My Year Long Journey with Education Reform

I left teaching for my daughter's birth in 2009, just before Common Core reared its head.

It wasn't until June 2013 that I started to research CC.  I started by going right to the Common Core State Standards document and reading the ELA standards that would govern my teaching.  With a huge sigh of relief, I found I agreed with the standards.  They were very similar to the ones I used for five years.

A couple months later, I started blogging for Crunchy Moms.  One of the first posts published was about CC.  I don't remember the posters points, but I do remember arguing with her.  This event started my further research into CC, and then later Race to the Top.

Some elements of current ed reform rub against values I've held about education since my undergraduate student teaching.  I value my autonomy in the classroom and the trust my hiring represents.  I believe all students are unique and thus deserve their educations tailored to their needs as much as possible.  I believe not everything of value learned at school can be tested or measured.  Other elements of current reform clash against newer beliefs, such as those I gained through my literacy master's work.  I believe that student choice is key.  I believe in varied assessment, both in type and formality.  I see poverty and cultural affects on education. 

My learning about CC and RttT has taught me more than anything else the larger system of education.  I am sad to say that almost nothing I have learned about the politics of education matches my beliefs about student needs or my professional role as a teacher. 


These are my current reasons for opposing CCSS and RttT:

1. Reliance on high stakes testing to judge students, teachers, and schools.
   
2. Created by corporations and lobbyists based on business world models with comparatively little educator input.
   
3. Rushed implantation resulting in insufficient professional review, no field testing, and no notification to the general public.
   
4. Questionable quality of standards including: developmental appropriateness for youngest learners, lack of mathematics for STEM careers and other such "basement" vs "ceiling" concerns, rigid sequencing affecting ELL and special education students in particular, and the loss of literature in ELA classrooms.  
5. Expensive. Local money wasted on tests and related materials, which benefit private, for-profit corporations.  
6. Connected to the longitudinal studies required for Race to the Top, which carries significant possibilities for unethical data mining. 

The first two reasons are the most pressing for me personally. 

In Defense of Reader's Workshop in High School ELA Classrooms

1. Greater volume of reading for all. Reading practices reading skills, models good writing, builds world knowledge, increases vocabulary, and offers opportunities for critical thinking.  We want all students reading as much as possible!  But, even with my top preforming courses, we did not read more than seven novels a year.  The "good" students read these and might have still had time left to read for pleasure; meanwhile, the "bad" students read none of the assigned texts and possibly nothing else independently all year.  When I used a workshop approach, even students who had read zero books the year before read at least three titles.  My students who were addicted to books read closer to a book a week. 
2. Engagement via choice.   This one is self exploratory.  Who isn't more excited to study what he or she chooses?
3. Personalized attention.  When we read together, I counted on class discussion to cover the content of the reading.  Can't really do that when all the students were reading different books.  So, I had to devise a method for conferencing with students often.  Where in the old system some students might slip through the cracks, in this system, I talked face to face with each student at least once a week.  (We had a rotating two day schedule, so I only saw students two or three times a week). 
4. Greater focus on skills.  When we read a new book each month, the focus becomes the book we are reading.  We are "doing" Huck Finn or The Scarlet Letter rather than practicing skills that can be applied to all literature.  The students would think we were studying the novel like they were studying cell division or the Missouri Compromise; that is, as a set of facts to be remembered and ordered with some basic understanding.  However, just as the Science and History teachers have larger themes running through their fields, in ELA, spitting back the novel's content is not the goal.  Rather, I want my students' experiences with the text to build skills they will carry to their next critical reading.  With a workshop approach, I focused my mini lessons on the skills I wanted the students to have to tackle analyzing literature rather than limiting myself to lessons that got us through the text.  We spent a lot more time practicing ways to handle new vocabulary, take notes that went beyond plot summary, and pull ideas together to form thesis statement, to name a few.  And, best of all, the students had more practice on the skills, so when we did read a novel critically together and write an analytical essay, they preformed far better. 
5. Easy to use short texts like nonfiction articles, poems, and short stories. Since the students were all reading different books, we used short texts when we worked together.  Sometimes, they were read for homework, and other times they were short enough to be read in class.  When the focus wasn't on what book we were currently reading, it opened my thinking up to a wide variety of texts that did not need to be linked together as long as they allowed us the ability to practice skills.  Three consecutive classes, we could read a Shakespearean sonnet, a Bradbury short story, and a local newspaper op-ed, and despite their differences, we could focus on using context clues for unknown words or finding details that supported main ideas. 
6. No more beating a dead horse.  In the old model, every piece of reading had to be thought about critically with some type of activity to hold thinking.  Every reading assignment had to have class discussions.  We always ended with a big final essay.  Needless to say, it got tedious for the students by mid year.  When I switched to a workshop approach, only the two or three texts we read together did we investigate that deeply.  The point of the work stood out in contrast to the other reading: When we read informally for pleasure or information, we preform one set of tasks versus when we read literature critically with the clear intend to write an analysis, we approach it with a different set of tools.
7. Creates a community of readers.  When all the books we read were full class reads, our options were limited.  The school had to own the books and they needed to not be designated to another grade level.  I was usually the only person in the room who could endorse any particular title available.  With reading workshop, students were recommending books to each other constantly.  The students had clear favorite authors, series, and genres, and they enjoyed sharing their knowledge with each other. 

