Woke up spicy

I cannot express my contempt for folks who could never do my job who've spent years pushing a deficit-based, dubiously scientific but definitely politically conservative approach to reading pedagogy.

Imagine being a reporter who can't tell an ELD lesson from an ELA lesson and deciding that the problem with reading today is one (1) woman, who unlike you has spent her life listening to children.

Further imagine that you posit this woman is driven by greed while you work tirelessly to direct millions of dollars to wealthy Republicans and their publishing concerns.

Then imagine that you listen to one (1) podcast and decide you can do my job plus evaluate curriculum better than experts.

Unlike today's local Astroturf, I was here the last time we did this and I'll be here for the next reading war (I hope to retire by the fourth battle of my career). So don't come at me with exactly the same curriculum you've been selling since the 50s and insist I pretend it's something new because this time you call it science.

I hear SFUSD is planning voluntary summer PD on whatever they buy and let me assure you it is in their best interest to keep it voluntary so I don't show up (as a courtesy). The last time they made it mandatory they also started saying just entirely made up shit about English phonology and I'm afraid I was forced to derail that shit. I know it's tiresome af for everyone else there, but it is also super bad to teach teachers nonsense (that has the bonus of being kinda racist) and I am too ADHD to sit through that and crochet in silence.

Elswhere in Papers of Record

The New York Times has noticed that there's something of a substitute teacher crisis. Alas, it's the Times, so they're mostly concerned with individual teachers and districts (and mostly teachers - the author notes in the comments that there isn't evidence for the suggestion that teachers are not at work more days than other professionals, but that's the theme of the piece).

Personally, I think this is a missed opportunity to talk about how we didn't spend COVID funds on HVAC improvements. The nation has old school buildings with bad HVAC. Failing heat and lousy ventilation mean people get sick. It's true the federal government ended up zeroing out a proposed fund for school infrastructure, but there was a lot of money for COVID improvements and it didn't lead to concrete, lasting changes like better buildings with better air circulation.

Also of note is that the article proposes site support subs as a possible fix. A site support sub is a substitute who works full-time at a school. This person can cover classes if someone is out (or to facilitate lesson study, during the day meetings, etc.) but is at the site every day even if there are no absences. In this way, the sub builds relationships with students and staff, and that should mean that when they do sub, the day is more like one with the teacher of record.

What's interesting about this is that SFUSD used to have site support subs at high-needs sites. They got rid of them a couple of budget crises back. As part of the UESF contract extension for 2022-23, there was a site support sub pilot. Under Matt's "Four Times the Required Reserves, Enough Assistant Supes to Staff a Large Elementary School, and Up to Fifty Cents for Each School Site" budget, site support subs will be cut, again. 

This is SFUSD: every elementary school will have an instructional coach next year, despite the very limited data of their efficacy. No school will have a site support sub, despite the clear impact of unfilled absences on a school and a class. No data were collected to judge the impact of the pilot; we fund our schools based not on data, but on the whim of our Supe.

Bad Ideas Never Die (if they're popular with billionaires)

One of the most frustrating things about my field is how impervious it is to data. No matter how much evidence once can marshal, certain theories return again and again. Sometimes they have a new gloss (it's not just phonics and basals: It's The Science of Reading!)¹, but sometimes it's just the same bad ideas, under the same name, with the same problems.² The Washington Post has a long and eye-roll-causing history of pushing the worst ideas of ed reform, whether it's punitive charter models, Teach for America, or just basic "Teachers unions ate my homework and kicked my dog" stuff. Today, they decided to let a pundit post like it's 2010.

I mean, this op-ed is so obviously nonsense - it ends with the "both conservatives and liberals will hate this, so it must be good!" reasoning, a claim so devoid of meaning even middle schoolers know better than to use it in their opinion pieces - that I almost hate to discuss it.

Still, for folks who are new to this argument, let's look at it a little more closely.

First, I need to note that while a $100,000 salary is a pay increase for most starting teachers, it's a significant pay cut for veterans in most cities. Does Daniel Pink pay any mind to that - or even to cost of living issues, given that many districts in the Bay Area already start around this salary? Of course not: he opposes tenure and step and column pay increases in general, and merely admits at the close that his proposal of "pay all teachers the same salary, nationally, for their whole career" is probably not a winner and there are some things to work out.

Also, in exchange for this (dubious) largesse, Pink has two demands: an end to "summers off" and also some kind of test-based accountability/and end to tenure. The latter of these is risible even given this column: Pink fully admits that robust data indicate that test-based accountability doesn't work, but he still seems to think it's necessary. Honestly, the Washington Post should've had an editor make Pink reckon with this: any high school English teacher would require revision here.

That leaves us with those eight weeks of vacation Pink wants teachers to give over. In exchange for this (possible) raise, teachers simply have to agree to work 22% more every year! A mere forty extra days a year! (Pink is silent on whether he thinks those days should also be extended - we could be looking at even more additional labor, but I am now thinking more deeply about Pink's proposal than he did. It must be the teacher in me: I am too habituated to working for free.)

Beyond the obvious question of whether something is actually a raise if you have to work an extra eight weeks to receive it, Pink hasn't grappled with what teachers are doing in those weeks. Ancedotally, I spent two entire weeks of my last summer vacation moving into a new classroom, three weeks completing professional development of my own volition, and one week lesson planning and preparing for the new year. In all, I had two weeks off. Teachers are not overburdened with planning time during the school year, and deep professional development doesn't happen in ninety minutes after school. The time teachers volunteer over the summer makes them better at their jobs. Pink does not understand what teaching is, so he cannot consider the implications of his (already problematic) breezy end to summer vacation.

