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School Choice Is Complicated And Intentional

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One should not accept a blatantly generalized statement as Gospel, especially any statement ladened with politico-economic overtones. Parsing a person’s motives and self-interests is an important tool for screening generalizations for truth and untruth, transferability and usability. School choice is one of those subjects burdened with so many motives and interests that every statement that begins with “I support school choice, because…” should be rephrased as “My interest(s) in supporting school choice are …” or “The school I chose has/does/provides these things for me.” Clear reasons in clear statements for clearer understanding. At the end of the day, there are good and valid reasons for school choice as long as the self-interests are known.

A discussion of school choice begins with this understanding – argument about the legitimacy of school choice is a waste of time and resources. Consumer choice has permeated almost every marketable commodity in our contemporary life. And clearly, politics has made education a marketable commodity. Given that school choice is a fact of life, the discussion no longer is whether to choose but why and how to choose and how choice affects the education landscape.

Historically, there always has been some choosing of schools. For several American centuries, children attended a parochial school affiliated with the family’s religious preference. Most frequently, these were Catholic and Lutheran parochial schools, but Episcopalians, Seventh-Day Adventists, Calvinists, Mennonites, Amish and Orthodox Jews also provided parochial education. In southern states, there are hundreds of schools affiliated with fundamentalist churches. The discussion of faith-based school choices has a history of community acceptance and only the availability of tax-funded school vouchers brings parochial schools back into the new discussion.

Equally, private schools or academies have existed over time. Sometimes organized as military schools to educate boys with structure and discipline. Finishing schools for girls taught grace and style. Elite academic preparatory schools existed for families interested in their children attending prestigious colleges and universities.

Families always have had choices. The simple and single difference between choice then and choice now is that families historically paid to make those choices. Today, public money is becoming increasingly available to fund school choice.

Today there is a bogeyman of reality in the discussion of school choice that cannot be ignored. Government at all levels enforces a “sum certain” and a “zero sum loss” equation on the use of state tax revenues available to fund education. If the equation was “sum sufficient,” the bogeyman would go away. But, education funding is never sum sufficient. Politics today says that tax money no longer is connected to funding schools; tax money is connected to funding the education of a child and whither the child goes, there goes the money. This, the bogeyman tells us, makes school choice all about the money. If a child who was enrolled in a public school enrolls in a private or charter school, the public school loses money and the private or charter school gains money. With choice, there always are financial winners and losers.

In our consumer society, we should know these things about the choosing of schools. Traditionally, parents considered the local, neighborhood when they chose their home residence. “We want this house in this school district, partly because this house is in this school district.” For some, residence and school district no longer are connected. Regardless of the location of their residence, parents can choose the location of their child’s school – these are two independent decisions. Literally, “I have the right to choose where I want to live and I the right to choose where I want my child to attend school.” The caveat in this new paradigm is that parents who choose also are parents who transport. If you want your child to attend a school out of your neighborhood, it is your responsibility to transport your child to your school of choice.

At the same time, the new options of school choice are not equally available to all children. Engaging in school choice is a parental decision. For some parents, employment and paying the bills consumes them and engaging in school choice is something they do not have the time, energy or resources to undertake. The lack of money excludes children. Or, their child’s education is not important. The lack of interest excludes children. Or, their grandparents and parents grew up in the house or neighborhood where the family now lives and everyone in their family attended the local school. The disinterest in change excludes children. Or, the family lives in a rural area where few physical schools of choice are organized and the distance between school districts makes daily transport an unrealistic endeavor. Physical location and sparsity of options exclude children. School choice is an option for more affluent, motivated, urban/suburban parents.

There also is the issue of selective acceptance that creates a significant difference in who attends a public school and who attends a choice school. Public schools educate every child regardless of educational ability and challenge. That is the law. Choice schools do not. Because they are not accountable to the same state statutes as public schools, choice schools can decline to accept students with special education needs, the socially maladjusted, and those that create disciplinary problems once enrolled. These children are the responsibility of public schools and are generally excluded from schools of choice.

It is easiest to parse the reasons for school choice for older children than it is for younger children. Simply stated, given the schooling experiences of older children and the refining of their learning styles and preferences, academic interests, and career and continuing education goals, it is much easier to match an older student with a school choice option. It is more difficult to match a younger child with little experience and unformed preferences, interests and goals. In my experience, parents who are in tune with their older children and can discern educational options reasonably available to the family make very good use of school choice. I worked with a parent whose son was a highly-gifted diver and had outgrown the resources of our school’s swimming and diving program, the local YMCA, and private coaching in our community. His interests and goals as a twelve-year old were best served by moving to Florida and being home schooled so that he could devote the enormous amount of daily time required for training as a world class diver. He never attended a K-12 school again. I watched him compete in two Olympics. School choice worked for him because a quality match of child and school was achieved. I also assisted parents of children with gifts in dance and music to extend their education in specialty schools for ballet and violin, and children with interests in science and language to enroll in magnet schools for those subjects.

