School to Prison

 School to Prison

 

There is a new superhighway that folks are worried about.  It is the road from school to prison.  The wisdom in this approach is that by suspending students for aggressive behavior their next destination will be prison.  Quite a leap but then these are visionary thinkers.

One of the consequences of this type of thinking is that we do not suspend students even if their behavior is quite egregious.  On the other hand, we talk about putting school resource officers (SOROs) in schools, some of whom are armed or police officers.  In some states there is a push to arm the teachers themselves, not sure where target shooting shows up in teacher preparation courses, but that could be added.

We are told the current spike in school violence is still another negative outcome of the pandemic and kids being out of school so they have forgotten how to socialize in person. 

It is entirely true that there is too easy access to guns in our culture.  Perhaps it is a holdover from our early cowboy days.  On the other hand, we also know that the kids who do commit gun violence in school usually feel they are outliers and unknown to their teachers.

Is there a reasonable way to stop violence in our schools without sending all those "bad apples" to prison?

The best way to stop school violence is a two- pronged approach, a carrot and stick policy.

First of all secondary schools are just too big.  With 1,500 to 3,000 students in a school, there is no way that EVERY child is truly known by a staff member.  So the very first step in preventing violence of any kind in a school is for there to be a connection with a staff member for EVERY student.  A real connection so that the teacher, counselor, custodian, administrator- knows when something is off for that child.  There is a caring adult that is connected to the child.  That’s the carrot, and it needs to be a very big sweet carrot, not a perfunctory little sliver of a carrot.

Secondly, the stick needs to be swift and dependable.   If a student misbehaves, even a small infraction, there needs to be a consequence.   Not a suspension for all offenses but a consequence.  Profanity is not allowed.  If a student uses profane language or is disrespectful to a teacher there is a consequence, maybe having lunch in a room with a teacher monitor rather than peers.  Whatever, the consequence needs to be uncomfortable but not fatal.  Students need to learn that rules WILL be obeyed and if they are not the punishment will fit the crime.  An act of physical aggression is met with suspension. Verbal aggression that makes someone feel unsafe also warrants a suspension.  Those consequences are given with the warning, our school needs to be safe for everyone and you made people feel unsafe so you need a break.  The other important piece of the suspension is that it is short and re-entry requires a parent or guardian to appear and for there to be a discussion about what the unacceptable behavior was, why it happened and what’s the plan so it won’t happen again.   Yes, family members NEED to be inconvenienced because unfortunately sometimes that is the only way to get families invested in school behavior.  

School needs to be a place where kids want to be not where they are MADE to be.  Teenagers are relationship anchored.  We need to anchor some of those relationships both with staff and with the safety of the community.

Armed teachers, school resource officers and sworn police officers in schools do not set the tone for a safe community. They set a tone of us against you. Making a full on commitment to care about each other does.

School suspension can be a superhighway to prison.  But superhighways have many off ramps and educators need to identify those off ramps and make sure kids use them.

A safe school is a better school for everyone.

Where have all the high scores gone?

 Where have all the high scores gone?

Where have all the high scores gone, long time passing.   There has been a great deal of concern lately that scores on standardized tests are dropping precipitously since the pandemic has been over.   Several reasons have been advanced.  One is that the students didn’t get quite as much out of virtual instruction as once thought.  Imagine that!   Another reason is that it has been hard for the kids to get used to being in school buildings and settling down with in-school behavior thereby limiting learning.

Here is another reason.  Baltimore County has seen a decrease in population this school year of almost 5%.   It has been determined that these students are either being home-schooled or they are in private schools.

Here is how that can disproportionately negatively impact test scores.   Along with acknowledging the first three letters in the word assume, there are supportable reasons why the loss of over 5000 students would impact test scores.

It is reasonable that these parents care more about their child’s education than the average bear.  They are proactively moving their children out of the public schools because they are not satisfied with the free education.

Private schools cost money.  Unless a family is extremely well off financially, making the decision to place your child(ren) in a private school is going to impact the financial affairs of the family.  Maybe shorter or different vacations, maybe keeping that car an extra year or two.  These families are willing to make the sacrifice in order for their children to have a better education.

Home schooling also costs money, even if only sacrificing the income of the parent who is doing the schooling.  And even home-schooling requires technology, materials, books and money for field trips.

Families making these sacrifices value education and are showing it by their spending.   Probably these are the same kids whose parents made sure homework was done, followed what their students were learning in school and made sure they got good rest and a breakfast on standardized test days.

Losing 5% of your best performing test takers is bound to impact the overall performance of the school district.

Not saying that virtual non-learning didn’t have an impact, nor did getting back in the grove.  But if you wonder why even the “good” systems saw a drop in schools, maybe all the high scores have gone to private schools and home schools.   Just a thought.

When will we ever learn?

 When will we ever learn?

 

That line is a refrain from an old folk tune.   Today it is very relevant to the teaching of reading in New York City.   It seems the City of New York is the latest in an increasingly long line of folks who are convinced that the “science or reading” requires the teaching of phonics.  It seems that many children, particularly those in minority plurality schools, are not proficient in reading.   This situation is unacceptable so the cure for the problem is to require that all schools chose from one three packaged programs that are phonics based.  Afterall these are evidenced based instructional programs.  These programs will be replacing balanced literature programs that seek to have kids Enjoy Reading!!! On my God, not that!

Classrooms across the country are seeing lower scores in both reading and math.   Just might be that all that virtual learning wasn’t much learning on the part of kids and lazy teaching on the part of teachers.

The debate on how to best teach reading dates back to post WWII when the universal conscription for the war brought to light the fact that there were lots of young adults out there who couldn’t read.

