the opportunity: from “brutal facts” to the best schools we’ve ever had dr. mike schmoker...
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THE OPPORTUNITY: From “Brutal Facts” to the Best Schools We’ve Ever Had
Dr. Mike [email protected]/522-0006
Calhoun ISD Marshall, Michigan March 5, 2008
INTRODUCTION: DO WE TRULY WANT BETTER SCHOOLS?
Because organizations only improve…
“where the truth is told and the brutal facts confronted”
Jim Collins
BRUTAL FACTS:
Only 32% of our college-bound students are adequately prepared for college
“Understanding University Success” Center for Educational Policy Research
COLLEGE SUCCESS: ANALYTICAL READING & DISCUSSION PERSUASIVE WRITING
Drawing inferences/conclusions from texts
Analyzing conflicting source documents
Supporting arguments with evidence
Solving complex problems with no obvious answer
David ConleyCollege Knowledge
BRUTAL FACTS:
“The TEACHER EFFECT makes all other differences pale in comparison”
William Sanders
Five years of effective teaching can completely close the gap between low-income students and others.
Marzano; Kain & Hanushek
IMPACT of TEACHING
Pittsburgh Schools: 69% range of difference
Mortimore & Sammons: teaching has 6 to 10 times as much impact as other factors
Dylan Wiliam: 400% “speed of learning” differences
REALITY CHECK
“Effective practices never take root in more than a small proportion of classrooms and schools”
Tyack and Cuban
“Effective teaching is quite different from the teaching that is typically found in most classrooms”
Odden and Kelley
THE REAL OPPORTUNITY…
“Most of us in education are mediocre at what we do”
Tony WagnerHarvard Graduate School of Education
EVERY STUDY of classroom practice reveals that most teaching is mediocre--or worse
Goodlad; Sizer; Resnick; Powell, Farrar & Cohen; Learning 24/7 Classroom Study
BRUTAL FACTS After decades of initiatives, programs & plans, we still
DO NOT INSPECT instruction, i.e.:
1. WHAT we teach (essential standards)
or
2. HOW WELL we teach (effective lessons/units)
Gordon; Elmore; Marzano; Tyack & Cuban; Hess; Berliner
The case of SEAN CONNORS
EFFECTIVE LESSON: WHAT & HOW
Clarity @ essential standard being learned that day (“introductory paragraphs”)
“Scaffolded” (step-by-step) instruction “Check for understanding”/formative assessment
during the lesson Models/exemplars: students studied these in pairs
Engagement & attentiveness—students monitored/called on randomly
Students write own intro. paragraph…
only when most/all students are ready
WHY IS MOST TEACHING MEDIOCRE?
“The administrative superstructure of schools …exists to ‘buffer’ teaching from
OUTSIDE INSPECTION”
Richard Elmore
YOU CAN’T EXPECT WHAT YOU DON’T
INSPECT
Peter Senge
PRIMARY TASK: Improve WHAT and HOW we teach
I. REPLACE “IMPROVEMENT PLANNING” WITH TEAM-BASED EFFORTS TO IMPROVE
WHAT IS TAUGHT and HOW WELL
II. “GUARANTEED & VIABLE CURRICULUM” (“WHAT”)
III. SIMPLIFY “LEADERSHIP”
IV. RADICALLY REDEFINE
LITERACY INSTRUCTION
I. FIRST: TYPICAL “STRATEGIC” or “IMPROVEMENT PLANNING” MODELS… SUCKorganizations into superficial; time-consuming counterproductive, distracting
actions that PREVENT
rapid, team-based cycles of instruction assessment improvement of instruction
I. LEARNING COMMUNITIES: AN ASTONISHING CONCURRENCE
“The most promising strategy for sustained, substantive school improvement is building the capacity of school personnel to function as a professional learning community.”
Milbrey McLaughlin (cited in Professional Learning Communities at Work by Dufour and Eaker)
I. LEARNING COMMUNITIES: AN ASTONISHING CONCURRENCE
“Professionals do not work alone; they work in teams… to accomplish the goal—to heal the patient, win the lawsuit, plan the building.”
