourage you to check out Mark Maynard's virtual cyber debate, which he set up because the anti-income tax people didn't want to debate publicly. If you are a regular reader, you know that I don't live in Ypsilanti. But I'm pretty sure that based on where I work, I will be taxed through the new income tax, if it passes. Nonetheless, I hope if you live in Ypsilanti that you will vote for the income tax and the Water St. millage. I believe that a healthy city is necessary for healthy schools, and I also want people to have access to police and fire departments that are properly staffed!

So--
Roses are red
Money is green
This May please vote yes
On the voting scene.

Apologies to all for awful poetry.

Observation and the Science of Journalism

Today the Ann Arbor Chronicle has a "monthly milestone" column by Dave Askins on the "science" of journalism. It's an essay that discusses why the Chronicle has chosen a writing model that privileges describing (what happened at a meeting) over storytelling (about the meeting). I found it thought-provoking, and you can find it here.

[As an aside: I also had to look up an old Ann Arbor News article on microfilm today. It really made me miss the (old) Ann Arbor News--the article was from the mid-1980s, and although there was a story-telling aspect to the article, it was also very information-dense, which is another thing I don't see a lot of these days in most journalism outlets.]

In any case--back to my main point here. Askins writes,

The lab manual for my first course in high school chemistry was called “Merrill Laboratory Chemistry,” co-authored by my teacher, David Haines. As I recall it, the first laboratory experiment involved lighting a candle and then watching it burn for an entire class period. The laboratory task was to record in the lab manual just what we saw happening.
That was a quintessentially descriptive task. And it’s not as easy as you might think, once you grasp what’s meant by “description” in this context.
For example, here’s the effort of a hypothetical student at this descriptive task:

Candle is burning.
Burning candle, wax is starting to melt.
Liquid wax is dripping down the sides of the burning candle.
Candle is getting shorter.
Flame is flickering.

I think it’s a poor effort. It’s not a poor effort by dint of a lack of detail. It’s a poor effort because it uses words that are already analytical, instead of purely descriptive. A possible commentary on that “description”:

You’ve used this word, “burning.” What do you mean by that? Do you mean to be talking about phlogiston leaving the candle? Or do you mean to be referring to a chemical reaction involving oxygen? Do you really mean to be describing the three-dimensional orangish, yellowish area above the white cylinder that’s shaped roughly like a teardrop and that moves around a bit?
Or take these words “melt” and “liquid.” What’s that exactly? Why are you convinced that the translucent stuff you’re seeing at the top of the white cylinder that tends to move around a bit is made of the same stuff the white cylinder is made of? Is that something you can see? Or have you already analyzed this situation, because you think you know what’s going on? What if that translucent stuff is being created by the orangish area out of some stuff in the air and deposited there on top of the white cylinder?

Dave's point, that we often analyze when we should perhaps describe, reminded me of a college friend who is an artist now. Like me, she was an environmental studies major. At the time of the discussion I'm going to tell you about, she was experimenting with her art, but she was making a living as a middle school science teacher at a Friends' (Quaker) school in Philadelphia.

One day we were discussing teaching methods, and Bonnie told me that her students spent a lot of time drawing. She would place an object--a shell, a piece of wood, a stone--on each table, and her students would draw. I was surprised, but she said, "Most of these students don't spend very much time looking at things and thinking about what they really look like." In fact, drawing really is a good way to observe, and observation really is a building block for good science. Therefore, encouraging observation--real, finely detailed observation--should be foundational to science education. Is it?

The State's Teacher Evaluation Plans

A few months ago, the state legislature decreed that there should be a statewide teacher evaluation system. They asked Deborah Ball, Dean of the UM School of Education, to head a committee with a proposal for how to evaluate teachers.

And now the committee has come up with a proposal. According to the April 27th, 2012 Detroit Free Press,

A council tasked with developing an evaluation system for Michigan educators is recommending the state start with a pilot program that will be tested in 12 school districts during the 2012-13 school year.
The Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness issued an interim report late today, with a recommendation the state spend $6 million for the pilot.
Some Republican lawmakers had hoped to have a full system in place statewide within the next year.
But the council has concluded a pilot is imperative, saying rushing to develop a system "would be reckless, both fiscally and technically."

Reading this, I had much more confidence in the committee. Yes, a pilot. In fact, several pilots. They would test different models for using student assessments to assess teachers, and different models for teacher observation.

It sounds pretty good to me. It appears that the committee, at least, is really interested in improving teaching.

I'll bet that much of the legislature won't like it. Why do a pilot and test your ideas when you could jump both feet first into an unproven plan? And if I'm right, that they don't like it? That will just prove that they're not interested in teacher evaluation or in improving teaching. That will prove they're just interested in union busting.