What's really tiring about this op-ed is that it's been written before. We've done this all before. Education reformers and dilettantes (but I repeat myself) are forever proposing salary increases for teachers - but only if those teachers agree to some set of conditions. Those conditions are typically unsupported by data, but strip away the job protections teachers have managed to hold on to despite other workers losing them.

Here, teachers give up tenure and regular, predictable raises for an unsustainable work year and a dubious raise. You know, like at KIPP schools (another WaPo favorite). KIPP salaries often beat their surrounding public school district's - but they have miserable turnover and rely on uncredentialed, itinerant teachers because the job is unsustainable.

One has to wonder if Daniel Pink is unaware of this issue, or if he knows that his tired idea doesn't increase teacher recruitment and retention but is very popular with wealthy folks who resent teachers and our unions and our pensions and our troubling unwillingness to give them up.

1 Alas, the Science of Reading is just phonics and basals. It's not science and the data have not improved since the last time we did this, which was less than twenty years ago.^↩

2 I know this is not unique to education - I live in San Francisco, where self-described "moderate Democrats" are investing heavily in bringing back the worst ideas of the Reagan administration. Also, yes, I did just learn how to do footnotes.^↩

Just a Little List

 In SFUSD, right now:

• Third year of payroll drama (current issues: second year of mistake-laden W2s, folks on leave are not getting paid, raises retroactive to 7.1.23 and ratified 11.23 unlikely to be paid until 5.24)
• Due to massive staffing shortfalls, extreme expenditures on independent contracting firms to complete basic functions, especially in Special Education - higher cost, more privatization, increasing number of children moving to private specialty schools at district expense because we can't meet their needs
• Absolute failure of onboarding, leading to hired staff waiting months to be cleared for classroom work and ultimately leaving for other districts that will pay them
• Gutting cuts to sites, some as large as 50%, leaving schools unmanageable and unsafe

AND YET! Our highest-paid staff received two raises in the last twelve months. For some of these folks, all of whom make more money than teachers with 22 years or more of service, that added up to a 33% increase in pay. 

This is SFUSD under Matt Wayne: a total failure to manage basic functions like payroll being rewarded, while the folks who do the work drown under ever-increasing responsibilities and fewer people to complete them.

One might wonder where the Board of Education is on all this, and the answer is: HA HA HA HA HA. Under the supervision of the lavishly-paid, resume-light AJ Crabill (known for presenting his own unvetted work as a roadmap to success, but under his old legal name so we think he's relying on outside experts), the Board has given up authority to the Superintendent and their "Goals and Guardrails". It boggles the mind to consider that they may believe rubber-stamping raises for the same folks who can't submit a fingerprint check to the Department of Justice are the folks who most need more money, but this is what happens when you recall the educators of color on the Board for well-monied Mayoral appointees.

Since Twitter is a Hellscape and Matt's here to privatize SFUSD out of existence

 I am going to start blogging again, for real! I've been on a social media hellsite but the Nazis there are getting me down.

Also, in December 2023 Matt and the gang presented a cuts and closures (blame the greedy unions) plan that cut 200 classroom teaching positions but retained two open positions for Assistant Superintendents, and I come back to my blog and I find schools were taking 25% budget cuts while 555 hired two new EDs (one for Looking Serious and Sad When Closing Schools and one for Screaming "EQUITY!!!" While We Disproportionately Underfund Schools in D10) in December 2021.

I suppose it's the nature of systems to resist change BUT.

ANYWAY, stay tuned for a partially finished post on Why TikTok Teachers Who Hate Kids Should Stop Demanding Total Compliance, and I will definitely be around for this year's budget cycle.

If I were making two or three times' a teacher salary and still on work from home I would probably make an attempt at, like, not sending staff and children back to super unsafe conditions! Demanding the city support outdoor lunch with staffing and tents, providing home tests, sending out N95 masks, delineating a streamlined and supported contact tracing process would all be among my first steps.

Just on an optics level, our senior management fails every time. They're laying off several hundred teachers but just two directors (and hiring one additional executive director). They're still working from home because the district offices aren't safe but sending staff and students back into dubiously safe conditions (ventilation is still a problem; classrooms are freezing). Nor do they even try to justify these choices.

This has a real cost. Staff who were on the fence about quitting are quitting. The retired teachers who comprise most of the substitute pool are opting out until conditions improve. The people who are left will be taking on more work, with fewer supports and more stressed families. 

One thing we can count on is no help from above. We are on our own. And when it fails, it will be on us. As always, management will skate.

Some Stuff About the District's Horrible, Terrible, No Good Very Bad Budget

The BoE was presented with two budget plans for a final vote last night:

Management's Plan: All Cuts to Sites and Direct Services, But We Promise to Look Sad About It for as Many as Ten Minutes

Sanchez/Alexander Plan: The "One Director for Every Student" Goal Is Better Suited to Windfall Years

Anyway, the latter got withdrawn, the former passed 6-1, and the district made some noise about perhaps someday hiring an Assistant Superintendent for Exploring How We Got So Many Directors in the First Place and then maybe a couple of Executive Directors to figure out some efficiencies and also check all the vending machines and couches for loose change.

