The Green Cup

I spent Saturday morning with members of our county’s teacher leadership team in a team building workshop.

When someone says ‘team building” to me I usually think of some exercise involving three people who have to fill a five gallon bucket with water using two eye dropper and a straw (or they have to carry uncooked eggs across an asphalt parking lot in a relay race – balancing them over their head on pop sickle sticks while they race). It usually takes place on a teacher prep day before school starts. And absolutely everyone involved would rather be doing something else – like washing the summer dust off their classroom desks with a damp cloth, or going through student folders to get familiar with the crop of student who will be in their rooms in 48 hours, or putting up a bulletin board, or something.

So I was pleasantly surprised with the experience provided Saturday by Eric Pories and Focus Intent.

There were some of the traditional getting-to-know-you activities. One in particular involved standing in a circle – the 15 of us on 14 paper plates that were bases, with the left over person standing in the middle. That middle person thinks of a characteristic they might share with other people in the room. When they say that (examples included “Anyone who’s been teaching for more than 30 years,” or “Anyone who’s ever had a speeding ticket,” or “Anyone with a Facebook page”), people who share that characteristic with them have to move to a different base and the person in the middle tries to get on one of the vacated bases – leaving someone else stuck in the middle. You learn things about people.

Unlike the eye dropper-and-bucket exercises I described in my opening, most of the activities Eric Pories used with us were designed to be thought provoking. Nothing ended with “Wasn’t that fun?” There was discussion and reflection. Which isn’t to say that it wasn’t fun…

In addition to providing exercises that were thought provoking and milking those exercises for most of what was available in terms of learning, Eric also had a good mix of activities – some that involved everyone actively participating and some activities with a few participants and a lot of observers. That mix helps keep you from feeling too stretched in a three hour workshop and made the time more enjoyable, I thought.

On the whole, I have to say that Focus Intent was probably the best team building experience I can recall.

I have been very sick, and strangely grateful that if I just had to be that sick, at least it was over my school system’s Spring Break for the most part. I seem to be on my way to a healthy recovery…

A thought occurred to me this past week regarding longer school days and longer school years. We tend to talk about such things with one of two points of reference. Either more school makes sense because, well, China and Japan have more school than us, or more school makes sense because there’s just so much to get into the school day and we don’t have enough time.

Simple question: Does more school make sense because there’s research that says more school makes sense?

I think the answer to that is clearly yes when you talk about longer school years and/or year round schooling. I don’t have citations. Maybe I’ll look for some. But the concept of extended school year services for special education is based on that idea. And we all whine about how much regression takes place over the summer break.

Is a longer school day supported by research? I’d have to see research targeted at grade levels. My guess is that research might eventually show that a longer school day for high school or middle school kids could increase educational outcomes. Intermediate grades? I’m not so sure. Primary grades? I’m even more skeptical…

My question is basic though. And as long as we’re talking about China and Japan, the issue is political, not educational. When someone starts ranting about more school because they think the research says we should have more school, and they put the research up front in the discussion – at that point the argument will seem more credible for me. Until then, it seems like political grandstanding.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says we need more school. I think I agree with him. I don’t know that every student in America needs more school, or even that every school needs more time in the classroom. But in most cases I think they do; the most common complaint I hear today is that there isn’t enough time to get everything done.

Here’s the quote from the Secretary Duncan:

“Go ahead and boo me,” Duncan told the students last week during his speech. “I fundamentally think that our school day is too short, our school week is too short and our school year is too short.”

“You’re competing for jobs with kids from India and China. I think schools should be open six, seven days a week; 11, 12 months a year,” he said.

Duncan made the statement on April 7th at a middle school in Denver, Colorado.

Reaction has been colorful. And I suspect that pleased Duncan. Some examples:

• “Presently, this proposal is a waste of time.

  Is more seat time really needed in today’s poor instructional environment? If you’re in the top third of the student distribution, you’re already forced to endure an instructional pace that is too slow, resulting in wasted time and opportunity and plenty o’ boredom. – by KDeRosa at D-Ed Reckoning.

