As many readers of this blog may know, I retired as of the end of June and am no longer the Neary School principal. The new Neary School principal is Kathleen Valenti -- you can find her blog here:
http://neary.nsboro.k12.ma.us/pages/Neary/School_Info/PrincipalBlog
Meanwhile, although I am now retired, I continue to be very interested in and caring about public education. I have started a new blog entitled "Murdock's EduCorner Cafe" to provide "food for thought about public education." If you are interested, you can find my new blog here:
http://educornercafe.blogspot.com/
If you are also passionate about public education, I hope to see you on the blog!
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Decision-Making About Testing Hurts Real Children
I was working today on analyzing our MCAS results from last spring and decided, just for the fun of it, to see how many of our students would have been considered to be "advanced" and "proficient" if the "cut scores" for the 4th and 5th grade tests were chosen in the same way as the cut scores for the 10th grade tests. ("Cut scores" are the scores which indicate the division between two categories -- for example, between "proficient" and "needs improvement.") The results were very interesting -- had our scores been calculated in the same manner as the 10th grade scores, 97% of our students, in both 4th and 5th grade, would have been considered "advanced and proficient" on the ELA tests, and 100% of 4th graders and 94% of 5th graders would have been considered "advanced and proficient" on the math tests. Since that's not how the scores for the grades below 10th grade are calculated, though, our actual percentages, while good, were quite a bit below that.
Meanwhile, I was talking with teachers today who were worried about a particular student, who is stressed and anxious because of his parents' concern about his MCAS scores. We have many of those students, and many parents who are concerned about the scores. In some cases, worry about these scores and worry about how their child is doing can cause parents to lose sight of many more important qualities that their child has -- perhaps she is creative, a great thinker, kind to others; perhaps he is a good practical problem-solver, skilled in getting along with others, with many passionate interests -- and focus so much on the scores that the child begins to feel that he/she isn't good enough and becomes stressed and anxious about school and about the tests.
This makes me angry. Where the performance categories on the tests are set is a decision, possibly a political decision, but certainly a decision, by someone, for some purpose. Perhaps the scores at the lower grades are set on the low end to encourage schools and students to strive for higher performance. Perhaps they are set on the low end to create the perception that schools are failing. Perhaps they are set on the low end because the people who set them genuinely believe that they know what 4th or 5th graders should be able to do. Whatever the purpose, where the scores are set is a decision. As stated by Lesley Professor William T. Stokes in his article entitled "Inside the MCAS: A Close Reading of the Fourth Grade Language Arts Test for Massachusetts,"
And, as I noted earlier, if the 10th grade cut score levels were applied to the 4th and 5th grade tests, then 97% of our students, in both 4th and 5th grade, would have been considered "advanced and proficient" on the ELA tests, and 100% of 4th graders and 94% of 5th graders would have been considered "advanced and proficient" on the math tests. For whatever reasons, the decision was made not to do that.
There may or may not be well-intentioned reasons for that decision in the political or institutional realm. But the decision hurts real children and families, and that makes me angry.
Meanwhile, I was talking with teachers today who were worried about a particular student, who is stressed and anxious because of his parents' concern about his MCAS scores. We have many of those students, and many parents who are concerned about the scores. In some cases, worry about these scores and worry about how their child is doing can cause parents to lose sight of many more important qualities that their child has -- perhaps she is creative, a great thinker, kind to others; perhaps he is a good practical problem-solver, skilled in getting along with others, with many passionate interests -- and focus so much on the scores that the child begins to feel that he/she isn't good enough and becomes stressed and anxious about school and about the tests.