Arthur Wise: Teaching Teams: a 21st – Century Paradigm For Organizing America’s Schools
I. FIRST: ADOPT “SIMPLE PLANS” to create
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES
1. DATA - driven (academic!) priorities
2. GOALS: that are measurable/tied to an assessment
3. TEAMWORK that produces short-term assessment results
…Anchored by a
GUARANTEED & VIABLE CURRICULUM
DATA: “S.M.A.R.T.” GOALS
1. SET measurable, annual goals for: Math; Art; Writing; P.E.—tied to an ASSESSMENT
GOAL: Our team will improve in (Physics; Math; Writing; French; )
from: 62% (2007)
to: 66% (2008)
Peter Senge: “More than ? goals is the same as none at all.”
DATA DRIVEN PRIORITIES
2. IDENTIFY lowest - scoring standards—from ASSESSMENTS
MATH: “measurement; operations with negative and positive integers”
WRITING: “voice”; “word choice” P.E. “volleyball unit; personal health plan”
“maim your opponent in dodge ball”
3. USE formative assessment data (results from lessons, units, etc)
Stiggins; Wiliam & Black
AUTHENTIC TEAM-BASED PLC’s: plan lesson/unit teach it assess its impactadjust instruction
Amphi High: Thesis statement/introduction
Adlai Stevenson: Physics: how a rainbow works
Lake Havasu High School: Operations with negative & positive integers
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES: FACTS
The “PLC” concept (by whatever name) is indisputably the STATE OF THE ART for improving instruction but alas…
authentic, team-based PLC’s are EXCEEDINGLY RARE.
II. “GUARANTEED & VIABLE CURRICULUM”
How important is this?
The NUMBER ONE FACTOR
for increasing levels of learning
Marzano; Porter; Lezotte
II. GUARANTEED…?
Do America’s schools now ensure that a “guaranteed & viable curriculum”
actually gets taught?
II. GUARANTEED & VIABLE CURRICULUM? BRUTAL FACTS:
ROSENHOLTZ: teachers provide a
“self-selected jumble” of standards
BERLINER/WALBERG: wild variation from teacher to teacher; no alignment with agreed-upon, viable curriculum standards
LITTLE; SIZER; ALLINGTON; CALKINS:
“curricular chaos" in English & language arts
II. GUARANTEED CURRICULUM: MAP the STANDARDS*1st quarter: NUMBER SENSE
DATA ANALYSIS & PROBABILITY
2ND quarter: PATTERNS, ALGEBRA & FUNCTIONS
GEOMETRY
3rd quarter: MEASUREMENT & DISCRETE MATH
MATHEMATICAL STRUCTURE/LOGIC
4th quarter: REVIEW: for YEAR END ASSESSMENT
END OF EACH QUARTER: common assessment…with ample “higher-order” component (analysis, evaluation etc.)
III. LEADERSHIP in theProfessional Learning Community
“No institution can survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized to get along under a leadership of average human beings.”
Peter Drucker
THE LEADERSHIP ILLUSION
The actions of administrators, including all forms of improvement planning & staff development, have virtually no impact on the quality of teaching in the school.
Richard Elmore 2000
This is not a matter of work ethic;
it is a matter of misplaced priorities.
MONITORING 1. INSTRUCTION and 2. GUARANTEED & VIABLE CURRICULUM
LEADERS (administrators, dept. heads) must
1. Conduct at least one unannounced classroom walk-through each month, looking for schoolwide patterns of strength/weakness with regard to…
Clear focus on essential standards College prep: critical reasoning/higher-order reading,
writing, thinking Essential elements of an effective lesson
September: “4 of 15 classes teaching essential standards”
October: “__ of 15 classes…” (SMART goal)
MONITORING 1. INSTRUCTION and 2. GUARANTEED & VIABLE CURRICULUM
“If you can not measure it, you cannot improve it.”
British scientist Lord Kelvin
LEADERSHIP: Team Management for “GUARANTEED & VIABLE CURRICULUM”
(D. Reeves; R. Marzano; R. DuFour)
QUARTERLY CURRICULUM REVIEW: Leaders & Teams discuss…
quarterly assessments (success rate; areas of strength/weakness)
grade books (lowest-scoring assessments)
scored work samples (weak/strong areas)
IS THIS A FAIR, REASONABLE REQUIREMENT?
