The 2013 NAEP results were released today. Once again, these data affect a local school district with the same impact as the National Transportation Safety Board’s report on highway fatalities. The big picture is nice to know, but what is happening at the local level matters here. How are local children performing on bellwether assessments and how many died on our county roads?  In both arenas, our locale is faring very well.  High school seniors are scoring well above state and national math achievement statistics in all disaggregated groups on assessments that can be correlated with NAEP and there were few highway deaths in our county last year.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2014/05/no_change_in_12th_grade_perfor.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2

https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safetystudies/SIR0101.html

Atop today’s national educational journals, the headlines read “No Change in 12th Grade Performance on NAEP Math, Reading.” Read on. There has been little to no change in the NAEP stats for 12th graders in math and reading since 2009. I am moved to ask, “And, what was the expectation?” What has changed in the patterns of high school student persistence in math courses over the past four years that would lead us to believe that achievement patterns would change? Which promising instructional strategies have been exploited between 2009 and 2013 to cause us to look for changes in achievement? Nada and nada.

On the local level, several school districts increased the number of math credits required for high school graduation. Causation possibilities!  As a result, all students are taking and passing, some on a second try, an increased number and variety of advanced math courses in these local high schools. The students of interest in this matter will be the eighth grade cohort who will experience the increased math graduation requirement.

In this same time frame, professional development for math teachers has stressed metacognitive problem-solving.  In addition to the accuracy of their math problem solutions, students must explain their pre-analysis of each math problem, their choice of solution strategies, and their processes for reaching a solution.  A local analysis of advanced math course completions against exiting 12th grade math assessments will become noteworthy.  As will a sub-analysis of student achievement on math problems that require an explanation of mathematical processing.  It will take several years for the eighth grade cohort to move through high school and present their exit assessments. Consequently, any smiling or frowning about 12th grade math achievement will be on hold for a while.

Like any educational news junkie, I read every report and article that comes my way. However, knowing what is important what is not allows this junkie to keep his pants from bunching whenever the NAEP results are released.  I leave it to partisan politics to swoon over broadsided data releases.

An April article in US News and World Report made an impressive case for why public schools must maintain strong programming in what otherwise are known as the “extracurriculars.” Taken broadly, “extra” curriculars include all subjects taught in school beyond the state-mandated academic areas of reading and literacy, mathematics, science and social studies, especially history, government and economics.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/04/28/music-art-and-language-programs-in-schools-have-long-lasting-benefits

Harvard University President Drew Faust thinks that the extracurriculars are very important. She speaks of how a study of the humanities teaches students to “think critically and communicate their ideas clearly, and those transferrable skills lead to rewarding lives and careers in every field of endeavor.” The humanities include art and music and foreign languages and the subjects that explain the history of mankind. They are what often comprises a liberal arts education.

http://harvardmagazine.com/2014/03/see-compare-reason-decide

A Concordia University study indicates that “musical training, in particular instrumental training, produces long lasting changes in motor abilities and brain structure.” Children who start very young receive the greatest benefits.

https://www.mcgill.ca/channels-contribute/channels/news/early-music-lessons-boost-brain-development-224936

Learning a foreign language not only provides a person with access to communication and a world of experience in a new culture, but the act of learning a second language causes the cortex of the brain literally expand and this expansion allows the learner a greater acuity of thought, abstract consciousness, and a more expansive memory.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22750568

“Children who get aerobic exercise transform their brains due to a protein that is elevated during exercise.” “Exercise improves circulation, lowers blood pressure and reduces the risk of developing osteoporosis. It strengthens muscles, reduces obesity, improves mobility and lessens the risk of depression.

http://johnratey.typepad.com/blog/2008/03/miracle-gro-for.html

Although these examples, the humanities, arts, music, foreign languages and physical education, seem to be familiar subjects offered in many schools, add these to the list of mandated academic subjects and then view all of the variations on what may be perceived as baseline school programming.

Pragmatically, “must” programming is programming that is measured. That means tested. Federal and state mandates require school districts to assess the learning achievement of all children in reading and mathematics. Applying the adage, “what gets tested gets taught,” reading and math are baseline for all schools. But, wait. Neither of these two subjects represents a single, linear line of instruction.

