Trick or Treat

Today is Halloween.  As a result, attendance in my classes, and the school in general, was off over 50%.  Why?  One reason is that, as shared with me by parents at parent-teacher conferences, some don't feel their child will be safe outside on this day.  Who am I to tell them their fear is unfounded?  I don't live in the central Bronx, they do.  One student even suggested that I exit the school through the rear entrance today to avoid any random violence directed at people leaving the building.  Other students seem to feel that Halloween is an unofficial holiday for which attendance is optional.  Just another day in which students who desperately need educating did not get it.  When school reformers look to the reasons why inner city schools are "failing," they would do well, instead of seeking the one answer,  to add up all the small missed opportunities.

Where have all the students gone?

Attendance in my classes is bad, as usual.  In first and last periods, attendance is under 50%.  Attendance is best in my tenth grade class where it’s averaging about 90%   This is not unusual; attendance seems to worsen as students advance through high school. While freshman classes have the best attendance, even there, attendance does not come close to an objectively reasonable rate. 

According to the DOE, citywide attendance is 89.9%.  I find that hard to believe.   But even assuming this figure’s accuracy, it means that students are absent on average once every 10 days.  With each semester being about 18 weeks, or 90 school days, the average student is missing 9 days a semester or 18 days—three and a half weeks—per school year. At my school, where the attendance rate is closer to 80%, students are missing on average about a month and a half of every school year.

The 89.9% figure has to be taken with a grain of salt because it is based on attendance taken during the official attendance period (third period in high schools).  If students cut before and/or after that period, they are officially present for the school day. Attendance in individual classes is well below this figure.

I’d estimate that about a third of all absences are “LTAs” (long term absences).  LTAs are students who are enrolled at the school but never show up. Some of these students are not even in the country.  Since they never attend class, they obviously cannot legitimately earn credits and so are counted against the school’s graduation rates.

About another third of absences consist of students who show up maybe two or three times a week.  Where are they when they’re not in school?  I assume either at home or on the streets. Do their parents actually know where they are?  I once had a parent show up for parent-teacher conferences whose child had never once attended class.  She expressed dismay and admitted that her child was beyond her command. 

Who is accountable for these missing students?  Unfortunately, it’s the schools, more specifically, the teachers.  The problem is that while poor attendance is probably the main reason why students fail courses and are unprepared for exams, it is one variable beyond a teacher’s control.  Very few students miss school because they don’t like their teachers or find them boring.  Last year when teachers were shown how their students did on regents exams, one of my colleagues objected that he could not be held responsible for the 20% pass rate of his students when about half of his students who took the exam had missed at least half of his classes. 

Perhaps we need to hold parents more accountable for their absent children?  That’s what they apparently do at Charter schools.  If students don’t show up, the parents are warned and then, if the problem is not resolved, the student is removed from the school where they wind up—of course—in regular public schools, yet another reason why the performance gap between charter and noncharter schools is misleading.

Poor attendance: yet another systematic issue in the thicket of urban educational issues.  I ask: how can teachers be held accountable for failing to properly educate children who rarely come to class?

no surprise: yet another school cheating scandal

 

When students cheat on an exam, their exam is voided and, at least in college, they can be suspended or expelled.  Yet while student cheating remains a serious ethical violation, it seems that cheating among in New York City public schools is rampant. It’s gotten so bad that the New York Board of Regents just authorized an independent investigator to look at how the State Education Department handles complaints of cheating.  Not cheating by students mind you, but by teachers and administrators who change wrong answers to right answers and grade exams them so that their students who should really fail will pass.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/education/13cheating.html

More and more cheating cases are popping up at New York City schools.  Just last week the New York Post reported that at one of the new small high schools in the Bronx called the Eximius Academy (I’d like to find out how new schools got these weird names), students were given credit for classes they never took by having them retake classes they had already passed and then changing the grades for that class to apply for another class.  Pretty clever. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/grades_scam_KPq2XYFl53IFIXNzwRLl3H