MEETINGS: STRATEGIZE TO ACHIEVE—& to RECOGNIZE/CELEBRATE every “SMALL WIN”
____ of 6 elementary teams: developed team meeting protocols
____ of 28 middle school teams completed “standards map(s)”
____ of our 25 course-alike teams have created a SUCCESSFUL LESSON (e.g. 87% mastery/proficiency)
MARCH: 6 of 15 classrooms—essential standard being taught APRIL: 13 of 15 classrooms—essential standard being taught
NO SMALL WINS = NO PROGRESS
RECOGNIZE & CELEBRATE measurable “SMALL WINS” to overcome resistance & promote MOMENTUM
The #1 LEVER FOR IMPROVING MORALE AND EFFECTIVE PRACTICE
Nelson; Blasé and Kirby
The single best, low cost, high- leverage way to improve performance, morale, and the climate for change is to dramatically increase the levels of meaningful recognition for educators
Robert Evans
RESULTS of Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum; Effective Teamwork; Frequent
Recognition & Celebration
ADLAI STEVENSON HIGH SCHOOL
10+ years of record-breaking gains on every national, state & end-of-course assessment
800% increase in AP success
Average ACT score: 21 to 25*
IV. UNPARALELLED OPPORTUNITY: LITERACY INSTRUCTION
“Under-developed literacy skills are the number one reason why students are retained, assigned to special education, given long-term remedial services and why they fail to graduate from high school.”
Ferrandino and Tirozzi: presidents of NAESP and NASSP
BRUTAL FACTS; GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY*
“Reading and Writing vs. ‘stuff’ ratio”
Lucy Calkins: 1/15 reading to “stuff” ratio
“Literature based Arts and Crafts”:
dioramas; game boards; worksheets; posters; presentations; coats-of-arms; mobiles; movies; cutting, pasting; designing book jackets; skits; collages
The CRAYOLA CURRICULUM
“I can only summarize the findings by saying that we’ve been stunned…
kids are given more coloring assignments than mathematics and writing assignments…I want to repeat that, because I’m not joking, nor am I exaggerating.”
Katie Haycock
HIGH SCHOOL English
9th grade: To Kill A Mockingbird (100 points total)
Draw “head or full body shot” of any character—use “crayons, colored pencils” (20 points)
Create a model of Maycomb (wood, plastic or styrefoam) (20 points)
HIGH SCHOOL English
“Honors” Sophomore English:
Two schools—collage as 6-week assessment of literary unit
Frankenstein assessment: make a mobile or collage
Siddhartha Assessment8-pages of worksheets (96 questions) ¾ of an inch of space to answer each question
NO DISCUSSION OR WRITING
HIGH SCHOOL English
AP Literature: “Memories” Scrapbook (200 points)
Second-semester project
For each page of text [no criteria for quality of written work] draw illustration (using various media)
LITERARY TERMS: essential?
indirect characterization
direct characterization
static character
internal conflict
external conflict
rising action
omniscient point of view
third-person limited point of view
complication
foreshadowing
suspense
resolution
climax
plot
anadiplosis
chiasmus
synecdoche
A BETTER WAY: READ, WRITE and TALK
After close reading of innumerable books and articles, students
“wrote and talked, wrote and talked” their way toward understanding.
Mike Rose: Lives on the Boundary
K-12/COLLEGE SUCCESS: ANALYTICAL READING & DISCUSSION PERSUASIVE WRITING
Draw inferences and conclusions Analyze conflicting source documents Solve complex problems with no obvious answer (Prepare students to) Write multiple 3-5-page
papers supporting arguments with evidence Read far more books, articles & essays than they
now read in high school [in class!]
College Knowledge by David Conley
WRITING: IMPORTANT?
Writing is the litmus paper of thought …the very CENTER OF SCHOOLING
Ted Sizer Writing aids in cognitive development to such an extent that the upper reaches of Bloom’s taxonomy could not be reached without the use of some form of writing .
Kurt and Farris 1990
BRUTAL FACTS Writing is rarely assigned, even more rarely
taught. William Zinsser; National
Commission on Writing
Even U.S. student’s “best writing is mediocre.”
NAEP report on “best” US high school writing
Students “with 3.8 GPAs,” in highly selective colleges, write poorly.
NAEP writing Study
BRUTAL FACTS
“If we could institute only one change to make students more college ready, it should be to increase the amount and quality of writing students are expected to produce.”