This makes me angry. Where the performance categories on the tests are set is a decision, possibly a political decision, but certainly a decision, by someone, for some purpose. Perhaps the scores at the lower grades are set on the low end to encourage schools and students to strive for higher performance. Perhaps they are set on the low end to create the perception that schools are failing. Perhaps they are set on the low end because the people who set them genuinely believe that they know what 4th or 5th graders should be able to do. Whatever the purpose, where the scores are set is a decision. As stated by Lesley Professor William T. Stokes in his article entitled "Inside the MCAS: A Close Reading of the Fourth Grade Language Arts Test for Massachusetts,"
". . . The reader may wonder at the logic of this system. Why, it might be asked, are the raw score groupings unequal in number? The fact is that the conversion between raw scores and standard scores was decided by a committee of designers, consultants, and policy makers. It was decided. It was not a matter of necessity; there is nothing intrinsic to the test that requires this particular conversion. . . The reason this matters is that performance levels are reported in all the media in relation to standard scores. To obtain a score of 240 will place the student at the threshold of the "proficient" level. Thus, it makes a very great difference whether a raw score of 35 or 40 or 47 gets the student to that threshold. . . It is not my purpose here to examine the political and institutional processes that governed these decisions, so I'll leave these issues for another discussion. My concern now is to help parents and teachers understand the relationship between the reported performance of their youngsters and media presentations of disappointing results. Suffice to say that if the decision had been made to convert a raw score of 35 to a standard score of 240, then more than half of all fourth graders in Massachusetts would have been judged to be "proficient" or "advanced" -- and the public response to the tests would have been very different indeed. . ."
And, as I noted earlier, if the 10th grade cut score levels were applied to the 4th and 5th grade tests, then 97% of our students, in both 4th and 5th grade, would have been considered "advanced and proficient" on the ELA tests, and 100% of 4th graders and 94% of 5th graders would have been considered "advanced and proficient" on the math tests. For whatever reasons, the decision was made not to do that.
There may or may not be well-intentioned reasons for that decision in the political or institutional realm. But the decision hurts real children and families, and that makes me angry.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Thoughts for a New School Year
Welcome back to a new school year! To me, a new school year, a new beginning, is one of the most exciting times of the year. I always make my "new year's" resolutions at the beginning of the school year, rather than at the beginning of the calendar year, and have goals and plans for the school year. For children, too, the year marks a new beginning and new opportunities.
Recently, I was reviewing a book that I've very much enjoyed and appreciated -- Carol Dweck's Mindset: The New Psychology of Success -- and it reminded me of an NPR article I had clipped last fall relating to the mental attitude people have about learning and about struggling to learn something new. The gist of both of them, which I think is very relevant to the beginning of a new school year, is that a student's mental attitude about learning, and his/her attribution of results to effort or to ability, can make a huge difference to his/her success in learning and success in life.
Mindset begins with this scene:
The article, published on NPR, entitled "Struggle for Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning" by Alix Spiegel (http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggle-for-smarts-how-eastern-and-western-cultures-tackle-learning), begins with the story of a teacher in Japan who chose the student who was struggling to put his work on the board. The student continued to work until he finally succeeded, without seeming concerned about his struggle. The article continues:
If you assume that intelligence is fixed and that struggling means you are not very smart, you will tend to give up easily and avoid situations where you will be seen as not smart. On the other hand, if you believe that intelligence is fluid and you can learn by working hard, you will tend to persist and will be more likely to succeed. Other researchers have investigated the messages given to children by different kinds of praise, finding that when children are praised for their effort they learn persistence, but when they are praised for being smart they tend to persist less and give up more easily when a task is difficult. In the article, Spiegel gives another example of a mother talking to her son about his success in a piano competition, explaining his success as a result of his efforts: "You practiced and practiced with lots of energy," she tells him. "It got really hard, but you made a great effort. . ."
From everything I've read, it seems that helping students (and ourselves) avoid a fixed mindset and become more willing to struggle and learn would be a big contributor to their (and our) success, so one thing that all of us could do is be aware of our own assumptions and beliefs in this area and work on attributing success to effort and reinforcing kids in the belief that hard work will result in learning and success.
And I think I will reread Mindset in its entirety as I work on my new [school] year's resolutions. Here's to a great new year for everyone!
Recently, I was reviewing a book that I've very much enjoyed and appreciated -- Carol Dweck's Mindset: The New Psychology of Success -- and it reminded me of an NPR article I had clipped last fall relating to the mental attitude people have about learning and about struggling to learn something new. The gist of both of them, which I think is very relevant to the beginning of a new school year, is that a student's mental attitude about learning, and his/her attribution of results to effort or to ability, can make a huge difference to his/her success in learning and success in life.