None of this will surprise long-term budget watchers! However, a couple of points:

1. Everyone anticipates far better revenue projections once the state budget drops, and the district said that Peer Resources and AVID would be the first programs to be restored. Still, the district says all sorts of exciting things, but this commitment isn't in writing and the district sadly has a documented history of reneging on commitments. If you want these programs restored, be loud about it as soon as the Governor's budget drops. Remember: this budget also lays off two Directors and only hires one new Executive Director, and how will the district manage with so few new administrators? We know what the district prioritizes when left to its own devices. So let's not leave it unattended with new money.

2. The extent to which the district elides the severity of their actions fills me with a bleak sense of ennui, the kind of emotion wherein one must turn to the loudest and most aggressive music in one's collection just to feel something. Let me share that quiet void of feeling with you.

Various central staff made allusions to sites having so many choices to make with their site funding. It sounded like a clever site could restore all the central staff allocations they're losing (and for sites with multiple language pathways, especially those in Tier 2/3, they're losing a lot). However, this is not actually possible because the site funding is also getting chopped. So actually sites are getting cut every which way. Tier 3 sites will be cut marginally less, but they need exponentially more, so it's bad all around.

The state's austerity expert said several times last week and last night that "staff cuts don't mean service cuts". I am sure that this is a very nice turn of phrase, recommended by all consulting groups that rake in big bucks through blighting the land and firing the workers. It's also true 0% of the time. The example given was a school that lost 25% of its students but no staff; under this budget, it also loses staff but nothing changes except the class sizes are a little larger. This is not representative of any district school or the cuts in this budget. At many schools, the budget looks more like 12% enrollment declines being met with 30% budget cuts. You can't maintain service levels.

Saying stuff like this is dismissive to the point of arrogance. I'm sure it sounds great at the district office or in Sacramento, but anyone working at a school knows that everyone there has too many responsibilities already. When you cut staff, the work they did is not cut. That work gets added to someone else's load, or it's dropped entirely. Both options are terrible. Pretending otherwise is an abdication of responsibility on the part of the people paid to be responsible.

Wow, I find myself with so much rage about SFUSD during a pandemic that I think I'm going to blog again.

Like many Kindergarten teachers in the District, I occasionally find myself checking the local parent blogs and sites.  It's hectic for families and teachers alike - families waitpooling, families adjusting to their chosen sites, teachers harried and eagerly awaiting the day their roster stabilizes.

This is less hectic for teachers than the Tour Season.  I have nothing against the tours, since I really do believe in classrooms being open to all (who are willing to sign in, at least).  (That said, remember that a large group of adults descending on a Kindergarten is disruptive and may affect what's happening.)

However, Tour Season also leads to Online School Reviews, and woe betide the teacher who was having a bad day.  While I understand that the reviewer wants to give the audience valuable information, it's a bit mind-boggling to see reviewers opine upon pedagogy, discipline, and classroom style based on a ten minute (at most) observation of a classroom, particularly when those comments are very negative.  Having not made an appearance in a review, I both sympathize and fear it.

Reviwers, NextDoor users and visitors, please be honest but kind to the educators who (perhaps grudgingly, because they have kids to teach) welcome you into their rooms.

Still teaching, also not dead

(Seriously, come Thanksgiving at least 23% of all teachers are actually undead.)

It has been such an exciting and jam-packed couple of years (school renovations! no contract! serious out of state job offer!  actual existence of personal life!) that I have neither blogged nor kept my personal wardrobe at the level I have come to expect.  (My shoes, however, remain on point.)  Yet I continue to have opinions on my district that I believe must be scream-typed unto the world for its edification.

Also, I have learned to adapt to screen-typing.

A few things you may not know:

• In SFUSD, teachers get three days of professional development before one work day.  This isn't enough to set up an elementary classroom, so teachers typically go back to work early (I went back on 1 August, not including the two weeks of professional development I did in June and July or some planning in both months).  However, this is unpaid labor.  Kindergarten Roundups and orientations usually take place before the work day, so do not expect to be able to visit the rooms.
• Elementary room set up means just that.  Usually all the furniture is taken out for floor cleaning, which typically requires the contents of shelves be boxed up and everything be removed from the floor.  Some schools wash the walls too.  So no matter how cute and little your child's teacher may look, s/he is a furniture moving expert with the muscles and bruises to show for it.
• If your child's class has pets, your child's teacher had pets this summer.
• The moral of the story is: If you appreciate your child's awesome, polished, inviting room, think kindly on the hard labor that went into it!  Teachers want to have nice rooms - beyond everything else, we'll be living in them for the rest of the school year ourselves!  But sadly, Classroom Fairies are a myth.

Tomorrow: The First Day of School!

And so it begins!

Here's my advice for the big FIRST DAY.  As a reminder, I am actually a teacher at a public school.  I do not merely play one on the Internet.

Therefore, my advice is reasonably trustworthy and good.

Short version:

• Many teachers have first day checklists to fill out before you leave; please check to see if yours does before leaving.
• The first day is chaotic.  No advance planning can keep it from being so.  Embrace the insanity.
• When your child leaves for the day, make sure s/he alerts the adult in charge of dismissal.  This is really important.
• Permanent marker is your friend!  Label your child's belongings.
• Based on my reasonably large sample group of SFUSD Kindergarten teachers, it is good form to let your child's entry teacher know if you have received your waitpool school.  Otherwise we tend to take this personally. 

Right then.

I am leaving town tomorrow for two weeks of professional development, partially about writing.  And also, I'll be visiting with some of my comrade public service workers.  And moreover also again, it's back to Kinder this year.