Sign of the Week

"You showed me my first wildflower"

Bill Browning in action

At tonight's AAPS board meeting, Dave Szczygiel and Nancy Stone presented an award and thank you to Bill Browning. For many years Bill was the Ann Arbor Public Schools environmental education coordinator. He also was a member of the school board for several years. Dave is the current environmental education coordinator and Nancy Stone works for the City of Ann Arbor, but her background is also in environmental education.

Most recently, Bill Browning made a $30,000 donation to the environmental education endowment fund. The environmental education endowment fund helps support the field trips that our kids love and learn so much from. I thought it was worth saying that you, too, can make a donation to the environmental education endowment fund. They take my (not very large, but devoted) donation every year. Find out more information about the AAPS Science and Environmental Education Endowment Fund. It is easy to make a donation.

Dave Szczygiel gave Bill Browning a puddingstone, and Bill gave an explanation of puddingstones to the Board of Education. Bill also thanked "those who had gone before him." Perhaps he was talking about Bill Stapp, the founder of the district's environmental education program and a huge leader in national environmental education.

Bill Stapp

He made particular mention of people taking students up north in a "stake truck" to an AAPS-owned property. I think he might have been talking about trips that Tappan ran every year for many years. I only know about them because there is a very cool book in the Ann Arbor District Library--a history of Tappan School--and a description of the trips is in there.

My favorite thank you came from trustee Susan Baskett.  (I am slightly paraphrasing here, despite the quote marks.) "I remember those trips very well. I am a master gardener now, but you showed me my first wildflower. Trillium. Marsh marigold. And mayapple. For a little city girl, that was a big deal."

Thank you, Bill Browning!
Thank you also to Dave Szczygiel and Nancy Stone for their hard work on behalf of this program.

Read more! Here is a history of environmental education in the Ann Arbor Public Schools.

Title IX at 40!

I have written fairly extensively about Title IX and women's athletics, so I was very excited to see this come into my email inbox:

The Sport, Health, and Activity Research and Policy (SHARP) Center for Women and Girls is hosting the premier national conference commemorating the 40^th birthday of Title IX, May 9-May 11 in Ann Arbor.  Renowned athletes, policymakers and researchers are presenting at Title IX at 40. The goal of Title IX at 40 to take stock of the progress that has been made since Title IX and determine what gaps still exist as well as how to close them. The SHARP Center is a new strategic partnership between the University of Michigan (UM) and the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF: a non-profit started by Billie Jean King in 1974 to advance sport and physical activity for women and girls). Our mission is to advance research and policymaking to enhance the lives of women and girls through sport, play, and movement.

You can review the program at http://irwg.research.umich.edu/pdf/IXprogram.pdf (There is a minimal conference fee.) There will be famous speakers, like Laila Ali (boxing champion), Donna de Varona (Olympic Swimmer) but also interesting sessions reviewing the progress Title IX has made and to identify key priorities for the future. People can also get CEUs for attending the conference.

Policy Perspective: Share the Data

A2Politico (Pat Lesko's blog) has an article up, AAPS Documents Reveal Middle and High School Classes Have 40+ Students. (Right now it's not behind a paywall, but it probably will be soon.)

Lesko writes,   "[AAPS] Class size targets for 2011 were 23-25 students in grades K-2, 26-30 students in grades 3-5, and an average of 30 students in grades 6-12."

I don't think it's a surprise to anybody with students in the district that some of the classes are smaller, and some of them are larger, than the targets. A few years ago, my son (who was at Community at the time) had a physics class with 38 or 39 kids--and my main concern was that there weren't quite enough seats in the room. On the other hand, my kids have also had classes that were much, much smaller. That's how it is with averages--some classes are bigger, some are smaller. I understand the idea of a class size "target" to be an average. After all, if your average goal for a Spanish class is 30 students, at what point do you decide this class should be split in two? When you enroll 34 kids? 38 kids?

I don't want to downplay anybody's concerns with large class sizes. For instance, Lesko highlights the size of the Clague band classes. Indeed, at a recent all-city band event (I can't remember what it was called--Battle of the Bands?) I was astonished at the size of the Clague band compared to the other middle school bands. Where the other middle schools that day had an "Advanced" (grade 7/8) Band, Clague had a Grade 8 band. Yet it was still larger than the other schools' Advanced Bands. So should class sizes for those bands be examined? Probably.