Beginning in middle schools, math is not a single subject but a ladder comprised of Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Calculus with layers of each, such as Beginning Algebra, Intermediate Algebra, Advanced Algebra, and Second-year Algebra. Do this expansion for each English, composition, literature, life science, physical science, Earth science, biology, chemistry, physics, and astronomy course and a conception of the usual school subjects moves from a narrow list to a dense smorgasbord of subjects. And, this doesn’t include the landscape of social science subjects. Nor, does it include the variations of Advanced Placement and special education courses. And, every one of these subjects with its course variations is surrounded by children, parents and community members who believe that their favorite subject is “most important.”

Without much effort, one can find “who says” testimony and evidence for why a very wide array of topics and experiences should be provided by a local public school. Many are extrapolations of traditional skill sets with contemporary applications. Other topics meet a perception for future employment skills. And, other topics answer current economic and political complaints and concerns.

The Huffington Post offers these:

• Taxes
• Budgeting and Finance
• Computer coding
• Emergency medical training
• No-bull*** sex education
• Cover letters and resumes
• Sustainable living

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/13/things-schools-should-teach_n_4576389.html

Everything that is curricular and extracurricular is important. But, it does not end there. Everything that is co-curricular also is important. For example, just try to reduce a co-curricular activity to find out how important it is.

The Hermantown (MN) school board faces a $260,000 budgetary for 2014-15. After several years of budget cutting and keeping cuts as removed from classroom instruction as possible, the board approved a reduced budget including two elementary teaching positions and high school cheerleading.

“Two weeks after eliminating funding for cheerleading – a move that led to community outcry and surprise – the Hermantown School Board voted to reinstate money for the program Monday night. A crowd of often emotional supporters packing the small boardroom lined the wall and sat on the floor to both hear and speak about the activity.” “’The students put in a lot of work in the last weeks to save their program,’ said junior Courtney Martin. ‘It’s the best feeling I’ve ever had in my life knowing I get to cheer another year,’ she said.”

Every school subject and every activity is important to someone!

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/content/hermantown-school-board-reverses-course-cheerleading-cuts

The Hermantown experience is repeated broadly each year as school boards across the nation battle with planned budgetary expenditures that surpass anticipated revenues. Consider the number of grade level teaching positions reduced against the number of football and basketball and hockey, or even cheerleading, programs that are reduced. What is important remains intact after the budget has been reduced.

For more than a century, the Marshall Field Company prospered with two slogans. The first slogan was “The customer is always right.” This concept fits perfectly with one of the world’s leading retail merchants by assuring a universal understanding that Fields valued customer satisfaction above all else. Certainly there were times when a sales person in the Fields State Street store in Chicago was exasperated with an over demanding customer, but it was that employee’s duty to live up to the Fields’ second promise that they always “Give the lady what she wants.”

A business model for a public school today is little different than that of Marshall Fields. “Give the community what it wants.” If not, parents in the community will take their business to competing schools. What a web we create when we first practice to accommodate. There may not be a limit to the important things that will satisfy a community of school customers.

Aesop tells us this fable. A miller and his son were taking their ass to sell at market, when they passed a group of girls, who laughed at how foolish the miller was to have an ass and yet be walking. So the miller put his son on the ass. Further down the road they passed some old people who scolded the miller for allowing his young son to ride, when he should be riding himself. So the miller removed his son and mounted the ass himself. Further along the road, they passed some travelers who said that if he wanted to sell the ass the two of them should carry him or he’d be exhausted and worthless. So the miller and his son bound the ass’s legs to a pole and carried him. When they approached the town the people laughed at the sight of them, so loud that the noise frightened the ass, who kicked out and fell off a bridge into the river and drowned. The embarrassed miller and son went home with nothing, save the lesson that you will achieve nothing by trying to please everyone.

http://www.businessballs.com/aesopsfables.htm

The most difficult aspect of the “everything is important” conundrum is this; although public educators know that they are Aesop’s miller, they can do nothing in the face of the politically-charged tsunami of parent choice demands, charter and online school options, and politicians who surf on the denigration of the public schools they have created to change the current educational environment.