Lest you think this is an aberration, consider that at Lehman high school, the principal allegedly invented credits and increased student grades by changing their transcripts after the fact. Or Kennedy High School, where English teachers charged that the principal changed scores of student Regents scores to passing.  http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/2010/06/john-f-kennedy-high-school-prinicipal.html The state education commissioner John B. King Jr. has complained to the Board of Regents that not enough is being done to detect and deter cheating by teachers and principals.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/education/09cheat.html?_r=1

The latest form of dishonesty is called “credit recovery.”  Credit recovery is where students who failed a class are given a project to complete, which then results in a credit for the failed class. There are no clear standards governing what the project consists of.  As a result, students are getting credit by completing tasks such as answering a few questions or creating a poster, either of which could be done in a matter of hours, hardly the same as attending classes and passing examinations. 

The purpose of credit recovery is to raise graduation rates. Since graduation rates are based on students graduating within four years of entering high school, credit recovery has become the primary method of getting students out of the school even if they haven’t really earned the requisite credits. Whether students actually learn anything though the credit recovery process is irrelevant to the statistics—if anything, the message to students is that they can cut class, not pay attention, etc., and then the school will bend over backward to accommodate them.  As one commentator notes, “the practice of passing students, regardless of whether they have actually attended class or done homework, has become widespread at many, if not most, high schools throughout NYC, as schools are pressured to raise their statistics or else be threatened with closure.” http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2011/07/doe-invented-credit-recovery-scam-and.html

This cheating—whether by changing exam results of awarding bogus credits—is completely understandable and indeed a logical response to the system set up by No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.  The laws create an irresistible incentive to manipulate data, for unless schools show “annual yearly progress” (AYP), they face closure.  AYP is based on test results and graduation rates.  Since the easiest way to show such progress is to fake exams grades and inflate graduation rates, administrators are caught in a dilemma between being honest or losing their position.  Not only that, if some administrators are cheating, those who are honest about their scores are at a disadvantage since the city grades schools by comparing their statistics with similar schools.  “For hundreds of school principals, looking over their shoulders to stay ahead of the peer group against which they are measured, this is a matter of professional life and death. If one principal looks the other way on credit recovery in their schools, others are penalized for more rigorous standards.” http://gothamschools.org/2009/06/10/credit-recovery-joel-kleins-race-to-the-bottom/

What is happening in public schools can be liked to the steroids scandal in baseball.  Once some players began taking steroids and hitting unheard numbers of home runs, pitchers who had to face these batters and other batters felt the imperative to achieve the same (unfair) advantage as steroid users.  Any time performance is based solely on statistics, people will try to game the system by playing a numbers game rather than dealing with the underlying issues.  In the end, baseball got a handle on the problem first by admitting it, then by questioning the credibility of the statistics during the steroids age (thus McGuire’s failure to be elected to the Hall of Fame), legally going after the worst offenders (Bonds, Clemons) and setting up a system in which players must be tested without prior notice.  It is frankly amazing that the Bloomberg administration as well as the federal government have pinned school performance to statistics without setting up rigorous procedures to ensure their reliability.  I’m not the first to predict the eventual collapse of the statistical edifice upon which the supposed education gains during the Bloomberg administration are based.

ah yes, the students

Now that I’m into the school year and I’ve met my students, I am once again confronted with the real issues that teachers face in New York City public schools.  And they have nothing to do with standards, curriculum, evaluation systems or anything else that can be reduced to paper.  It’s the students and why it is such a struggle to educate them well.

The two main issues are attendance and what may be termed “student resistance.”  Attendance rates at public schools such as mine hover around the 80%-85% mark.  While that may sound okay, it isn’t, for it means that on average students will miss about 15 days per semester, 30 days per year.  And the 80%-85% figure does not include cutting classes or other absences after the third period attendance, on which official attendance rates are based, is taken.