Mindset begins with this scene:
"When I was a young researcher, just starting out, something happened that changed my life. I was obsessed with understanding how people cope with failures, and I decided to study it by watching how students grapple with hard problems. So I brought children one at a time to a room in their school, made them comfortable, and then gave them a series of puzzles to solve. . . I expected differences among children in how they coped with the difficulty, but I saw something I never expected. . .
"Confronted with the hard puzzles, one ten-year-old boy pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked his lips, and cried out, "I love a challenge!". . . What's wrong with them, I wondered. I always thought you coped with failure or you didn't cope with failure. I never thought anyone loved failure. Were these alien children or were they on to something?. . .
"What did they know? They knew that human qualities, such as intellectual skills, could be cultivated through effort. And that's what they were doing -- getting smarter. Not only weren't they discouraged by failure, they didn't even think they were failing. They thought they were learning. . .
"I, on the other hand, thought human qualities were carved in stone. You were smart or you weren't. It was that simple. If you could arrange successes and avoid failures (at all costs), you could stay smart. Struggles, mistakes, perseverance were just not part of this picture. . .
"Whether human qualities are things that can be cultivated or things that are carved in stone is an old issue. What these beliefs mean for you is a new one: What are the consequences of thinking that your intelligence or personality is something you can develop, as opposed to something that is a fixed, deep-seated trait?" [emphasis added]
The article, published on NPR, entitled "Struggle for Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning" by Alix Spiegel (http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggle-for-smarts-how-eastern-and-western-cultures-tackle-learning), begins with the story of a teacher in Japan who chose the student who was struggling to put his work on the board. The student continued to work until he finally succeeded, without seeming concerned about his struggle. The article continues:
"In Eastern cultures. . . it's just assumed that struggle is a predictable part of the learning process. Everyone is expected to struggle in the process of learning, and so struggling becomes a chance to show that you, the student, have what it takes emotionally to resolve the problem by persisting through that struggle."
If you assume that intelligence is fixed and that struggling means you are not very smart, you will tend to give up easily and avoid situations where you will be seen as not smart. On the other hand, if you believe that intelligence is fluid and you can learn by working hard, you will tend to persist and will be more likely to succeed. Other researchers have investigated the messages given to children by different kinds of praise, finding that when children are praised for their effort they learn persistence, but when they are praised for being smart they tend to persist less and give up more easily when a task is difficult. In the article, Spiegel gives another example of a mother talking to her son about his success in a piano competition, explaining his success as a result of his efforts: "You practiced and practiced with lots of energy," she tells him. "It got really hard, but you made a great effort. . ."
From everything I've read, it seems that helping students (and ourselves) avoid a fixed mindset and become more willing to struggle and learn would be a big contributor to their (and our) success, so one thing that all of us could do is be aware of our own assumptions and beliefs in this area and work on attributing success to effort and reinforcing kids in the belief that hard work will result in learning and success.
And I think I will reread Mindset in its entirety as I work on my new [school] year's resolutions. Here's to a great new year for everyone!
Saturday, March 30, 2013
What Kids Need Most -- Sharing With Their Parents
In my last post (quite a while ago, to my embarrassment) I talked about the necessity for a good home-school partnership to support children in their learning. Recently, two events have pushed me to think even more about parent involvement and how important sharing events and activities with their parents is to children's growth and development.
The two events that got me thinking in this direction were Neary Noodle Night, which was in the beginning of February, and our Book Fair, Art Show, & Ice Cream Social in the beginning of March. Both are wonderful family events that should help to bring parents and children together and give them a good opportunity to share some of the things that are going on at school as well as to socialize with other parents and kids. Both evenings worked well that way for some families, but not as well for others, and I am doing some thinking about how to help make them work well for everybody. What happened at both events was that some parents and children spent the evening together, sharing the discussions about the baskets, chatting over dinner, or playing together in the gym at Noodle Night, shopping for books, chatting over ice cream, and looking together at the art on display at the March event, while other parents spent the evening socializing with other adults while their children ran through the halls and played with each other. Aside from the inevitable behavior problems on the part of some of the unsupervised children, I was concerned that the evening didn't seem to work as intended -- to give parents and children time for sharing a school-related event -- and am thinking about how the evenings could be restructured to work better, to be fun for both kids and adults and to create that kind of sharing.
