Sally Fullmer best choice for Spokane school board

[Edited August 8]

By Laurie H. Rogers

In the Aug. 16 primary election, Spokane voters will choose two candidates out of five possible replacements for outgoing school board director Garret Daggett. I interviewed all six original candidates and gave them two surveys to fill out. I interviewed four for KRTW radio, and listened to four at the League of Women Voters forum and in other settings. In this post, I sum up my findings.

This is a critical election, folks. Please vote in the Aug. 16 primary. Encourage others to vote. We must send two good candidates through to the general election. Based on everything the board candidates have written, and everything I’ve heard them say, my first choice for a replacement for Garret Daggett is Sally Fullmer.

In Spokane Public Schools, we clearly need a change of direction. Our students suffer low pass rates on “basic-skills” state tests, low levels of skills in math and grammar, and high dropout rates. The district has high numbers of transfers, dropping full-time enrollment, and a lack of transparency, or even honesty, about the exploding district budget. Many families have left because of the curriculum. Our graduates suffer unacceptably high remedial rates in college in mathematics and English; nearly half will fail their remedial math classes or withdraw early.

District administrators have an unfortunate tendency to blame teachers, parents, students, and poverty for all problems, as they negotiate themselves into pay raises and are praised by board directors for fake improvements. A change in the school board is a must-do. We desperately need board directors who will question, dissent, and refuse to “go along to get along,” who will hold our well-paid administrators accountable, and stand up for the students’ and taxpayers’ best interests – not just when it’s convenient, but every time.

When I began these interviews, the only candidate I’d met was Paul Lecoq. One candidate repeatedly suggested to me that I’d already made up my mind, but that isn’t so. I didn’t settle on a candidate until I’d met all of them, and I met the last one July 16. My support was open to all candidates; it really was theirs to lose.

Deana Brower

My first interviewee was Deana Brower. She ran for the school board in 2009, losing in the primary. Deana told me people talk about the curriculum too much, that people should focus on philosophy instead. She said schools aren’t “social services,” yet her idea for fixing the math problem rested on having better teachers, fixing (unfixable) social problems, and allowing the district to build its own math standards.

But Washington State already has good math standards, upgraded in 2008 to include the long-lost standard algorithms and procedural proficiency. Spokane administrators decided to build their own standards, which they call “Power Standards.” And who in this district is qualified to do that? Deana supports these Power Standards, saying they’re “aligned” with the state standards. But if the two sets of standards are the same, why did the district waste taxpayer money building new ones? And if the two sets of standards are different, then what’s different? Spokane’s current administrators have worked diligently for more than a decade to remove standard algorithms and procedural proficiency from Spokane’s math program.

In the League of Women Voters forum, Deana made unsubstantiated attacks on other board candidates (the only candidate to do so), and she spent much of her talking time defending the school district – to the point where it seemed as though she were a district employee, defending her decisions. If you doubt my impression, please watch the LofWV video.

[Updated July 27: Deana sounds like an administrator -- one who is completely supportive of the district. I saw this the first time I spoke with her, on June 9 at the Spokane Republican Women's luncheon, again during my initial interview with her, again at the LoWV forum, and then again July 26, during the Greater Spokane, Inc. forum. It doesn't sound to me like she intends to hold administrators accountable for their policies, curriculum choices, or student outcomes.]

Deana’s answers to the Where’s the Math? questionnaire and to my longer questionnaire were carefully worded, but they didn’t indicate a real understanding of the root of the math problem. After reviewing her answers, the executive committee of Where’s the Math? decided against approving Deana Brower as a board candidate.

Deana says she could support the district’s adoption of the (unfunded, untested) federal Common Core initiatives. Interestingly, she said she isn’t supportive of federal control over standards, tests and curriculum, which shows her ignorance of what the Common Core initiatives are about. Deana says the school district isn’t properly funded (even though the district budget has grown by more than $60 million since 2002 while student enrollment has dropped by thousands of students). When I interviewed Deana for KRTW radio (which broadcasts to a more conservative audience), she told listeners a more conservative story. I don’t buy it, and here’s why.

Deana received teachers union support months before the campaign filing period had begun. Deana tells conservatives that the union knows her stance and supports her as being the best candidate they have. How could the union have known that, way back in the spring? The union’s support is interesting, considering Deana’s stance that better teachers are the main solution to the math problem.

The teachers union sent Deana to a “joint SEA/WEA program created specifically to train school board candidates.” The union says, “This program was provided to Deana and several other candidates from around the state in an effort to encourage people with education experience to run for school board. The training was developed by WEA in conjunction with two political consultants, Wellstone Action and Progressive Majority.”

This training was NOT provided to other board candidates in Spokane, even to those “with education experience.” Regardless of your political leanings, please read up on Wellstone Action and Progressive Majority. I read their mission, goals, philosophy, and approach to elections with growing alarm. They are all about supporting a progressive political leaning. That Deana Brower and the union would associate with these groups, much less use them and be used by them to help sway a supposedly nonpartisan campaign, speaks volumes about both. [Updated July 29: The Progressive Voters Guide also has chosen Deana Brower as their progressive candidate.]

