Rumors Put to Rest by the Board
People packed tonight's meeting because of a rumor that some special education students would be moved from RHS to BHS. The board clarified that nothing of the sort was under consideration or was even known to the board.
Also, there was a rumor that the Phoenix Experience would be closed in 2 weeks. The board clarified that closing the Phoenix Experience has been considered as a budget reduction, but it would not be closed in 2 weeks.
Academic Achievement Presentation
Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education, Faith Dahlquist, and Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education, Mike Perrott, presented the district's academic achievement data. Data was segregated by grade, subject, race, economic status, IEP (special education), and english proficiency as mandated by No Child Left Behind, ("NCLB").
The data shows an overall upward trend in reading and math proficiency since 2004. Reading proficiency increases from grade 5 to grade 8, but drops off dramatically in grade 11. To note, eleventh graders do not take the ISAT, instead they take the PSAE. Math proficiency decreases from grade 5 to grade 8, and again decreases in grade 11.
Whites outperform Blacks, Hispanics, Low Income, Limited English Proficiency, and IEP subgroups in all grades, 5th, 8th, and 11th, and both subjects, reading and math. The achievement gaps between Blacks/Whites and Hispanics/Whites is smaller in the district as compared to the state.
Compared to other unit districts with 50% or more minority students, the district ranges from having the highest grade 11 reading proficiency in the state to the 7th highest grade 8 math in the state.
Board Member Gougis noted that comparing VVSD to other unit districts with 50% or more minority students obscures the fact that VVSD students will compete against all students, not just those who went to unit districts with 50% or more minority students. He named several of these other districts, among them East St. Louis and Chicago. He stated that we should be testing above these districts. I agree.
It's The Curriculum, Stupid
Member Gougis commented that some of the data pointed to the quality of the curriculum being an issue. I agree. I have been researching curriculum issues and asking questions for years.
When looking at the data segregated by the 6 subgroups, Limited English Proficiency and IEP lag significantly behind, as I would expect them to. Obviously, any student who can't speak English proficiently who must take a test in English will not do as well as a student who speaks English proficiently.
Likewise, it's unrealistic to expect students with IEP's to test at the same levels of proficiency as students without IEP's. As the mother of a child with an IEP, progress, no matter how small, is my objective. I do not believe that students with IEP's should be included in any district's proficiency scores, though IEP students should be tested in such a way as to allow their parents and school to determine if they are progressing academically.
However, I think students with Limited English Proficiency should be tested as an incentive to learn English in the shortest amount of time possible. Otherwise, standardized tests like the ISAT would have to be prepared in dozens of different languages, and hundreds if not thousands of people would have to be hired to read and score these tests in all these different languages.
Limited English Proficiency and IEP students aside, Low Income and minority students are often used as an excuse for weak curriculum and instruction. Yet, low income and minority students all over the country and around the world routinely excel in charter schools and private schools when presented with rigorous curriculum.
When given the choice, parents choose schools because they want their children exposed to the best curriculum and instruction. This is seen routinely when low income parents in inner cities like DC and Chicago have the ability to choose charter schools and private schools using vouchers or some other method of parental school choice.
What Are We Teaching?
Member Evans asked the queston, "What are we teaching?" in response to the academic achievement presentation. He remarked that we implement programs without clear goals and expectations, thereby leaving no way to measure success.
Programs without clear goals and expectations are all too characteristic of the education bureaucracy. After decades of a public education monopoly, public education "experts" still don't know how to teach the basics.
Private schools and charter schools get the job done, or else parents walk with their feet and most importantly - their money. Homeschoolers routinely kick butt. But for some strange reason, public education "experts" don't dare look at proven examples in private, charter, and homeschools. Instead, they constantly reinvent the wheel - because they know most public school parents can't walk with their feet - or their money.
This link to the Schlechty Center details conferences, one of which that was supposed to be attended by board members, until they cancelled it at tonight's meeting in the name of financial prudence. The cancellation took place after a long, and bitter exchange between Board Secretary Campbell and Board President Quigley.
The Working on the Work conference actually states that one of the things conference attendees will learn is "The role of teacher will be redefined as leader, designer, and guide to instruction, based on Phil Schlechty's newest thinking." I guess when Phil Schlechty gets a new thought and wants to redesign the redesign which I'm sure he's already redesigned repeatedly, he'll create a new conference for that too. The Schlechty Center website is so chocked full of edubabble, it deserves a long intensive post all by itself, which will be done at a later date.
How Does VVSD Teach Reading?
I addressed the board about reading curriculum and instruction. I asked my son's principal 2 years ago how reading was being taught, and in essence was told that it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that. There was no clear, goal oriented explanation of how my child would progress from point A to point B. To call this a big problem would be an understatement.
