T-Day

On Wednesday, my students will take the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or the TAKS. As Robin said in his earlier post, this is without a doubt the biggest source of stress for our high school as a whole.

I have been thinking about this post for a long time. Thinking about writing about how the TAKS completely ignores growth. How a student can jump over 200 pts. from one year to the next and still be considered a failure, both individually and for the school. How I wonder what it would feel like to be at a school in which the average student entering as a freshman could probably pass the exit-level test without much teaching at all. Would I feel like a good teacher?

I feel pulled between two ideas: the side that says that all students deserve to learn, to acquire basic knowledge and skill in high school, that it's not ridiculous to require schools to be measured based on student performance and the side that tells me that the human experience and thus the educational experience cannot be standardized. The system we operate under fails to acknowledge different starting points both high and low, let alone the circumstances and cards students are dealt. It ignores the student who could enter the ninth grade with the ability to pass their exit-level TAKS taken during the junior year and not learn a thing in the walls of their high school--and still be considered successful. It ignores the student who catapults themselves upwards over 200 points on a 1000 point scale over the course of one year--and still is considered a failure. Which student exhibits your definition of success and which teacher should be recognized for outstanding educating?

I feel a strange combination of frustration and pride watching my students test. Pride in how hard they work, in their ability to overcome adversity, in the effort that 99% of them will put forth on Wednesday morning, Wednesday afternoon, and some on Wednesday evening because yes, for a student who works full-time and goes to school full-time, it can take upwards of 7 hours to finish a test when you are are struggling to focus and read and do your best. For the student who is taking a test in a language that was completely unknown to them four or five years ago yet is still expected to test at appropriate age- and grade-level, it can take upwards of 10 hours to look up the words they need in the dictionary, to translate in their head, to do all of the things that they are doing to get their education and their diploma. Yes, these are the kids that will eventually be accused by someone at some point in their lives of not wanting to learn English if someone hasn't accused them of this already. On Wednesday when I watch them test, I will be a proud teacher.

I feel frustration that some of them, despite working and working and working and growing and growing and growing, will not pass this year and will feel like a failure, largely because the test tells them that they are. That a silent room full of kids with standardized test booklets and #2 pencils has come to mean so much in our education system. That it means the difference between doors staying open or closing permanently. It is terrifying.

I don't understand how a state that ranks 35th in the nation for high school graduation rate--in which nearly 30-40% of high school students drop out depending on the source--became the model for national education reform. I worry it won't change soon enough.

That, my friends, is T-Day.

Sitting Back to Watch

As a teacher, there aren't always a whole lot of opportunities to sit back and watch what my students and I have accomplished, but today was just that: a chance to see how far my kids have come.

This year will be the third year that I have taught Creative Writing at Lanier. When I student taught at Reagan, I watched my mentor teacher teach a Creative Writing class and upon learning that Lanier didn't have one, I started one. I have 21 students that I see every other day for 90 minutes, and we go through writing workshops on poetry, narratives, short stories, you name it. 

Today the kids turned in their writing portfolios: fifteen pieces of writing plus a prologue from each student. The portfolios included both pieces of writing from class and pieces they wrote independently. As a culminating activity, they each chose one piece to share with the class. While a student read, their classmates wrote one constructive comment for the reader, so each writer left with 20 pieces of feedback.

Some of you might remember high school well enough to recall the feeling that you alone have embarrassing insecurities, thoughts, and experiences and how intensely self-conscious adolescents can be. If you do, you will know just how big of a deal it was to watch each one of my students go to the front of the class, put their piece of writing on a projector, and read to their classmates. Not only did some of the kids share some really nice writing, many of them shared really personal thoughts and experiences, which told me that they felt confident enough in themselves and safe enough in my classroom to open up to their peers. It was an incredibly rewarding day.

Where I'm At

This may have been intended for a First Year Teacher, but I think it applies to all of us. Please note the October phase, and know that this is EXACTLY where I, along with many of my colleagues, am at. And yes, I am blogging from work. Sue me. I'm trying to avoid grading.

Fired Up

Before school started, every single employee of AustinISD was invited to a convocation. One of the lows of this convocation (other than the hour it took to get there in traffic) was hearing the superintendent congratulate Austin ISD on its achievement and then hear her "hit home" with statistics about the failures of Austin schools. I would have much rather had this kid.



Seriously, it is very difficult to honestly answer this question for all of our students. The challenge of believing in every single one of our kids is large. The challenge of believing in every single colleague is perhaps even larger. Really, have you heard a ten-year-old recently with words more powerful than his?

A Pleasant Surprise

Today was a really good day for me. I had good attendance in my classes across the board (a rare event), and I realized that I have actually taught my students something this year. Lanier High School is piloting strategic compensation based on student performance. On the whole, I believe there are more problems with performance-based compensation than positives, but the model we are using forces teachers to do something very valuable: use pre- and post-tests to measure student learning. Using the data from the pre-tests, teachers were asked to set student learning objectives to be measured later in the year. In 10th grade English, we have two objectives, both of which are to measure student growth; success is determined by how much the student improves from pre- to post-test, not on an overall percentage mark set for all students. 

The first was chosen from two options, and the test, which tests knowledge and understanding of literary elements, was given to us. This test is very problematic, as the reading passages are very high level. Lanier has an extremely high population of language learners, as well as a vast majority of low-income students who traditionally struggle with reading; for the purpose of this test, the high reading level is troublesome because we have so many students who come to us reading drastically below grade level. Basically, if I have a student who comes to me reading at 3rd or 4th grade level, something that is not uncommon, even if I double their reading level, the passages used on this test are still very challenging for them, making the assessment of literary element understanding ineffective. 

We were able to choose our second objective as a 10th grade English team, and we chose the reflective essay, a key component of the students' state assessment. My students are in the process of finishing their post-tests for the essay, as I need to administer both tests before I go on maternity leave. As the students' tests are coming in, I have been scoring them and comparing the students' marks to their pre-tests. I am very proud to say that all but one of the students who have turned in essays thus far have improved by their required amount. Obviously, the pay attached to this improvement would be nice, but at this point, I am equally glad to know that my students have actually learned something substantial from me this year. 

Again, I have a lot of issues with performance-based pay, especially when the assessment systems are set up in a way that are really skewed against teachers with a high population of language learners, students with learning disabilities, etc. I also question whether or not performance-based pay actually provides an incentive for all-around better teaching or just teaching focused on more specific objectives, let alone wonder whether it encourages unethical behavior and divides among colleagues. These questions still float around in my head, but as I near the end of my time with my students this year--a group that has came in at an unquestionably higher level of need than my students in the past--it is nice to reflect on what they have done well, and today, comparing their writing scores from October to now allowed me to do that.

The Power of Cupcakes

Apparently,  bribing high school students with cupcakes is highly effective. My students performed beautifully during their NABE observation! Literally every student was on task, which is pretty amazing, and they engaged well in the task and might have even had some productive learning moments. When one of the women said, "This is such a nice class!" I had to hold my tongue and resist spewing the statistics of the number of ninth-grade repeaters in the class, the number of kids with parole officers... because today they really were nice! It was amazing! (They also enjoyed their cupcakes after the visitors left.)