Six Reasons to Opt My Child Out of State Standardized Testing

1. I trust teachers. Education was my child's teacher's calling, and thus she sought training through her degrees, peers, administrators, and professional development. She spends hours each week with my child. My child's teacher will always be a better judge of my child, both academically and as a whole person, than any test score. I trust a person I can have a conversation with far more than a corporation selling a product.
   
2. I trust administrators. Administrators were once classroom teachers. They evaluate our local teachers' performances better through utilizing their experiences and education than reading a print out of test scores.
   
3. Our money for education should be invested locally on personnel, facilities, and other programs and resources. Tests cost millions of dollars. Investing this money locally would return miraculous outcomes. Why send our money to large corporations who are interested in profits not our local children?
   
4. If you want your child to grow taller, you don't simply measure her more often. Students should be reading, writing, and creating to learn, not to demonstrate what they have learned. Time and resources should be spent teaching and learning as the most meaningful assessments are seamlessly woven into daily activities by teachers.
   
5. Children are not vessels to be filled. Education contains a huge human component through both the students and teachers. Standardized tests disregard this element while teaching to such tests devalue the inherent individuality of humans. Over reliance on testing devalues any growth that can not be measured statistically with a bubble answer sheet including curiosity, creativity, relationships, and metacognition.
   
6. Standardized test scores represent the socioeconomic status of the test takers. Districts already know this information and the tests provide no solutions. Consequences for schools that rate poorly on evaluations composed of mostly test score data are discriminatory. The accreditation process is a superior way to rate a school.
   

White Washing Teachers

I don't plan to return to work for two years, but I still think about my job application process from time to time. One topic heavy on my mind is how being myself could prevent me from getting a job. When I was hired at my first (and only) position, I was twenty-three and did not yet hold any strong views about really almost anything.  That is not the case now.  I have views about education, politics, feminism, and censorship that I don't wish to hide excepting the moments that I am acting solely as The Teacher.  Even then, there are still some ideas I never intend to hide. 

I've been thinking about this in two aspects recently.

One area of concern is my ability to share any ideas remotely sexual.  While blogging for the Crunchy Moms web site, I found myself wanting to write about the connection between breastfeeding and reduced libido.  This was appropriate for a natural parenting site, but it implies that I have sex and mentions the use of my breasts, and thus clashes with the societal belief that teachers should be asexual. I never wound up writing that article.  I found myself censored even though I'm not currently employed.  Can I share that I think that mildly dirty joke is funny?  Can I comment that that celebrity is hot, especially if he is young?  These topics are just the fluff of social media.  What about my views on rape culture and gender roles?  Or what about sharing information about my own body (be it breastfeeding, child birth, or actual sex) on my own private social media accounts with those I trust?  Do I need to worry that my privacy will be violated, not just in a perspective employer scouring my social media accounts for objectionable content, but also in an actual employer telling me I can not communicate about what I wish with who I wish? 

The second aspect is my beliefs about education and the related politics.  This one at least makes sense since it would be related to my job. I can see the point of view that I should not be speaking against my employer, but then I read this: The Deafening Silence of Teachers. 

I am lucky that the recent huge education reforms hit while I am not employed, but am still invested in education for my children.  Currently, I can speak out in any fashion I wish about reform and don't have to fear about repercussions at my job.  But, will any public statements I make now affect my ability to be employed later?  Currently, my stance on reforms is only visible on my private FB account and a public few blogs, both of which I could scrub clean prior to sending out resumes. (I know the internet is forever, but is a school district in basically rural Maine going to hire a hacker to dig up my past keystrokes?)  But, what if I choose to become more actively involved within my children's school district, which maybe the district I need to seek employment in soon?  While I agree that my employment should require that I am a good match for the school, should I be denied a position because I don't agree with the current reform fads?  Does my disagreement on ed reform have any bearing on my ability to preform my job?  Doesn't refusing to hiring me just further silence teachers?

At the present, I am pushing forward with sharing my views on current education reforms.  Its possible that I will financially regret this decision in a few years time, but I don't think I will have any regrets in terms of integrity.