Our Children Are Listening

There is a political strategy underway to demonize the people who teach our children. Daily on social media platforms, on major media outlets, and in public forums, we see and hear people accusing public school teachers of deliberately destructive and dangerous practices.Teachers are called offensive names, accused of the lowest crimes, and portrayed as dangerous and untrustworthy. Our commercial media and social media are permeated with this narrative. 

Most who spread these perspectives say they believe one of three things: 

• They are preserving their own primacy as teacher of their children,

•  that they are gaining political power against an ideology, 

• or in some cases that they are actually protecting their children from ideas and people that would harm them. 

There are many things children learn across their time in school, from basic numbers to calculus; from letters and words to Shakespeare; of events in history from roughly 6,000 bce forward; and science from washing our hands to avoid disease to the orders of plants and animals to the vastness of the universe.

For thirteen years our children learn about the amazing wonder of our world from their teachers. Most will learn with at least 30 to 40 different teachers in K-12, each of whom will be trying to share new and sometimes difficult learning with them, most of which has little to do with politics.

Learning is an intensely personal and individual interchange. For we humans to learn we must be able and willing to access the knowledge when it is presented. For a teacher to be effective, they must find a way for each student to be able to hear and understand their offered knowledge and wisdom. 

Yet, as a society we are telling our children:

•     Don't trust your teachers.
•     Don't believe what they tell you.
•     Don't cooperate with their lessons.

For learning to happen, a student must have some modicum of trust that they can believe and rely on the person delivering the information and skill, that the teacher is presenting something of worth and value for their benefit.

By demonizing the people who teach our children, and by media amplifying those characterizations, we are not just disrupting institutions, or simply changing the venue where our child might attend classes. 

• We are convincing our children that they should not learn.
• We are destroying the very basic prerequisites for learning.
• We, as a culture, are striking at the heart of every child’s chance to learn.
• We are diminishing the future of our own children.

Children cannot learn when they believe the person teaching them means them harm, and that their loved ones and community would disapprove if they do.

Whose Adolescence is it? A Reflection on Policy and Parenting

From the first moment you hold your child in your arms, the emotional impulse is, "I must protect this tiny person in every way." It is a common response of both biological and adoptive parents of infants.

For most of their infancy and toddlerhood that imperative to protect them remains dominant in our hearts. But their gradually increasing need to venture out, to become, challenges our sometimes overwhelming need to protect.

Every ‘first’ is an adjustment for us as much as an achievement for them- first steps, first visit without us, first sleepover, first days of school, first bike ride, first game. Through most of childhood those conflicting needs--theirs to launch out, ours to protect-- can be balanced. Then comes adolescence. 

According to the University of Texas Medical Branch, “An adolescent has four tasks to accomplish to become a well-adjusted adult. These tasks are categorized as: 1) independence, 2) body image, 3) peer relations, and 4) identity.”

In lay terms that means teens must choose their own levels of risk (independence), resolve how they relate to their bodies (body image), learn what being a friend means (peer relations), and figure out how to be an individual, themselves- beyond their family and culture--Who am I, beyond who are we? (identity)

"How can I be me and fulfill what my family expects of me?" can often become the critical question for teens. The wider the difference between what we want them to be and their own aspirations and sense of self, the harder it is for them to become their most, best selves.

The potential cost of disappointing us can be almost overwhelming for our children.Yet, their adolescent growth tasks mandate that they must make more of their own decisions, launch into new territories, and challenge our protective shells. This is true for LGBTQIA+ kids and for heteroromantic or cisgender kids.

What has been startling about recent political culture clashes is they almost all revolve around the four necessary areas of growth for teens and how that challenges parents. It is almost as if some would intrude on our most complex and personal parent-child relationships and have us as a collective society renegotiate the path to adulthood for our children, taking away choices in all the developmental growth categories they must engage in.

From questions like- What clothes should I wear, or what books will I read, to who am I physically attracted to, or what name really feels most me- “Who am I, and how does that fit with my family, friends, and world?” resounds in almost every experience adolescents have.