Regardless of whether you're a conservative voter or a liberal one, you should know that Deana Brower tends to support the status quo. If you're looking for a change in the district, I doubt you will see it with her, except, perhaps, in how much more that lack of change will cost you as a taxpayer.

Deana has teaching experience (in California) and children in the Spokane school district. Deana was involved in the discussion over the placement of Jefferson Elementary School.

Sally Fullmer

Sally is a piano teacher, active in her community, in the neighborhood, and also was involved in the discussion over the placement of Jefferson Elementary School.

Sally is an active questioner. I’ve seen her at more community education-related events over the last few weeks than any other candidate, where she has met with and listened to the public. She also spoke at the League of Women Voters forum, arguing for transparency and accountability. She appears to understand the root of the math problem. Where’s the Math? has approved Sally for her answers to the WTM math questionnaire. One executive committee member for WTM said Sally’s answers sound like something any of us math advocates could have written. I agree with his assessment. This means that supporters of the district’s loopy approach to math likely will not support Sally. The teachers union is not supporting Sally. However, parents who are trying to figure out why their smart children are failing math, and parents whose children are getting As in math and then testing into arithmetic in college, likely will see Sally as a strong ally.

Sally also provided answers to my longer questionnaire. She is not supportive of federal control over standards, tests or curriculum, nor does she support the untested, unfunded federal Common Core initiatives. She takes the problem of the math materials seriously and said that, to fix the math problem, “Good curriculum must be in place.” The adoption of Holt Mathematics should not be delayed just because the district wants to adopt the “unproven nationalized curricula,” she said. Sally believes in more academic freedom for teachers and more accountability for administrative decision-making. Students should be allowed to practice skills to mastery, she said, and calculator use should not take the place of math skills. She said, and I agree: “Significant results should be the norm in school!”

[Edited August 8: Sally has continued to advocate for accountability, transparency, student academics, and fiscal restraint. She said she intends to keep the public informed about board decisions, and she's willing to be the lone voice against policy and decisions that are counterproductive to student learning. This shows me that she -- more than any other candidate -- understands her role as a board director, which is to be accountable to the people.]

Sally has children in the district. She has had to work with her own children in academics to offset gaps in their education. Her Web site is located at http://www.seewhatsallysays.com/.

Paul Lecoq

Paul Lecoq teaches engineering at Gonzaga University. He decided to run because a change in the school board is desperately needed. I respect and empathize with a person’s willingness to step up on behalf of the community when it isn’t a personal ambition. Paul was approved by Where’s the Math? for his answers to the WTM questionnaire; he filled out my questionnaire; and he spoke at the League of Women Voters forum. On July 21, Paul pulled out of the race, throwing his support behind Sally. [Updated July 27: In its roundup of the board candidates, The Spokesman-Review declined to print Paul's statement, or mention Paul's endorsement of Sally Fullmer.] This is Paul Lecoq's statement:



“After listening and speaking to the other candidates extensively, paying close attention to the forums, and much consideration, I have decided to drop out of the race for Spokane Schools (District 81) as of now. I will support Sally Fullmer. Since I am convinced that she is fully committed to improving the quality of education in Spokane, I urge Spokane voters to vote for Sally Fullmer. She deserves the support of Spokane citizens in her race for position 5 of the school board. My supporters can be assured that her objectives are compatible with mine. "My motivation for running was to bring solid math, English and science curricula to the schools and to set objective performance standards to assure that graduates are prepared with adequate skills. We owe it to our kids to develop their work ethic and study skills. I am satisfied that Sally can do the job. It’s more important to me that a competent person sits on the board than for that person to be me. That is why I am redirecting my energies to supporting Sally Fullmer.

"Robert Griffing also shares many of my goals, and would make an excellent board member. However, I see that Sally Fullmer’s determination not to let another three years of students suffer from bad practices, her commitment to excellence, that she will insist on competence, that we agree on the need for objective criteria for success, are more in line with what I stand for. I’m convinced that Sally Fullmer is the best candidate.”

Robert (Bob) Griffing

Bob’s background includes instruction in teaching, history and theology. He works with Fairchild Air Force base in providing support to the airmen.

Bob answered the Where’s the Math? questionnaire, and his answers earned him WTM approval as a board candidate. He is still working on answering my longer questionnaire. I have seen him at a few community functions around town, and also at the League of Women Voters forum, where he argued for better accountability and a renewed focus on the district’s main purpose, which is to produce well-educated students. He advocates strengthening board leadership, sharpening the budget so that expenditures are narrowed to what matters to academics, and decentralizing the decision-making so that teachers have more academic freedom.

[Edited August 7: I don’t care for Bob’s idea of giving the superintendent three years to solve academic problems. The superintendent would be delighted, no doubt, to earn $222,000 per year for three more years. But three years in a child’s life is an academic lifetime. The children need improvement now, and now is possible. Nancy Stowell has been with this district for decades. Under her four-year watch as superintendent, the pass rate on the 10th-grade math test fell from just more than 50% to 38.9%. Bob continues to defend the superintendent's salary and has said that repairing the weak curriculum should wait until other problems are solved.

