More learning walks . . .

Tomorrow, the district administrators will be at Lake Wilderness Elementary to do walk throughs.  I am excited to have some elementary teacher leaders join us for this learning opportunity.  Our learning goals for the day are to:

• Develop a shared understanding of what key content and checking for understanding looks and sounds like in classrooms.
• Practice sharing data collected in a way that is non-judgmental.
• Use our noticing and wondering to support a building principal and leadership team to consider next steps on the Classroom 10 journey.

We will be sharing what we notice and wonder as we script what teachers and students do and say and then use the Classroom 10 documentation to identity interactions around key content.  It is our opportunity as leaders to internalize the documentation and to assess ourselves individually and collectively on our recognition of interactions around key content and checks for understanding.  It will also provide us with an opportunity to use and provide feed back on data collection tools.

Thanks in advance to Laurel and to her teachers for supporting our learning as district administrators and teacher leaders.

A state report card . . .

Two report cards on public schools at the state level have been released recently. In this post I’ll share a local one compiled by the League of Education Voters. Below, are the grades for 2011 with a summary of how the grading is done found here.  The grades are not good for either year and the prospects in the short term on these goals is not much better.

Ratings (2010 rating in parentheses)

Invest in early learning.   C+ (C+)

• Ensure every child reads by third grade – close achievement gap

Prepare all children for college, work, and life.   C- (C+)

• Every high school student opportunity graduate with meaningful diploma

Focus on math, science, and engineering.   C- (C)

• Support every student in passing Algebra I by 8th grade

Prepare everyone for 21st century job market.   D+ (C-)

• Increase number of students completing one year after high school and return for a second year

Invest in what works.   C- (D+)

• Improve transparency, accountability, and funding necessary for student achievement

I think that this quote form the report summary will give you a context for understanding the above rankings.

The report paints a pretty gloomy picture.


In our last Report Card, we wrote that whether we make progress will come down to our collective will to do the things that matter. Invest in early learning; make sure kids read by third grade; focus on cutting our dropout rates. Well, we didn’t do those things. Our reading scores have flatlined. We are near the bottom of national rankings for college-going, we are one of nine states where the achievement gap is actually growing, our graduation rates are in the bottom third, and a full 18 points behind the national leader. While our SAT scores rank us at the top, the test is voluntary, taken by kids intent on going to college. The good news: for kids who believe they’re going to college — mostly White, affluent, or Asian kids — we do pretty well. For everybody else, we don’t prepare them for much of anything.

One piece of information I found interesting was the chart comparing Washington’s per pupil spending to the national average. In 1980 we were 13% above the national average, in 1992 we were at the average, and in 2007 we were at 89% of the average. Given the current condition of the state’s economy and the cuts that are being done to this year’s and next year’s budget the trend line will most likely continue the negative path.

Please know that the League of Education Voters is one of the leading advocacy groups for public schools in this state. They have a strong presence in Olympia and are pushing the legislature to continue the reform agenda passed over the last two sessions.  They are aligned with many of the current national trends, but are truly focused on supporting the education of all Washington students as shown in this quote from the report..

And finally — and most importantly — we put kids first, and we tell the truth.

A learning walk . . .

I had a wonderful opportunity yesterday at Tahoma Middle School where Amy and the staff allowed a group of superintendents and central office staff to visit classrooms. Dawn and I are part of a group working with U.W. staff from the Center for Educational Leadership on learning walks using the instructional model developed at CEL. The intent of the program is to assist superintendents in developing a common understanding of instruction around the five components of the model and identifying support structures necessary for teachers to create classrooms driven by the model.


For our work, we asked our colleagues to provide us with feedback on implementation of three characteristics of Classroom 10; key content, active learning, and checks for understanding. The theory of action that we shared was that a focus on these characteristics will influence increased student achievement as identified in the research. The learning walks process we use is intentionally designed to not make judgments since the purpose of the work is calibration, not assessment. This is difficult to do, but the facilitators from CEL keep this focus and force the participants to discuss what was observed with supporting evidence.

The process calls for us to divide into two groups with each group visiting the same classroom for twenty minutes back-to-back. Our task is to script what we see and hear teachers and students doing as it relates to the focus. Following the classroom visits, members share what they noticed with the group and an overall picture begins to emerge of what took place in the classroom. This is followed by members sharing what they are wondering about from their noticing. These are questions that emerge from the noticing that are not judgmental and are intended to promote thinking by the host district.

We were then given an opportunity to share our thinking based upon the noticing and wondering process. This was valuable to me as I was forced to be reflective about our instructional model and the support structures that we must put in place. Three questions or areas of focus emerged for me from this work.

1. One of the components of the CEL instructional model is the balance between teacher and student talk and the level of thinking embedded in student talk. Our model has student behaviors identified, but I don’t see the clear connection to the balance issue that has a strong research base. How can we make this clearer using the format and components already identified in our model?

2. Much of our current effort is on creating documents to support implementation of the model. I am wondering if we have spent enough time focused on the research base so that teachers have an understanding of the importance of these three characteristics. It also forces me to consider how to differentiate support for teachers on this journey.

3. Should we be focused on fewer Classroom 10 characteristics at one time?

Once again thanks to Amy and the TMS staff for this learning opportunity.

Football and snow . . .

