School leaders have their pants in a bunch over school choice. Get over it. The world of education is changing and it is not done changing, yet. The school of the future will be the school of choice. Be that school.

School choice was inevitable. No one in our contemporary society likes to be told what to do or that they have no choice. Today, “no choice” is fighting words. Often it does not make any difference that there may be little to no difference in the choices or that what you choose may cost more or that many of the choices may provide less. Choice has been politicized into a fundamental right meaning that choice is good and no choice is politically toxic.

It was not always this way. There was a time when choices were either non-existent or very limited. You can have this or you can have that – you get to choose. Not so much today. Regardless of the subject, try to identify a “thing” for which there only is one choice. My wife just looked up from the bowl of strawberries she was devouring, held up a berry and said “strawberries. A strawberry looks like this, smells like this, and tastes like this. A berry of any other color or taste could not be a strawberry. If you want a strawberry, there is no choice but this!” I would like to agree with her. At that moment, we both wanted her strawberry to be that rare and pure form of simplicity – juicy, red, plump and delicious and the model of what a strawberry should be. Alas, there are 103 species and sub-species of strawberry and choice abounds. With this knowledge, she can now sort through these species and find the perfect strawberry for her. She has choices to make. In fact, to find her perfect strawberry once again she must make choices.

When I was a kid, choice was very selective. Seldom in that long ago day was there something we wanted for which there were no choices. But, choice was a small, closed set of numbers. Gym shoes were PF Flyers or Keds. Later the shoe of choice was a Chuck Taylor Converse and no other shoe would do. Television, if you had one, was tuned to ABC, CBS or NBC. Music was on a radio or record player. Jeans were blue, leather shoes were black or brown, and t-shirts were white. Ice cream was vanilla or chocolate and always hard packed. Mail order was from Sears and Roebuck or Montgomery-Ward and a young boy’s hair was either cut in the “crew” style or worn as a DA. These were our choices.

There was one item for which there was no choice. Your telephone service was Bell. “Ma” Bell or one of her closely tied subs, Northwest Bell for us, was the one and only telephone option.

School also was a no or little choice issue. Countless children had no choice – they attended the school in the neighborhood where their family always had lived. Whether it was a PS school in a borough of New York or the one room school in What Cheer, Iowa, this was the school their parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, and cousins since Noah had attended and it was their school also. School choice lay between the school district and the parish. If not a public school, families tied their child’s education to a Catholic or Lutheran parochial school. A parochial education was not free and the line between church and state was suspended. Uniforms, chapel and Bible study, and several different versions of school discipline accompanied attendance at church school. We had a choice or no choice schools.

Life may not have been austere, but compared with the options we have in the “age of choice” living in the “old days” was black and white. Did choice begin with the “greatest generation” who raised their families in the constantly expanding economy of post-WW2? Did choice blossom with the “baby boomers” who, due to their population bulge, needed more of everything? Did the idea of choice begin with protesting in the 60s and a generational refusal to accept the traditions and the unquestioned authority of their elders? Did the demand for choice come with an affluence bred by the two-income family? More disposable income led to more consumerism which led to more things to consume. Is choice part of “keeping up with the Joneses?” Has the right to choose joined the Bill of Rights?

No and yes to each of these would be a right answer. Whichever reason, choice demands entry into every decision. It was inevitable that how and where a child is educated would become a matter of choice. It also was inevitable after politicians and special interest monies observed that the choice of school could be used as a wedge between partisan voter groups. Our own governor uses school choice to lure the “generation of choice” to his ballot issues. Once school choice moved from a mom and dad decision to the political arena, it was only a matter of time before school choice became a right under the law.

Now that school choice is a legal reality, there only is one course of action left for educators. Certainly, that is not to moan and wail against choice. How futile! The only course of action is to be the best school available to families in your community. School choice is a “field of dreams.” Be the school that fulfills parents’ dreams for how their children will be educated and parents will choose your school. There is a corollary to school choice. Schools that meet and exceed the needs of those who are choosing will succeed; schools that cannot match with the needs of choosing consumers will fail. Matching parental choice with a high quality choice is what will count now and in the future.