In the ‘50’s schools used a program called the “whole word” approach.  By the ‘70’s it had morphed into the “whole language” approach.  By the ‘90’s it was discovered that there were some kids who were not good readers!   So, it was and so it will always be until we get off of this one size fits all approach to the teaching of reading.  One size fits all doesn’t work for coats and it doesn’t work for reading.

Tell me what method of teaching reading you want to espouse and I can find some research that supports the efficacy of that method.

We need to stop having smart, middle and dumb reading groups.  Regardless of what you call the groups, the kids know.   Having only one method of teaching reading just changes who is in the dumb reading group because the dumb kids will just be the kids who do not learn by that method.  Sort of like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  

Phonics based approaches to teaching reading are really boring.  But if that is the way a kid learns best the pain is well worth the gain.   If it is not the way the child learns best, the suffering is compounded.

We should teach reading in basically three different ways, phonics, whole language and multi-sensory with an emphasis on motor input.   The reading groups should align with the method being taught to those kids.   Yes, that is more work for the teacher.  But if we want kids to read better, we need to teach them through a method that matches how they learn.  When will we ever learn this simple truth?

Money is not appreciation

 Money is not appreciation          

This week is National Teacher Appreciation week.  Teachers definitely need to be appreciated for the work they do and the lives they change.   It is VERY hard work.   The work requires knowledge, flexibility, and a deep sense of caring for other people’s children.

It is high time we did show our appreciation to these important people in our children’s lives.   Let’s raise their salaries!

Actually that’s a good sound bite but it really doesn’t show any appreciation.  What it does show is that we live in a capitalistic country and when things are scarce they become more expensive.  Finding teachers is harder and the reason isn’t for lack of money, the reason is because teachers really are not appreciated the way they once were, so who wants this job.

We can start by valuing a teacher’s judgement.   If a teacher thinks some particular content is going to take a bit longer to teach, that teacher should be able to make that judgement and slow up or move faster depending on how learning is going for her kids.  Instead, we have pacing guides that dictate to teachers exactly where in the curriculum the teacher will be on any given day.   Too bad about the speed at which the students are learning, administrators don’t trust teachers to pace their own teaching.  Move on, we have tests to take at the end of the year.

Aaah, tests to take.  That brings up another example of how we do not trust teachers.   Kids are tested multiple times during the school year.  The tests don’t measure how much the kids have learned as much as they measure how much the teacher has taught.  Teachers are measured by how well their students do on the test.  Is it any wonder, teachers don’t want to teach in lower socio-economic areas or work with slower learning kids?  

Things are only going from bad to worse when it comes to monitoring teachers.   The moral monitors are watching and checking to make sure teachers don’t teach about historical events that might reflect poorly on how our country treated some of our citizens.  Teachers are also monitored to make sure they don’t imply that human equality is a good thing after all that might make the folks who have coasted along on credit for lighter skin or a majority religious faith feel uncomfortable.

Used to be we even trusted teachers to monitor classroom behavior.   Used to be that if you got into trouble at school you would get into bigger trouble at home.  Not so anymore.  Now it is the teacher who gets into trouble for disciplining kids.   Parents storm the principal’s office to explain to the school admin why their child should not have consequences for bad behavior.   Principals are graded on how few kids they have suspended for bad behavior.  Not that the behavior has gotten any better, just that the perpetrators aren’t getting punished.

Do you really want to show your appreciation for teachers?   Support your child’s teacher when the teacher sends a not or email about your child’s behavior.   Contact your school administration, legislators and the media.   Tell them you trust your child’s teacher to provide appropriate curriculum and to pace that curriculum based on your child’s needs.   Tell all of these folks that you trust and appreciate your teachers and you will show that trust and appreciation by getting out of their way and letting them do their jobs.

A nice note would help too.  Otherwise, all the salary increases in the world won’t be enough for people to voluntarily take the kind of abuse you all are dishing out to teachers these days.  Appreciate your teachers all year round by respecting their professionalism.   That’s the real sign of teacher appreciation.

Schools have lost their way

 Schools have lost their way

 

People don’t seem to know how to act!  At least that’s true of other people not us.  What is really frightening is that our politicians are screaming about what they need to do to save democracy, yet they seem to be hard at work to undermine democracy at every turn.

The famous (or is that infamous) Blueprint for Education in Maryland is pouring billions of U.S. dollars into education over the next ten years.  But almost all of that money is going into teaching reading and math and raising teachers' salaries.  Meanwhile the Blueprint insists it is preparing kids for the next generation.  Concentrating on reading and math is last generation in No Child Left Behind the legislation that promised to have every child at grade level by 2014.    That didn’t work and this won’t work either.

Sure, children need to be able to read and do math.   Having 23 schools in Baltimore City in which not a single student was proficient in math is totally unacceptable.   And it is also unacceptable that in a democracy only about 35% of the citizens are taking the trouble to vote. Even though they take all the trouble they need to complain.   While the Maryland legislature has increased opportunities to vote, many states are doing whatever they can to make it more difficult to cast a ballot.

Publically funded schools were originally funded to prepare the masses for participating in a democracy.   That establishing principle seems to have long forgotten.

We do not put sufficient emphasis on civics, our responsibilities as citizens to our community and how the democratic system works.  We worry that kids can’t pass algebra 2, but lose no sleep over the fact they don’t know where to put political pressure to get guns off the street.  Politics has stopped being about choosing the leader who most reflects your values and now is all about the leader pandering to whatever will get him/her elected.   The political values shift with the latest poll.

We are not preparing our students to decode what is in the press or online.  It is wonderful if the reading level improves but what good will that do if having read the passage is designed to manipulate the reader but the reader can’t tell that.

We are not educating future citizens; we are too busy working on headlines for test scores.

Schools have lost their way from the original purpose for spending all this money.  We will continue to throw money at the problem and wonder why nothing changes.