• “First of all, you’re not going to win the blue ribbon at the county fair by leaving your apple pie in the oven longer. And secondly, why not grow oranges instead. Doesn’t a global market place need diversity of talents and skills — not everyone trying to best each other on the same narrow array of standards.

  But we’re not talking about fruit are we? We’re talking about our children. ..and let’s face it, we’re talking about nothing less than institutionalizing “child labor” to satisfy a failed belief that higher standardized test scores will reliably lead to a stronger economy, more prosperous citizens, and a vibrant democracy. What it leads to is boredom” – by David Warwick, at 2¢ Worth.

• “Real education reformers don’t blanket advocate for a longer school day and longer school year without noting that neither will make a difference if the school to which students are assigned lacks all rigor and accountability.” – by Edspresso.com

Now, I’m willing to give the Secretary of Education the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the “six days a week, 11 months a year” quote could be hyperbole. Maybe we’ll see a concrete proposal sometime soon to take us from a 180-day school year to a 280-day school year in one fell swoop. But I doubt it. Maybe Arne Duncan believes that more time in class, just by itself, will fix education in America. Maybe. But I doubt it.

Do I think Duncan believes that we need radical change? Definitely…

The Problem

I’m sure that face time with a teacher is not the only issue in need of attention in public schools. But (assuming it is at least part of the solution) increasing teacher-student face time will require overcoming some obnoxious hurdles.

America’s schools are filled with teachers who are on the verge of retirement, the edge of burnout, or both. Rapid change in curriculum standards, in accountability, and in laws on educating children with disabilities have all led to a degree of confusion and frustration. Specialization has led to more demanding teacher preparation requirements and an increasing need for teachers to continually update their skills and knowledge. And teacher shortages in math, science and special education mean that some of the most demanding jobs in the school are filled by long term substitutes with no real qualifications.

More time in school either means more teachers or better pay for existing teachers. It probably means both. And yet states and local governments have consistently opted to fund neither.

Fiscal conservatives are fond of mocking the idea that if we just throw money at a problem it will go away. And yet, the most expensive part of education is easily the cost of personnel. Local governments and voters would like to find a way to avoid a simple truth: you get what you pay for.

Until our values change so that we’re willing as a nation to fund education on a par with the results we want to demand, this simple, circular problem will continue to exist. Here it is:

What else is there to say?

Teachers generally view the idea of merit pay as impractical and insulting: impractical because no one can come up with a valid, reliable way to measure “merit;” insulting because it’s generally framed as something like motivational money, where the system would pay me extra to really do my job. Why is it surprising when teachers’ unions give this condescending and simplistic approach the middle finger?

On the other hand, many politicians and taxpayers seem to think that teachers are pampered, overpaid bureaucrats who get three months of paid vacation each year after working as glorified babysitters for 37.5 hours a week. As long as that’s the perspective of the people holding the purse strings, the prospect of improving the situation seems dim.

The only thing left to say is that any solution is going to tick off a lot of people. And yet there is going to have to be a solution.

Gord Hotchkiss had a piece this week at Search Engine Land that gave one of the better descriptions of the difference between digital immigrants and digital natives.

Gord is the CEO of a company that researches what happens when people use search engines, and why. He analyses behavior. In the link above he talks about the differences between his own thought process and those he sees in his teenage daughter, a digital native. It’s an insightful piece.

EdWeek had an interesting piece recently on how stimulus money for education is conditional; states will be required to come up with better teacher evaluation tools and to report statistics on how teachers in each district do on their evaluations.

As part of the teacher-quality assurance states must fulfill to receive fiscal-stabilization money, for instance, the department plans to demand that states report for each district the number and percentage of teachers and principals scoring at each performance level on local teacher- and principal-evaluation instruments.

It will be interesting to see how this gets carried out, and to see whether it eventually gets caught up into the merit pay debate…