All of which really should be impetus to blog rather than to spend my sad paychecks on delightful clothes that will not be improved by the generous if misbegotten addition of finger paint.

Look Who Has His Own Anti Site!

As a devoted Enronista, I've been following John Arnold for years and years.

I'm happy to say that his continued campaign to destroy pensions - one dating back to the pensions Enron destroyed when it bought a utility so it could trade electricity, the retirement Enron's rank and file didn't get because John Arnold took a (non) retention bonus that doomed the attempted merger, those pensions bankrupted with Enron's collapse, and those counting on UBS retirement cash (that little interlude in his career rarely gets mentioned, maybe because it ended up that without controlling the platform and tolerance of insane risks, Arnold wasn't such a hot trader) - but I digress.

Do check out The Truth About John Arnold.  It isn't pretty, but it's important.

(I'm pretty sure that he wasn't the second youngest billionaire, by the way, but it's not something to research on a school night.)

In exchange for that 12% raise...

For this year's 4%, District teachers are doing way more than 4% new work:

• We are required to use two new data systems.  Neither was ready by its projected roll-out date, so no preservice professional development was provided.
• We must also use a new mailing list/online storage system to access the still-unfinished math program.
• And we are expected to use these new Google accounts even if we already have our own.
• No hardware has been provided for these new job requirements.
• The District is now largely mandating a reading program model in which I have been trained...at my own expense.  Woe to those who haven't made the investment.
• Those of us who have are expected to provide unpaid modeling and planning support.  Teachers collaborate naturally, but requiring a certain type of collaboration and supporting it with neither materials nor time nor training is offensive.
• We have new ELD standards.  Teachers have been directed that they may no longer use the District lesson plans (which were never a curricula; you created all your own materials).  However, no new plans have been provided.

This year, I am writing my own ELD program.  The math curriculum as available is unworkable and no materials were purchased for any K unit after the third.  So I am also writing my own math, plus lots of grants to get the required materials.  Then I go help other teachers plan their reading.

The Powers that Be in SFUSD seem really confused as to why teachers STILL aren't happy and why it's so hard to hire and retain educators.  To me, this is willful blindness.

There has got to be a better way to handle the wait pool than a three week carousel roster.

One week down.

Yay, one week of Kindergarten under the bridge.  My class is enormously cute and bright.  I am hoping that my roster is stabilizing, but I suppose that's unlikely until after the ten day count. Also, I like my grade level team, and being at the same school as last year, and my moderately revised classroom set up.  Additionally, I have some nice new dresses to wear, several Donors Choose projects funded and on their way, a rocking new pair of sneakers, and have been able to maintain a strong organizational system FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK.

That's the good.  The bad is that I do not have enough time for everything I need to do.

Most of what I need is time for planning.  We have a new math program and got a big six hours to learn it!  Sadly, the Kindergarten modules apparently aren't complete, so I can't even get a full sense of what they year in math will look like.  (Don't ask about the manipulatives and reproducibles.)  This is particularly important because the math program is set up so that teachers can use materials they have found effective to teach the concepts as they are laid out in the curriculum.  In my case, that means pulling out materials from a couple of programs I find particularly effective.  However, alignment takes time, and I need to see (and read) the modules to do it well.  While we are on a five year plan to fully implement this program, and it certainly has been extensively revised over the past year, I think implementation would be siginificantly eased if teachers had more time to familiarize themselves with the material before jumping into year one.  After all, a five year implementation doesn't mean we can do poorly by the children who are in our classrooms in year one.

Teachers also need to align their ELD instruction to the new state standards, and the district is not providing a new curriculum or updating the in-house lessons available.  Again, thsi is time-consuming work.

We also have a whole new data system, Amplify.  At least as of right now, we will not be receiving or using Amplofy curricula or tablets, which I think is a positive.  However, using the same data program that powered In Bloom is something I wish had been open to more public comment.

So really, the year is off to the usual start: I really love being in the classroom, teaching, collaborating, and all that stuff.  I really dislike some of the District strictures that make it harder for me to feel prepared and effective.

Summer Reading List?

Is there a Kindergarten student in your household?  Then read this before school starts, and think about how you can help Kindergarten be a place for happy, creative, brilliant young children.

Advance Planning Scofflaws

In February, it seemed like a totally great idea to apply for an out-of-state professional development taking place the week before I report back to work.  "This will make me be very intentional in how I pack up my classroom in May," I thought.  "And in August, I'll really need to ready the room in an organized way - as opposed to the usual eight thousand projects going at once two week hysteria!"  What an opportunity for learning I could have, even after I returned!

Now that I'm in New York - having failed to mindfully pack up my room for cleaning and to develop strategic organizational skills over the summer - I'm not so sure this was a great plan.

Plus side?  I will be so ready to implement what I'm learning, without forgetting some of it as I would had I done this training in June.  Also, I'm in Manhattan.  With my back to school money.  After a disappointing year in personal style, one that included enforced orthopedic footwear, I will be returning - nay, exceeding! - my earlier heights of fashion.

And should I spend more than I ought, I'm sure some financial institution will be ready to make money by extending credit that will allow me to purchase school supplies.  Not only do we fail to fund schools adequately, private institutions are ready to profit on that failure.  Neat!

However, I did have an idea for a business which would provide a marketplace for teachers to vacation-swap their homes.  Teachers could get reasonably priced accomodations and be assured that their tenants have passed a background check and are unlikely to break their furniture or host wild parties (probably you would want to lock your closet of off-season sale school supplies, though).