It is not so apparent for very young children. I observe that school choice for children in 4K through elementary school is not an educational decision but an associational decision. Parents with the resources to engage in school choice for their very young children are deciding “who their child will go to school with” and “who their child will NOT go to school with” more than they are choosing a school that matches their child’s interests, preferences and goals. Sadly, the decision regarding “who my child will NOT go to school with” creates a re-segregation of schools based upon family ethnicity and economics. Parents choosing “who my child will go to school with” are leaving behind schools with higher percentages of educationally challenged students and schools with diminished financial resources to educate those children.

School choice is not easy. It has, as the bogeyman tells us, real implications for the financial stability of schools, both public and private. Because school finance is sum certain and zero sum loss, there will be financial winners and financial losers. For secondary students who have refined educational preferences, interests and goals, school choice is a wonderful application of American consumerism. For students whose families are not educationally engaged or who have educational challenges and disadvantages, school choice creates educational backwaters and leaves them there. School choice also is creating a greater rift between families with financial resources and aspirations and leaves families without those resources with lower aspirations.

Finally, school choice is the child of politics and it was enacted to provide advantage to families that have the resources to choose. The monied interests that created the laws of school choice knew what they were doing when they put their money behind legislation that created school choice for their state. They created new schools for their socio-economic class, not necessarily for the improvement of their community or for the advancement of all children.

If You Are Lost in the Lesson, Call a Time Out, Kiddo. It’s Okay

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“Time out! Stop, take a breather, and let’s take a moment to talk about this.”

In many games there are signals a player can make that says “Time out!” Athletes use their hands to make a letter “T” to stop play. When actors lose their line, they stop, look to the prompter, and get their cue and proceed. When kids play tag or other run-around games, they yell “Freeze” and everybody stops cold in their tracks. Children need a time out signal in the classroom; a signal that says, “Stop the action. We need to talk about this.” Or, to extend the sports analogies, kids need a time out for a breathing space and a chance to talk over what they are learning so that they get their lesson right.

The problem is that most children think saying “time out” in the classroom means that they are dumb. If other children are not needing a time out, they must be smart enough to be learning the lesson. Hence, if I need a time out, I am not smart – I am dumb. And, no child wants to draw “look at the dumb kid” attention down upon himself. They would rather not learn than appear dumb.

At first blush, one might wonder if learning time outs really are necessary or a good thing in the management of a classroom. Should children be allowed to stop the flow of a lesson? Would they abuse the opportunity? The answer to these questions should be viewed from the student perspective. After all, causing all students to be successful learners is the outcome of interest. With student learning in mind, heck yes, allowing any child the option to pause and review what the class is learning makes a lot of sense. We know that the usual and traditional teacher inquiry asking “Does anyone have a question?” usually creates no more than silence. And, we know that waiting until after children take a quiz or test to identify what they did not learn through initial teaching is not the most effective strategy for creating successful learning. Then correct answer is this – for children and their teacher to be responsible for learning both need to have the authority to call a time out and to assure that everyone is getting the learning right.

So, we need a “no harm, no foul” classroom time out signal. Maybe something like the red towel a football coach waves or throws to request a review of the last play. Perhaps a purple card will do. Purple is a noticeable and regal color. A child could hold up or casually flash a purple card at the teacher, a simple gesture that does not draw too much peer attention to a request a review of past instruction. On seeing a purple card, if a teacher only said, “Okay, let’s pause. Tell me what you (heard, saw, known, can do) at this point,” all children would have the opportunity to consider what they heard, saw, know and can do with what they have just learned. And, if the teacher asks several children to review their learning, the teacher can make corrections and add instruction to strengthen student learning and then proceed with confidence.

From the long view, how good would it be if at the end of a unit of instruction a teacher knew that all children were ready for an assessment because there had been enough pauses to create confidence that all children had heard, saw, know and can do what was taught. Not knowing if children learned really is not an acceptable option and not having a “time out” protocol increases the likelihood that we do not have confidence in what children learned.

Give Books, A Gift Full of Rewards

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I give books to my grandchildren as Christmas and birthday gifts. At other times of the year, I may gift them with clothing or sports equipment or something that just makes Gramps feel good to give. But, at Christmas and birthdays it is books. Books in print format; no e-books or audiobooks, although Gramps buys a lot of those for Gramps and Grandma.