Perhaps a true test of importance is sitting with a group of children in elementary school to explain what will really be important in their future as they move through the grade levels of school. Keep a straight face with the knowledge that small girls and boys remember everything you tell them. They think of these as promises. Nothing is more important to these children than your promising description of their future. They get excited with everything you tell them. Then, when you are finished and they have gone off to play, every school offering that you did not promise is not important. It’s a beginning.

The political leadership of Washington State got “dope slapped” by the US Department of Education. This was a good thing. Secretary Duncan revoked Washington’s waiver of No Child Left Behind sanctions as a result of the Washington legislature’s failure to meet waiver requirements. Sorry, Washington, but thanks. Every now and again, a public dope slapping helps the rest of us understand how the real world works. It keeps all of us honest and true to our word.

The dope slapping worked like this. The No Child Left Behind Act was flawed from its inception in 2001. In a nutshell, school districts were commanded by Congress to cause every child, 100% of all children enrolled in the district, to demonstrate proficiency in reading and mathematics on a statewide assessment or the school district would be punished. Although many in Congress understood/understand the flaws in the NCLB requirement and scheme of enforcement, Congress has not found the courage to repeal, amend or re-issue NCLB. Hence, the Obama administration used executive powers to create a waiver system that would allow school districts and states to escape the punishment of NCLB if the state would meet a set of USDE requirements. Because public education is a state function, it was left to the leadership of each state to enforce the commands and potential punishments. Hence, states were allowed to seek a waiver from the NCLB sanctions. Forty-two states plus the District of Columbia have been issued an NCLB waiver. Washington received a tentative waiver contingent upon meeting all of the USDE requirements, but time ran out on the Washington recalcitrance.

Sometimes children demonstrate a refusal to believe that they will be disciplined as a consequence of their continuous refusal to do what they are told to do. It often works like this.

Parent: I know that you don’t like eating liver, even though liver is good for you. And, even though I have asked you to learn to like eating liver, you and I know that liver makes you vomit and neither of us likes that. And, even though I told you that if you won’t eat the liver we serve once each week for supper I would send you to bed right after supper, neither of us is happy with that arrangement. So, I have a new deal for us. Are you interested?

Child: Good. I hate liver. What do I have to do instead of eating liver?

Parent: Instead of liver, you will need to eat a serving of beets, a sardine, and drink a glass of fruit juice. These three things also good for you. They will make you strong.

Child: Ok. I can drink the fruit juice and I suppose I can eat at least one beet. But, I don’t want to eat a sardine.

Parent: Please understand that the combination of beets, a sardine and fruit juice are really good for you, much better in fact than liver. But, beets, sardine and fruit juices need to be eaten as a group. If you can’t eat the sardine, then we will need to return to the liver.

Child: And, if I refuse?

Parent: Then, it’s lights out time and you are going to bed right after supper. That was the deal with the liver. Neither of us liked the liver idea, so I substituted three new foods. But, the deal now is just like the liver deal.  If you eat the beets and sardine and drink the juice, you can stay up. If not, then off to bed you go.

Child: Let’s talk tomorrow. (Tomorrow comes and goes.)

Child: Let’s talk tomorrow. (Tomorrow comes and goes.)

Parent: How are we doing with that sardine?

Child: I refuse to eat the sardine.

Parent: Say good night, then. (The lights are turned off and child is shuffled off to bed.)

At this time, political leaders in Arizona, Kansas and Oregon are in the same position that Washington was recently.  These three states are at risk of losing their NCLB waivers because of their recalcitrance to meet the USDE requirements for keeping a waiver. I would imagine that folks in Arizona, Kansas and Oregon are sniffing something that smells a lot like a sardine and looking over their shoulder at the light switch on the wall.

Professional.  Professional licensing.  Professional growth.  These three concepts attach to every teacher in public education. The first term is a definition. The second is a status. The third term is the heart of professionalism. Most teachers, however, enjoy the accouterments of a professional loosely. The continuing education of a professional teacher should not be left to happenstance or the managed events of governmental regulation; too much is at risk.