Cheating Beats Actual Progress.

Pay for performance is a very popular education reform plan.  The fact that pay for performance doesn't seem to work very well - I give you The VA scandal as just the latest failure - doesn't seem to dampen the fervor for it.  I suppose it's popular because it sounds like it would work, and it lets reformers talk about paying teachers more without actually doing that so much, as this article eventually points out, much to its own headline's dismay.

(I also note, as I must always, that the people who are selling pay for performance never want to submit their own jobs to the same scrutiny.  This goes both for the various DC public school central office administrators running IMPACT Plus and the investment bankers making big returns on charter schools and ed reform.)

And we know specifically that pay for performance has had ugly effects in schools already.  Atlanta is one of the saddest examples.  The New Yorker recently ran a story about Parks Middle School, the subject of many glowing articles and education reform joy during its heyday and the subject of forty or so pages recounting widespread cheating in the eventual investigative report.  The article is worth reading, although it glosses over some of the other scandals at Parks (nepotism, sexual harassment, embezzlement, all involving the principal, whose conduct belies his claim that he wouldn't have cheated for money).

Having read the report in its entirety, though, the story that really sticks with me is Harper Archer Middle School's.  (Harper Archer's narrative is in the second part of the report, available at the link above).  Harper Archer had the misfortune of being co-located with a district administrative team, and that team is believed to be responsible for the cheating.  Not the educators at Harper Archer, nor the principal: the Deputy Superintendent.

You see, Harper Archer had been making small but significant gains in performance.  Despite having a disproportionately high percentage of students with special needs, improvement was happening.  In fact, the Harper Archer staff discussed in the narrative seem to share a collaborative spirit, a real commitment to their students, and a shared purpose. 

This was not a popular attitude in Atlanta.  Both the principal and vice principal were put on improvement plans and given a mandate to increase test scores.  The principal was pushed to place teachers on performance plans if their test scores did not increase; he refused to do this and specifically instructed teachers not to engage in any unethical behavior.  He strongly felt that his hard-working teachers had the skills to support their students and that slow, steady progress was valuable.  (The principal also wondered why children were matriculating at Harper Archer with outstanding fifth grade test scores and poor academic skills, which earned him a reprimand from his Deputy Superintendent.)

The Deputy Superintendent's other suggestion - outside punishing teachers - was to visit Parks Middle School.  Despite the fact that an investigation had already suggested cheating at Parks, the hard working educators at Harper Archer were told to emulate it.

They didn't. 

The principal resigned after not being offered a contract for the 2009 school year. 

But guess what?  The 2008 CRCT scores came back with double digit gains!  Just like Parks!

When interviewed, not one of the teachers admitted to cheating.  Several mentioned being heavily pressured by the Deputy Superintendent to increase test scores; some believed that the principal resigned because he had been asked to cheat.  To a one, they felt classroom teachers at Harper Archer would not cheat.  Some refused to give the test scores to students because the scores were so unbelievable.

When asked about who could have been responsible for a cheating, the principal, vice-principal, and teaching staff all pointed to the Deputy Superintendent and her staff.  Some noted that the Deputy Superintendent had access to the test and was coming to the building very early and staying very late during testing.  Others noted that their tests were out of order when they received them each morning; one was informed by a custodian that the district staff told her the students were testing very well.

So at Harper Archer, you have a staff committed to working with a high needs population and having some real success.  But because their success is reasonable and measured, it's not enough.  They needed to be more like Parks.

This is the end result of pay for performance, then.  The enormous cheating at Parks wasn't only bad for those students, but students throughout the District.  And when teachers and administrators were unwilling to sacrifice their principals for their paychecks, then Deputy Superintendents were willing to take that step themselves.

Ultimately, this is what pay for performance gets you.  Because Parks was willing to cheat, they created an entirely false standard to which every other school could be held.

Christopher Waller created a toxic climate of secrecy and cheating at Parks.  He turned teachers against each other, firing those who wouldn't get with his program.  He used performance plans and reprimands to rid himself of teachers who did not want to cheat.  He was showered with attention, positive press, and bonuses.

Michael Milstead created a climate of teachers who worked together and believed that their students could succeed.  He encouraged collaboration and ethical conduct and protected his teachers from District demands, because he could see that the students at Harper Archer were making academic gains.  He got fired.

Which school served students better? 

Which school succeeded under a pay for performance plan?

Let's Get Ready for Kindergarten!

Families Get Ready!

• Using a permanent marker, write your child's first name in a prominent location on all items of clothing your child may remove at school.  This includes jackets, hats, and shirts worn over tank tops (between the long day and late summer weather, children often strip down to their tank tops, leaving a litter of indistinguishable shirts behind them).  Write directly onto the clothing or its tags as legibly as possible.
• Then write your child's name on any backpack, lunchbox, or similar item your child will bring to school.
• Fill out your emergency card.
• On the first day of school, make sure to give your child's teacher
• a working telephone number at which you can be reached all day (the first day is very hectic, and if a teacher has that number on hand in the event of an emergency, it saves a lot of time).
• details about any allergies, illnesses, etc. your child has.
• information about how your child will get home that day, including the name and phone number the person who will be picking up your child.  (Make sure your child recognizes this person).
• Plan to get to school a little early and if applicable, arrive to pick your child up a little early.
• Embrace the chaos that is the first day.  Once the meet and greet portion of the morning concludes, it is a remarkably smooth day.  But that meet and greet - twenty or more happy families, all of whom need to check in with one harried teacher - can feel hectic.  (And please, DO check in with that teacher before you leave.)
• Even if your child generally does not want snacks, consider packing some anyway.  The first few days of school are really hard work for kids.
• Anticipate that your child will sleep heavily, even if he or she has been in a full-day preschool or TK program. 

