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Are Schools Christmas Treeing their Improvement Plans?
01/05/09
07:02:22 am, Categories: Announcements [A] Guest Blog: Margo/Mom
Margo/Mom makes her blogging debut here today in a guest post. I have run into Margo/Mom in the comments sections of various blogs and have always been impressed with her knowledge and insight. She brings a rare combination of personal experience as a single parent of two students enrolled in an urban school district and a solid understanding of the laws that affect public school policies. We are pleased and honored to have her as our guest.
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Teachers frustrated with the accountability systems that encompass state-wide assessments sometimes feel that an unfair weight is placed upon their shoulders. Students and parents they suggest are left out of the accountability equation—suffering no consequences for low achievement. This leads some poorly motivated students to “Christmas tree” the tests. This means to ignore the purpose of the test and adhere only to the immediate task at hand in a testing situation—which is to “bubble in” responses. Rather than go through the appropriate process of reading a passage and selecting the best answer from four provided, they just fill dots in randomly, perhaps creating a pattern—like a Christmas tree.
I don’t know how widespread this practice might be. But I do fear that schools and teachers have developed their own version of the behavior with regard to school improvement planning.
I was never much moved by the features of No Child Left Behind that offered the opportunity to move to another school, or to pick up a few hours per week of after-school tutoring. I have long accepted that school will never truly be better for my child until schools in general are better for all children.
That is why I have been eager to see the implementation of portions of NCLB that provide for improvement planning—and the involvement of parents in that planning. Imagine if every low-performing school had to call together a group of parents every year and explain the problems, the plan for confronting them, the expected results and the results of previous efforts. Parents could ask questions, understand any changes expected, be supportive and hold schools accountable.
Actually, all of this is required in the law. As soon as I found out about it, I started asking questions like: when is the annual meeting? Can I see the plan? How can I have input? These would seem to be welcome questions, given a process that schools are required to participate in—that of improvement planning including parents.
In three different schools my family has been involved with since the inception of NCLB, the planning process has been obscure, unwelcoming or totally absent. Not that there are no planning documents—after enough asking I can generally get “the plan.” Some are published on state or district websites. There always seem to be the required elements: vision, need statement, data, goals, objectives, strategies. What seems to be missing—and this is only apparent when one is close to a school—is a relationship to what happens in the real day-to-day life of the school.
The vision provides no guidance to any real decisions. The data goes no deeper than the disaggregated test scores. The goals are plucked from AYP requirements and the strategies are a summation of whatever was already happening (or required). The data show that low-income students and minorities perform less well than others. The goal is to close that gap, and the strategies to be employed include an aligned curriculum and professional development. If the school is required to provide supplemental education services, that’s another strategy to list.
When students Christmas tree a test, they are assumed to be un-motivated by learning, or untouched by any negative consequences. Teachers, we are to believe, live in fear of the consequences of low achievement within the context of NCLB, as well as being committed to learning. Yet, any school that reaches the dread point of “reconstitution,” or the consequence that moves teachers around (not out of employment, mind you, but out of a low-performing school to some other district school), presumably has five to seven years worth of such plans neatly filed away under “meaningless paperwork.”
Why are schools—reportedly operating out of such fear of sanctions—so loath to become involved in their own improvement planning? Why is it that schools—places of learning—are so far removed from being the kind of places that Peter Senge calls learning organizations? Is it just the firm belief that teachers and schools are already doing the best that is humanly possible that leads away from any faith in the capacity to improve in an organized way? Or is there some sneering sense of superiority to those who work “in business” that leads to such absolute refusal to learn from the ways in which any other organizations have brought about change and improvement?
I have personally never worked in business, but I have a degree in administration, and I have worked in two fields, social work and health care, that see themselves as similarly removed from people whose mission is to sell things to other people. I have certainly sung in the chorus that resists some money-making bottom line as the only motivation that really moves. But, I have also recognized the contributions of management theory to the organization of health care, particularly to quality improvement.
I don’t really care if a social service organization revolves around patients, clients, consumers, neighbors, friends or customers. But it is important to recognize whom one serves, by whatever name, and to maintain clarity across the board, regarding an organization’s mission. Particularly if one depends upon the “kindness of strangers” to maintain the budget. Even an organization serving the poor can never become so poor that their mission is dictated to them by those with money.
I can testify that, as a school parent, my treatment is wholly unaffected by any notion of “customer service,” and yet the “lack of parent involvement,” is a ready excuse for the inability of poorly performing schools to do better. What if each of those five to seven required annual improvement plans in schools facing restructuring had dared to look at some identifiable problem, thought about ways in which to do something—nearly anything—differently to respond? What if each one of those years that problem and the solution had been presented to parents for vetting? What if parents were invited back after six months to get a report out on how things had been going, what had worked, what hadn’t?
At the very least, these are the kinds of things that build relationships—a necessary element for involvement. In the best of all possible worlds, parents can support improvement efforts that they are aware of.
Even a school with five to seven years of attempts that yield no improvement has at least identified the things that don’t work. But in most cases, with planning, implementation and evaluation, things get better over time. Why not give it a try? Maybe if we can figure out how to get teachers past the Christmas tree problem we can figure out how to motivate students as well.