Additionally, Bob has said he will not be the "lone voice in the wilderness," that directors should work for consensus and support decisions. This, to me, is a misunderstanding of the role of the board director. Directors should be accountable to the public, not to Nancy Stowell or to other board directors. Consensus is what we have now. If the new Spokane board director does the right thing on behalf of students and taxpayers, he/she will have to be the lone voice in the wilderness for at least two more years. If Bob isn't willing to be that voice, then he should not be running.]

Bob’s children have attended both public and private settings. His lengthy experience with German schools provides a stark contrast to the Spokane public system, which his children have attended off and on. He and his wife also have chosen to homeschool at times, in order to provide the academics and learning environment they want for their children. His Facebook page is located at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Griffing-for-Spokane-School-Board/240286892657129

Larry Vandervert

In our conversation, Larry offered friendly, but contradictory commentary, as when he initially questioned whether children need to learn math, then later said students need to learn the basics. His platform is difficult to determine. He refused to answer the Where’s the Math? questionnaire and also my longer questionnaire. I haven’t seen him at functions or community candidate forums. He has not, to my knowledge, made effort to make his views known to the public.

He offered me a single response to my survey (quoted verbatim): “Looking over the survey, the only portion I would want to respond to are the first parts on the role of the board member. That's because, as I see the role (Vandervert on SkyHigh, and the Policy Governance approach) the board decides what the organization is FOR, and, under close board supervision, the MEANS of achieving are carried-out (sic) by the Superintendent and staff. The CEO or Superintendent is evaluated in (sic) by the board as to their (sic) achieving the results desired. If steady progress is not made, the Superintendent goes. End of story.”

Rod Roduner

Rod was my last interview. I wanted to speak with him before summing up my impressions of the candidates or offering support to a particular candidate. It took us some time to get to that interview, as Rod is busy with other community activism.

Rod didn’t answer the Where’s the Math? questionnaire, but on July 20, he did send answers to my longer questionnaire. He didn’t appear at the League of Women Voters forum, nor have I seen him at other forums around town. Rod acknowledged that he doesn’t know much about the math issue. In our friendly conversation, Rod approached the issues from the perspective of a teacher, not surprising considering that his wife is a teacher. I’m relieved he answered my questionnaire because it was difficult to follow his conversation. His commentary was heavily anecdotal, and he tended to digress.

Rod's Web site is located at: http://www.voterodroduner.com/index.html

****

After all of these conversations and interviews, my choice for the next board director is Sally Fullmer. Her attitude is one of empathy and understanding of the challenges and trials of students, parents and teachers. She doesn’t rush to defend administrators who built this school district and who refuse to listen to their publics. Sally’s curiosity, clarity and frankness provide her with a unique platform from which to work for positive change. If you want real improvement in this district, and not the pretend improvement the administrators keep giving us, I encourage you to consider voting for Sally Fullmer.

The Lake Wobegon Effect? Or deceit by omission?

[Spokane friends: Ask yourself why you don't see ANY of this questioning in local newspapers.]

By Laurie H. Rogers

In Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Wobegon, “all of the women are strong, all of the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” Keillor’s famous phrase encapsulates the cognitive bias known as “illusory superiority” – a fancy name for the natural tendency we all have to overstate our achievements and positive qualities as compared against others. Because Keillor articulated this bias so well, “illusory superiority” is often called the Lake Wobegon Effect.

The term popped into my head last week while reading various press releases and news articles about Spokane Public Schools. In Spokane, apparently there is no bad news, everyone is always doing better, scores are always going up, and management is always excellent.

(Sarcasm alert.) Administrators are especially remarkable when you consider the difficult job they have of working with the poor, the weak, the incapable, the unknowledgeable, the ungrateful, the uneducated, the stupid, the antagonistic, and the misguided. The consistent gist of their message is, “If only everybody else would carry THEIR weight, you’d see just how positively brilliant we are.” (End sarcasm.)

Hey, here's some fun with acronyms: Administrators in Spokane Public Schools are GNOMES, hindered (so they say) by IT, UP and US.

• GNOME: Good News Only; Management Excellent.
• IT: Ineffective Teachers
• UP: Uninvolved Parents
• US: Unmotivated Students

Ever your humble servant, I give you actual information that isn’t tarnished by the district’s desire to appear competent. Administrators are touting their new focus on “data-driven” decision-making (as if it were a smart new task and not something they should have always done). I offer "celebrations" from these GNOMES, followed by real data. I encourage all ITs, UPs, and USs to share this with others.

The GNOMES celebrate:

“North Central, Lewis and Clark, Ferris and Rogers were named to the 2011 Washington Post top high schools list for the number of students taking AP tests. Only one other Spokane County school made the list.” (Source: “Points of Pride.”)

Laurie says: About the Washington Post ranking

The Washington Post survey is based on how many students take AP tests. It isn’t based on how many pass the classes or how many pass the tests. Therefore, the more students a district shoves into AP classes (ready or not), the higher its Washington Post ranking – even if every student ultimately flunks the tests. Directors and administrators have said that passing the AP test isn’t as important as being in an AP class – that “students learn just by being there.”

The GNOMES celebrate:

More students are college and career ready, as evidenced by the increased number of AP Placement exams (Source: The superintendent’s June Rotary Club presentation.)

