Weekend 3 Day 2 Reflections

This was another day filled with possible management issues.  It was very practical and helped a great deal with thoughts about becoming an administrator.  The situations presented today definitely made me think about some of the difficult sides of becoming an administrator.

The situation my group discussed was about a staff member who committed suicide in the school.  It was a depressing and very challenging topic to talk about.  However, it created good conversations and really made our group think about how to handle this situation especially in a very limited time condition.

The mock press conference was good and the participants did a really good job.  I can see how the press could try to work you to get information and that in many cases less is more until all of the information can be disseminated.  Keeping cool in these situations would be challenging but absolutely necessary.

I appreciated the practical nature of this class.  We have had many classes about the less hands on aspects of administration, but this one had real world value and will be one that we will relate to in our job on a daily basis.

Weekend 3 Day 1 Reflections

I really enjoyed our class today.  There were many practical elements related to management that helped me to see that side of the administrator.  The activities I enjoyed the most were the classroom placement scenario, the Franklin Covey exercise, and interview questions activity.  There were several other activities as well, but these really hit home for me.

The classroom placement scenario was really beneficial because our group entered into a quality dialogue and problem solved through the scenario.  It was great to bounce ideas off of each other and see what other people were thinking.  In the end, we were able to agree on what we believed was the best solution and even began to think about how it would look next year.

The Franklin Covey exercise was good for me because it showed me the big picture of the day.  Sometimes I struggle with prioritizing activities because I want to get little things taken care to focus on the big ones, but that can put me way behind on the really important issues.  Being able to see the whole day and the activities shows me that there is a finite space that I have to be able to accomplish what needs to be achieved.  It also shows me many of the activities that an administrative assistant can accomplish.

The interview questions activity was great because we got to see so many different approaches to interviews and begin to see what is important throughout our cohort.  We also now have a Google doc that we can refer to in the future as we start interviewing teaching candidates.

This day was exactly what I was looking for.  It was a very practical hands on approach to school management with lots of group discussion and covered many of the important nuts and bolts of the job.

Reflections on the blueprint from a blog

I read a blog that was posted on Twitter (http://bit.ly/rYztra) by Scott Mcleod.  In his blog, he dissected several of the parts of the blueprint that he found problems with.  Scott did a great job with his dissection including some graphs to help explain what he was talking about.  Scott started with why he felt the 3rd grade retention policy was a poor decision.  He went on to talk about how the blueprint lacks areas where students should be actively processing what is being taught.  He concludes with his thoughts on how education reform needs to be created by educators and not politicians.

This article did a great job of making a point through either the author's research or research already done.  Scott explains that there is an overwhelming amount of research that shows retaining students leads to a much higher drop out rate in high school.  He comments that he wonders why the governor does not need to use research for parts of the blueprint.

Another section of the blog breaks learning into three parts.  The three parts are input, process, and output.  He states that students need to spend a lot of time processing so they can truly learn the information.  He broke down each aspect of the blueprint and determined that 56 parts of it related to input, 25 parts of it related to output, and only 4 parts of it related to process.

He concludes the blog by talking about how there is a chance to make some real changes for improvement but we are held back because educators aren't leading the reform. He considers this a lost opportunity.  There are several other great points to this blog and I encourage everyone to read it.

Problems with Reform in Tennessee

I read an article posted on Twitter called "Williamson County snubs student teaching - Teachers fear effect on their evaluations" by Julie Hubbard and posted by Diane Ravitch (http://tnne.ws/tZbm5s).  I read this article because Tennessee recently changed their teacher evaluation system and Iowa is looking at changing its system, however, part of that was put on hold today.  The article talks about how teachers are not accepting teachers because they fear that their test scores will be lower.


This is another example of how competition can cripple a staff or even a profession.  The obvious problem is that the next generation of teachers will not be prepared because they don't receive the necessary experiences prior to obtaining a job.  Another factor of this evaluation system creates a competitive environment within a staff.  A staff that is not working towards team learning and a shared vision limits its overall potential which only penalizes the students in its system.  


There is a need for improvement in education, but these types of teacher evaluation systems are more damaging than helping.  One of the biggest problems in education is that we have politicians creating policies for education and yet they have no background in our field.  Similarly we have school boards heavily involved in school districts and these members also have no background in education. 

Grading to Communicate

I reading an article I found on Twitter called Grading to Communicate by Tony Winger.  This article discussed the complexity of grading and what are we really assessing by grading.  There are several important points to this article.  The first is that students often do the work for the grade and not to learn.  Another important point is that when students turn in work late, how do we grade it i.e. are students penalized for turning it in late.  Tony Winger presents a solution to this problem by separating out the grading into categories.  I am observing in Waukee this year and they are transitioning to a standards based grading system.  This article would be good for Waukee to present to parents who are opposed to standards based grading.

As the author wrote, most of his students want to know how their work will be graded and what they need to do to earn the grade they want.  This is pretty standard in students who are "teacher pleasers."  The reward for them is the grade and not necessarily the learning.  Consequently, students can receive high grades and not be able to apply their learning.  One example used was a honor roll student who struggled with writing skills.  The student accomplished the assignments to the satisfaction of the grader, but was unable to effectively write.  