The definition.

By traditional definition, a teacher is a professional. A teacher must be trained as an educator by a certified educator preparation program, typically a college or university with a school of education. To qualify for a teacher endorsement as part of a degree program a prospective teacher must demonstrate the requisite knowledge and skills for their specific teaching degree. Teachers are college-educated. There was a widespread movement in the 198os to have teachers, like doctors, dentists, and lawyers, display their academic diplomas on a classroom wall to display proof of their professional training.

“A professional is a member of a profession. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skills necessary to perform the role of that profession. In addition, most professionals are subject to strict codes of conduct enshrining rigorous ethical and moral obligations. Professional standards of practice and ethics for a particular field are typically agreed upon and maintained through widely recognized professional associations. Some definitions of ‘professional’ limit this term to those professions that serve some important aspect of public interest and the general good of society.

In some cultures, the term is used as shorthand to describe a particular social stratum of well-educated workers who enjoy considerable work autonomy and who are commonly engaged in creative and intellectually challenging work.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional

The status.

Each teacher must hold a valid teaching license issued by the state in which he or she teaches as a requirement for employment. In Wisconsin, the Department of Public Instruction issues teaching licenses. An initial license is issued based upon the verification of training by the teacher’s educator preparation program. Subsequent licenses are based upon state-defined programs of professional maintenance.

“Requirements to renew a license or permit depend on the type of license an applicant holds or held and when the educator completed his/her educator prep program.

In general, those who completed after September 1, 2004, must complete a verified, multi-year Professional Development Plan (see http://tepdl.dpi.wi.gov/pdp/professional-development-plan).

Educators who completed their program before September 1, 2004, can choose either to complete a verified PDP or to take six semester credits from a regionally accredited college or university. Continuing Education Units (CEUs) cannot be used in place of credits for license renewal. Emergency licenses/permits have separate requirements for renewal (see http://tepdl.dpi.wi.gov/licensing/emergency-license-and-permit).”

http://tepdl.dpi.wi.gov/licensing/license-or-permit-renewal

Licenses are renewed for five-year intervals. Prior to the completion of a current license, a teacher wanting to renew a license must complete a PDP or credit program and submit verifications to the DPI. Setting aside the theory of professional development plans for the purpose of license renewal aside, most teachers approach PDPs like credit-based courses. They are hurdle-type events to be accomplished in order to renew a license. As hurdle-events, professional development must be constructed for the purpose of verification by a PDP committee or a course instructor. The professional development of a PDP is a distant remove from the professional growth a practicing teacher needs in order to remain a professional.

The future

Assume that a first-year teacher is well-trained and ready to begin instructing children. Good to go. However, a teacher’s readiness to teach is as tenuous as the lifespan of a good laptop computer. Initially, learned teaching skills and dispositions and the most up-to-date laptop serve very well. Teaching skills and laptop software would continue to serve well for a long time if time and life stood still and happenstance was held at bay. “State of the art’ has a very short half-life. Very soon the original applications on the laptop must be updated or replaced with newer, more powerful and more contemporary applications. Similarly, educational practices must be constantly reconsidered for their effectiveness is causing every child to learn. It is the learning that drives education, not the perpetuation of a curriculum or pedagogy.

Professional growth requires a teacher to

• Be aware of what is happening broadly in the world of education. This is an awareness of trends and fads, controversies and institutional challenges, politics and finances. A professional must be continuously informed regarding her profession and able to discuss relevant issues with non-professionals.
• Understand how the key issues in the world education apply to the teacher’s school. Some issues remain distant while others bang the school house door. Discernment based upon an informed point of view allows a professional take an active role in shaping local public education.
• Become engaged and participatory in the discussion of how pedagogy affects valued or politically-important educational outcomes. Given enough time, effective pedagogy, and appropriate resources, teachers can cause children to learn anything. Pedagogy is the teacher’s professional tool box.
• Participate in strategies that will achieve measured improvement in true educational outcomes. Some of these outcomes may be institutional, but most reflect the learning achievements of children. Professionals understand strategies, outcome targets, measurements, and how their personal work contributes immediate and longer-term educational goals.