And yet, of far greater to concern for me was the lengths to which Lesko had to go to learn the details about class sizes in the district. It's obvious that individual class sizes are something the district has to track. Class sizes are regulated by the teacher contract. And yet at first, Lesko was told that the district didn't have these numbers. It was only after she FOIA'd emails between administrators about parent complaints regarding class size, that she got proof that the district did have these numbers and forced the district to release them.

That, in my opinion, is the real story. Everybody is aware that class sizes have increased, and if we can't shake more money out of Lansing, or end Proposal A, that is not likely to change. On the other hand, can we expect that the district should share this information? Yes.

One more thing: Many states have laws limiting class sizes for general education classrooms. Michigan is not one of them. But I have heard from someone who wants to make class size limits the law in Michigan as well. What do you think?

Budget Tales (of Woe)

It's not the most scintillating reading, but as Christine Stead notes, Michigan's Children has a decent overview of the budget proposals for education coming from the governor, the state House, and the Senate. None of it is good news. The only "slightly good" news is that the school districts are likely to know the final details before the school fiscal years begin, rather than after they start (which was the pattern for many years).

Find the Michigan Children's summary here. Christine says, "You may have to get past a pop-up blocker, but it is worth downloading the file for a good comparison."

Christine also notes two other things. The first is applicable to all public schools:

• Funds from the lottery are being proposed to fund improvements to roads and infrastructure.  Recall that this was part of the ‘deal’ in moving to Proposal A; that these funds would support the SAF.  There could be more reductions yet to come in K12 education when we see a final state budget in May.

THAT is clearly not good news, and it also infuriates me.

The other is applicable only to Ann Arbor:

• In AAPS, there were incremental expenses of $1.2 M that need to be added to our target general operating budget reductions; we are now looking at reductions of $17.8 M for next year.

Holy Smokes! And that is even with the "found" Medicaid money included. I wonder if that has been true most years--that we ended up spending more than budgeted? I believe it was true last year as well. The purported savings--from the transportation consolidation, for example--end up not yielding as much, or any, savings; while the expenses continue, or increase.

Meanwhile, Michigan Parents for Schools has a nice analysis of the Governor's budget proposal--when Steve Norton adds the legislative analyses I will update this post. Steve has some good links in here, but perhaps the most salient point is that the Governor purports to be providing modest increases, when in fact he is proposing reductions. (Of course the reason for that is somewhat complicated, so do read the article.)

There is a big piece of the budget puzzle that is retirement-related, so you might be interested in this Detroit Free Press editorial which discusses retirement. The bulk of the article is spent describing the problem of why retirement costs have gone up so much, and there is a nice graph that captures the essence of the problem. The key points are that:

1. After 1994's Proposal A, retirement funding was shifted to the districts, and was no longer paid for with a state appropriation.
2. Retiree costs rising while foundation grants stay flat or decline.
3. Charter schools that don't participate in the retirement program, and school districts outsourcing employees in food service and transportation (for instance), and/or laying off teachers and other staff, mean there is a smaller "base" to draw on for funding.

In sum:

Although
These are budget tales of woe
They are clearly things
We've got to know!

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?

This Week: Lots Going On!

The 99% Spring: April 9-15th

Bob King--president of the UAW--has a really nice opinion piece in the Detroit News: You Only Get What You Are Willing to Accept.  He is writing about the importance of funding and supporting education. He starts out with this:

We must not be willing to accept relentless and unconscionable cuts in funding for K-12 education. For our children, these budget cuts have resulted in crumbling schools, skyrocketing class sizes and teachers being denied the support they need to do their best.

I've been thinking lately about why it is that in Wisconsin, when the Governor moved against unions and teachers, the teachers were a key part of the resistance; and here, I don't see that happening as much. But maybe that is about to change.

Bob King invites us all "to train ourselves in non-violent action and join together in the work of reclaiming our country."

The 99spring.com web site says,

We will organize trainings to:

1. Tell the story of our economy: how we got here, who’s responsible, what a different future could look like, and what we can do about it
2. Learn the history of non-violent direct action, and
3. Get into action on our own campaigns to win change.

 Get more details about April 9-15 at 99spring.com

Interesting Movie This Week

August to June: Bringing Life to School

Ann Arbor Open Auditorium
6:45 p.m., Thursday, April 12

AUGUST TO JUNE is an 88 minute documentary celebrating values we are on the brink of losing in the single-minded pursuit of higher test scores!

Come inside a public school happily and purposefully going against current trends and join 26 8-10 year olds, their teacher, and their parents for a year bursting with opportunities for curiosity, creativity and compassion. 

The teacher who is part of the film will be at this screening!

See the trailer here. 

Also, the Ann Arbor Open Conference is this coming weekend, April 13-14. 