Aside from not showing up to class, student resistance takes many forms: disruptive behavior that hinders instruction, defiance of teachers’ authority, coming late to class, not doing homework, and exhibiting an apathetic or hostile attitude toward education in general.  Here are some theories I’ve heard or read about to explain this behavior.

One theory is that the educational system is insensitive to urban students’ needs and culture. Students feel that instruction is irrelevant to their lives or an attempt to impose on them mainstream (read: White) society’s cultural mores.   Student resistance is thus seen as a conscious or, more likely, unconscious rejection of the educational system at large. 

Another theory holds that teachers and administrators view urban students as incapable of being educated.  Students are the victims of low expectations.  They are neither challenged nor expected to succeed academically.  The teachers’ union, by protecting these lousy and indifferent teachers, makes it all but impossible to improve the quality of teaching.   Student resistance could be overcome by holding students to high expectations and getting rid of bad teachers. 

The third theory cites the problems of poverty and lack of privilege.  Urban students have so many challenges in their personal lives—high stress, single parent homes, health issues such as asthma and obesity, poor diet, exposure to violence—as well as lack of parental support for education.  These factors undermine students’ ability to achieve academically, in turn undermining their confidence and leading to a disassociative response to education.

            Yet another theory, one I’ve often heard in teachers’ lounges, pins the problem at lax enforcement of school rules.  Students are not held accountable for breaking rules, whether disrupting class, violating the dress code and the like, and therefore get the impression that they, rather than the administration, run the school.  If only rules were strictly enforced, this theory goes, students would be forced to shape up and get with the program.

            There are truths in all these theories, and I hope to explore these more fully in future blogs.  But now I must return to figuring out how to keep my classes from spinning completely out of control.

In the matter of desks and walls

            Yesterday brought scenes of teachers scurrying to get their rooms ready for students, moving file cabinets, cutting paper to create a backing for bulletin boards and otherwise trying to pretty up an environment that can never be made esthetically pleasing.   In this regard, urban teachers who teach in older buildings often find it difficult to convey to the general public the conditions under which they work. Examples include outlets too old to accommodate three socket plugs, electrical systems that predate the  power demands of air conditioning, paint peeling off the walls, as well as desks, tables, chairs, and cabinets whose appearance are coldly institutional  and whose age can often be determined by the dating of graffiti etched in them by students whose retirement years are approaching shortly. 

Can one be an effective teacher is such an environment? Surely.  Can students learn? Absolutely.  But there is a reason that parents from suburban schools would never tolerate their kids going to school in such conditions. Its effect on student motivation and performance is also difficult to quantify. And while I’ve never seen any studies on the impact of physical plant on employee productivity, it must negatively impact one’s psychological state as well as general staff morale. Just one more reason why teachers often feel they’re called upon to perform miracles in the most unlikeliest of circumstances.

Evaluating my effectiveness as a teacher

Before today, the first day of school for the 2011-2012 year, I had never heard of Charlotte Danielson.  I certainly have now, not only because my day was devoted to her work, but that work may well determine the future of my career as an educator. 

            Charlotte Danielson is an educational consultant for a company called iobservation. http://www.iobservation.com/danielson-collection/Biography/  She has created a teacher observation protocol that New York City has adopted (for a fee?) for evaluating teachers this year.  “The Framework for Teaching divides the complex activity of teaching into 22 components across four domains.  Each of the 22 components is made up of multiple elements.  There are a total of 76 elements over the 22 components.”

http://www.iobservation.com/danielson-collection/framework-for-teaching-rubrics/   

            Today we were introduced to several of these components, which include things like “designing coherent instruction,” “establishing a culture for learning,” “managing classroom procedures,” and “using assessment in instruction.”  Within each component are bullet points that list the attributes of ineffective, developing, effective and highly effective teaching. 