My grandchildren receive books that are classics for their age as well as books that are currently trending. They receive books that are age appropriate and that push the boundaries of their vocabularies. They unwrap books of fiction, biography, as well as US and world history. I dare say these are the only print books they receive as gifts all year long. There was a time in their infancy when their parents bought them large, picture books and novelty books – books about birds and dogs and later about pooping and farting. Now that my grandchildren are in upper elementary and middle school and looking for the latest in electronics, their parents no longer buy them books. “Who wants to give a kid something the kid doesn’t want!”, I hear from my offspring. I do. So, I do. I am building breadth and depth to their knowledge base, some of which pays dividends in school. When a teacher asks, “Who knows where Patagonia is?” and most children answer, “In the clothing section at Macy’s”, my grandchildren say with assurance, “Patagonia is at the southern end of South America and is part of Argentina and Chile.”

Books. It is hard to beat the experience of reading books. Using Siri or Google as your reference is very contemporary. But, being able to say “You just crossed the Rubicon, Bud!” to a person who is unbelievably offensive speaks to being well read. What a gift.

“I Like My Teacher” Is A Measurement For School Success

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Ask a primary school-age child about school and what do you expect to hear? Unlike their older siblings, these bright-eyed cherubs love to talk about school and they talk and talk and talk. Their most common response falls into two types: I like/don’t like school and I like/don’t like my teacher. For most children, if they like their teacher they like school and if they don’t like their teacher they don’t like school. Their conception of school is formed by the teacher/student relationship their teacher can create. It is interesting to track the “I like school/I like my teacher” responses through the years of a K-12 education. Perhaps the most significant contributor to school success returns to the youngest child’s response – I like my teacher.

We measure many things in the name of educational accountability. An accountability measurement requires the use of a metric – some reliable gauge that indicates the degree and consistency to which the variable of interest is being attained. Standardized test scores come to mind. “I like my teacher” may seem like a soft subject for measurement or one that is too whimsical to provide meaningful results. “Ask again tomorrow and the little kid will give you a different answer,” a skeptic may say. But that would be a wrong impression and conclusion and cause us to avoid seeing that the bond between teacher and student is the highly significant contributor to school success that it is.

The American Psychological Association gives us several things, derived from academic studies, to consider.

• Students with close, positive and supportive relationships with their teacher will attain higher academic achievement than students who do not. They have higher school attendance, are more willing to engage in new learning, and to persist through difficulty.

• Students without close, positive and supportive relationships with their teacher seldom attain higher academic achievement, have higher rates of school absenteeism, are less willing to participate in new learning, and tend to shut down when frustrated.

• Attempts to manipulate aspects of a neutral or negative teacher and student relationship will not reliably cause improvements in academic achievement.

http://www.apa.org/education/k12/relationships.asp

The conclusion I reach is this and it is one that every little kid knows down deep: “I know if my teacher likes me and I really like it when my teacher likes me.” Try as one might, this “liking” can’t be faked. Kids know it. Interestingly, “liking” does not look the same teacher to teacher, because it is part and parcel of the character of each teacher. As unique and different as they might be, every time I have observed a close, positive and supportive relationship between a teacher and student, the outcomes are the same. Kids are demonstrably engaged in their learning, kids are demonstrably achieving their curricular goals, and kids are demonstrably developing an enthusiasm for future learning. Teachers who can cause these relationships are worth their weight in gold.

A kindergarten teacher I observed was a “kid magnet.” She bubbled with affect everyday. Her classroom was activity-rich and she was a cheerleader for everything a student tried. She celebrated loudly and happily when any child was successful and when a child missed the mark, she was constant with “let’s try that again, together”. While building learning self-esteem, she also created a consistent record for causing every child to be ready for first grade reading and arithmetic and many performed well beyond first grade. She was no faker of “I like kids” and all her kids knew she liked them for who they were. It was easy to track her K-graduates throughout elementary school because of their “I like school” behaviors.

Another teacher, in first grade, was a teacher’s teacher. She attacked teaching for learning everyday. She came to school early and stayed late and her classroom was purposeful. When she sat with a child, she listened and watched first and taught second and her teaching always was spot-on for what the child needed to know or do or consider to be successful in that activity. Kids did not bask in her smile because she did not smile a lot; they basked in her attentive presence and praise. When she said “good job” it meant “success achieved.” She was no faker either. Kids knew that she gave them her best everyday to help them be successful and liked her for it. It was easy to track her first graders throughout elementary school because their “I like school” behaviors were ingrained.

Caring, positive and supporting teachers don’t just live in the elementary school. A high school chemistry and physics teacher, the only teacher of these subjects in the school, gave her students a rigorous, college-preparatory instruction and kindled a “my teacher cares about me/I like my teacher/I can learn chemistry and physics” attitude in her students. She was firm as a rock in demanding that students did every homework and lab assignment. “Miss one and fail the course” was her rule. Yet, they knew she was in her classroom every morning before school and every afternoon after school to help them not just do the assignment but learn from the assignment. Some of her personal mannerisms caused teenagers to snicker, but when asked “Who is your favorite high school teacher?”, she topped most lists. She did not teach fluff and did not tolerate bad behaviors and students respected and venerated her for it.