At first blush “best” can be very subjective. Best at what? Best at teaching children to score well on academic tests? Best athletic school? Best arts school? Best vocational and technical school? Best overall school? Best virtual school? Best at supporting home-schooled children? Yes. Best can be any of these. Once we accept that parents will be choosing a school for their children, public school leaders can become proactive and use choice to fashion schools that meet parental choice needs. A design may include schools within a school, diploma majors, specialty schools within a school district, or what we always wanted a school to be, a high quality, comprehensive school.

Becoming the best demands focus and focusing a school includes choices. Leaders must choose only the most effective and efficient teachers. Choices must be made in how time and resources are prioritized. Choices must be made regarding what will NOT be in the school program as well as what will be.

So, there you are. School choice includes choices made by public school leaders. Succeed or fail in the age of choice – it is your choice.

“How many times must I repeat this before you will learn it?” I have heard these words thousands of times, sometimes when I was a child in school and many more times as a career educator. Interestingly, “how many times…” always was just a rhetorical statement. No teacher asking such a question ever expected an answer. They really were just warming up before repeating the exact instruction they provided the child earlier. The teacher then would repeat the same instruction, word for word and action for action. Today, the decades of silence after this timeless rhetorical inquiry must end. The answer that teachers have been dying to hear is – “just once more, please.”

Once more is not a magical answer or a silly answer. It is not disrespectful, but actually very respectful. The child’s answer could have been 100 times as well once, but 100 times would be given only to prove the point. “Once” is the best and most effective answer because 100 times would only be 99 repetitions of the first. Once is the logical answer. If the child does not understand what she has been taught after one good and clarifying repetition, then the teacher is off the hook for the moment. Ninety-nine more times will only waste the teacher’s and the child’s time. Never repeat yourself more than once for the purpose teaching an independent lesson to a child. You are a fool if you repeat yourself over and over again.

The more pertinent question is not “how many times must I repeat this” but “how many different ways must I teach this to you before you will learn it?” Now, that is the educatinal question a teacher should ask when a child does not demonstrate that she has learned after the first instruction. Once, however, is not the appropriate response to this real question. The appropriate answer to this more powerful question is – “as many times as you must in order to cause the child to learn.” You may stop this line of teaching only when the child has learned.

Easy. The answer really is quite easy. Yet, it seldom is the answer that teachers make. For all the wrong reasons teachers follow their rhetorical question with “times up. It’s time to move on. Let’s see if you don’t learn this before the grading period is over.” This decision pushes a child along the pathway of learned helplessness, the number one cause of long-term student apathy, academic failure, drop out, and adult helplessness.

Easy remains the right word. When a teacher measures the amount of time required to find new ways of instructing the child at the moment when the child admits not learning against the amount of time needed to teach a child who is sliding down the pathway of learned helplessness, the equation is lopsided. Ten to fifteen minutes versus days, weeks and months. How much time? Just add together the time expended on reteaching/reviewing with a group of “didn’t get it the first time” students, the hours of after school tutorials, the weeks of summer school, and the months of repeating a failed course or repeating a failed grade level and “do it now” is the easy, time efficient, learning effective answer.

So, how do we know that one repetition is enough? Repeat the initial instruction to the child and then ask her to tell you in her own words what she understands about this knowledge or demonstrate the skill or act out the problem solving strategy. Check for her understanding. Do not check for her ability to repeat your words back to you. Check for her comprehension. If she is wrong or inaccurate or cannot actuate the skill or strategy correctly, teach her in a new way. And, don’t stop using your alternative ways of teaching her the same thing until she passes your check of her understanding.