The data say: About Spokane’s AP Classes

	1992	2000	2008	2010
Number of students	193	368	1093	1208
Number of exams	271	636	2028	2270
Number of course areas	13	15	27	27
Number of exams passed	198	515	1099	1251
Percent passing	73%	81%	54%	55%
Percent failing	27%	19%	46%	45%
Average Grade	3.18	3.45	2.72	2.69

Spokane’s high ranking in the Washington Post survey is due to the higher number of AP exams. You can see that, numerically, more tests are being passed, but also that the percentage passing has dropped precipitously. Many more tests also are being failed. Administrators and board directors have brushed this failing off as being immaterial. It is not immaterial to the students who failed.

Additionally, the average grade on AP exams has dropped below a “3,” the point at which students can obtain college credit at state schools. (Gonzaga and Whitworth give credit for AP math classes only if students receive a score of “4” or “5” on the AP exam.)

The GNOMES celebrate:

 “A higher percentage of SPS students go to college directly after high school than in the state.” (Source: District publication “Points of Pride.”

The data say: About college and career readiness

 The 2010 10th-grade state math test (the HSPE) was a low-level, basic skills math test. Students needed just 56.9% to pass and to be considered by the state as “proficient” on the exam. The pass rates in 2010 for Spokane’s high schools looked like this: Ferris: 54%, Lewis and Clark: 54.2%, North Central, 27.1%, and Shadle: 44.4%.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that high school graduates are testing into remedial math in college. In 2009–2010, according to data from Spokane Community Colleges (SCC and SFCC):

• Of all recent high school graduates enrolling in these two colleges, 87.3 percent took remedial math classes. Most tested into elementary algebra or below.
• 43.9 percent of those 1,112 remedial students withdrew early from their remedial classes or failed to achieve a 2.0 or better. The rates hold true over five years.
• Of recent graduates from six high schools in Spokane Public Schools, the remediation rate at SCC and SFCC was 86.8%. Three SPS high schools had a math remediation rate at SCC of 100 percent; the other three ranged from 91.9% to 97% at SCC.

Included in the data are students who enrolled in remedial math at SCC/SFCC within a year of graduation. Not included are students who tested into remedial math but waited to take their classes, graduates who left the area or who went to a four-year, graduates who didn’t want to go to college, students who dropped out, and graduates who tested into remedial math but decided it was too much to do.

The GNOMES celebrate:

 In 2009, Spokane Public Schools scored 106.9 on Education Week’s “Cumulative Promotion Index.” In contrast, Seattle is at 78.3, Tacoma is at 69.3, Kent is at 104.1, and Everett is at 74.7. (Source: District presentation on the Superintendent’s Work Plan.)

Laurie says: About Education Week’s Cumulative Promotion Index

According to Education Week, “a score of 100 points on this index indicates that the district's graduation rate is exactly as would be expected, based on its size, student composition, and other characteristics. Districts with scores greater than 100 points are outperforming expectations.”

This index is based on “expectations,” not on an academic standard. If our expectation is zero, and the district achieves at a level of .0001, then it will achieve above 100 on the index.

And, whose expectations are these? My expectation is that Spokane Public Schools prepares the vast majority of its students academically for postsecondary life – for college, a career, a trade, to join the military, to begin a business … And the district is NOT meeting my expectation.

The GNOMES celebrate:

 Graduation rates are “improving.” (Source: The superintendent’s June Rotary Club presentation.)

About Spokane’s graduation rates

How much of the “increase” was because of actual academic improvement? The district tracked down some students and removed them from the most recent total, causing the most recent graduation rate to go up. However, previous years' numbers were not recounted. It’s statistically incorrect to compare non-reworked numbers with reworked numbers.

Additionally, the “improved” graduation rate doesn’t indicate whether the students were qualified to begin college or a trade when they left high school. As noted, indications are that most were NOT college or career ready.

Additionally, the graduation rates do not indicate how many disgruntled families left the district before graduation. See below for information on that.

The data say: About enrollment

 Full-time enrollment in Spokane dropped by about 2,650 from 2003 to May 2010. This is a net figure, not a gross figure, therefore, incoming students offset the total drop.

A Fall 2008 district survey of families who chose to leave the district showed that about 33% left over the curriculum. (Private schools were not included in the survey. Had they been, I suspect this percentage would be higher.) At any rate, top academically-related reasons chosen for leaving:

• 33%: Quality of curriculum does not match your expectations
• 26%: District class sizes too large
• 21%: Desired coursework is not offered in the district
• 19%: Student is not on schedule to graduate

 The district didn’t release the results of this survey to the general public.

The GNOMES say:

“Our mission is to develop the skills and talents of all students through rigorous learning experiences, supportive relationships, and relevant real-life applications.” (Source: District brochure of "fast facts.")

About the mission of Spokane Public Schools

 Spokane Public Schools’ stated mission is useless. Taxpayers do not want to pay $12,000+ per student to develop skills and talents through “learning experiences, supportive relationships and relevant real-life applications.” The district’s mission allows for a heck of a lot of wiggle room, and it holds no one accountable for getting the students ready academically for postsecondary life.