Along these lines, I bought a book at our Book Fair that I think relates -- The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick. It's actually the beginning of a series, of which I have now read five, and I think it provides a great picture of parents and kids sharing an activity which at first was regarded rather negatively by the girls ("Oh, Mom! Do we have to?"), but which over time resulted in great sharing and increased closeness between the girls and their mothers and gave the parents a window into the girls' world that allowed them to further guide them in their development. (I do recommend the series, by the way -- they are enjoyable reading with some good learning and growth on the part of the main characters.) I'm wondering if we could make some changes to our family events that would foster that kind of sharing as the primary aspect of the evening. Even if kids say they want to be with their friends, deep down they actually crave sharing with a parent and that means much more to them than an evening spent playing with friends. And, as kids grow older, they need parent involvement and guidance more than ever, even if they say they don't!
The two events that got me thinking in this direction were Neary Noodle Night, which was in the beginning of February, and our Book Fair, Art Show, & Ice Cream Social in the beginning of March. Both are wonderful family events that should help to bring parents and children together and give them a good opportunity to share some of the things that are going on at school as well as to socialize with other parents and kids. Both evenings worked well that way for some families, but not as well for others, and I am doing some thinking about how to help make them work well for everybody. What happened at both events was that some parents and children spent the evening together, sharing the discussions about the baskets, chatting over dinner, or playing together in the gym at Noodle Night, shopping for books, chatting over ice cream, and looking together at the art on display at the March event, while other parents spent the evening socializing with other adults while their children ran through the halls and played with each other. Aside from the inevitable behavior problems on the part of some of the unsupervised children, I was concerned that the evening didn't seem to work as intended -- to give parents and children time for sharing a school-related event -- and am thinking about how the evenings could be restructured to work better, to be fun for both kids and adults and to create that kind of sharing.
Along these lines, I bought a book at our Book Fair that I think relates -- The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick. It's actually the beginning of a series, of which I have now read five, and I think it provides a great picture of parents and kids sharing an activity which at first was regarded rather negatively by the girls ("Oh, Mom! Do we have to?"), but which over time resulted in great sharing and increased closeness between the girls and their mothers and gave the parents a window into the girls' world that allowed them to further guide them in their development. (I do recommend the series, by the way -- they are enjoyable reading with some good learning and growth on the part of the main characters.) I'm wondering if we could make some changes to our family events that would foster that kind of sharing as the primary aspect of the evening. Even if kids say they want to be with their friends, deep down they actually crave sharing with a parent and that means much more to them than an evening spent playing with friends. And, as kids grow older, they need parent involvement and guidance more than ever, even if they say they don't!
Monday, November 12, 2012
"The Customer Is Always Right" and Other Myths
This weekend I took my car in to the shop for a couple of small things -- a tire change, an alignment, and replacing a burnt out bulb. When I picked up the car, I found that there had been a miscommunication and something different had been done than what I thought I had requested. I found myself getting annoyed over the miscommunication, and the manager very quickly moved to make things right. I appreciated that but was upset that I had become annoyed and crabby about the whole thing. I apologized, and so did they, and things ended on a good note. But this incident made me think about the whole saying, "The customer is always right," which of course is not true. The customer is NOT always right! Sometimes the customer is wrong! Sometimes the customer is crabby! Sometimes the customer is rude! It's a scenario in which the pendulum has perhaps swung too far, when the interactions should instead always be polite and courteous on both sides.
This incident led me to thinking about one way in education in which the pendulum has perhaps also swung too far. Years ago, it was entirely attributed to a child if he/she didn't learn. It was reasonable for a teacher to say, "I taught it, but they didn't learn it," and it was thought that some children just couldn't learn everything that others could. In my elementary school years, there was a boy in my class who was still unable to read and write by 8th grade. He sat in the last row in the back of the class and took all the same tests as everyone else, only all he did was write his name on them. We corrected each other's papers, and if you got his, all you had to do was write a big "F" on top of it. Reading this in 2012, it's appalling that no one did anything more to help him (although, of course, it's possible that someone tried and I just didn't know about it). At the time, though, it was just taken for granted that some kids were "good at school" and others weren't. (For those who are wondering, he dropped out of school as soon as he legally could, and did quite well in life.)