Teach. If necessary, repeat the initial instruction. Check for understanding. If necessary, teach and teach again using alternative instructional strategies – checking for understanding after each alternative instruction. When the child demonstrates understanding stop and join this child with all other children in the class and begin your next instruction.

Then, teach. If necessary, repeat initial instruction. Check for understanding. And so it goes.

Easy. But, oh so hard. How do we know that this is hard? Check these data.

• Two out of three eighth-graders can’t read proficiently and most will never catch up. (NAEP, 2011) (NAEP, 2011)
• Nearly two-thirds of eighth-graders scored below proficient in math. (NAEP, 2011)
• Seventy-five percent of students are not proficient in civics. (NAEP, 2011)
• Nearly three out of four eighth-and 12th-grade students cannot write proficiently. (NAEP, 2012)
• Some 1.1 million American students drop out of school every year. (EPE, 2012)
• For African-American and Hispanic students across the country, dropout rates are close to 40 percent, compared to the national average of 27 percent. (EPE, 2012)

http://broadeducation.org/about/crisis_stats.html

Check for understanding and do not move to new instruction until ALL children have succeeded with their current learning. Teaching until all children are ready for new instruction is time well spent.

Make an argument = give a speech. Make an argument = write a paper. Make an argument = succeed in a debate. Make an argument = collaborate with others. Make an argument = real world skill.

The ability of a child to make an academic argument is an essential skill for school success. Children who are able to use this skill quickly find success in school while children who cannot flounder in continuing waves of uncertainty and inept attempts at school assignments.

An academic argument is the creation of an academic statement and the stipulation of ideas that support the truth of the statement. Although it may seem formulaic, the application of an academic argument to so many school situations makes it a tool that can be used over and over again with each use seeming unique and fresh. An academic statement can arise in any and all school subjects and at every grade level. It works in exacting subjects like math and computer programming as well as in subjective subjects like language arts and art or music. It works in book subjects like history as well as in lab subjects like science and woodshop. It is both cognitive and hands-on and really is made more powerful and easier with the use of Internet resources.

How does it work?

A third grade curriculum often includes the expansion of family and community concepts with towns and cities, rural and urban, and what people do in these settings. Children read stories about people who live in towns, cities and in the country. When third graders make academic arguments, they find a particular concept or idea and then demonstrate what they know about it.

Idea – Machinery has made farming easier and helps farmers to produce more food.

Idea – People who live in towns live closer to many of the services they need. There is a convenience to living in a town.

Idea – Cities are different depending upon where they are located in the United States.

Each of these ideas requires a child to use what she read in texts and supplemental readers, heard and saw in media presentations, and experienced in her own life to define the terms in these ideas. What are examples of farm machinery? How is a horse-drawn machine different than a gas-powered or electric machine? How much land could a farmer plow in a day using a horse-drawn plow or a tractor-drawn plow? Could a farmer pick more corn by hand or with a gas-powered corn picker? Would a farmer using only hand work produce more or less food than a farm using machinery?

What are the kinds of services that people need? What kinds of services are located in your town? How far does your parent have to drive from home to each of these services? How far does a family living on a farm near (place nearby) have to drive? Name all of the grocery stories, gas stations, hospitals or clinics, hardware stores, and clothing stores you can think of that are in your town.

Use a map to find these cities – Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Kansas City. Use the map to list as many differences between these cities that you can identify. Also, list the similarities that you can identify.

Children engage in these kinds of studies all of the time. The dilemma is that we do not help them to consider each of these studies as an academic argument – an opportunity to state an idea and provide examples that make the idea true. Teaching and using this strategy can immediately assist students to see a purpose in their academic assignment, grab hold of a strategy for understanding the information they are exposed to, and to verify their personal learning.

The strategy easily becomes more complex as the child advances in grade level and subject. The strategy is easy because its application remains much the same no matter the grade level. The application becomes more complex as the breadth and depth of information the child has available to make a valid argument is enriched. A third graders academic argument about the convenience of city life is not valid for a high school student’s study of urban blight. However, the strategy a high school student uses is only an extension of the strategy learned in elementary school.