The GNOMES celebrate:

 “SPS earned excellence awards in financial reporting seven years in a row and sustains the highest credit ratings possible.” (Source: “Points of Pride.”)

Laurie says: About the district’s finances

Few community members can understand the district budget, as it’s given to the people. Many specific details aren’t available on the district’s Web site.

The levy paid for administrative raises last year, but the people weren’t told that -- not as they were signing on to support the levy, nor afterward, when the levy money was spent in that way. When I asked the district how MUCH of the levy paid for administrative raises, I was told the district “doesn’t break it down that way.”

In this year’s district forums, the people weren’t given budget totals. As they heard the district whine about an alleged budget “cut” since 2002 – they didn’t know that the district budget has actually grown by $60 million since 2002, or that the levy has grown by $23 million since 2002. It’s been an incredibly large money shift, not a budget cut.

Folks, there’s a lot more data out there just like this, but this snippet gives you the gist of the way the district presents outcomes. My conclusion is that Spokane Public Schools does NOT suffer from the Lake Wobegon Effect. What Spokane Public Schools suffers from is ever so much worse than that.

  

Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is
Rogers, L. (July 2011). "The Lake Wobegon Effect? Or deceit by omission?" Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/  

This article also was published July 27, 2011, on the EducationNews Web site at: http://www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/159100.html

Seattle teacher discusses the challenges teachers face

[Note from Laurie Rogers: This is a guest article by a teacher in Seattle Public Schools. It was drawn from two emails he wrote to me in response to reading my book. This teacher asked to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal for stating his views. For ease of reading, his comments are broken into sections.]

Written by an experienced elementary school teacher, Seattle

Dear Laurie Rogers:

Thanks for writing your book. One of the things that you discuss in your compelling discourse is the low standards that our colleges have had in the subject matter (as opposed to teaching theory, sociology, and psychology) for those who have a desire to become teachers in our public schools.

For the past twenty-two years, I have diligently taught 4th and 5th grade students. For the first eighteen years, I taught math according to the classical mode that you describe in your book. As the reforms took hold, and we were monitored ever more closely, I was forced into using Everyday Math according to a pacing guide set by the district. As you have rightly observed, it is a program that emphasizes coverage and not mastery.

For much of the year, I had 34 students. Of these 34 students, seven had Special Education IEPs and were to be served according to a pull-in model which never quite materialized. I did have a special ed. instructional assistant for 50 minutes a day until she was pulled to serve in a more "needy" classroom. One of my students was mentally retarded and never once scored about the first percentile on the MAP test. Another student started the year almost totally blind and had a personal assistant for two hours out of the day to teach her Braille. Two were removed from their homes by CPS and placed under foster care: one for neglect and the other for domestic violence. Three students were absent for more than 30 days each. I could go on, but I think that you get the picture.

At the beginning of August, I am expected to attend a five-day professional development on teaching math, followed by a five-day professional development on Readers Workshop. The regimen makes me feel like I am being sent to a reeducation camp to learn how to socialize America's youth.

The onslaught of the reform movement is causing teachers, like myself, who are in the twilight of our careers, to ask if it’s worth abandoning the principles that we were taught about good pedagogy, in order to qualify us to become another cog in the reformed collective, or if we should take an early retirement and supplement our meager income working at a much less stressful place.

As a classically trained musician, the concept of mastery is very important to me. There is, also, incidentally, no mastery effectively allowed in the mini-lesson format. In writing, for instance, we are to teach a lesson, and not require the students to put the skill taught to immediate use; they are to "put it in their tool box" for use when they feel that they need it. If I would dare to tell my administrator that is absurd, I would risk an evaluation that would put me on probation.

Your book has already helped me to see part of the bigger picture that I have been missing, and I look forward to reading the rest of it. Please keep up your good work. What we, as teachers can do to stem the tide of reform is very little. I struggle with my conscience over implementing such an inferior form of instruction. In my experience, direct instruction is the most fruitful. The other techniques can be useful when used in moderation by an experienced and skillful instructor, but unless they are closely monitored, easily become a playground for an exchange of ignorance, and in some extreme cases a forum for students to bully other students.

Seattle prides itself in being a data-driven district. The administrators here, however, seem to care about improving student performance by mandating, from on high, according to their pet theories than by listening to the people who should be able, if they are worth their salt, to tell them how and why those statistics were generated in the first place. They might just learn something if they really listened to their teachers.

Unhelpful Testing

The case of Celesta is a true horror story. My wife and our two home schooled children were dumbfounded that such a thing could possibly happen. I wonder what kind of tests formed the basis for Celesta's outstanding math grades. One of the most striking aspects of reform math is the huge amount of activity that occurs without much, if any, mastery of the subject taking place.

The ambiguity of the language in the WASL math test, one year prompted a fifth grade student, the son of Vietnamese immigrants, in his responses to question after question to write: "If you mean this, the answer is_____, but if you mean this, the answer is__________, or if you mean this, the answer is________. I marveled at his tenacity and thoroughness. He was, in the end awarded a very high score for his efforts.