To contrast, at the private school my children attend(ed) through Kindergarten, they were taught to read by learning letter sounds, and receiving direct, systematic phonics instruction. They read phonics readers, among them the Primary Phonics Series, until they had mastered all the letter sound combinations. I had clear expectations and goals against which I could hold the school accountable. This clarity empowered me as a parent, because I could work at home to positively support what was being done in school.
After researching what was actually taking place in my son's classroom at VVSD, I found that VVSD uses a hodgepodge of whole language teaching methods, which are the cause of most reading problems. My son was taught to memorize words, skip words, guess words and substitute words when he should have been sounding out words. At home, I was working against the un-reading my son was being taught in school.
The district's Literacy for Learning initiative doesn't solve the basic problem of teaching reading right the first time. If an inferior reading series is used along with poor teaching methods thrown together with debilitating whole language instruction, many students will unnecessarily develop reading problems. The only cure for this problem is direct, systematic phonics instruction, which is what many for profit tutoring services do with students that have been ill-served by public schools.
I encourage any parent with a public school student who has a reading problem, especially in the elementary grades, to seek help immediately from an outside tutoring service with a proven track record. Do not wait for the school to "fix" what they have broken.
Supt. Perrott spoke about the district's Content Area Reading Program that has trained coaches to teach teachers how to teach reading in their content areas. He said that reading social science is different than reading literature, and math, and science, etc. So instead of focusing on reading at the foundational level, K-3, teachers at the junior high and high school level will be required to teach reading to students, in addition to teaching their specialized content. These students may or may not need this reading "instruction" which will be "taught" in an unproven manner. What will be the measure of success for this experiment?
Math Backward Design Model = Reinventing the Wheel
I addressed the board about math curriculum and instruction. At the beginning of my son's 4th grade year, I asked his teacher when she would get going with the 4th grade curriculum, after my son brought home a week's worth of what looked to me to be Kindergarten or 1st grade math work.
I was told that she was assessing where the students were mathematically. As a result, my son was not being challenged with atleast 4th grade work for much of the first quarter. I had to give him more appropriate math work at home. And I found that just like 3rd, 2nd, and 1st grade, he was presented with the exact same material (5th grade has been the same), and never presented with it long enough to master it.
Through my own research, I learned that this method of instruction is called spiraling. One of the reasons the material is not presented long enough for mastery is because there is just too much material presented relative to other curriculums that focus on mastery. Teaching for mastery involves presenting fewer topics for longer periods of time, thus allowing students to develop a deeper understanding of math concepts, which builds a firmer foundation for further math study.
Supt. Perrott said the district would be undertaking a backward design model where they would look at college and work readiness math standards to revamp the district's math curriculum. He said the district will seek to reduce redundancy in math instruction. He said this process would take a "long time" and involve a lot of "negotiating".
How long is a long time? A few months, years, a decade? Negotiating what? What works is not what the district has been doing, and there is an overwhelming amount of information on math curriculums and methods already in existence. In the meantime, many students in the district will continue to struggle because the curriculum and teaching methods do not meet their needs.
Journaling = Learning How NOT to Write
I addressed writing at the elementary level, specifically the journaling. At the end of my son's 3rd grade school year, when he brought all of his work home, I found his journal.
The journal was full of writing prompts and my son's attempts at writing. His work was full of misspelled words, incomplete sentences, grammatically incorrect sentences, and downright incoherent sentences. I noticed that none of this was corrected.
At the beginning of his 4th grade year, I asked about the journal and was in essence told it was to encourage creative writing. Yet, if your writing is incomplete, grammatically incorrect, incoherent and full of misspelled words, can that really be considered writing at all? Perhaps it could be the start of writing, a first draft, but certainly not a finished product.
I had my son bring his journal home for a portion of the year to correct his mistakes and make him understand that if he is to write and be taken seriously, he must master writing fundamentals. I drove home the fact that no matter what he writes about, if people can't understand it, it's worthless.
I introduced him to the concept of the first draft, and took him step by step through the writing process. Since then, we've worked on book reports and other school assignments. If students are to be encouraged to write creatively, why not write one creative assignment per week focusing on the writing process from start to finish. By the end of the week, the students will have a finished product that is both creative and fundamentally sound.
It is completely unacceptable for a 3rd grader and beyond to "write" in the manner my son is allowed to write in his journal. If writing badly is learned in school, and encouraged, this is one more bad habit students must overcome. We all know how hard it is to break bad habits, so why not teach the students how to write right the first time?
When I refer to writing badly, I am not referring to style. I don't expect every 3rd grader to be Shakespeare. But I do expect a fundamental knowledge and application of the written English language.
Supt. Dahlquist said the district would be strengthening the writing program. She made no mention of goals, expectations or time frames. Let's hope it won't take a long time and involve a lot of negotiating.
