Thanks to State Senator Luther Olsen for his likening the Wisconsin legislature to a banana republic, and not the clothing store. Senator Olsen referred to the legislature about face relative to its partisan decision to countermand its 2011 decision to seek a single vendor for Wisconsin’s Student Information System. He correctly infers a negative impact upon any contractor who considers doing future business in Wisconsin and their lack of assurance that a legitimate contract will not be subverted by politicos. Olsen’s attempt to uphold legislative integrity was pummeled 13-3 in committee and his argument was canned before it could gain momentum. Governor Walker’s campaign announcement that “Wisconsin is Open For Business” really means open only for the business that special interest lobbyists can endorse.

Bananas come in bunches and another banana going bad in the current bunch of stinky business relates to the Wisconsin legislature pushing the caution button on implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Forty-five states, including Wisconsin, have adopted the CCSS as their PK-12 academic standards. The Wisconsin legislature adopted the CCSS in 2010 with little to no discussion. Since then, the English/Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics standards have been rolled in each Wisconsin school district.

As with every reform in public education, commentary is on the record for and against the CCSS. A common thread in all comments is that the CCSS are standards and not curricula. Interpreting the standards into instruction is critical work and is much more than just buying a new reading or math text series. Hence, there is some natural labor slap-back against the CCSS.

However, there is almost consensus that the CCSS are better than the amalgam of non-standardized standards that independently populated the thousands of school districts in these 45 states. And, there is an unspoken consensus that the real hurdle is not the instruction of the CCSS but the accountability of educators for student achievement on new assessments that will be aligned with the CCSS. The real caution button is not being pressed because of questions about the value of the CCSS but in fear of the angst that will rise when student achievement not only does not improve but takes a significant dive in the first year of CCSS assessments. Someone is forgetting what we already know – significant organizational change cannot be validly evaluated for at least five years. Politics, though, seldom can wait five years for valid results.

As promised, the CCSS in the sciences is ready to roll out this summer. Social Studies standards are still in the writing process. Although the Wisconsin caution button says “let’s hold more discussion in Wisconsin about the CCSS,” politically pushed caution buttons have a habit of becoming sidetracking actions. So, politically it will be acceptable for Wisconsin children to learn from updated ELA and Math standards, science and social studies standards will remain in the last century. Bad business once again!

Two bananas do not make a very impressive bunch. A third banana going bad in our bunch is the legislature’s discussion of opening school choice vouchers to all school districts in Wisconsin. Instead of limiting the districts open to vouchers, the new thinking is to make choice/voucher available in all school districts and place a numerical cap on the number of vouchers to be allowed each year. The proposal would allow 500 vouchers in year one and 1,000 in subsequent years. State Superintendent Evers appropriately acknowledged that few if any such legislated quotas ever are static. The real politic of deciding who will receive such a limited “golden ticket” seems to point toward a quick expansion of the quota to lessen the anger of non-recipients. As has been demonstrated by the proposal under consideration, special interests in favor of choice/voucher will not take “no” for an answer.

Interestingly, Governor Walker proposed expanding the voucher system from Milwaukee and part of Racine County to a dozen-plus of the largest Wisconsin districts where student achievement on the new state report card fell below satisfactory. The political “compromise” is to expand choice/voucher to all districts with a quota that is certain to be “watery.” Great compromise

Not a great season for bananas.

Runs. Touch downs and conversions. Two-point and three-point shots and free throws. Strokes. Goals. Percentage of correct responses. When everything is reduced to points, there always is a numerical end. Sometimes the end is when the numbers of time on a clock or calendar run out. Sometimes it is when the magic number is reached. Other times, the end is when the points assigned reaches a target number. In so many things we do, numbers equate to how well we do and when we are done.

Kids in middle and high school understand numbers. In fact, their sense of numbers is cold and hard. Points earned are grades and good enough grades mean promotion. Or, poor grades are not good enough and mean summer school or retention. In so many, in fact too many, ways schooling and learning reverts back to points.