These four criteria are well beyond the duration of a teacher’s initial preparation and relicensing requirements. The criteria also are well beyond the scope of how most teachers view their current professionalism.

The reality of work life is that most teachers today commit 8 to 10 hours each day to teaching and supervising children. Class time teaching comprises the majority of this time, but because teachers are universally responsible for children, duties begin well before the first bell and last long after the last bell. Teachers are committed to 2 to 5 hours each day to other school duties, extracurricular assignments, committee work, parent meetings, and instructional preparation. Most teachers use 1 to 2 hours each day for commuting between home and school. This leaves several hours for meal preparation, home responsibilities, and family life. And, sleep. Only the naïve believe that teachers with these daily commitments are actively engaged their own continuous professional growth during the school year. However, professional teachers must be.

Educational leadership at the local and regional levels must find strategies to assist all teachers with their professional growth. The best strategies for assisting others with their professional growth call upon the best instructional practices.

• Have clear professional growth targets, including academic and pedagogical achievement.
• Understand what is educationally important versus that which makes the nightly news report about the “ain’t it awfuls” in education. Focus on the important things.
• Make professional growth personal – I am here to help you. Professional relicensure can be impersonal; professional growth must be personal.
• Chunk learning so that it can be consumed by a “heavily time committed” teacher; but be persistent in delivering consumable chunks. Too busy is not a reason to avoid professional growth.
• Take the long view for affecting change. Theories of reinforcement and application really do work.
• Use measured effects. Take systematic measurements to reinforce movement toward desired change. Discuss measurements in a clinical yet personal way.
• Celebrate achievement. Teaching is a “closed environment” profession and public appreciation of accomplishment renews professional pride and constancy.

Professional growth is an investment in the most valuable resource schools have for affecting child learning – professionally trained, professionally licensed, and professionally growing teachers.

Since the time I sat at the keyboard to begin writing this piece, my phone buzzed with an incoming text message followed by a different buzzing pattern for three e-mails. My wife yelled from the downstairs bedroom where she is spring cleaning our closet, and our cat jumped on the desk to lay behind the fan port of my ThinkPad. In order of priority, I stopped tapping keys to assure that favorite old sweaters made the “keep” pile in the closet, glanced at the three messages, and rubbed the cat’s chin. It often is hard to keep my mind on my morning’s commitment to write. Life can be disturbing. And, these disturbances to my focus do not include the decisions I have been making on the content, organization, and the voice of my writing. Staying mind-on the work at hand is difficult. And, significant to the amount of mind-on time I have given to my writing, I have been reading notes and data from two monitors attached to my computer to formulate the content of my writing. Mind-on has been the amount of time in which I have been fully engaged in conceptualizing, writing, and making immediate and needed corrections. As focused as I try to be, mind-on time has been only about twelve of the past thirty minutes.

Why am I concerned with mind-on time? As a retired public school educator, my time is my time, except for the time my wife and grandchildren require. Correction. Most of my time is my time. As a retired educator still engaged in the field, I am concerned with the proliferation of media, print, e-, and broadcast, that blares the failures of our schools to educate children. A 2013 Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa study says that only “17% of Americans agree that that US high school graduates are ready for the world of work, and 29% agree that they are ready for college.”

The same Gallup poll asked “What do you think are the biggest problems that public schools in your community must deal with?” Responses ran the gamut of problems that schools have faced for several decades

• Lack of financial support (35%)
• Lack of discipline (8%
• Overcrowded schools (7%)
• Lack of parental support (5%)
• Testing and regulations (4%)
• Difficulty in getting good teachers (3%)
• Drug use (3%)

http://products.gallup.com/168380/state-education-report-main-page.aspx

While it may be true that each of these organizational and environmental problems affects the teaching and learning environment, none of these are as directly related to the execution of teaching and learning as mind-on time.

As a superintendent, several secondary teachers constantly reminded me of the incessant school disturbances to teaching and learning time. “My students and I have not had the benefit of five contiguous days of teaching and learning this school year. We seldom have an entire class period without some form of school disturbance.” They went on to correctly tick off the fingers of both hands with the number of disturbances that were part of our “normal” school life.