David Conley
author of College Knowledge
K-12/COLLEGE SUCCESS: ANALYTICAL READING & PERSUASIVE WRITING
SIMPLE STEPS MAJOR REVOLUTION
“Who would make a better friend—
Spider or Turtle?”
“Old Dan or Little Anne: which admire most?”
“What do you think are the most important lessons of WWI?
Evaluate for most/least effective, significant; interesting--presidents; explorers; scientists etc.
SIMPLE STEPS MAJOR REVOLUTION: EACH QUARTER
DEVELOP ARGUMENTS/PROPOSALS:
SCIENCE: PRO/CON: Drill in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Environmental sustainability
HISTORY/SOCIAL STUDIES: Illegal Immigration; Middle East issue(s) Evaluation of two presidents Case for liberal/conservative policy/politics
THE OPPORTUNITY
“We don’t know the half of what these kids can do”
Ted Sizer
“We now have 100/100/100 schools – every kid poor and minority, and every one of them meeting standards – including 100% of special education kids (the typical average is about 15%)” Doug Reeves/e-mail
FOR SWIFT, DRAMATIC IMPROVEMENT, FOCUS ON:
TEAM-BASED PLC’s (“WHAT” & “HOW”)
GUARANTEED & VIABLE Curriculum
RADICAL changes to literacy instruction
CELEBRATE every “SMALL WIN” in these areas at EVERY faculty & admin. meeting
WHY?: 35-50 percentile gain in
THREE YEARS (Marzano; Sanders; Bracey)
Instruction is the pivotal factor, but it is not nearly what it should be
It is not adequately supervised Training has limited impact on instruction Underachievement, droputs etc are largely
the result of the fact that poor and mediocre teaching are manifestly, almost universally tolerated
TEAMS OF TEACHERS Solution: build, share questions and detailed, “scaffolded” lessons, i.e. read to answer an interesting question, underline, annotate or take notes; share with partner while teacher walks around; write own conclusions with support/quotations from text…etc.
THE OPPORTUNITYThe question is not, “Is it possible to educate all children well?” But rather
“Do we want to do it badly enough?”
Deborah Meier
K-12/COLLEGE SUCCESS: ANALYTICAL READING PERSUASIVE WRITING
Drawing inferences; Interpreting results; Analyzing conflicting source documents; Supporting their arguments with evidence;
Solving complex problems that have no obvious answer; Drawing conclusions; Offering explanations; Conducting
research; Writing multiple 3-5-page papers that are well reasoned, well organized, and provide evidence from credible sources; Thinking deeply about what they are being taught;
Reading 8-9 books in the same amount of time they read one in high school; Working with other students on complex problems and projects; Making presentations and explaining what they have learned
BUT ALAS….
HILLOCKS: time spent actually teaching instructing per assignment:
3 minutes (mostly “directions” vs. “scaffolded” lesson with “checks for understanding” using rubric/critieria & models to teach word choice; voice; how to build a clear, effective paragraph using support from one or more texts etc.)
NESS: 40 hours of classroom observations:
3% of time devoted to “teaching explaining, modelling” reading strategies
mostly “asking literal questions.” Is this something new?
FORD & OPITZ: 2/3 of classtime
BASIC ELEMENTS of PLC’s
Common curriculum standards taught in roughly common sequence* (standards/consensus maps)
Common assessments (starting with quarterly)
Course-alike TEAMS use data—routinely--to improve standards-based lessons & units to reach…
S.M.A.R.T. Goals (BIO: 76% in ’07--> 80% in ’08)
Continuous Recognition and Celebration of “SMALL WINS” toward achieving SMART Goals
IMPORTANT?
Protocols: # of teams/schools now who have developed/are
using them
Standards maps # of courses for which they have been developed
If we don’t know how many/which ones, we can’t improve or increase
II. GUARANTEED & VIABLE CURRICULUM?
In pairs: Come up with some simple ideas for ensuring a (more) guaranteed and viable curriculum. Points for:
Simple Time-efficient
You have 1 minute…
K-12/COLLEGE SUCCESS: ANALYTICAL READING PERSUASIVE WRITING
Only 31% of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it
National Center for Education Statistics
Only 24% write at the “proficient” level; 4% were rated “high”
NAEP study
High leverage silver bullets
Planning backward—from stds based assessment [ask Tim Kanold @ assessment swaps]
Walkthroughs and reports/expectation Quarterly assessments/to ensure g and v and
continuous improvement:
K-12/COLLEGE SUCCESS: ANALYTICAL READING PERSUASIVE WRITING
Fully 2/3 of students at a prestigious university couldn’t detect the most flagrant contradictions in a text that was purposely laced with them (Graff).