Learning how to make an academic argument is a key to school success.

Teach children to argue because they really do not know how. Sounds ludicrous! Not so much.

Children know how to talk. They think that talking louder and longer and saying the same things over and over again is arguing. Standing nose to nose is arguing. Letting a little anger grow is arguing. Shouting is arguing. Getting a little mean and demeaning is arguing. Making the other person cry or run off near tears is winning an argument. They observe their friends, family and people on television do this every day. This is what arguing looks and sounds like to a child. Not really.

It may be that argument is too difficult and verbal lambasting is too easy. Once we explain to children that a real argument is the presentation of information in support of a point of view or an interpretation of an event or of the truth of an idea, arguing quickly can lose its allure. However, teaching all children to argue is one of the most essential skills they can develop. We want all children to argue well.

What an interesting assignment it would be if a teacher told her students, “let’s argue!” After an initial “yea”, the lesson could be quite fun.

Objective: Each child will explain the purpose of an argument and demonstrate a strategy for constructing a proactive argument.

Anticipatory Set: Already accomplished. “Let’s argue” got student attention and caused them to think about their experiences in arguing.

Explanation/Demonstration:

Think of the last time you were in an argument. Pair/Share and tell another child at your table about your last argument.

1. Please raise your hand if you believe you won your argument.
2. Pair/Share and tell your paired classmate what made you think that you won your argument.
3. Teacher talk

An argument is …

• In order to have an argument, you must have a point of view or an interpretation of an event or an idea that you want …
• In order to build your argument, you must find information that supports your …
• In order create an argument, you must learn this information and organize it in such a way that …
• In order to win an argument, the other person must …

An argument is not …

Modeling: We will model an argument by reading this section of script from … Notice the point of view, the supporting information used to support the point of view, how the information is organized and presented, and whether or not the other person’s thinking about this point of view is changed as a result of the argument. Then we will read an argument for the other point of view.

Practice: Look at these five examples of a point of view.

1. Select one and reword it into this beginning of a sentence – “I think that ….”
2. Consider three ideas that you could use to finish the sentence – “I think that …., because of these three reasons.
3. Use our classroom resources to verify and strengthen your three reasons. Or, to find better reasons that support your point of view.

Let’s practice. Pair/Share and make your argument and then listen to your paired classmate’s argument. Did your thinking about the point of view change as a result of the argument you heard? Explain your thinking to the classmate who made the argument.

Checking for understanding; The teacher must hear or read each child’s argument and provide feedback as to the clarity of the “I think” and the “because” reasons.

Independent Practice: For tomorrow, please consider something in your world that you feel strongly about and create your point of view sentence. Tomorrow, we will work on your argument.

The case for making an argument is not age, gender or ability limited. Children of all ages need to learn to make an argument and then to present their argument orally and in writing. With age, children should find more complex topics and make more sophisticated arguments.

Making an argument is both an age-old and truly 21st century skill. Making a good and valid argument is a higher order problem solving skill. Understanding the role of argument is an increasingly mature social, political, and economic skill that will serve children well in their continuing education, career and personal lives.

When I say these words to an adult, “… there is a way of walking with crutches so that your arms hold your weight and not your shoulders,” I can quickly separate those who have experience with walking with crutches from those who do not. Experience creates a defining understanding that can be described or shown but never fully appreciated without having the experience. Women who have experienced childbirth will always hold men at bay by saying “… it’s nothing like childbirth.” That is an experience men can conceptualize but never fathom, thanks be.

Knowing that experience is king in creating a clear understanding of a concept, imagine the disparity among children when we begin talking about a subject that some have experienced but others have not. It is no wonder that the inexperienced give us back a blank look – they have no prior knowledge of what we are trying to describe in words. However, those who have prior knowledge through personal experience leap ahead in their ability to associate our words with what they already know. What an advantage!

