Happy New Year . . .

Be safe and have fun as you usher in the new year!  We'll see if our Grandson makes it to midnight or for that matter if I do.

An important question . . .

www.prweb.com

Below is a post I did on December 30th that I have decided to post again, something that I have not done before.  I don't have a lot of readers and the count always drops over longer holiday breaks so I should plan better for when to post content I would like to see generate comments and interchange between readers.  For me, this is one of those posts, a topic of importance that impacted me when I read the answers that teachers submitted.

Amy Torrens posted a comment to the original post that captures the feeling that many teachers and principals hold about needing to be perfect  that also showed up in one of the comments to the Strauss post.

I think this post captures what I hear my teachers say, and how I feel as a principal. So many people want to do it "perfectly" but there isn't the time to put in place everything we know goes into good teaching.

I won't make it a practice to repost, but this one deserved more readers and the opportunity for comments from those of you that do this important work.  Consider sharing your answer to this question.

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS 

On the Washington Post Answer Sheet Valerie Strauss poses the following question.

How hard is teaching?

She includes a few examples such as this one below.

“Teaching is hard. Not only because of the curriculum, not only because of the new tests, new rules, new measures. Not only because there are tests, tests, and more tests. But because it so often feels like an insurmountable, thankless, stressful endeavor. The rules are always changing. The tests are always changing. And the blame for anything and everything that goes wrong usually falls squarely on our shoulders.” – Neyda Borges, teacher at Miami Lakes Educational Center in Florida, from this piece on the website of StateImpact Florida, a project of NPR.

How would you answer the question?  I was particularly moved by a comment to the post from palan.

. . . But in some ways the hardest part is never being enough.

You know what, in a perfect world, you would do-- the assignments you would give, the personal attention you would give, the feedback you would give on assignments, the preparation you would put into units. You will never have enough time to do all of it, especially if you have a life of your own (and you have to, even if only to be able to connect to students), and so you must always decide what thing that ought to be done is not going to be done.

You grow every year (if you're any good) and you get better at juggling more balls faster. But every day is still educational triage and you are still bothered by the things you know you ought to do, but you don't have the time or the resources.

You will never be perfect, even though you have a pretty good idea of what perfect looks like. You will always be better than you used to be, but all good teachers know exactly in what ways they are failing.

Please consider sharing your answer with our readers and commenting on the Strauss post.  It is important for policy makers to get closer to the reality of how hard teaching is as they make decisions that impact what young people need to know and do and the resources they allocate for teachers and support staff to accomplish this difficult task.  

A big win . . .

Once again a tremendous game by the Seahawk defense to win the NFC West Division championship and secure home field advantage throughout the play offs.  Still concerned with the offense even with Lynch mauling his way to 97 yards, but can and should go far with this defense.  It was loud today, but will be louder in two weeks no matter who we play.

A difficult transition . . .

In going through my blog file for post ideas two articles by Catherine Gerwetz in Education Week are at the top and follow conversations we had in our latest Teacher Leadership learning opportunity.  In the first she shares how states are grappling with common test score cutoffs for measuring career ready and in the second she follows that up with the problems associated with making the cut scores NAEP-like.

The issue of cut score is very important as we enter a new era of accountability aligned with common core standards beginning for many of our grades in the spring of 2014 with full implementation in the spring of 2015.  We are already experiencing some of the issues associated with this as we transition this year to assessments aligned with the common core that use some Smarter Balanced released items and scoring rubrics.  As accountability with these assessments becomes a reality and as questions of grades and graduation become tied to them we begin to see the push back she shares in her articles.

I am particularly intrigued by this issue of tying them to a NAEP standard.  As shared in the article, this is a high standard that could and probably would result in significant political backlash with the predicted low scores.  In 2013 fewer than 4 in 10 reached the proficient level in the reading and math assessments administered across the country.


W. James Popham, a governing board member who also sits on Smarter Balanced's technical advisory committee, said that while state schools chiefs "have a vested interest" in setting cut scores that minimize political fallout, technical advisors to a testing project push for a higher cut score because they don't want their test to be seen as weak.

He worried that "in the quest to look good... NAEP might be playing too dominant" a role in setting performance standards for the PARCC and Smarter Balanced tests. When the NAEP cut scores were set, Popham noted, they were intended to be "aspirational." Setting PARCC and SBAC "college ready" scores at that level of rigor has states "frightened," he said.

Patricia Wright, Virginia's superintendent of public instruction, said that states "like to be ambitious, but [NAEP-like proficiency cut scores] may not be the cut scores we want to set if we want to maintain our accountability systems."


Will the predicted low scores result in a common core cuts score different than the cut scores used by states for graduation purposes?  If different cut scores become a reality, will graduation cut scores across the states be the same?  I believe that there will be two sets of cut scores that result from implementing common core state assessments that will lead to more criticism for our public schools.  I also question if "aspirational" as measured by the NAEP should drive the proficient cut score and agree with those that say this should be a long term change process given a chance to succeed before it is destroyed by short term posting of results on assessments administered before we are given the resources and time to prepare them.


When using the mastery levels of PARCC and Smarter Balanced tests in policymaking, states would be wise to "set goals that are stretch-but-not-break," said Kati Haycock, the president of the Washington-based Education Trust, which advocates policies that help disadvantaged students.

"When you ask yourself how many kids are hitting that [NAEP] level of proficiency now, and ask yourself how fast we can move systems and kids," she said, "there is no way this is anything less than a 10-year transition."

A special wish . . .

I'm taking a few days off for the holidays, but wanted to wish for you and your family a very special and restful holiday season.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Focus on principal growth . . .

This Anthony Cody post at Education Week TEACHER includes a guest post by a teacher, Jennifer Gonzalez. that is worth the read. In it she asks the question: What makes a principal great? She refers to evaluation standards developed by the Interstate School Leaders' Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) and shares information from a study in our state.

Research in the state of Washington, for example, suggests that adoption of the ISLLC standards hasn't resulted in their consistent use in principal evaluation. In a 2011 summary of research on principal evaluation, Matthew Clifford and Steven Ross report that these evaluations are not conducted in any consistent way, and that by and large, principals see little value in them for their own professional growth.



This hits at home since I am the evaluator of principals in our system. Before this year and implementation of the mandated principal evaluation model I was much more focused on supervision and principal growth. The model that we have selected is based on the ISLLIC standards and is one that allows me to maintain a focus on what I believe are critical areas for principal focus, school culture and instructional practice. Though I am collecting data in more areas, I continue to provide feedback in these critical areas.

In her post Gonzales ends with these questions.

What impact have principals had on your ability to teach well? Have you found ways to offer them feedback about their work?

I am interested in the same questions and welcome any comments from teachers in our system. Principals want to increase their capacity to support teacher growth and feedback is an essential component of increasing this capacity. Please join me in supporting growth of our principals by providing this necessary feedback.

If interested, she is also conducting a survey on this topic. You can participate here.

Wondering about us . . .

A recent This Week In Education post shared the best NEA cartoons of the year including the one below.  They come from those that were the most shared and liked on the NEA website over the year.

#yearined13

Though funny it makes me wonder if this is what our students, parents, and teachers are thinking.  Though NCLB has not been a focus of conversation in our community and we are now much more engaged in Common Core conversations, is the testing in our system at a point where this question is an accurate description of our reality?

If you are interested in seeing more of the best cartoons of the year from NEA check them out here.