These days the MSP is so highly secured that teachers have to sign a statement that they affirm, under penalty of perjury, that they have not violated the rules for administering the assessment, which violation, itself, is now, under law, a misdemeanor. Talk about adding insult to injury. Teachers in our state are forced to implement ineffective instruction, and then are evaluated on the results that are logically obtained from that instruction on the state tests. Finally, if they are caught deviating from the script of the MSP and its rules for administration, they are not only in danger of being run out of the profession, but facing criminal charges as well. I agree that teachers who intentionally cheat to obtain better scores for their students should be disciplined, but I want to know the real purpose for criminalizing them.

What good is all of this voluminous data if it cannot be used to find gaps in a student's math skills; gaps which would have easily been identified and dealt with in every age of human experience before our enlightened era of social promotion?

Parent Involvement

One of my favorite activities with parents is to discuss their child's work with them. Reform math, by its very nature (of discovery) generally leaves the most influential voices in a child's life sitting in the nosebleed seats, so far away from the action that it is often difficult to discern exactly what is going on.

Is it possible that Celesta really didn't know that she had missed out on key components in her math education? If she was schooled only in the alternate algorithms, she may never have heard the term, long division. Why were not her parents aware that she needed to know her basic facts much better?

I was raised by my parents to believe that my education was ultimately their responsibility. In any parent teacher conference their attitude would be, "What can I do to help my child learn his math, etc. better?" In my experience, many parents feel disrespected and trashed by personnel in their local school districts. It is not unusual for me, therefore, to put the test scores and the statistics to the side during a parent teacher conference and ask permission to speak with them parent to parent, instead, about things that we both want our children to know, and what each of us can do to make it so.

On your list of ways to help children like Celesta, isn't empowering their parents a strategy that works, even if they, themselves don't have the best education in the world, or work three jobs between the two of them to make ends meet? It doesn't take a village to raise a child, it takes a committed parent who isn't sabotaged by the village to raise a child.

The organs of government and government-run schools repeatedly intimidate parents with

• confusing report cards
• pages of standards that analyze the curriculum to death
• reams of test data that are disassociated from concrete examples of their child's performance, and
• fancy constructivist notions of how children learn that blatantly contradict millennia of human experience.

As a result, many parents flee the system for private schools, or a home-school option. Those who are left often feel helpless, confused, bitter and angry.

I am not sure that the general public quite comprehends that as teachers, we are pledged by our contracts, and by state law, to carry out the lawful directives of our employer. But, as citizens of the United States, we are entitled to speak out on matters of public policy (including education) without fear of retaliation. As citizens, we are even allowed to work to replace those who employ us and join with others to empower new leaders by virtue of our votes.

It is my sense that reform-oriented administrators are not oblivious to this threat, and will do all in their power to stamp it out by relieving us of our jobs.

So-called “Best Practices” and Mission Creep

Why are we continuously being told that certain best practices are research based when it seems that no primary research can be pointed to, that conclusively supports them? So far as I can tell, primary research about the efficacy of “word walls,” writing your “teaching point” on the board, the superiority of “mini-lessons,” “turn and talk,” and “cooperative learning” simply does not exist. A year ago, I asked our school's math coach if she could find the primary research that forms the basis for those so-called high-leverage teaching moves. Several months later she reported back to me that she could not find it.

I was quite enlightened by your discussion of the Delphi Technique and mission creep. I thank you for them. The Seattle Schools used this technique liberally throughout the past decade in its so-called courageous conversations about race. They repeatedly broke us up into discussion groups, and guided our meetings with a list of absurd norms, including "speak your truth." According to the way I was educated, truth is not the property of an individual; it's an absolute. In the end, it became quite obvious that their predetermined conclusion was that Caucasian people are guilty of perpetuating institutionalized racism, and it is our responsibility, as public school teachers, to be outspoken advocates for social justice. Talk about mission creep!

The opening paragraphs of your chapter on the learning environment are priceless. They mirror my beliefs exactly about public education. As a general rule, I believe that it is not my business to undo the values instilled in my students by their parents. I do, however, as a matter of course, listen carefully to parents when they expound on their values. The societal norms and expectations that you refer to that the school has a legitimate role in enforcing are quickly disintegrating before our very eyes. Together with reform math, investigative science, just-right books, and Writers Workshop, this disintegration is seriously jeopardizing our effectiveness in the classroom.

Culture and Implications of Reform Math

My fear is that a vastly inferior culture of teaching and learning is now supplanting a much superior culture of teaching and learning which preceded it. The proponents even call it a culture which indicates that they know precisely what they are doing. They are redefining our language and our values.

In some of our schools, cultural differences are a fact of life that we have to deal with, and here again, the reformers are failing us. Imagine implementing the mini-lesson format in a class where the mother tongues are Vietnamese, Chinese, Somali, Tagalog, Ilokano, Mexican, Lao and Ethiopian. In fifth grade, many of these students are proficient in neither English, nor in the language their parents speak at home. Turning them loose to solve problems such as finding the area of a triangle through discovery creates a veritable tower of Babel full of misconceptions and frustration.

Children from immigrant families are being sent to school by parents who are expecting them to receive direct instruction like they received in their homeland. Most immigrant parents can't understand why 5th-grade classrooms in this country are full of students who don't meet the standards that have been set as a prerequisite for their entry into that grade level. Most immigrant parents are dismayed that students who are disruptive to the learning process day in and day out receive ineffective consequences from the administration for their behavior.