Help Your Child Be Ready!

• If your child has a backpack, demonstrate how jackets, shirts, hats, and lunchboxes can be placed inside the backpack.  This really cuts down on lost items.
• Kindergarten readiness skills get a lot of press, but the truly important ones are not academic.  It helps a lot if a child feels confident and self-efficacious.  Some ways to support your child:
• Make sure your child is bathroom-independent.
• If your child may feel embarrassed about asking to use the bathroom (hey, it's normal!), let your child's teacher know.  This cuts down on accidents.  Teachers have strategies for this - silent signals, simply sending that child to the bathroom, etc.
• Speaking of accidents, they happen, even to the most school-ready, brilliant, and wonderful child.  Consider tossing an extra pair of undies and pants in your child's backpack.  (FYI, your child's classmates will be excellently understanding of any accidents that happen, as will your child's teacher.)
• Make sure your child is wearing shoes that he or she can fasten.  Teachers have only two hands and two eyes.  They may not notice every straggling shoelace or be able to fix it if they do.  Moreover, shoelaces go many exciting places, like through puddles, into mouths, across mud, etc.  No one wants to tie manky shoelaces.
• It is wonderful if a child knows his or her phone number.
• If your child does not yet write his or her own name, that's fine.  It helps a lot if they can read it, though.
• No one is expecting copperplate writing from a five year old, but a five year old who has some ideas about pencil grip (it doesn't have to be perfect) will feel more ready to go.

The First Week

• In my experience, there is often a child (or even two) every year who loves, loves, loves to go to school Monday and Tuesday, but come Wednesday or Thursday wakes unexcited.  Kindergarten is hard work for young children.  It's a new environment with new expectations, a long day with many activities, some of which seem hard.  Moreover, the child to adult ratio is almost certainly lower than in any prior school experience your child has had.  So while I think children's concerns should be taken seriously, I would not worry overmuch about midweek blues the first week of school.

This isn't hard to do.

This morning, I read this article in the Mercury News about a database of school district employee salaries.

The database is a little misleading, since it includes all benefits, including possible future pension outlays, as part of a teacher's salary.  Teachers might reasonably object to this; pension benefits are not certain, and a portion of one's salary is deducted each pay period to fund that pension.  So while the average teacher may receive a total compensation package adding up to an annual $85,000, the actual salary is significantly less.

What really irks me, though, is that the Mercury News sees fit to inform us that the think tank providing the database is nonpartisan.  This is simply untrue. It is an anti-union, education reform group whose founders have a long history of political action.

This group is the California Policy Center.  Let's take a little look at their website, shall we?  One of my favorite parts is the Prosperity Forum.  The center has many ideas about how to bring prosperity to California.  First off, despite what Nobel Prize-winning economists might write, California needs to lower taxes on the wealthy and get rid of Prop. 30.  We also need to stop our mean-spirited war on the wealthy.  It is our unreasonable jealousy of the deserving rich that holds us back.  The general thrust of the Prosperity Center is that wealth comes to those who deserve it.

(I can't tell whether the Center believes that teachers do not deserve the wealth they receive or what.  Certainly teachers aren't very wealthy, which would argue for us being not too bright.  But the Center also makes teachers' earnings look inflated and suggests that we are too well-compensated.)

A quick look at the "About Us" section of the website is illuminating.  The President of the Center has long involved himself in California politics, particularly in keeping dread unions from exercising their dread power of collective action.  He also likes charter schools.  Board members run the gamut from those who want to destroy pensions to those who want to destroy pensions and the environment too.

This is not a "nonpartisan" group, unless your definition of nonpartisan is so narrow as to be useless.  The group is distinctly partisan.  They have an extremely conservative economic outlook, wherein California will be a far better state if and only if we implement the tax schemes Kansas is using, ensure the freedom to pollute, and end the oppressive tyranny of unions.

On school finance and governance issues, the group is distinctly partisan.  The Center's President is Mark Bucher.  He also runs another think tank, Education Alliance.  And he has a long history of shenanigans in Republican politics and school districts (not to mention some financial boondoggles and bad public behavior).

It is irresponsible of the Mercury News to call this group nonpartisan.  If done intentionally, it's misleading at best.  If done unintentionally, it is horrible journalism.  A quick internet search followed by ten minutes on the Center's website was all I needed to do a little investigation.  (I spent an additional five minutes or so looking up Education Alliance.)

Make no mistake.  The Center has a definite partisan bias.  While I am sure its employee salary databases are reasonably* accurate (if misleading), we need to ask what goal the Center has in mind with its press release and data aggregation.  We also need to ask if the Center is a trustworthy source for information, given that its claim of nonpartisanship is laughable.


*I am not claiming that any inaccuracies are the fault of the center.  They are using a variety of public databases, and errors in those are ancedotally common.  I do think the Center's conflation of salary and all benefits is intentional and nefarious.

Luddite Kindergarten

It's a good thing Proposition 30 passed, because California's schools are going to need it.  Honestly, we had better start the campaign for continuing the Prop 30 taxation schemes, because we are setting schools up to have ever-increasing technology costs.