“A zebra is a horse with stripes.” Children who have not seen a zebra can only wonder if the stripes run from head to tail. Is there one stripe or are there many stripes? How wide are the stripes? Is the tail also striped? But, children who have been to a zoo and seen a zebra or whose parents have used picture books to show them pictures of zebras have a clear mental picture of this striped horse.

A child’s quantity and quality of background information is associated with that child’s knowledge of words and phrases associated with that information. Early studies found that children who are raised in families on welfare have about 70% of the vocabulary of children who are raised in working families and about 45% of the vocabulary of children raised in professional families. Each child’s wealth of words is derived from their exposure to the word or picture or real-world experiences.

A child who is raised looking at National Geographic magazines or whose parents have taken him on trips to the mountains or seashore or museums or who has access to many books, especially books with pictures, or whose parents watch informational television, like the Discovery Channel, has an unbelievable advantage over children who have not been exposed to these informational enrichments. Hence, new information can make sense to a child a strong with strong background information and be meaningless to children without such background.

Of course, there are concepts that children cannot experience. To an extreme, space travel is outside their experience. However, children who have read stories about long sea voyages or biographies about explorers or watched science fiction movies have experiences that help them to conceptualize what space travel might be like. Once again, a child without wide ranging reading and viewing will have more difficulty creating a semblance of space travel.

Background knowledge can be separated into information that is “school-based” or academic and information that is “non-school based” or real world. A streetwise child will have a real life advantage over a more sheltered child when both are trying to navigate an urban landscape. However, later life success as measured by career ladders and economic status is much more related to academic knowledge than real world knowledge and children who have stronger background knowledge at an early age have a real advantage in sculpting their pathway along a variety of careers and financial earnings.

That leaves teachers with the challenge of teaching around the deficit in background knowledge or working to backfill a child’s background deficit. Needless to say, teaching around a deficit only makes the deficit a greater obstacle for future learning.

Direct Method –

Parents and families. These are first-hand experiences that a child has that provide a direct imprint of information into the child’s frame of reference. As much as educators can advocate for parents to create these experiences, the actuality relies falls to partners in educators and not educators.

Indirect Methods –

Classroom. These are the virtual experiences for a child created by teachers that expose a child to information that can be illuminated by teaching and peer exploration.

Marzano (Teaching Basic and Advanced Vocabulary, ASCD, 2010) identifies 8,007 terms and phrases in 17 subject areas. 2,845 of the terms and phrases are basic and 5,162 are advanced or related to a specific academic subject area. Marzano’s work develops a strategy that will position a child so that she has a quantitative and qualitative working vocabulary that should allow her to meet the needs of academic learning and content area specialization.

Marzano’s six-step approach to vocabulary development has application for classroom teachers and parents at home. The English language has so many terms and phrases that it is impossible to accommodate all of them through direct instruction in school. Hence, school and home can work together to build a child’s academic vocabulary.

Creating a working vocabulary of basic and advanced terms and phrases allows a child without strong background knowledge to close the gap between what they understand and what experientially-rich children understand.

Personal Experiences Out-of-classroom. Beyond direct vocabulary instruction, there are a myriad of ways to expose a child to background information. School-based field trips and parent-led family trips yield an incalculable amount of visual, hands-on experiences which are turned into the words and phrases of knowledge. Trips to museums, zoos, monuments, forests, memorials, exhibition halls, demonstrations, aquariums and planetariums, foreign lands, and even outer space are rich with information. And, every child can experience these – virtually.

Virtual. The most effective and efficient strategy for indirectly growing background information is through virtual means and every school can do this. If we believe that every child can learn and succeed, we need to individualize a curriculum of virtual field trips and simulated experiences for our most background-deprived and grow them into backgrounded children.

Educating children presents many problems; some we can resolve and some we cannot. A deficit in child’s background knowledge is one of the problems we can substantively resolve.