Another major point to this article was that students are often penalized for turning in work late.  The quality of the work might be high, but the grade will be low because it is turned in late.  This has been an issue for administrators and teachers for a long time.  It seems that each district comes up with its own "late policy" to help address the situation and even it for all students in all classrooms.  Tony Winger would argue that this is a "fix that fails" as it doesn't get to the root of the problem which is the work should be graded for its merit and a separate grade for turning in the work late should reflect that non-academic aspect.

Mr. Winger's solution was to break up his assignments into various categories that he would grade.  Some examples of how he would grade students is reading comprehension, writing process, writing product, speaking, literary elements, effort/citizenship, conceptual understandings, application, analysis and evaluation, and formal writing.  This way he felt that the grade became a "meaningful communication."  When assignments were late, he still gave the student the opportunity for full points based on the learning being made by the student.  

In Waukee, they are transitioning to standards based grading.  These standards are somewhat similar to what the author is recommending.  Through this approach, educators and parents will have a better idea of where students are academically.  A paper can be graded for different content areas.  Instead of a letter grade that only reflects the overall grade, students and their parents can see the areas where growth is still needed.  The largest concern is that this breaks the current mental model of letter grades and parents don't understand what each letter or standard means.  While there is some push back from the community about these changes, they will ultimately see how much more accurately this system grades their children.

Tony Winger concludes his article with the following two paragraphs.  They are will written and capture what he is saying well.  

"As they begin their schooling, young learners are quite inquisitive, eager to read their first chapter book and excited to discover their place in the world. But many students' innate curiosity is stifled by an education system that too often values compliance over creativity, taking tests over testing theories, memorizing over understanding, and high grades over learning.

If educators wish to convince students that we value their understanding, their reasoning, their ideas, and their creativity, we must practice what we preach. By creating meaningful grade components rooted in essential learning, separating out nonacademic factors to ensure that we assess true learning, and sharing our passion for what we teach, we can use grades as a communication tool rather than as the goal."

Weekend 2 Part 2

After taking a lot of time to think about our visit from Jason Glass, I am still mixed about the blueprint.  I think almost everyone is in agreement that we need to improve our education system, but good leaders would say this when everything is great also.   Jason Glass told us the blueprint is a lot of recommendations and then he will see what will be able to be changed.  In our classes at Drake we spend a great deal of time talking about change and effective ways to make change. It has not been recommended that we make a lot of "suggestions" and then see what sticks.  Our changes should have research behind it and as specific as possible.  There is a lot in the blueprint that has not research behind or research that is to the contrary.

During our class, someone asked about the third grade retention policy in the blueprint.  Jason first let everyone know that it was the governor's idea and not his, however, he did support it based on what is happening in Florida.  There is a lot of research that does not support retaining students.  This research also suggests that retention leads to a higher drop out rate.  Perhaps the 90/90/90 schools is a better model.  These schools provide students more reading time that is intensive and helps them to excel.  I think this would be better than retaining a student.

During our Systems Thinking class we watched the Daniel Pink Drive video talking about how money does not motivate people the way we perceive that it does.  Yet, we are looking at a pay system that is based on this even though research says it doesn't help.  This system will also create friction among staffs.  Jason's response was "to look at Eagle County in Colorado."  They didn't have a problem with it.  My question, how does he know?  Did he do surveys for this information?  Did he stick around long enough to see the results after the dust had settled?

I applaud Jason for attending so many activities to discuss education in Iowa and for being open for questions about the blueprint.  I hope we improve education in Iowa, but that we do it the right way with proven research and  having all stakeholders involved in the decision making process.

Thinking about Education, Skills, and Work

I read an article on Twitter by Jared Bernstein titled Thinking About Education, Skills, and Work: Part 1.  This was an interesting article and Jared made some points that has already made me rethink a few of my personal beliefs.  The article discussed a few different areas in education, but the area that caught my attention discussed why students getting a college education regardless of their job is better.  As an instructional leader this statement has a powerful effect.

Jared's main point that all students should go to college was interesting to me.  Prior to reading this article, my beliefs about all students going to college were solid.  I believed that there were certain positions that didn't need a college education and that college wasn't perhaps for everyone.  However, I do believe that the attaining the best possible education is still the best option for everyone.  One of  Jared's examples was that even if someone is running a daycare, the more schooling they have on early child education, the better they will be equipped to help the children succeed.  Another example he used was the more education that someone has in technology, they will be more able to run an MRI machine.

I think Jared brings up many great points.  He also discusses that the better the education, the more likely a family is to not live in poverty.  One area that Jared did not bring up is drop out rate.  Currently, there are high school students who drop out of school because they don't "fit" the current school model.  Without careful consideration of this fact, we could actually be pushing more kids out by pushing high education.  However, I don't believe Jared is encouraging this.  In fact I believe he is really proposing that we nurture all areas that students desire to learn and show them the possibilities of learning beyond high school.