We can, as caring adults try to guide and support our children in their quest, but at a deep level their internal mandate is to figure it out for themselves. We may be temporarily successful in denying them their own selfhood, but only at the expense of their long-term dissatisfaction, struggle, and adult dysfunction.

No amount of legal or societal restrictions and suppression can negate that necessity to become their own persons. Neither parents, nor teachers, nor society as a whole can deny that need, and it is only damaging foolishness to try.

As they grow, it turns out, the best way to protect that tiny person we first hold in our arms is to nurture the internal person they are discovering, rather than demanding they manifest the person we imagined or try to insist they be.

Let Teachers Fix this. They Know How

For the first 6 years I taught, my classes were made up of students with IEPs who entered class reading on average between 5th grade and 7th grade levels at the beginning of 10th grade.. (I know grade levels is old fashioned terminology, but most people understand grade levels better than lexiles, stanines, or other types of scoring bands). 

In other words, for every year they had been in school, they had made 6 to 7 months of reading progress. I was told to align as closely as possible with the general education curriculum and do what I could to raise performance.

After initial reading and writing samples to assess each student’s skills, the course was designed to fill in the skill gaps, get them as much reading and writing practice as possible and convince them again of something they had lost- a belief in their own ability to learn. 

The design was detailed and focused on the students in the room, not on an external testing goal. 

Classes centered around 6 key practices

1. We set classroom rules together as a mutual agreement about how we would act and be together and posted them for all to see. The rules often leaned heavily on mutual safety within the space. I agreed to treat them the way we all agreed to treat one another. We included in that agreement how we would treat our space and materials.

2. Food and Drink were allowed, and provided.  A hot chocolate station with granola bars was set up, 1 drink and 1 food item per class session. - So long as students cleaned up after themselves, took nothing outside the classroom, and were ready to work at their desks when the bell rang. Not being hungry or thirsty was step one in being ready to learn. 

3.We would work on reading and writing from bell to bell and would limit homework only to what could not be completed in that concentrated class time. One outside assignment was that every student would select a library book of over 100 pages and do an oral book report each quarter.

4. Writing prompts and reading pieces were selected for quality, the students’ areas of interest, accessibility, and progressive complexity from a variety of genres. Key skills of working words, sentences, paragraphs, figurative language, and narratives were developed in context of those daily practices. The goal was for maximum engagement.

5. All students could sign up for to use the classroom bank of computer stations as soon as they finished their writing and reading assignments for the day. (6 donated computers, had been upgraded to be fast enough for educational games. The in-class lab was equipped with games for building vocabulary, developing sentence structures, and identifying key ideas in reading. They were lively and had a high fun factor. There were also academic supports like encyclopedias and dictionaries. In those days, before networking and smartphones, computers were the privilege of comfortable families. Few students had access to fully equipped computers at home, and few rooms in the building had student-use computers.)

6. Assessments were based on the work we did, not on commercially designed standardized tests, except for beginning of year, locally developed grade level mid-terms, and final reading assessments. We did not orient daily work as specific test prep.

Those who know me, know that I don’t like to rely on one-day test scores as a stand alone evaluation, but given the other performance measures corroborating, I’m ok with sharing this one as a short-hand for the wide range of performance changes we saw. 

At the end of the year, most students had made at least 1 full year’s reading progress on the Gates-McGinitie reading test- twice what they had normally made in prior years.  Many students made 2 to 3 years of progress -jumping from 5th grade to 8th or higher in comprehension-  3 to 6 times the growth they had made in the past. Those who entered at 7th or 8th level often reached end of 10th levels. An important note is that these growth numbers occurred in classes of 15-17 students, not the 25-35 commonly seen in gen ed classes.

The point of this piece is not to say I was an extraordinary teacher.  I am/was an ordinary teacher following well-known and common pedagogical practices. If you talk with other teachers they will have similar stories. This is the kind of work teachers do-or can do when given the pedagogical freedom to meet our students’ needs. 

In light of this ability that even ordinary teachers have, media coverage and panics about “learning loss” with recommendations about holding students back, and imposing mandates from above sound just plain uninformed and fool-hardy.