The Smarter Balanced Assessments are all done online; beyond that, their performance tasks are fundamentally typing tasks.  If every third through fifth grader in a school is going to have the annual pleasure (well, probably thrice yearly, especially at our poorer schools  - how can we know how kids will do on the test unless we waste weeks of learning giving ongoing assessments?) of typing two essays, every kid starting in Kindergarten will need regular screen time.  (Also, SBAC was originally going to make K-2 tests as well as 3-12; if this really happens and the District demands them, they had better realize that one laptop cart isn't going to cut it.)

And since these tests are rather unwieldy and constantly updated, regular hardware and software purchases are going to be annual costs.

This is an equity issue, of course,   Wealthier students have more access to technology outside of the classroom.  Moreover, they have more access to computers that use the kind of interface SBAC does.  There is no Swype typing or touchscreen use on Smarter Balanced.  It demands a keyboard and mouse.  If your home gets online via inexpensive tablet or cell phone, you are less ready for SBAC.

Traditionally, technology is a site-based budgeting item.  Some schools have invested in technology, others haven't.  But between the utter inadequacy of the Weighted Student Formula and the District's ongoing commitment to inequity via PTA, schools with significant tech infrastructure are wealthier schools.  It's a to those that hath shall be given type situation, really.

(Also, there's the whole wifi/ethernet capacity problem at some schools wherein the Disrtict contractor took the money and didn't do the work.  I don't know much about this scandal, but I do know that the schools that have this problem are clustered in poor neighborhoods, probably because the District charges schools to fix the problem.)

Anyway, between Smarter Balanced and the CCSS (Starting in K, the standards demand technology), I think an enormous amount of money is going to end up going to Apple and the like.  Ultimately, I am opposed - not only because I don't think that private corporations should be making quite so much cash off our public system, particularly when they are working so hard to control it, but also because it further warps the school day.

As it is, teachers don't have enough time for everything.  More tech time means less time elsewhere, and I suspect it will be the usual suspects that disappear: the arts, music, physical eduation, even social studies and science (if you don't test it, why teach it?).  Schools serving children with fewer out of school technology opportunities will have to place more emphasis on tech just to get the kids through the test.  So as always, the worst constraints will be placed on the children who most need the freedom.

Personally, I would rather have a sand and water table than an ipad.  I would like my students to spend more time finger painting than typing.  I value parachute play over online learning activities.  Moreover, I believe that the research shows the importance of early childhood play.  I believe getting dirty is a human right, really.

Given our current education path, I sometimes wonder how much longer I really want to work at high-needs schools.

Snit makes for posting.

FACT: Chi Tschang was found to have physically and mentally abused children while principal at KIPP Fresno.

FACT: KIPP attempted to keep Mr.Tschang in his job.

FACT: Despite corroborated and repeated incidents of child abuse, Mr.Tschang has continued to be employed by charter schools.  Currently, he supervises schools for Achievement First.

FACT: Mr. Tschang's conduct is grounds for loss of his credential in any state in the country.  Including California, where you may recently have heard it is impossible to revoke a credential.

ETA: Apparently Mr. Tschang held no California teaching credential.  Nor did he hold an emergency permit.  I suppose one way to avoid revocation is to just ignore legal obligations.

QUESTION: When will the anti-tenure folks take on Mr. Tschang?  Or is Vegara less about teacher quality and more about anti-union activism?

Internet Holiday

Soooooooo I have been enjoying this really delightful holiday from education news (well, most of the time), SFUSD factoids (haven't read a BoE agenda in months), and so on.  Anyway, said holiday is ending, I think.

My general method of classroom set-up is to pile everything up in the middle of the room.  This makes it easy to hang fadeless, and I make some trash piles in the corners for discards.  That went double this year since I was moving my things in and removing almost all of the materials in the room (earliest publication date found on said materials: early 1970s).

Anyway, when I went home on Monday evening the trash piles were gone, the furniture was laid out, and even the packing crates were stored away.  That said, before Monday evening the state of the room struck fear into the hearts of all comers.

This is kind of exciting for when your colleagues come by on Friday and are amazed that the room doesn't look like something on Extreme Hoarding (indeed, my mediocre skills at arranging furniture and materials management look incredible when compared to the disaster with which I start).  Of course, families coming by for an early look are probably frightened beyond belief.

(Not to mention that classroom set-up is actually physically dirty work - no matter how clean the classroom is, a good day of set-up leaves the teacher grimy gray and probably bruised from a couple of ill-thought furniture maneuvers.  This calls for ratty jeans, high school concert t-shirts, and hairstyles that do not inspire confidence.)

Oh well, hopefully they will be pleasantly surprised on Monday.

IN OTHER EXCITING NEWS!

My iPod died spectacularly this summer.  Having recently received my paycheck, I took myself off to replace it and found that the iPod Touch now comes with adequate gigabytes to carry my entire musical library.

Do you know what else it has?  WiFi!  And do you know what that means, especially when combined with my annual summer holiday from ADHD medication?

It means that every cassette I owned in high school can be technologically upgraded and available to me in seconds thanks to the wonder of the iTunes store not to mention eMusic!

This has been enormously successful for unpacking, if also very expensive (and bad for my general disinclination to give Apple money in response to their rotten labor practices abroad and hatred of public school teachers domestically).  I have been shifting boxes and furniture while listening to a wide variety of the best of 90s art rock and alternative music.