The theme: Occupy Open Classroom. Find out more here.

 

Teacher Retirement being discussed by the legislature.

What is most interesting about this is that it is happening during a holiday session break. If they wanted this to be a public process, they would wait until they were in session. . . 

The Retirement Appropriations Sub-Committee is holding a hearing at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Wednesday April 11 in the Boji Tower, 124 West Allegan St. in Lansing on Senate Bill 1040 that will reform the school employee retirement system (MSPERS). It’s unusual that a committee hearing is scheduled during a holiday session break, but this is apparently on the fast track.

Testing vs. Instruction

One of the main complaints that I've gotten from teachers about testing is that there is now so much of it that it cuts, significantly, into instructional time.

And one (teacher) friend wrote to me, only partially tongue-in-cheek,

One idea that I also had, is why not test on weekends?  That way they wouldn't have to require that teachers take away class time for proctoring--they could even hire non-teachers as proctors!  It could be a whole new employment opportunity for our depressed economy. . . but I am most serious about instructional time being given back to us for TEACHING and LEARNING, and leave the testing for outside of the regular school calendar.

And that could be good for another reason (the subject of a blog post very soon, I promise)--it would make it much easier for parents to opt out of testing.

Testing the Year Away: Ruth's Comments

My friend Julie and I went to last week's school board meeting to raise some concerns about the amount of testing going on in the district, and in particular, some concerns about the NWEA MAP test. I introduced myself and then this is what I said:

I’m the parent of children currently at Ann Arbor Open and Skyline, and a third child who graduated from Community. I didn’t have much of an opinion about the NWEA MAP test until I went to an Ann Arbor Open Coordinating Committee meeting last fall.

Until that meeting, I didn’t understand that kindergartners were being administered this test in the first weeks of school, and that their first introduction to the school computers was through this test.

I didn’t understand that this test was being given at the same time as other assessments, including SRI and the MEAP.

I didn’t understand that this test was testing some of the same things—like reading proficiency—as the other tests.

I didn’t understand that staff and teachers were being diverted from other work to proctor the test.

I didn’t understand that the students’ scores were being given to the students at the end of the test.

I didn’t understand that while this test was designed to follow student progress, the plan is to use it to evaluate teachers.

I didn’t understand that this test meant that classes couldn’t use the computer lab for weeks on end.

But now—I understand.

I appreciate that the school board wanted to get ahead of any state-mandated teacher evaluation requirements, but the thing is, if you want to be a model, you’d better make super sure that you are creating a better model than what you would otherwise get. I am not convinced of that. And I don’t want to be spending technology dollars to support testing.

The other day I got my seventh grader’s MAP report, and I will leave aside that it was difficult to understand—because I’m sure the communication can be improved. The report—and I asked my son’s permission to share—showed that he was an advanced reader. We didn’t need a test to tell us that. Not only would any teacher who spent 10 minutes assessing his reading know that, but in addition we already have the SRI and the MEAP telling me the same thing.

I asked him about the test, and he said, “Well, a lot of kids don’t like it. But I think it’s okay.” I asked him why, and he said, “Well mom, it’s really, really long. So it tests if you can stick with things.” And as an anecdote, that’s funny. But what’s not funny is that, that’s not what it’s testing.

The other truly bothersome thing about this test is that we are giving it to lower elementary students. This is a school district where we don’t give letter grades to kids before middle school in any school in the district. And I’m proud of that. I would bet that—aside from spelling quizzes—most kids don’t take classroom tests before upper elementary school. And I’m proud of that too. Yet we’re spending weeks and weeks testing kids—taking time away from instruction. Since the MEAP is state-mandated, I think we need to look at removing some of the other assessments.

I’d like to ask you to do 5 things:

1.     Stop testing the K-2 students with the MAP test immediately.

2.     Remove the scores from appearing at the ends of the tests as soon as is practical.

3.     If the district decides to keep the NWEA, then drop some of the other assessments.

4.     Invite Deborah Ball, Dean of the UM School of Education and head of the state’s teacher evaluation committee, to discuss the state’s plans for teacher evaluation.

5.     Since this is a pilot, do a rigorous evaluation of MAP’s usefulness. Evaluate whether the MAP test is working for everyone else. And do that by surveying principals, administrators, teachers, parents and students—anonymously—so that they can share their true opinions.

[I gave the school board my contact information. You, of course, already know that you can contact me at rlk234 (at) gmail.com.]