Ernie was a freshman who scrambled through middle school. If his middle school computed a grade point average, Ernie’s would have been a 1.2 or maybe .3. His middle school efforts always were just good enough to earn a passing grade of D or better and his now-and-again F was balanced with a now-and-again C. However, high school was not like middle school and grading was more rigorous.

Ernie’s work effort in 9th grade was just like his work effort in 8th grade, but his point sub-totals were not good enough for a once-in-a-while C; he was looking at Ds and Fs. By mid-October, Ernie knew he was in grade trouble with Ds and Fs on his first quarter report card. By December, he knew that his first semester was in the tank. He would not earn credit in English, Math or Science. And, by late February, Ernie knew that he would be a freshman again the next school year. It was impossible for him to earn enough points.

Numerically, Ernie was finished. His work effort throughout the second semester demonstrated his knowledge that no matter what he did, he could not alter his fate. Ernie stopped any intentional learning after March 1st, not that his intentions were very impressive in February or January.

What a terrible way to treat a child! What a terrible way to treat all children who numerically crap out every school year. Ironically, the Ernies in every school are the children who are the focus of most federal reform efforts. Regardless of racial or economic status, non-performers like Ernie populate every school’s academic achievement gap.

I am not an Alfie Kohn fanatic. Given that, I do agree that points and grades are killing our Ernies in school. We need to separate every Ernie from:

• Any and all point recording systems. Why give students reasons to quit learning?
• Every assignment calendar. When the desired outcome is learning, “when” should not matter.
• Any information that tells him that no matter how he does, he cannot succeed. The motivation valve must always stay on, especially for children who look first for failure and second, if at all, for success.

This separation from the usual way school happens is not designed to give Ernie a free pass; free passes are even worse than being numerically finished.

Ernie’s new system needs to be what we really want for every child – learn this well enough before moving on to the next learning. Effort is recognized and applauded, but is not enough. Time is no big deal. Getting it right is all that counts. And, let’s see how much Ernie can learn by June 1st. Instead of being a learning fatality, Ernie could very well be a statistic of achievement.

School royalty. Lords and Ladies of the school house. The concept of school royalty seems incongruous with public education. Yet, schoolhouse royalty does exist and it exists in every school. Ask any person who has spent significant time in a contemporary school organization and that person can tell you who the royal people are. Do you know them?

By definition, royalty can be conferred by the rank, status, power authority connected with a monarchy. Excluding students and staff with the family names of “King”, or “Duke”, or “Royal”, this type of royalty does not exist in our schools. Short of “the royal family”, there are some who think of themselves a royalty. Every school may have their prima donna children or the “entitled” sons and daughters of affluent residents. But, these are not the real school royalty. Also, school royalty are not elected or appointed, such as members of the Board of Education or school administration. Royal is not the person; it is about the person.

School royalty can be discerned by identifying those who receive the “royal treatment” of the utmost respect and esteem because of what they do and not because of who they are. Royalty is earned by the exceeding excellence of one’s work and bestowed by those who understand the difference between just accomplishing the work and accomplishing more than the work.

School secretaries, head custodians and the school cook have the longest legacies of royal treatment. Not all secretaries, head custodians and cooks are created equal; there is a world of difference within each group. However, children, parents, and teachers know which secretaries love their school and which love their jobs. Mrs. P loved her school. She had a good life outside of school, but when she was in her school, she was a surrogate parent for every child, an aide to every teacher, a resource for every parent, and her principal’s “back up.” On your worst day, she gave you her best smile and an ear to onload your woes into so that when you felt better you could then do what needed to be done.

Mr. Y’s kids attended his high school; he was the building engineer. He once confided that every day he attempted to treat each student as his child, every teacher as his brother or sister, and every parent as his mother and father. He succeeded so often that students, faculty and parents spoke of the high school as “his school.” When he received a phone call at home on Sunday because a child forgot a homework assignment in her locker, that child not only said “thank you, Mr. Y” when he met her at the school door, she hand delivered home baked cookies each day for the following week.