K-12 does very little to enhance students critical reading capacities(Graf, p. 68).
BUT WHAT ABOUT WRITING?
WHY WAIT? These facts DEMAND ACTION “We should not have to wait another
generation before we get things right”
Reverend Michael Pfleger, youth pastor in inner-city Chicago
“We Learn Best by Doing”DuFour, DuFour, Eaker and Many
II. “GUARANTEED & VIABLE CURRICULUM”
The key factor is that teachers know what needs to be taught at each grade level – that there is a coherent curriculum.
Study of 15 very high-achieving—but disadvantaged--schools
Karin Chenoweth; Harvard Education Letter: May/June 2007
K-12/COLLEGE SUCCESS: ANALYTICAL READING PERSUASIVE WRITING
Drawing inferences and conclusions Interpreting results Analyzing conflicting source documents Supporting their arguments with evidence Solving complex problems that have no obvious answer Drawing conclusions Offering explanations Conducting research Writing multiple 3-5-page papers that are well reasoned Thinking deeply about what they are being taught Reading 8-9 books in the same amount of time they read one in
high school
WE ARE WHAT WE DO: what we CONSISTENTLY, FREQUENTLY, REPEATEDLY…
Tolerate--or ignore Talk about Ask for or REQUIRE Formally Evaluate Insist on Reward, praise and reinforce
WEEK IN, WEEK OUT
K-12/COLLEGE SUCCESS: ANALYTICAL READING PERSUASIVE WRITING
READING: Only 31% of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it
National Center for Education Statistics
WRITING: Only 24% write at the “proficient” level; 4% were rated “high”
NAEP study
THE PRICE OF BETTER SCHOOLS
“Perhaps there are schools that have made the transition to a professional learning community without conflict or anxiety, but I am unaware of any…the question schools must face is ‘how will we react when we are immersed in the conflict that accompanies significant change?’”
Rick DuFour
K-12/COLLEGE/CAREER SUCCESS: ANALYTICAL READING & PERSUASIVE WRITING
“The information age places higher-order literacy demands on all of us ...these demands include synthesizing and evaluating information from multiple sources.”
Richard Allington
THE IMPACT OF EFFECTIVE TEACHING ON ACHIEVEMENT
SHORT-TERM Success on same assessment: 72% vs. 27% 3 years of good teaching = 35-50% Impact on achievement: 6-10 times as much as all
other factors combined
LONG-TERM: (IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS?) Graduation rate: from 68% to 80%? Average college graduation rate: 50% to 80%? LOW -SES college grad rate: from 7% to 30%?
K-12/COLLEGE SUCCESS: ANALYTICAL READING PERSUASIVE WRITING
2/3 of students at a prestigious university couldn’t detect flagrant contradictions in a text that was purposely laced with them (Graff).
"K-12 does very little to enhance students critical reading capacities”
(Graff, p. 68).
BUT WHAT ABOUT WRITING?
REALLY? Already know?
TRANSPARENCY/CLASSROOM ACCESS Reasonably well-constructed lessons, units —aligned with
assessments Professional Learning Communities—focused on ever-improving
assessment results Measurable goals Monitoring: of what is taught/how well/1/4ly curriculum reviews Overhaul of literacy education (English…& Beyond)
NEW Team management for “small wins” Recognition & celebration
“PRESSURE AND SUPPORT”
“Sure, but there isn’t a word here about the incentives and punishments needed to make teachers and schools want to have results!”
Peter Drucker, in a note to me
During the transition, “people may be sad, angry, depressed, irrational, frightened or confused. We must, without judgment, provide processes for them to express feelings” Robert Garmstron
OPPORTUNITIES
Standard not clear/not on board Too many goals (=not tied to an assessment of
mastery) Almost no “check for understanding”/scaffoldoing Minimal (purposeful) reading and writing (using a
rubric) Abundance of low-quality, “misaligned” worksheets Hands raised Activity/worksheet driven curriculum vs.
stds./assemt-driven
YOU CAN’T IMPROVE WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE
The reason schools aren’t vastly better, for smart or poor or advantaged or disadvantaged students is because:
“The administrative superstructure of schools …exists to ‘buffer’ teaching from outside inspection, interference or disruption.”