Our leaders give a lot of lip service to the importance of being culturally literate, but many of them don't seem to know or care what true cultural literacy is outside of some box that contains a few external trappings of a given culture and some superficial generalizations about it. They shamelessly use these people to further their agenda of reform.

There are days I could swear that administrators think that we work in a factory turning out widgets. I have news for them. Human children are not machines. Students can be willful, lazy, and burdened with a multitude of personal problems. Many are nevertheless also highly appreciative of a teacher who stands by them in times of difficulty. Among my most treasured artifacts of the 2010-2011 school year is a handmade card. On the inside is written, “Thank you for believing in me when I didn't want to be successful.” I can't think of an administrator who can begin to understand just how profound those words are.

Please understand that this email represents but a tiny fraction of the torrent of frustrations, challenges, fears, and vexation that I and others like me experience every day as we attempt to fulfill the duties of our chosen profession and provide our families with their daily bread.

Sincerely yours,
(Seattle elementary school teacher)

************

Note from Laurie Rogers: If you would like to submit a guest column on public education, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net. Please limit columns to not more than 1,000 words. Columns might be edited for length, content or grammar. You may remain anonymous to the public, however I must know who you are. All decisions on guest columns are the sole right and responsibility of Laurie Rogers.

Teaching grammar doesn't stifle creativity; it enhances creative writing

[Note from Laurie Rogers: Many school districts, including Spokane Public Schools, have not taught grammar in a coherent, focused, disciplined way for several years. District leadership argues that students can pick up grammar intuitively, through their own writing. Consequently, our students are graduating from high school without even basic skills in grammar. They cannot define an adverb or adjective, much less recognize a run-on sentence or sentence fragment. In 2010, a Spokane teacher described to me how her efforts to teach grammar were questioned by a central-office administrator. In this article, senior college student Katherine Brandt explains why teaching grammar is critically important.]


By Katherine Brandt
English Teaching student, Brigham Young University


Although the rules of the English language are constantly changing and transforming, teaching grammar has great value in the school system because it gives students the background that they need to understand their language and use it effectively both in and out of the academic world. By teaching grammar, educators provide students with the building blocks of language. When students understand each of the building blocks behind their language, they have a greater ability to communicate not only in their native tongue but also in other languages which employ similar building blocks, albeit in a different order.

Grammar is an important tool because people who do not understand it have difficulty communicating well, and as a result their ideas are often overlooked. Consider children who have yet to learn how to speak well or foreigners who misunderstand how to use prepositions or adjectives. For example, a Spanish-speaker learning English might say, “The sock red has a hole small.” Though people may understand sentences like this one, they might also need to make a conscious effort to achieve understanding.

Although the idea of the foreigner is an exaggerated example, students who understand the idiosyncrasies of English grammar will, in a much more subtle way, be able to control the voice, meaning, and level of formality with which they write. As a result, they will be able to write for an educated audience without the embarrassment of making obvious mistakes.

I have been able to see grammar’s importance in my own education. When I was a child, I attended a private elementary school where we were constantly drilled in grammar. We diagrammed sentences, learned parts of speech, and revised incorrect sentences time and again to master the language.

When I was twelve, my family moved, and I went to a public junior high school where the teaching of grammar was considered unimportant and indeed somewhat damaging to a child’s voice. Nevertheless, in my first month of class, my English teacher checked for students’ basic understanding of grammar. To my shock and dismay, I was the only person in the class who could recognize verbs and complete sentences. My peers consistently struggled with their essays because they had never been taught how to construct a complete idea within a sentence. They had been to school for seven years and could not write a simple sentence. I wondered what they had learned in all that time.

Imagine reading entire papers composed of fragments such as “When I went to the store.” These papers might convey meaning but certainly not in the way that the students intend – with clarity. From the time I entered the public school system, I was at the top of my class in English simply because I had been taught how to put words together correctly. As a result, my teachers could understand and respond to the ideas that I expressed in my papers. All children need to obtain at least a basic understanding of grammar in order to communicate effectively and meaningfully in the educated world.

Knowing grammar also gives students another advantage when it comes to learning foreign languages. When I first started taking Spanish, I had greater understanding simply because I knew some grammar. My teacher, in vain, explained how Spanish speakers position nouns and adjectives differently from English speakers; most of the students did not even know how to differentiate a noun from an adjective. On the other hand, I easily understood what she was explaining because I had been taught to identify parts of speech and their function within a sentence. The other students struggled and guessed their way through the course because every unit presented new parts of speech. Indefinite and definite articles, participles, and verbs were among the difficult concepts that they had not even learned in their native tongue.

I pity my peers who came from a system of those who have written off grammar as unimportant. I have heard these educators say that the study of grammar “stills the creative voice.” My personal experience has shown the contrary. Grammar has been my key to creativity because, with my basic knowledge of the language, I know how to coherently express my ideas so that others can appreciate them. I also know the building blocks to learning other languages which will only expand my creativity and not inhibit it.