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Margo/Mom is a single parent of two students who attend public schools in a Midwestern urban school district.
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1 comment
Comment from: john thompson [Visitor]
Margo/mom,
As always I enjoy your post. Congratulations on the new venue.
I'm impressed with your description of the Christmas Tree, which I call our "culture of compliance."
You ask, "Why is it that schools—places of learning—are so far removed from being the kind of places that Peter Senge calls learning organizations?"
There are plenty of reasons, but a belief that we are doing a good job or a sense of superiority are not two of the explanations that I recognize. In my experience, we teachers see ourselves as working stiffs. Our main complaint, which I see as accurate, is that "reformers" for political reasons picked us as whipping boys.
Please remember that only about 1/3 of high school teachers are even involved in core classes. Much larger numbers of teachers see themselves as coaches, social workers, tecnical instructors, etc. I see myself as a craftsman, but my students see me as "coach;" even though I don't coach its a question of cultures and subcultures and they accurately see me as someone who fits in with coaches more than academicians.
You participated in a discussion on another blog where someone compared teachers to restaurant waiters, and there is a lot of truth to it. Especially during the terrible years of middle school and early high school, our job is to keep things from crashing and mostly we smooth hurt feelings. And even if you believe "the customer is always right" and you enjoy interacting with the customers, you don't look forward to customers who are asking for more than you have the power to provide. That metaphor helps explain why we do a poor job of recruiting parental input.
I wish teachers were quicker to act on their anger and fight back. But here's another place where our problem is your problem and thus the students' problem. Teachers spend most of their caeer alone in a room with kids. We don't have much experience talking with other adults.
Rightly or wrongly, teachers mostly teach the way that they were taught. The second great influence on teaching is our experiences in churches. But I don't see that as that much of a problem. If we had all types of teachers who had been taught in all types of ways teaching in schools with all types of kids, that probably would be the best system. (you don't expect physics professors, French professors, History professors, English professors, Law Professors, etc. to not have distinct subculures, so why would you expect public school teachers of all ages and subjects to have similar views?)
Most new "reforms" since NCLB are not new. They are just more expensive versions of failed reforms. On the other hand, few "reforms" are inherently bad. They are just incomplete. Teachers are frustrated because few people seem willing to listen to explanations of how past reforms failed and how new "reforms" should be changed if they are going to help kids.
That gets me back to your question. Teachers know how bad it is in urban schools (although I'm not convinced that suburban schools are failing). We don't have the answers. "Reformers" don't have the answers. I wish we could get back to the old pre-NCLB principle that we at least TRIED to spread, "You are not the problem. I'm not the problem. The problem is the problem."
As always I enjoy your post. Congratulations on the new venue.
I'm impressed with your description of the Christmas Tree, which I call our "culture of compliance."
You ask, "Why is it that schools—places of learning—are so far removed from being the kind of places that Peter Senge calls learning organizations?"
There are plenty of reasons, but a belief that we are doing a good job or a sense of superiority are not two of the explanations that I recognize. In my experience, we teachers see ourselves as working stiffs. Our main complaint, which I see as accurate, is that "reformers" for political reasons picked us as whipping boys.
Please remember that only about 1/3 of high school teachers are even involved in core classes. Much larger numbers of teachers see themselves as coaches, social workers, tecnical instructors, etc. I see myself as a craftsman, but my students see me as "coach;" even though I don't coach its a question of cultures and subcultures and they accurately see me as someone who fits in with coaches more than academicians.
You participated in a discussion on another blog where someone compared teachers to restaurant waiters, and there is a lot of truth to it. Especially during the terrible years of middle school and early high school, our job is to keep things from crashing and mostly we smooth hurt feelings. And even if you believe "the customer is always right" and you enjoy interacting with the customers, you don't look forward to customers who are asking for more than you have the power to provide. That metaphor helps explain why we do a poor job of recruiting parental input.
I wish teachers were quicker to act on their anger and fight back. But here's another place where our problem is your problem and thus the students' problem. Teachers spend most of their caeer alone in a room with kids. We don't have much experience talking with other adults.
Rightly or wrongly, teachers mostly teach the way that they were taught. The second great influence on teaching is our experiences in churches. But I don't see that as that much of a problem. If we had all types of teachers who had been taught in all types of ways teaching in schools with all types of kids, that probably would be the best system. (you don't expect physics professors, French professors, History professors, English professors, Law Professors, etc. to not have distinct subculures, so why would you expect public school teachers of all ages and subjects to have similar views?)
Most new "reforms" since NCLB are not new. They are just more expensive versions of failed reforms. On the other hand, few "reforms" are inherently bad. They are just incomplete. Teachers are frustrated because few people seem willing to listen to explanations of how past reforms failed and how new "reforms" should be changed if they are going to help kids.
That gets me back to your question. Teachers know how bad it is in urban schools (although I'm not convinced that suburban schools are failing). We don't have the answers. "Reformers" don't have the answers. I wish we could get back to the old pre-NCLB principle that we at least TRIED to spread, "You are not the problem. I'm not the problem. The problem is the problem."
01/05/09 @ 14:06
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