For over twenty years, policy makers and administrators have increasingly insisted teachers follow administrative not instructional protocols. It is time to let teachers manage the post-pandemic academic recovery.

There are a handful of changes that can provide the opportunity to put this 2 year tragedy in the rear view mirror for our children. 

1. Set up full school Faculty Councils in every school that will assess the needs of their students and develop the design and implementation of post pandemic recovery.  Let grade and subject level teams provide input and representation on that council. Center teacher, not administrative, expertise in the decision making.

2. Suspend new purchase of statewide, and district wide tests, materials, and apps. Instead utilize pandemic, training, and assessment dollars to fulfill the recommendations of those local Faculty Councils for what they need for their students, and stop telling teachers what they can’t teach. Each class will have a wide spectrum of needs. Teachers will need the flexibility to differentiate.

3. Spend the necessary money and change policies to attract teachers back into the classroom; teachers who know how to do this, not random applicants without knowledge. Attracting teachers will mean shifting any regs that demean and disempower teachers back to ones that respect their skills and autonomy. 

4. Find teachers who reflect the range of student ethnicities and economic class. To believe they can learn, students need to see and be around people who look like them and are learned. 

5. Reduce class sizes, and lower administrative work for teachers to enable them to meet student and parent needs. Parents will be happier if they can feel their child’s teacher can be responsive to their child’s needs.

6. Increase the number of counselors, to provide support for the more intense family and student trauma-stress.

7.  Quit sending in businessmen to take over and loot the public schools. It creates constant stress and distracts from the major project at hand to bring our students and communities back into academic and personal equilibrium. 

Learning is not lost. It may be delayed and require localized intervention. Panic after a crisis is not productive. Let the physicians treat the wounds. 

The Youngkin Team Pulls a Bait and Switch

 Today at the first meeting of Virginia Governor Youngkin’s new Virginia Board of Education (with 5 new far right members), the pro-charter-lab-company-schools organizations were out in full force to insist that College Partnership Lab Schools had to be moved forward quickly, quickly. 

CodeVA, a 501(c)3 that works with schools, were there with multiple representatives to make the case that all the colleges want to do business with their computer-science high school program. Besides the state's $100M, they were also excited about the $4 Million grant that Amazon had given them; and their partnerships with Microsoft, Google, and Lego. Hurry was their message. We are waiting for your money.

Go Virginia, the Chamber of Commerce’s state initiative to create company job training schools based on large regional employer needs expressed excitement about getting these schools up and running. 

The Superintendent for Mecklenburg County was thrilled about training his students to work in the industries in their county- specifically in tobacco and other agriculture jobs.

After public comments closed Delegate Glenn Davis, the house sponsor of the original Lab School bill came in flustered and frustrated, urging the Board to move forward with the Guidelines that the Department of Education had put forward. 

There was just one problem- The recently released DOE guidelines offered the $100,000,000 to almost ANY post high school institution - private, religious, politically missioned, two year, and four year.  

However, the actual state budget language explicitly states: 

“Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection A of § 22.1-349.1, Code of Virginia, for the purpose of this Item, a "college partnership laboratory school" means a public, nonsectarian, nonreligious school in the Commonwealth established by a baccalaureate public institution of higher education.” 

The Youngkin team tried a bait and switch and got caught! Will they still manage to keep the big fish?

What Glenn Youngkin is Going to Tell Us

Today Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is scheduled to unveil his 90 Day Achievement Gap Report on Virginia Education at a press conference. 

He will say 

After two years of the deepest pandemic in 100 years students are behind in their learning; graduation rates have dropped; and discipline issues are up. He will say that local school districts and their teachers have failed our children. 

He will say

The way to fix the learning loss and graduation

   rates his data points reveal is 

More money and supports to private schools

Opening more charter schools,

Teaching students to do a job at the local company 

Doubling down on More testing, More data collection, and More harsh discipline in public schools.. 

He will say 

His Education cabinet and his new replacements on the Board of Education will implement these education salvation policies for Parents of Virginia.

He will Not tell us

Schools did not create the pandemic. 