Richard Elmore
“Team Lesson/Unit Logs” SPECIFIC STANDARD (e.g. “descriptive settings”):
SHORT-TERM ASSESSMENT (what must students know/do?): e.g. “write a quality descriptive paragraph”
LESSON/UNIT/DETAILED STRATEGY: (not a list or grab- bag of strategies)
SHORT-TERM ASSESSMENT RESULT: (e.g. “74% demonstrated proficiency/progress)
ADJUSTMENTS: BASED ON SHORT-TERM RESULTS
ASSESSMENT*: the “coherence maker” (Michael Fullan)
TEAMS must work to ensure that assessments are: “ALIGNED” to state/district assessments
FREQUENT
“FORMATIVE” -- used to inform improvement of subsequent lessons
CLEAR: CRITERIA is given in advance INTELLECTUALLY-ENGAGING
TEACHER EVALUATION IS NOT “MONITORING INSTRUCTION”
No “pressure”; no “support” for:
quality of instruction or assessment “guaranteed and viable” curriculum
Teacher evaluation generally reinforces poor/mediocre practice
Kim Marshall
THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITY OF ALL: LITERACY INSTRUCTION*What minimum percentage of classtime in English or Language Arts should be devoted to actual reading and writing?
COLLEGE READINESS: ANALYTICAL READING & ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING
Only about one in five college students has adequately developed these capacities; the rest either:
drop out of college have fewer academic and career options struggle in/don’t optimally benefit from college
studies or don’t qualify for/succeed in grad school
Graf; Conley; Housman; Barzun
System = what we do but, more important what we do as a result of what we reinforce, encourage, talk about a lot, insist on; consistently demand, require; celebrate, promote for praise; plead, repeat; get excited about; punish; ….these are the things that will get priority…
END of sections? Cd we change? Forget principles/theories…How, concretely, realistically?
What do if 35-50 % pts on the line?
System pretty good at responding to torrnet of stuff, at satisfying bureacruaccy---but cod we re-jiegger it—a bit—to foucs sufficiently on instr levers? I will try veryy hard ot be realisitic, not pie in the sky
Accountability
Culture is a function of what a system
Celebrates Gets angry at Reminds Excited about reinforces; praises Punishes Insists on; demands Ignores; spends time on
BRUTAL FACTS: “At a time when Americans seek strength in their
leaders, [we] should find the strength to speak hard truths about our schools.”
Robert Gordon, education adviser to John Kerry
“We must overcome the awful inertia of past decades” Michael Fullan
Improvement will require: “recognition of and moral outrage at ineffective practices.”
Roland Barth
IV. LITERACY: BRUTAL FACTS
Only 38% of students READ at the proficient level—(i.e. can analyze & interpret)
Only 24% of students WRITE at the proficient level
Their importance—in every discipline--is greatly underestimated
COLLEGE READINESS: ANALYTICAL READING & ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING
NON FICTION: “How has geography influenced Japan’s history, culture and character?”
The CASE FOR/AGAINST: ANWR drilling The South in the Civil War Wartime use of torture: Andrew Sullivan vs.
Charles Krauthammer WAL-MART: George F. Will vs. Stacy Mitchell
I. LEARNING COMMUNITIES: AN ASTONISHING CONCURRENCE
Michael Fullan Linda Darling Hammond Milbrey McLaughlin Rick StigginsTom Peters Peter SengeKaren Eastwood Dennis Sparks Susan Rosenholtz DuFour, DuFour & EakerJudith Little W.Edwards Deming Richard Elmore Doug ReevesRoland Barth Robert Redford
THE “KNOWING-DOING GAP”
It’s not that we don’t know what to do…
It’s that we DON’T DO what we
ALREADY KNOWPfeffer & Sutton
THE “KNOWING-DOING GAP”
It’s not that we don’t know what to do…
It’s that we DON’T DO what we
ALREADY KNOWPfeffer & Sutton
THE OPPORTUNITY
The question is not “Is it possible to educate all children well?” But rather
“DO WE WANT TO DO IT BADLY ENOUGH?”