• Four or five PA announcements calling children to the school office or telling of changed basketball practice schedules every class period.
• Twenty-one special days and observations required by our state’s DPI/state statutes.
• Nineteen days of testing – state testing, school testing, pre- and post-testing, interventional assessments, college admissions testing, special education assessments.
• Seven all-school assemblies and eight class meetings.
• Nine fire drills, two tornado drills, a variety of disaster drills with practices of each drill so that everyone knows what to do during the drill.
• Professional development meetings held eighty miles from school that not only require a full day for the meeting and transportation to the meeting but hours of preparation for a substitute teacher and hours of re-teaching during the days after the meeting.
• Snow days. He smiled and didn’t necessarily hold cancellation of school on days when more than a foot of new snow clogged the local roads.

There were right, of course. How could we expect teachers to conduct quality instruction and children to commit to quality learning when their school leadership incessantly disturbs any sense of mind-on time? I observed classes to see how these disturbances really affected teachers and children. PA announcements are just a pain for everybody. A loud voice coming through the classroom speaker interrupts talking and listening, invades student reading and writing time, and almost always causes everyone to stop doing what they were doing. Interestingly, fewer than 15% of the students on our school ever heard their name voiced over the PA. Yet, how principals, counselors, and attendance offices connect with scores if not hundreds of children every day?

There are ways. These are strategies that mind-on schools can use to diminish school-caused disturbances to mind on teaching and learning.

• Use technology to make your announcements. Post them through the school Internet and wifi systems. Children and teachers will read posted announcements and messages on their personal or school computes or check them on their personal devices. Regardless of school rules, kids checks their phones several times during the hours of a school day for messages. Message these announcements.
• Pre-publish a “Disturbance Plan” so that everyone knows the schedule of testing dates, drills, and meetings. If my teacher colleagues disliked class time disturbances, they really disliked not knowing in advance when the usual types of disturbances could have been “planned around” so that teaching and learning could be chunked for optimal mind-on time.
• Hold required drills at the usual transition times of the school day, such as leading into a passing period or going to lunch time, or just prior to school dismissal. It is impossible to predict when an emergency will arise, but posting drill procedures in all school rooms so that “what to do” is well known and means that you only need to drill safe and orderly procedures.
• Hold student meetings during lunch and right after school. Kids will eat and listen if the substance of the meeting is worth their interest. Adults do this all the time, especially with the content of the meeting is informational and not interactive. And, publishing a schedule of days when after school bus transportation will be delayed twenty minutes creates a correct sense of school priority. It would be so affirming to announce to parents and day care providers, “we will delay dismissing the buses for twenty minutes so that we assure teachers and children have uninterrupted time to complete their class assignments.”
• Connect teachers as often as possible to webcasted professional development or bring the training to the school. Webcasts that allow for replay have additional value. More importantly, the message that undisturbed teaching and learning time is a school priority is essential for parents, community, professional developers as well as teachers to hear. Also, spending some extra funds to reduce teacher travel time and keep teachers with their students even for an additional hour on a professional development day reverberates with all teachers.
• Flip the presentation of supplemental educational information so that teachers and children can read, listen or watch the information on their time. Prepare information about those special observance days as videos or PowerPoints that can be read after school or in the evening. Everyone knows what “token” time is when an hour or more is carved out of the school days for compliance with a state mandate. “Token” time is resented and is not mind-on, so don’t waste the time; flip it out of the teaching and learning day.

As I scratch my cat’s chin once again, it dawns on me that I have had more than an hour of undisturbed writing time. As mind-on opportunities are important for a blogging writer, mind-on time is essential for a child reading and committing essential information to short-term memory or trying to construct a compelling argument in writing, or doing a science lab, or a teacher explaining what Robert Frost meant when he said that “writing poetry without rhyme and meter would be like playing tennis without a net.” Undisturbed mind-on time is essential for reading and listening, writing and speaking, doing hands-on art, music and technical work, and just thinking. We owe teachers and learning children as much mind-on time as we can give them.