And So It Begins. Again.

So I took the summer off from blogging.

Truth be told, I took the summer off from teaching.  Other than two planning days at my new school, a couple of planning days with my last Resident (who's got my old job), a couple of furtive glances at first grade teaching manuals, and several classroom purchases, I spent the summer doing other things.

(Sadly, these were neither pleasant or exciting things, and I really must write a successful Fund for Teachers grant for next summer to ensure a delightful adventure from which I return rested, revived, and in possession of a wide variety of commemorative cocktail swizzle sticks.)

Anyway, I've been back in the thick of it since the last week in July, during which I moved into my new classroom.  Moving in has taken up the bulk of the last couple of weeks; in addition to figuring out how to make my stuff fit, I've been throwing out bales of teaching materials left in my new room.  (For the morally superior record, I left my old room not only in considerably better shape than I inherited it, with all the materials it was supposed to have and only useful things like double copies of picture books and hand soap extra.)  Mostly I enjoy the process.  My room will be in the best possible shape to withstand my lack of organizational skill and I have cleared out a lot of things I don't use/was keeping for sentimental value/are great but broken.  Still, it's crunch time now and I have a mountain of stuff to trash, not to mention eight thousand things on which to write names, a new set of standards to internalize, and all kinds of questions (where's the copier?  Can I throw out the classroom computer with the not-entirely-but-mostly-broken-and-migraine-inducing monitor?  Who on earth keeps six dirty terrariums in a closet?) left to be answered.

(Wow, 'tis the season of the run-on sentence.)

Anyway, I have two full teacher work days next week; the other three are a mix of District and site professional development.  It could be worse: the teachers I know at the Zone schools get exactly one work day.  It could also be better: my colleagues on the west side report that they have three or even four days to dedicate to their classrooms.

This is an example of reverse equity, I think.  The reality of SFUSD is that the teachers at Zone schools are less experienced overall and more likely to be new to their sites (or to teaching entirely).  These are the people who need more time to set up their rooms, but they get less.  Instead, they attend all-day data sessions of arguable utility: K-1 teachers have limited data to analyze (if any), and these data days have been popular for years but don't seem to have done much to improve test scores.  They also attend site professional development.  I speak from experience when I say that this PD is hard to digest when you're thinking about whether you have enough Bordette and if there's any real fadeless paper left and if the school supplies the school ordered will actually be there on the first day of school and if anyone knows how to replace the laminate and is it true BOTH copiers are broken?

Because of the turnover at high-needs schools, I've found there's often a lot of community building at these site development days, and while community is important, the end result is that the teachers at the school are going to begin the year less prepared and more stressed.  Their classrooms will be less ready; they will already be tired out from spending Saturday and Sunday at school.

And the reality of SFUSD is that west side teachers are veterans, likely teaching the same grade level, with little turnover at the site.  The teachers spend paid time getting their rooms ready; the PTA may even be able to organize parents to hang that fadeless paper and make copies (not to mention purchase any supplies not yet on site).  These teachers begin the year more prepared and less stressed, and can spend the Saturday and Sunday before school starts with their families or at the gym or cooking a week's worth of meals - you know, things that will help them keep their stress down over the year to come.

Preparation for the first day matters.  It matters a lot.  In our need to make sure those high-needs teachers are ready for the first day, we're leaving them with less time to be ready.  That doesn't seem right or wise.

In today's New York Times, there's an entire article on how naughty educators aren't protecting student data.

The article fails to mention inBloom.  That seems like a gaping hole in the coverage.  Unless you take the opinion that educators around the nation are lazily failing to protect their students and corporate America will do a far better job monetizing education.

Testing Everything, Twice Annually.

This article- from the New York Times series "Teachers are Crazy Lazy" - irritated me.

I mean, there are some interesting cultural shifts represented within it, I think.  For instance, when I was in school, Physical Education and Art were subjects in which every student could obtain a passing grade, but not every student could excel.  Teachers, students, and families alike assumed that some children had talent in these areas and others did not; a talented student could do very well, but a child without these gifts would, even with effort, show at best an average performance.

If we are now testing these subjects with an eye to assessing teachers, apparently we now believe that all children can excel in these areas, and that natural talent is not important (or at least not necessary).  I don't know that this is positive or negative, but I think it is something to talk about.

Everything else about the article led to teeth-grinding.  Someone neglected to tell the Times that these assessments are already being piloted.  Despite hinting at portfolios and research papers, the reality is that these will be computer-based assessments.  Portfolios and research papers would be an expensive endeavor to grade, and administering such tests to literally thousands of students twice annually would be impossible (not to mention, what do you do with kids who just don't submit the essay?  Is that the teacher's fault?  Eugh, I can just imagine the rhetoric of HIGH EXPECTATIONS and whatnot).

I am appalled by the idea of these assessments not because I am afraid to be evaluated.  I am appalled by these assessments because I believe that any computer-based assessment in Kindergarten means more screen time and less interaction.  It means more individual drill and less collaboration.  It means more teacher talk and less child discussion.  It means less inquiry and more direct instruction.  It means (even less) play and hands-on learning and (even more) pen and pencil work.

I do not believe that children learn best from these methods, and I know they don't instill curiosity, creativity, and a love of learning.  But apparently these things are less important than rooting out those lazy, lazy teachers.

Indeed, if we have to destroy education to find and fire those teachers...well, there's always collateral damage.  That damage will be concentrated in schools not frequented by the children of Times reporters, certainly.