After two years of chaotic upheaval, loss of family members, and disrupted life rhythms, of course students do not test well, and some have had to go to work or become caregivers rather than focusing on their studies.  This is not the fault of Virginia’s parents, students, or the schools in our communities.  

Learning with a few early childhood exceptions does not have an expiry date.  

Whether a student learns their multiplication tables this year or next year, does not alter their ability to learn them. If we leave the schools to their jobs and support them well, our kids will recover any learning they missed.

Our families will rebound 

If our communities and children are supported with the care, consideration and the schools they deserve. The worst thing you can do to all of us is to test more, punish more, and separate us into broken up enclaves suspicious of our neighbors.

Mr. Youngkin will not tell us

            All the recommendations he is presenting were tried for 20 years in other states and failed.

He is simply doing what his job training taught him to do-  Sow distrust, Disrupt the system;  take it over; sell off the assets. He was trained this is the way to make himself, and his wealthy mostly out of state friends, richer at the expense of Virginia and her parents and children.

CRT -Let's Clear This Up

 Back in June, Elizabeth Schultz, a former FCPS School Board member who lost her last bid for election, published an OpEd in the Fairfax Times promoting quite a few oft-repeated, rabid-right talking points about Critical Race Theory and ominously said CRT is being taught in Fairfax County Public Schools.  She is not alone in glomming onto a quick soundbite as a way to attack the other political party and liberals. Lots of politicos all across the country who are trying to hold onto or return to power are doing it.

I did not see the article until the other day, but her points are so distorted that I can’t let her piece or this question go unanswered, even if it’s a couple of months later.

The points she put forward were:

•       Our local schools do teach Critical Race Theory to students.
•          It is a Marxist theory that promotes race as the most important thing about an individual.
•          That CRT is the same thing as equity, justice, diversity, and culturally responsive learning.
•          That FCPS incorporated CRT into its curriculum through a curriculum rewrite in 2018 by Colleen Eddy and Fairfax County supervisors adopted it through its OneFairfax program.

All of these points are, well- not really true- at least the way Schultz and her friends distort and misrepresent them. 

Critical race theory is a very specific collegiate and legal form of analysis. It is part of a collection of graduate level Critical Analyses studies that can range from Economic (sometimes Marxist, sometimes Capitalist), to Feminist, to Racial, or other perspectives in their focus. The most notable thing about Critical Analyses is that each type looks at an unsolved problem from a perspective that has been traditionally overlooked and looks at aspects of a situation that have been left out of the problem-solving cycle.

Critical Analysis can influence how teachers and policy makers choose what they teach and how they teach it, or determine what policies are most fair, but it is not a good choice for direct K-12 instruction because it requires understanding words like structural determinism, epistemology, and deconstructionism- among a lot of other philosophical and critical analysis terms.

It is true that Gloria Ladson-Billings, the president of the National Academy of Education, and author of The Dream Keepers recommends teachers learn Critical Race Analysis to better their understanding of pedagogical choices, but nobody is proposing to teach 7 year olds post-modernism and deconstruction.

Once teachers or decision makers apply the analysis, they are able to see how laws, regulations, and societal norms have affected people of a particular category. Insights from looking at policies through the lens of race can be fairly obvious. 

For instance, anti-slavery can be thought of as the original application of critical race analysis, even though the term CRT  would not be created until 1989 at a workshop led by Kimberle’ Crenshaw.  In the 19th century, anti-slavery people looked at how slavery was affecting black people on the ground in real terms and determined it was a harmful legal institution to them- Yes, it’s just that simple.

Today, we apply CRA when we ask ourselves how our zoning ordinances or subsidized housing rules affect communities predominantly of color. Or how our school boundaries and funding formulas affect families of color or poverty. We also apply Critical Feminist Analysis when we ask how does this policy or practice affect young mothers or elderly women.  Thinking and analysis is not something to be afraid of, but a problem solving tool to be used among others.

Though CRT/CRA does examine how views on race have been embedded and highly influences our cultural practices, it does not propose that a person’s race is the most important or only thing in forming anyone’s character, intellect, personality, or actions. Institutional racism may hamper a person’s chances of getting healthcare, an education, finding higher paying jobs, and acquiring property and financial security, but certainly other family and personal conditions are important in creating the intersections of values, traits, and opportunities that combine to make up our lives. It does look at how individual racism becomes more pervasive, invisible, and powerful when embedded into societal rules.