Sorry, I can't pass up sharing the Seahawk experience.  I haven't really been actively involved in games for the past couple of years, but yesterday was an exception.  Wow, long touchdown passes and the best touchdown run I can remember by a Seahawk ever.  Still hoarse as I sit here thinking about it and wishing we could have at least one more game.  It could happen if the Hawks beat the Bears and the Packers beat the Falcons.

Now, on to something more important, the possibility of snow later this week.  The only good news is that the forecast is changing from the possibility of many inches on Wednesday to a few.  That is still too many for me.  You can read about the updated  forecast on the Cliff Mass Weather Blog.  He is usually pretty accurate, though I can't make much sense of the charts and graphs.  We don't need another day lost to weather, but chances are good considering this forecast and that we are now entering what are the normal months of worry for us, January and February.  Hopefully, there won't be any problems in the morning.

Qualifying for military service . . .

I wonder how our high school graduates do on the military entrance exam where potential Army recruits need a passing score of 31 out of 99 questions. An NPR story was referenced in this edReformer blog post by Tom Vander Ark. The article refers to a study by the Education Trust that found nearly one fourth of high school graduates do not meet the minimum requirement; 31 out of 99 for the Army, 32 for the Marines, 35 for the Navy, and 45 for the Coast Guard.  Kind of interesting how this breaks out for each branch of the military.


The article gives an example of one of the questions that would suggest the assessment is not that rigorous.  I don't have experience or data to know if this example is one of the easier, harder, or typical questions so I won't make an assumption on the difficulty of the exam, but the passing standard is not that high.

"If three plus X equals six, what is the value of X?"

One positive insight from the study is the chart showing our state having one of the lower ineligibility rates at about 17%.   Since military service is a viable post high school opportunity for many young people meeting standard on the entry exam is critical and another measure that we need to be targeting.

Some additional thoughts on value added . . .

In my December 29th post I asked you what you thought about value added so it is only fair for me to share my thoughts. First, let me share three additional articles that align with some of my thinking on this issue.

In these separate edReformer and Educational Leadership articles, information from a Brookings Brown Center Task Group on Teacher Quality is shared about the need for multiple measures in teacher effectiveness. It is important to understand and consider that more than simply looking at standardized test score gains from year-to-year is necessary for any effective teacher assessment model.

Teaching is a complex task, and value-added captures only a portion of the impact of differences in teacher effectiveness. Thus, high-stakes decisions based on value-added measures of teacher performance will be imperfect. We do not advocate using value-added measures alone when making decisions about hiring, firing, tenure, compensation, placement, or teacher development, but surely value-added information ought to be in the mix given the empirical evidence that it predicts more about what students will learn from the teachers to whom they are assigned than any other source of information.

The main arguments surfacing about using the value added model focus on the reliability of the model as a measurement of effectiveness, the potential for misclassification, the problem with controlling for the many additional variables found in every classroom, and how the measurement will be used in future employment decisions.

What's One to Do? (Education Leadership)

From the federal government to foundations, the pressure is on to use student test score gains to evaluate teachers. Yet doing so in a credible and fair way is a complex and expensive undertaking with no guarantee that intended improvements in teaching and learning will result. What's more, it is not clear that value-added measures yield better information than more traditional teacher evaluation practices do.

The complexity and uncertainty of measuring student achievement growth and deciding how much responsibility for gains to attribute to the teacher argue against using such measures for high-stakes decisions about individuals. To protect teachers from erroneous and harmful judgments, a consensus is emerging that we need multiple measures that tap evidence of good teaching practices as well as a variety of student outcomes, including but not limited to standardized test score gains. According to a recent study (Coggshall, Ott, & Lasagna, 2010), most teachers support such a multiple-measures approach.

That is the question we are faced with. What is one to do? My view is aligned with this Education Week article from the authors of the above cited study.

When teacher evaluation that incorporates value-added data is compared against an abstract ideal, it can easily be found wanting in that it provides only a fuzzy signal of teacher effectiveness. But when it is compared to performance assessment in other fields or to evaluations of teachers based on other sources of information, it becomes obvious that even a fuzzy signal of teacher effectiveness, if it is the best available signal, can be a vast improvement over no signal.

Since we say we are about learning we should be using student achievement data as a measure of success at multiple levels in our system. Yes, this will be complex and difficult to achieve. It will require collaboration and common understanding of our purpose for the measurement and demand differentiated support systems for teachers and administrators, including me, who also share in the responsibility to ensure that all students continue to learn and grow. In Tahoma, it will also mean going beyond measures of academic progress on standardized tests to identifying growth on acquisition of our Outcomes and Indicators, Habits of Mind, and thinking skills.  Most importantly, I believe that student achievement data is only one of multiple indicators that must be considered as we work together to develop a measurement system that influences the quality of learning in every classroom, everyday for every child in our system.

What are your thoughts about this part of the quote from the Education Leadership article quoted above related to what teachers think?  Do you agree?

. . . To protect teachers from erroneous and harmful judgments . . . According to a recent study (Coggshall, Ott, & Lasagna, 2010), most teachers support such a multiple-measures approach.

One more football post . . .

The Hawks played a great game last night and earned the right to play the Saints again next week at home.  The picture is from my phone just after they made the last field goal with about one minute left, 16 to 6.  The three points were great, but the first downs and clock eating was better. I won't get into the issue of losing record - they just happened to be the best in a bad division.

The other thing I learned is that the commercials in a nationally televised Sunday night game are more frequent and longer than our normal games.  Good thing it started at 5:20 and not 8:00.

I'll get back to school related posts next time.