Now, of course, this scenario could not happen. When we have a child who is having difficulty with something, for example with reading, we do everything we can to figure out what the problem is and do everything we can to help him/her succeed. I think this is wonderful, and would never want to return to the "good old days" on this front. However, in some ways I think that the pendulum has perhaps swung too far in the other direction, where teachers and schools are accountable for everything children are accountable for too little. Sometimes the reason a child isn't learning well is that the child is not doing his/her homework, is not practicing his/her math facts, is not paying attention and working hard in class, is not managing to write down his/her assignments, and/or has been absent because of a family vacation and is not putting in the extra time needed to catch up. For children to learn well, there needs to be a solid partnership between home and school. Educators do need to do everything in their power to help children learn, going "the extra mile" and working hard to make things work for every child in their school, but children also need to put in their best efforts, doing their homework, working hard in class, and putting in extra time when needed, and parents need to help children with this, modeling it for them and reminding them about the importance of working hard. In my view, the pendulum should be in the middle -- with children supported in their learning by a good partnership between home and school.
This incident led me to thinking about one way in education in which the pendulum has perhaps also swung too far. Years ago, it was entirely attributed to a child if he/she didn't learn. It was reasonable for a teacher to say, "I taught it, but they didn't learn it," and it was thought that some children just couldn't learn everything that others could. In my elementary school years, there was a boy in my class who was still unable to read and write by 8th grade. He sat in the last row in the back of the class and took all the same tests as everyone else, only all he did was write his name on them. We corrected each other's papers, and if you got his, all you had to do was write a big "F" on top of it. Reading this in 2012, it's appalling that no one did anything more to help him (although, of course, it's possible that someone tried and I just didn't know about it). At the time, though, it was just taken for granted that some kids were "good at school" and others weren't. (For those who are wondering, he dropped out of school as soon as he legally could, and did quite well in life.)
Now, of course, this scenario could not happen. When we have a child who is having difficulty with something, for example with reading, we do everything we can to figure out what the problem is and do everything we can to help him/her succeed. I think this is wonderful, and would never want to return to the "good old days" on this front. However, in some ways I think that the pendulum has perhaps swung too far in the other direction, where teachers and schools are accountable for everything children are accountable for too little. Sometimes the reason a child isn't learning well is that the child is not doing his/her homework, is not practicing his/her math facts, is not paying attention and working hard in class, is not managing to write down his/her assignments, and/or has been absent because of a family vacation and is not putting in the extra time needed to catch up. For children to learn well, there needs to be a solid partnership between home and school. Educators do need to do everything in their power to help children learn, going "the extra mile" and working hard to make things work for every child in their school, but children also need to put in their best efforts, doing their homework, working hard in class, and putting in extra time when needed, and parents need to help children with this, modeling it for them and reminding them about the importance of working hard. In my view, the pendulum should be in the middle -- with children supported in their learning by a good partnership between home and school.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Musings About Children and Consequences
Since my last post, I've been doing some thinking about kids learning from the natural consequences of their actions and thought I'd write a bit about my own experience with that, as well as sharing a recent book that relates -- How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, by Paul Tough. Tough's thesis is that helping children develop curiosity, perseverance, and other character traits is essential in helping them achieve success in life, and he has some interesting thoughts on that.
In my own experience, some years ago, when I was perhaps 8 or 9 years old, I went with my family to the annual county fair. I had saved up a fair amount of money for the occasion, maybe $1.25 or so, which in those days was significant. That evening, among all the rides and treats and exciting experiences, I saw a booth where you could take a chance on choosing a colored plastic duck, out of many different-colored ducks floating in a stream past the front of the booth, that would win you a wonderful stuffed animal. I was sucked in, and spent the rest of my money on chances, but did not win the stuffed animal. In tears, I told my father what had happened. He was sympathetic and caring, but did not rescue me. He did not give me more money so I could go on rides, and he and I had a conversation, sympathetic and caring on his side, but also very clear, about decision-making and choices, and the risks of gambling. I spent the rest of the evening just looking at the exhibits, except that the whole family had supper at one of the booths and at the end of the evening we all went on one ride before going home.