For instance, if a businessman/plantation owner believes s/he is dependent on free labor to stay wealthy, s/he might move heaven and earth to protect that ability to have free slave labor, and when those slaves are deprived of pay for their labor, their daily lives suffer from the limits that imposes.

Society wide that structure affects the whole race of people who are enslaved, and affects their descendants, who also do not have access to that money they could have earned without the structural racism of slavery. Eventually that view, embedded in government policy, led to a bloody and divisive war that had massive destructive effects for the plantation owner as well.

Similarly, critical race analysis might reveal that today’s tax codes, pay scales, and access to property skew the economic potential of most people of color and continues to affect the opportunities of black and brown families. CRA also asks if there is a way to ameliorate the negative consequences of structural bias and racism.

So, No. Racism as the most important thing in an individual’s life is not what CRT/CRA is about, but it is apt to reveal how insidiously destructive policies built on bias are.

According to Ms. Schultz, efforts to address cultural and racial diversity and to create a school system equitable to all began in 2018 with a rewrite of the social studies curriculum.  (Right before she lost her seat on the board in 2019).

I don’t mean to demean Colleen Eddy’s work, but in reality, Fairfax County schools had been grappling with meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse student population for about 20 years before that, and the 2018 rewrite Ms. Eddy oversaw was a reflection of what had already been happening in the classrooms across the county.

I know this because in 1998 when I was a FCPS parent of elementary students and began teaching, individual schools were already adapting toward a world view, rather than a one-ethnicity view.  Elementary concerts were featuring songs from a variety of cultures around the world, and picture books were being incorporated with heros of varied ethnicities.

As early as the late 1990’s schools in the county were adopting programs like International Baccalaureate which incorporated a more global cadre of creators into the curriculum in lieu of only western-centric authors, art, and ideas.  Those programs also seeped into the general curriculum of our schools, so that all students were getting a wider education.

Deliberate choices to expand the curriculum toward a more diverse and inclusive canon were not initiated to address the concerns of poor or black or brown families, but to address the concerns of those economically stable and well educated families who knew their children needed a wider education to become well-functioning adults in the broader society of the 21st century that would include many nationalities. They were driven by parent involvement.

In truth, though, those expanded horizons resonated with the colors and cultures of the students we were seeing in our classrooms, and enabled students to be excited about a curriculum that reflected them and their heritages.  White students were not left out, but all students got a more universal view of what it means to be human in this world.

Because the county’s population continued to diversify, and because those program changes were so successful at building a highly regarded system, by 2018 those changes were becoming codified in the central office to reflect what was already happening across the county.

Similarly, the Board of Supervisors had a growing awareness that the county was developing pockets of economic disparity which threatened the unity and common prosperity for the county. They knew they were looking at a growing level of diversity, and an economic disparity in which the average family income on one side of the county was about half what it was in other parts of the county.  Without a problem solving model taking that into account, Fairfax ran the risk of becoming a bifurcated rich-poor economy with haves and have nots that would change the reputation which had built a highly attractive community. One Fairfax was a reflection of that awareness.

So, much as Ms. Schultz and many of her friends would like to frighten us all about the threat of Critical Race Theory, there is nothing to fear from a step on the problem-solving wheel that asks, “Have we taken the needs of all our residents/students into consideration?” 

Do we really want to be two, or three, or five Fairfaxes? Or two, or three, or five nations? 

Gaslit School Nation Redux: The Democratic Version

 

Education policy may be the one place real bipartisanship exists in Washington, but that may not be a good thing for children. 

Wednesday, March 24, 2021 almost exactly one year after Covid-19 closed most of the nation’s schools, Dr. Miguel Cardona, Joe Biden‘s new Secretary of Ed kicked off his first big public event: a 3-hour virtual Return to Schools Education Summit. The summit featured an all-star cast and almost flawless supporting company. 

The opening speaker was well loved and revered, Dr. Jill Biden and the summit wrapped up with the President himself.