Mrs. K ran the food service. More important than her knowing the ingredients of every recipe was her knowing every child by name. Going to the cafeteria was more than going to lunch for most children, it was being greeted by name and talking with a woman who would stop the serving line until you looked up into her smile. And, this went on year after year. If a child was ill, she knew it and she welcomed him back to school. If a child picked at her food, she prepared different foods to find what she liked and then served it regularly. Kids loved her baking almost as much as they loved the baker.

Today there is a new member of the school royalty. You can tell by the way others treat him. He seldom stands still because his daily “to do” list grows by the minute. He is always on the move and when he comes to you, you immediately feel a sense of relief because he is able to fix most problems and make the things you rely on work. His title is “technology specialist”, but he is part screwdriver repairman, part architectural wizard, and part empirical visionary.

In the last century, school technology was the stepchild of the school librarian or media specialist. If you could make clear transparencies, coordinate the filmstrip and tape cassette of a DuKane projector, and keep your new collection of floppy disks in order, you were the school’s tech person. Today’s tech leader is scary, because he speaks “geek” with student gamers, can find lost files in the Cloud, reset the school’s clocks, schedule the exterior door security locks from his notebook or tablet, search the hallway and campus cameras for small time miscreants, and foresee the future of a three-purchasing cycle in which most of today’s computer system already is obsolete.

These people are school royalty and they deserve a very royal treatment. They are not placeholders of inherited insignificance, but the everyday Joes and Janes whose work makes every boy feel like a prince and every girl like a princess.

What is the school that children deserve? It is not a difficult question. Children can answer the question. Teachers can answer the question. Parents can answer the question. Employers and college admission personnel can answer the question. Interestingly, each of these groups has a different concept of the school that children deserve.

The stickler to making such an answer is that children, teachers, parents, employers and college admission personnel only have opinions about the school that children deserve. None of the these significant groups actually is allowed to determine the school that children deserve.

Real answers about the school that children get, not deserve, are written by politicians and taxpayers. For some reason, politics wag the politicians and taxes wag the taxpayers. Some days it seems more like games than real world problem solving. Politicians use educational policy to seduce voters who have the power to keep politicians in office. Too often, educational policy is not in the best interest of children, but what is in the best interest of adults politicizing education. Taxpayers only remember what they paid each year in taxes and seldom remember what they received in exchange for what the taxes they paid. There is a reciprocal rule that can be applied. The further the tax benefit is from the taxpayer, the less likely the taxpayer is to support that benefit. The benefits of public education are twenty years in the making. We never really know the benefits of a public education until a graduated student moves into the real world and applies the valued of what he or she learned in school. Twenty years of deferred gratification is too long for most taxpayers.

Too often, the school children deserve is so much less than the school they have. Too often, the school children have is the school that fits into the intersection of politicians and taxpayers and is the lower of the possible denominators.

Now and again, we are surprised. There is a school up the road from my home that lacks for little because the politics of the school board develops the optimum of educational programs and the community of taxpayers says “yes!” at the ballot box. Surprise gives way too often to not being surprised. There is a school down the road from my home where non-elected politicians downspeak everything about the school and their vehemence influences that community of taxpayers to say “no way!” at the ballot box. That leaves the school board with the mandate of minimizing educational programs for children in that school.

The real sin in all of this is that twenty years from now young people trying to make their contribution in the real world may look back and realize “when I was in school, the school couldn’t afford (science or higher math or music or art or computer science or whatever school program created a gap in their education). I am not able to do this work today.”

The school that children deserve is the school that will best prepare them for their future; a future we cannot predict. Hence, the school that children deserve is a school of optimal opportunities for every child. We and they really cannot afford anything less.

It’s mid-May and everyone at school is counting down the days. Zero is the last day of school or the first day of summer vacation; it depends upon your goals. Summer officially starts for children and their families, and teachers and everyone who works at school when the last day of the school year is history.

School’s out, school’s out; teachers let the monkeys out. Can you hear the voices of elementary children singing?

Two contrasting memories about school and summer vacation come to mind the closer we get to summer.