Looking back on this incident, it seems to me that my parents achieved an excellent balance in helping me deal with this problem. They listened, were sympathetic and caring, but did not rescue me. Instead, they helped me learn an important lesson from my choices. What would I have learned if they had rescued me? Would I have learned to think about and be responsible for the consequences of my decisions? Or would I have learned to feel entitled, and to think that someone would or should always rescue me?
As an elementary school principal, I often see parents wanting to rescue their children, to keep them from feeling sadness, discomfort, disappointment or frustration, or experiencing negative consequences. While understanding that it is difficult to see your child being unhappy, I am concerned about this trend. In the elementary years, the consequences for a child are not that large; every year, the consequences of poor decisions become larger. At 8 years old, the consequence of my poor decision-making about money was that I was unable to go on another ride that evening. At 28, as an adult, the consequences of my taking a similar risk, gambling with a large part of my funds, would have been much more serious. It was an important lesson to learn at a young age, when the consequences were relatively small. Similarly, if kids learn in elementary school that hitting another student, for example, results in missing recess, in high school they may not have to learn that lesson by being suspended or expelled. Or if they learn in the early years that not studying for tests results in lower performance, they will avoid experiencing the results of poor academic grades in the years in which academic performance has high-stakes consequences. Of course, it's always a judgment call as to how to intervene in any particular situation for a particular child, but in general it seems to me to be true that people (children, adults, all of us) learn from the results of their actions, and while taking care to be kind, caring, and gentle, we adults need to allow that to happen for kids.
In my own experience, some years ago, when I was perhaps 8 or 9 years old, I went with my family to the annual county fair. I had saved up a fair amount of money for the occasion, maybe $1.25 or so, which in those days was significant. That evening, among all the rides and treats and exciting experiences, I saw a booth where you could take a chance on choosing a colored plastic duck, out of many different-colored ducks floating in a stream past the front of the booth, that would win you a wonderful stuffed animal. I was sucked in, and spent the rest of my money on chances, but did not win the stuffed animal. In tears, I told my father what had happened. He was sympathetic and caring, but did not rescue me. He did not give me more money so I could go on rides, and he and I had a conversation, sympathetic and caring on his side, but also very clear, about decision-making and choices, and the risks of gambling. I spent the rest of the evening just looking at the exhibits, except that the whole family had supper at one of the booths and at the end of the evening we all went on one ride before going home.
Looking back on this incident, it seems to me that my parents achieved an excellent balance in helping me deal with this problem. They listened, were sympathetic and caring, but did not rescue me. Instead, they helped me learn an important lesson from my choices. What would I have learned if they had rescued me? Would I have learned to think about and be responsible for the consequences of my decisions? Or would I have learned to feel entitled, and to think that someone would or should always rescue me?
As an elementary school principal, I often see parents wanting to rescue their children, to keep them from feeling sadness, discomfort, disappointment or frustration, or experiencing negative consequences. While understanding that it is difficult to see your child being unhappy, I am concerned about this trend. In the elementary years, the consequences for a child are not that large; every year, the consequences of poor decisions become larger. At 8 years old, the consequence of my poor decision-making about money was that I was unable to go on another ride that evening. At 28, as an adult, the consequences of my taking a similar risk, gambling with a large part of my funds, would have been much more serious. It was an important lesson to learn at a young age, when the consequences were relatively small. Similarly, if kids learn in elementary school that hitting another student, for example, results in missing recess, in high school they may not have to learn that lesson by being suspended or expelled. Or if they learn in the early years that not studying for tests results in lower performance, they will avoid experiencing the results of poor academic grades in the years in which academic performance has high-stakes consequences. Of course, it's always a judgment call as to how to intervene in any particular situation for a particular child, but in general it seems to me to be true that people (children, adults, all of us) learn from the results of their actions, and while taking care to be kind, caring, and gentle, we adults need to allow that to happen for kids.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Does More Paperwork Really Improve Student Achievement?