This was President Joe Biden’s chance to convince the teachers and parents of America not only that the disastrous four years of Trump and DeVos’ corruption and lies were done, but that we have collectively turned the corner on C19 and are now ready to re-open our school buildings and our communities for the children and families of the country. What great news to deliver! 

Dr. Cardona’s second major speaker of the day was Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new head of the CDC who has been on most major networks every day for weeks already assuring the nation that though we are not ready to reopen adult venues completely, we are ready to reopen children’s areas at the reduced 3ft distance (as long as they all wear masks). Both Dr. Cardona and Dr. Walensky both referenced lovingly their own children. Each of whom would be able to graduate this coming year. The new Covid variants were given a short phrase, “Yes, we’re concerned,” but there was little about the high plateau of cases, or the potential for post spring break outbreaks. The message was: 3 feet is safe. 

This first Summit was also the moment when the Biden administration and Secretary Cardona had the chance to establish the direction, vision, and positions they would chart for the future of US Schools. In today’s view of the education landscape, divided between billionaire investors and working class teachers and parents, everyone was waiting to see. 

Who would they listen to? 

Whose perspective would they deem valid? 

And whose expertise would they respect with action, not just well worn phrases?

 Were it not for the weary reality on the ground, the smiles and cheerful demeanors might have gone completely unchallenged, and the determinedly intense, unbreakable smile of Dr. Cardona (who is under fire for requiring Spring 2021 standardized testing) might have been convincing. 

 The presentation team consistently portrayed gratitude, chipper determinism, and plucky optimism, but more importantly the selection of presenters was perfectly designed to affirm and uplift the past and future reform-charter-business model of school management. 

 Reports from the field kicked off with Cleveland Ohio’s CEO (not superintendent) Eric Gordon and Chief of Schools Lisa Farmer-Cole, who had been integral to implementing the charter-portfolio-schools Cleveland Plan.

Cleveland is one of a minority of places that still is under “takeover.” It has a mayoral controlled and appointed school board, and 15 charter schools that represent over half the students in the 32K district. Gordon in his presentation even gave a shout-out to JEB Bush’s Chiefs for Change. 

No mention was made of the study from Stanford’s Hoover Institute that showed Ohio charter students learn 36 days less math and 14 days less reading than traditional public school students.

The second district featured was Tulsa Oklahoma’s Superintendent Deborah Gist, who was the DC State Superintendent during Michelle Rhee’s tenure as superintendent and is a proud alum of both the Kennedy School of Government and the Broad Academy class of 2008. Tulsa is about the same size district as Cleveland, but has fewer charters, with 7 in a 32K district. At least three of which have experienced newsworthy scandals in the last several years: Epic, Dove Science Academy, and Langston Hughes Academy. 

For labor coverage, the two representatives were Cleveland teachers’ new union president Shari Obrenski (AFT), and NYC’s UFT President Michael Mulgrew both of whom messaged the importance of collaboration with administration. Notable is that none of the major leaders of the unions, grassroots movements, nor large districts that have fought for their staffs’ safety during the pandemic were there. 

The pedagogy reports were about exciting summer programs that should be offered this year and was coordinated by long time presidential ed advisor, Stanford’s Linda Darling-Hammond. 

She brought with her a collection of teachers expressing deep gratitude for being allowed to be there and cheerfully reporting “best practice” plans to teach first graders how to learn outside and choose a job path this summer as part of their social-emotional learning. After a year of traumas like their family losing jobs, homes, and lives, it is bound to be great fun for first graders to learn how they can one day fill a slot in the corporate-worker-world of the future economy. 

 The Portrait of a National School System painted by the new Democratic administration is a picture of positively resilient school managers, lots of messaging about collaboration and data, with Spring 2021 universal testing, all buildings open, large scale summer school, a business model management plan, a high value for school choice and charters, and lots of well-trained workers for US companies. 

By the time President Biden came on to announce the $130B for schools included in the Covid relief package, the four note chord that sounded in my head, was 

“That’s great! 

What strings are attached?

Whose pocket is that earmarked for?

And the American Enterprise Institute is going to love this!”