Deborah Meier
RESULTS: PLC’s/ Guaranteed & Viable Curriculum LEVEY MIDDLE SCHOOL: average 24-point
gains at every grade level—in 2 years
BESSEMER ELEMENTARY: 85% poor/minority Reading: 2% to 48% Writing: 12% to 64%
BRAZOSPORT, TX: from worst to best in state
BYRON-BERGSON S.D.: 57% to 81%
SELAH S.D.: 27 point district-wide gains
“Team Lesson/Unit Logs” SPECIFIC STANDARD (e.g. “descriptive settings”):
SHORT-TERM ASSESSMENT (what must students know/do?): e.g. “write a quality descriptive paragraph”
LESSON/UNIT/DETAILED STRATEGY: (not a list or grab- bag of strategies)
SHORT-TERM ASSESSMENT RESULT: (e.g. “74% demonstrated proficiency/progress)
ADJUSTMENTS: BASED ON SHORT-TERM RESULTS
COLLEGE READINESS: ANALYTICAL READING &
PERSUASIVE WRITING
NAEP: “So few examples of persuasive writing were submitted that they couldn’t even analyze the samples usefully”
Lynn Olson
Doug Reeves: 90% of writing assignments in K-12: N_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ mode
II. GUARANTEED CURRICULUM: GEOMETRY**: 2nd Quarter
Visualize & draw 2 & 3 dimensional geometric figures
Apply congruence, similarity, angle measure, parallelism & perpendicularity to real situations
Perform elementary transformations (tessellations, flips and slides)
Solve problems relating to size, shape, area & volume
**AIMS Assessment Guide; teachers admit that they don’t consult these guides
LEADERSHIP: We are what we talk about
DISTRICT 2, NEW YORK CITY:
Faculty and central office meetings “are about instruction and only about instruction”
from #16 to #2 in academic rank—
in only two years
COLLEGE/CAREER READINESS: ANALYTICAL READING &PERSUASIVE WRITING
AIMS/SAT/AP/COLLEGE/CAREER SUCCESS
Close, analytical reading: to evaluate logic; cause & effect; compare & contrast; accuracy; author’s intent/bias; fact or opinion etc.
PERSUASIVE, purposeful writing: analyses interpretations; grant/policy proposals; recommended actions
Are these critical reasoning capacities cultivated in the K-12 curriculum?
BRUTAL FACTS
“Effective teaching is quite different from the teaching that is typically found in most classrooms”
Odden & Kelley
Ineffective practices were almost as prevalent in affluent, high-scoring schools as in disadvantaged, low-scoring schools
Learning 24/7 Classroom Study; Elmore
I. FIRST: ABANDON CURRENT “STRATEGIC” or “IMPROVEMENT PLANNING” MODELS
BRUTAL FACT: “Strategic Planning” etc.—common, but ineffective
Dennis Sparks; Gary Hamel, Doug Reeves, Tom Peters; Bill Cook; Henry Mintzberg; Michael Fullan; Kouzes & Posner; Bruce Joyce; Pfeffer & Sutton; Penn & Teller
“Tipping Point”: Phi Delta Kappan; February 2004
EXAMPLE OF A TIMELINE FOR TEAM PRODUCTS By the end of the: 2nd week: Team Norms 4th week: Common SMART Goal 6th Week: Common Outcomes 8th Week: Common Assessments 10th Week: Analysis of Student Performance
on assessments
DuFour, DuFour and Eaker
TEAMWORK: BRUTAL FACTS
Real teamwork—the heart of PLC’s--is the unquestioned state of the art for improving levels of learning, but..
It is exceedingly rare in schools; unsupervised isolation is the norm
TEAMWORK: ESSENTIAL
A PLC is composed of collaborative teams whose members work interdependently to achieve common goals linked to the purpose of learning for all. The team is the engine that drives the PLC effort.
Learning by Doing p. 3
DuFour, DuFour, Eaker and Many
BUT ALAS…
TEAMWORK: ESSENTIAL
A PLC is composed of collaborative teams whose members work interdependently to achieve common goals linked to the purpose of learning for all. The team is the engine that drives the PLC effort.
Learning by Doing p. 3
DuFour, DuFour, Eaker and Many
BUT ALAS…