Memory one. For years, teachers were responsible for securing their classrooms for the summer vacation. I recall large rolls of butcher paper on a four-wheeled cart being pushed from one end of the school to the other. At each classroom door teachers tore off enough paper from the rolls to cover their bookshelves. Every book in the room was hidden behind butcher paper and masking tape not to be exposed until the next September. When children walked out of school on the last day, after they cleaned out their lockers, they carried home papers and art projects and gym clothes and music instruments. Children of all grades said good-bye to their public school. But, they carried no books. Books and the reading of books stayed at school.

Memory two. Several summers ago a high school junior-to-be was my caddy at a golf tournament. Jake attended a private school. I couldn’t help but ask what else he was doing during the summer besides caddying. Up and down the fairways, he told me of his summer reading list. Most were pre-reads of books that would be studied during his junior year. The others were re-reads of books he wanted know even better. All were college-preparatory reads. I asked him why he was committed to such a rigorous reading list and he said, “What I read this this summer assures me that I am ready for next fall. If I don’t read and learn over the summer, I will fall behind. I’ve been doing this for years.”

These are two very different memories about summer and they present two completely different expectations of how children can or should use their summer time.

We public educators are trapped in the pattern of nine months in school and three months out of school that perpetuates itself and nothing else. There are state statutes that limit the school year and local teaching contracts that limit the time when teachers can teach. We have rules that act to prevent children from engaging in summer learning. (I am not including children who are required to attend compulsory summer school as a condition for grade level promotion. In most instances, this is compulsory time and not compulsory learning.)

We also have acculturated ourselves into thinking that children need time away from learning. Parents are excited to have their children home in June, but by July 1st they want them back in school. Kids who are used to seeing their friends at school every day become lost and lonely in their own backyards. Summer is effectively over after 30 days of vacation but our culture says that it must be prolonged for another two months like it or not.

So, how do we break the cycle of lost summers? We do this by proclaiming loudly that if children don’t read and learn over the summer, they fall behind in their potential for learning growth. It’s as simple as that. Three months of little or no learning for a second grader means that this child will return to school not as a new third grader but as a kid whose stagnation places his learning growth back in the spring of the second grade year. Instead of a full year’s learning connecting to the next academic year, children accumulate seven or eight months of learning due to summer regression. As a result, very few students begin high school with a high school reading ability and very, very few graduate with a pre-college reading ability.

Even though we know this is not what children need, we continue doing less for them than we could. Instead —

We need to tuck a summer reading list into each child’s backpack at the end of each school day in April. Children and parents need to be prepared for a new kind of summer and two months of run-up information is a good beginning. The second grade teacher will prepare the first grade student’s list and each successive grade level teacher will continue the pattern.

We need to add a second list to each child’s backpack in May. This is a list of places in the community, including the public library, where parents can obtain each book on the April list. Everyone needs help and then they need more help if we want them to change habitual behavior. The reading list tells them what children need to read. The second list tells them where to find what children need to read.

We need to connect children to their summer reading. On June 1st we need to install several books on each child’s tablet or laptop. Children will use their devices to play games and communicate with each other. If we also make their devices reading machines, it is more likely that they will read.

On July 1st and August 1st we need to e-mail happy notes to each child to remind them that summer reading is important. The e-mail will contain lists of new vocabulary a child will need to know in September.

And, most importantly, in September and October we need to weave summer reading into our children’s daily instruction. The weaving will include vocabulary, concepts, and background information gleaned from the summer reading. If there is no weaving, children will think that all we were interested in was busy work and they get enough of that. The more we weave summer reading into fall instruction, the more likely children will read the next summer.

There is every reason for us to do all five of these things. Children beginning second grade will reduce their summer regression. Every summer children will expand their vocabulary and background knowledge. Instead of falling behind as a result of a lazy summer, children will be ahead and continually getting ahead.

There really is no reason that prevents us from doing these five things, except we never have. Will never have mean that we never will?

I also remember a talk show host who always signed off with “when you know what the right thing to do is, try to do it.”