[Side note: I didn't bring this up, but the NWEA test costs over $92,000 in the cost of the test alone, and not including any staff time devoted to it--or technology costs. So if we need to save millions of dollars from the district budget, and revenue enhancements are not going to bring us a whole lot of money, then this would be a good place to start. Also, when Dr. Green responded to our concerns, she noted that the concerns about access to computer labs and technology could be alleviated by passing the technology bond. However, as noted above, I don't want to pay for technology so that we can do more testing. So in her response, she actually gave me a reason to vote against a school funding request--something I don't think I have ever done.]

Testing the Year Away: Julie's Comments

My friend Julie and I went to last week's school board meeting to raise some concerns about the amount of testing going on in the district, and some specific concerns with the NWEA MAP test. And this is what Julie had to say:

These concerns have been compiled from various sources including my own observations, concerns shared with me by other parents in various elementary schools in the district, as well as feedback from teachers and students.

·      The new MAP test overlaps with much of the testing and assessments already being done.  We keep adding tests, but don’t remove any, leading to TOO MUCH testing, and taking up valuable instruction time and school resources.   SRI, reading assessments, Fast Math, MEAP, NWEA MAP, classroom assessments all conducted within the first 6-8 weeks or so of each school year.

·      People are concerned that the upcoming Tech Millage will be used to upgrade equipment for the primary purpose of supporting this increased testing.  Many parents willing to support a tech bond for the purpose of improved education of our kids, are much less likely to support a bond used for more testing of our kids.

·      We understand that Lansing is beginning to require comprehensive teacher evaluation overhauls.  However, the MAP was never designed to be used for this purpose, and has no statistical validity in this context, by NWEA’s own report (see attached).  If this test was added to the district to fulfill this requirement, it will be flawed data.  If this test was added strictly for the purpose of evaluating children, it is redundant and provides questionable benefit for very high cost, in dollars, resources and time.

·      The MAP test is currently administered three times a year, leading to narrowing of curriculum and more “teaching to the test.”  The frequency of this testing forces teachers into a linear pattern of teaching, completely opposite the project-based, in depth style of teaching often referred to as “Best Practices.”  Ann Arbor Open is an extremely successful and very popular program precisely because it emphasizes project-based, in-depth learning.  The Board and the AAPS administration have repeatedly indicated that they would like to take the things that are “working well” at Ann Arbor Open and Community, and help bring them into other classrooms throughout the district.  This test does precisely the opposite, further decreasing time for pursuing children’s interests, or delving deeply into subjects of interest or relevance.

·      The fact that the students’ scores are immediately visible to the students following the test leads to comparisons, competition, and anxiety, all of which are unnecessary and counter-productive, and work to undermine attempts to create cooperative, collaborative, safe learning environments in our classrooms.  The AAPS has clearly chosen NOT to use grades in the elementary schools, and this was done for a reason.  It is well-known that focus on letter grades leads to extrinsic motivation instead of intrinsic love of learning, and these MAP scores have already produced anxiety in kids, and have altered cohesion in classrooms.

·      Feedback from some of the children taking the test reveals that some kids have already learned that the test can be “shortened” and made easier by just answering randomly.  Other students have found themselves sitting for a single test-taking session for a full two hours or even longer, which is an excessive amount of time in elementary school.

·       The cost for purchasing and continuing to run this test, in dollars, is simply not worth the dubious “value” it provides.  Our dollars are slim and must be utilized to the absolute best interests of the children, and this test is not that. 

Action Points

There are several  points upon which action can be taken immediately, and could help the Board elicit more feedback and information about this Pilot program, and soften some of the consequences in the meantime.

Ideally, I believe the Board should consider putting this test on “HOLD,” and not utilize it next year, until it can more fully evaluate the test’s unintended consequences, and it’s validity in the context of that for which it was purchased (state mandates for teacher evaluations).

Immediately, I believe the following could and should be done:

1.     Drop the test from three times a year to two.   Drop testing for K-2 age students.  (if the test continues to be given)

2.     Insist that the NWEA remove the line of code that enables students to see their scores.  As the consumer, we can refuse the product if it is not so altered.

3.     Consider inviting regional and local experts on Teacher education and effectiveness to discuss current understanding of what comprehensive teacher evaluations should look like.

4.     Seriously consider discontinuing one or more of the overlapping fall student assessments, if the MAP is to be used again next year

And, of utmost importance:

5.      Circulate a FEEDBACK SURVEY to all teachers, principals, parents and students.  This test was purchased as a Pilot, and the only way to evaluate a pilot is to get feedback.  The survey should be anonymous, so that teachers and administrators feel they can speak freely without consequence.

I want to thank the Board for their time tonight, and their time in considering this document. 

[Julie did give the board her contact information as well. If you want to contact her, send me a note and I will forward it along.]