            I wonder whether the best way to begin the school year is how teachers are to be evaluated.  The message, it seemed to me, was a not so subtle threat that teachers are under the gun.  It made to feel quite defensive and uncertain about what this year will bring. And while the observation framework does a good job of identifying the myriad skills that go into teaching, its implementation remains to be seen.  If I fall short in any of the “76 elements over the 22 components,” am I (or can I be judged) ineffective, thereby jeopardizing my teaching career?  Will it be used as a tool to foster better teaching (which it could be) or one for devaluing and getting rid of teachers (which it also could be)?

Happy teachers?

It's not surprising that happier workers work harder and better, according to an article in today's New York Times by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer.  They report that "Worker's well-being depends, in large part, on manager's ability and willingness to facilitate workers' accomplishments--by removing obstacles, providing help and acknowledging strong effort."  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/do-happier-people-work-harder.html  It would seem self-evident that any employee, teachers included, will work better when he or she feels supported, has the resources necessary to do the job well and is given positive feedback for good performance.

Today's paper also included pieces from former and current teachers that point to the increasingly difficult conditions under which teachers today work.  "It's understandable," one writer notes, "why many teachers caught between the demands of the reform movement and the sharp budget cuts . . . are not returning to school with enthusiasm."  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/sunday-dialogue-which-school-reforms-will-work-best.html  I know I speak for many teachers who don't feel supported by their administration, who lack the resources necessary to do their job well and feel they will be punished for any shortcomings while positive efforts go unacknowledged.  Is it any wonder than that many feel a sense of trepidation (maybe even dread?) as the new school year begins.

As for me, I wonder what I will face when I report for duty on Tuesday.  What will I be teaching?  (Teachers are given a preference sheet before the end of the semester, but that is no guarantee of what one's schedule will be.)  Will I be in one, or two, or perhaps three classrooms?  Will the administration be fair or heavy-handed in implementing the new Common Core State Standards and Teacher Evaluation protocol?

Now more than ever teachers are wondering what the new school year will bring.  Many will bring with them a skeptical attitude about the reform efforts.  And as we know, unhappy workers will probably be less productive than happy ones.

Introduction to my blog

In this blog, I aim to report and reflect in an impartial and informative way on my experiences teaching in a high-needs public school in New York City.  I will pay special attention to the effects of current legislative efforts to improve public education, such as No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, the new teacher-evaluation system, and the new Common Core curriculum standards. 

I’m calling this blog “A Teacher’s Reflections from the Middle Lane.”  By “middle lane,” I mean that I am neither a partisan of the kind of changes advocated by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the makers of Waiting for Superman (charter schools, merit pay, testing, closing so-called failing schools, etc.) nor of the Teacher’s Union, the current educational system or those who blame poor test scores and graduation rates on the students themselves. 

Clearly, the education system has many problems, but the solutions are complex – and neither camp has a lock on all wisdom. Saying we need better teachers and must get rid of bad ones sounds good, but it’s easier said than done.  How are good teachers identified? Student test results are easily manipulated, by selecting high-performing students or fudging test scores, as we saw in Atlanta. 

Also, putting the focus solely on teachers ignores the larger societal forces at work. Many factors beyond teachers’ control influence education outcomes: poor student attendance, lack of student motivation, absent family support, a paucity of literacy immersion during the formative childhood years, not to mention incompetent administrators.

I know many children who attended New York City’s specialized public high schools where the graduation and Regents pass rates are 99.9%.  Were their teachers so much better than those at the school at which I teach? Maybe a bit -- but not enough to account for the vast difference in outcomes. What teachers rightly hear when they are made the focus of blame is an attack on their union.

In this blog, I won’t defend the status quo, with its lack of accountability. We graduate way too many students who are not even close to being ready for college work or to join the work force. Nor will I defend the teachers’ union right or wrong. 

Rather, I aim to give the reader insight into the world of inner-city teachers and students and the effects of school reform on their lives, along the way offering my perspective on the assumptions that underlie both sides of the education-reform debate.  That is, I’m striving to chart a rational course in “the Middle Lane.”