In contrast, an intermediate grade teacher taught reading and arithmetic and science not children and her kids knew it. Lessons were planned and executed and children received instruction but there was no real “I care about you” or “I will do everything in my power to help you” in present I her classroom. When kids said “I don’t get it” they heard from the teacher’s desk “Well, try it again.” It may have been that long division and fractions were more difficult to learn than addition and subtraction and that reading science was not like reading to learn sight words, but the absence of a caring, positive and supportive relationship only made learning her grade level curriculum even more difficult. She created distance, not closeness. And, kids knew it. It also was easy to track her former students through their pre-Algebra and beyond math courses. Too many of her students had a skills and concepts deficit that would take a significant teacher and student recommitment to learn what should have been learned to overcome their lack of grade level achievement.

Theories of psychology help to explain the connection between “I like my teacher/I like school” and school success. Psychologists tell us that “attachment” between a student and teacher causes a child to want to please the teacher and that success in pleasing extends itself to subsequent school activities. They tell us that students learn school success through social cognitive modeling and that success in watching and following others who are successful, especially teachers, causes a positive bonding. And, that self-esteem theories, the “when I feel good because I have…”, are strong factors in developing positive and supportive relationships between teachers and students.

Whatever the reason, the outcome of an “I like my teacher” attitude is inarguable. Teachers who elicit an “I like my teacher/I like school” response from children cause these children to be successful students.

Tell Me What You Learned Today. I’m Listening.

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I watched my granddaughters skip up the walkway to their elementary school and wondered. What will they learn today? How well will they learn today what is important for them to know? How will they handle their learning frustrations? How will each feel about herself as she compares herself to her classmates?

I listened to the parents dropping of their children. There are a few fellow grandparents; our white and gray heads are badges of grandparenthood. I heard a common theme in what they said as their drop-offs headed into school. “Have a good day. Have fun today. See you after school.” Some kids waved back at these words; most did not, as they heard the same words every day.

My wondering derives from a career as an educator with a constant charge to “cause all children to learn” everyday. It is that causation piece that drives my wondering about my grand girls. What purposeful teaching will they experience today and what learning will they be expected to achieve? How will their teachers present today’s lessons? How well will their teachers monitor all their students to see how well they all are learning? And what will these teachers do to assist those children who don’t “get it” right away. Will the teacher persist until all children have met the learning expectation of the lesson? And, how will children feel about themselves as learners at the end of the day? Will they run out the doors at the end of the day to celebrate another day of learning will they escape out the doors to the great reward of “after school”? Sometimes my wondering is a pain!

At the end of their school day, when I see them next, my grand girls know the questions they will be asked. My queries will not be “What did you have for lunch?”or “Did you have fun today?” They and I know what was packed in their lunch boxes and they and I know that school is fun for them because they come from a heritage that extols schooling. Expect fun – have fun. No, they know I will say, “Tell me one thing you learned today.” “Not really a question, Gramps,” they always say. “More like a command!” They also know they are not only expected to tell me the what they learned, but also to explain how it was learned and how well it was learned. They know that sometime in the next several days I will return to what they learned today just to see how well they retained it in their thinking.

These girls are living a tradition. Their mother smiles, or is it a grimace, when they tell her that Gramps “Quizzed us again when he picked us up at school!” She was tortured in the same way, as were her two brothers. And, as are her cousins when they visit Gramps. They all know that “Nothing special” or “I don’t remember” or “I don’t want to talk about school right now” will not satisfy Gramps. They simply know what Gramps always tells them. “At your age, school is a great exploration and adventure. When we talk about your day at school, I ask you to share with this old man your stories of the new things you have seen and done. Now, what about your adventure today.”

This routine was created by design. “You’re torturing us,” the say, but they do it anyway and they do it everyday. The design is this – parenting for strong learning. Too much of family life is compartmentalized. Mom and Dad go off to work. Kids go off the school. Mom comes home and takes care of the home things she does. Dad comes home and takes care of the home things he does. Mom and Dad have their friends. Kids have their friends. And, it is easy for everyone to go to work or go to school and live their life in their compartment. Some find it safer and easier, because it avoids the messiness that other lives bring into their life. Parenting for learning is designed to bridge the compartments. I, as an adult, ask them, as children, to tell me about their school experiences. Sharing their adventure assures them that someone else knows and cares about what they do at school and understands and reinforces the importance of their daily education. I can’t imagine the pain of a child who goes to school everyday for thirteen or more years and never is asked to talk about what was learned on any one day. That would be child abuse and I will not tolerate it. Not on my watch.

So, “Tell me what you learned today. I’m listening.”