At last Wednesday's school committee meeting, the members discussed a set of model resolutions to be considered at the upcoming MASC conference (the Massachusetts Association of School Committees). One of the resolutions, with which I heartily agree, called for the formation of a special commission to review the government-mandated reports and data required of school districts in order to determine the extent to which the reports and data benefit student achievement or simply take time that could otherwise be used in the service of teaching and learning.
In the same set of resolutions, it was noted, with respect to the new educator evaluation system, that "the formal regulations, guidelines, rubrics and resource advisory materials produced by DESE [the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education] to ensure compliance by educators and policymakers as they implement [the new evaluation system] are comprised of more than 375 pages of instructions and over 110,000 words." I believe that at this point I have read all these pages (!!!), and I personally find the complexity of the new educator evaluation system, and the paperwork required by it, rather amazing. There are four overall standards of performance for teachers. Under the standards are 16 "indicators," and under the "indicators" are 33 "elements," with four defined levels for each "element." To make a determination of performance under each element, there are 3 categories of evidence to be used and an evidence tracking form to be completed. Overall, there is a defined 5 step evaluation cycle, 4 different types of plans, and 10 different forms to be completed and used throughout the process. The whole thing is amazingly complex and requires a large amount of paperwork. In general, in the corporate world, adequately supervising more than 10 direct reports is considered very difficult to do, but in schools principals generally are responsible for supervising 50 or more people, a task that is challenging enough already without adding more paperwork. There is nothing in the new law and regulations to provide schools with more resources to do this work, other than a provision for providing a "subsidy" to consultants who can be hired by school systems to "train" everyone in how to implement the system. (Perhaps in another post I'll discuss the topic of government regulations that are so complex that schools don't have the resources to figure out how to comply with them and thus have to hire consultants to develop forms and programs -- there are better uses for district funds, such as purchasing materials and supplies for classroom use, or funding useful professional development for teachers.) In any event, I believe that the level of paperwork required by the new evaluation system will actually make it more difficult to provide good supervision by taking time away from actually meeting with, observing, and working with teachers and students.
Overall, my prediction is that the new system will focus everyone on the onerous task of just completing the paperwork, and that it will decrease the time that can actually be spent in observing instruction and discussing it with teachers. It makes me wonder -- are there really people who believe that requiring more paperwork of school administrators is going to contribute positively to student achievement, and how did they come to that conclusion?
In the same set of resolutions, it was noted, with respect to the new educator evaluation system, that "the formal regulations, guidelines, rubrics and resource advisory materials produced by DESE [the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education] to ensure compliance by educators and policymakers as they implement [the new evaluation system] are comprised of more than 375 pages of instructions and over 110,000 words." I believe that at this point I have read all these pages (!!!), and I personally find the complexity of the new educator evaluation system, and the paperwork required by it, rather amazing. There are four overall standards of performance for teachers. Under the standards are 16 "indicators," and under the "indicators" are 33 "elements," with four defined levels for each "element." To make a determination of performance under each element, there are 3 categories of evidence to be used and an evidence tracking form to be completed. Overall, there is a defined 5 step evaluation cycle, 4 different types of plans, and 10 different forms to be completed and used throughout the process. The whole thing is amazingly complex and requires a large amount of paperwork. In general, in the corporate world, adequately supervising more than 10 direct reports is considered very difficult to do, but in schools principals generally are responsible for supervising 50 or more people, a task that is challenging enough already without adding more paperwork. There is nothing in the new law and regulations to provide schools with more resources to do this work, other than a provision for providing a "subsidy" to consultants who can be hired by school systems to "train" everyone in how to implement the system. (Perhaps in another post I'll discuss the topic of government regulations that are so complex that schools don't have the resources to figure out how to comply with them and thus have to hire consultants to develop forms and programs -- there are better uses for district funds, such as purchasing materials and supplies for classroom use, or funding useful professional development for teachers.) In any event, I believe that the level of paperwork required by the new evaluation system will actually make it more difficult to provide good supervision by taking time away from actually meeting with, observing, and working with teachers and students.
Overall, my prediction is that the new system will focus everyone on the onerous task of just completing the paperwork, and that it will decrease the time that can actually be spent in observing instruction and discussing it with teachers. It makes me wonder -- are there really people who believe that requiring more paperwork of school administrators is going to contribute positively to student achievement, and how did they come to that conclusion?
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