It is time for educators to take a stand and teach children to use grammar well so that they may be able to participate both creatively and formally in the educated world. Even as we would not cripple architects by taking away the resources that they need to build beautiful buildings, so we should not cripple our young writers by refusing them grammatical knowledge. From a strong foundation in grammatical understanding will come better, stronger writers who will know how to use the tools educators give them to create beautiful and original writing.



Katherine Brandt is a senior at Brigham Young University, majoring in English Teaching. She will receive her degree in April of 2012 after completing her student teaching.

As part of her program, Katherine was expected to pass a basic grammar exam. The average score on the exam for her class of English Teaching majors was 13 out of 50. According to Katherine, the vast majority of grammar questions did not go beyond the most basic grammar, yet most of the students in the teaching program found it difficult.

In a discussion in one of Katherine's classes, she listened quietly as her peers, who struggle with grammar, dismissed the need for students to learn grammar. In a separate discussion, the students were decrying parental involvement in curriculum choices. Happily the teacher intervened to say, "The parents are the customers."

Katherine is contemplating going on to law school after graduation.


Note from Laurie Rogers: If you would like to submit a guest column on public education, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net. Please limit columns to not more than 1,000 words. Columns might be edited for length, content or grammar. You may remain anonymous to the public, however I must know who you are. All decisions on guest columns are the sole right and responsibility of Laurie Rogers.

District rejects community efforts to help Celesta - (part 3)

By Laurie H. Rogers

[Note from Laurie Rogers: This is part 3 of a series of articles on Celesta, a grade-11 student in Spokane, WA. I interviewed her for a June 4 episode of “Cut to the Chase,” a local radio show hosted by Rob Chase for the ACN Network. Part 1 of the series described Celesta as lacking multiple basic skills in mathematics. Part 2 discussed the district's response to my queries about how to help Celesta and her classmates.]


I’ve been writing about Celesta, a high school student who was carrying a 3.6 GPA, who passed her math tests, got As in her math classes, was placed into honors pre-calculus, and who – like many of her classmates – suddenly found out she was missing multiple critical skills in elementary math. She was struggling to pass her honors math class. She also has few skills in grammar.

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to help Celesta and her classmates.

The best way to help the students:

Go back in time and teach the students the grammar and the six years of math skills the district refused to give them. I need a time machine to do that, and no one has invented one – not that they’ve told me, anyway.

The second best way to help the students:

Someone at their school could work with the students and bring them up to grade level. But when I called around to all of Spokane’s middle and high schools a few weeks ago to find out how to help students like Celesta, most had no remedial programs for students who are NOT special education. Nearly all wanted to test Celesta for learning disabilities. Several expressed doubt about the veracity of her story. One suggested she might have brain damage. Few expressed interest in community members coming into the school to help with skills; almost all referred that idea to central-office administration.

Additionally, Celesta said the “homework center” at her school isn’t for remedial skills. Kids view it as detention, not help, she said. She also was denied access to remedial algebra classes, she said. As an honors student, she said, she was told she can’t go backward. She must march forward to Statistics, ready or not.

Celesta’s situation reflects the sheer depth and magnitude of the problem. She is smart, articulate, and dedicated to her schoolwork. She is considered to be an honors student. Because of her achievements in math, she was placed into honors pre-calculus, which – with a great deal of effort – she passed, with a C. But I know what she doesn’t know in basic math, and it's devastating.

Now, imagine all of the students who DIDN'T pass their math tests, and who AREN'T getting As. Just 38.9% of Spokane’s 10th graders passed the 2010 state math test, on which they needed just 56.9% to pass. That 38.9% pass rate includes Celesta. It also includes students who receive supplementation from outside the district. Take those students out of the data, and where would the pass rates be then? By itself, does the district math program get anyone to actual proficiency in real mathematics?

The complete picture is barely imaginable. Folks, in K-12 mathematics, it’s a smoking wreckage out there. This is a completely preventable tragedy. It’s persistently pushed and pressed on teachers, parents and students by an ineffective, self-interested, obstructive leadership.

How district administrators and board directors can look at themselves in the mirror is beyond me. How they can accept plaques, awards and raises – well, I couldn’t do it. I would feel ill to be rewarded and praised for such abject failure. But the people who built this failing program are still employed at the district, most received raises last summer, and the superintendent’s contract was extended last night to July 31, approved unanimously by the four board directors present. (Approval of a new contract was delayed until July.)

The school board can fire just one person – the superintendent. Nancy Stowell received nearly a quarter-of-a-million taxpayer dollars last year as she stubbornly maintained a failing academic program and did not fire these incompetent administrators.

Meanwhile, various people in the district have accused parents and community members of blaming the district while refusing to help it. That’s hilarious. I've tried to help; they keep saying no.

The third best way to help these students:

The community can step in and tutor these students in basic arithmetic. I have asked the district repeatedly to work with me on developing such programs. On May 11, 2011, I again asked Nancy Stowell, our superintendent, if community members could work with the district on developing a free tutoring program. This is her reply (quoted verbatim – just cut and pasted):


"Good Morning Laurie,

"I have looked into your request, but I don't believe we have a structure in place to support community designed tutoring proggram. The only way we have for working with volunteers in through our Volunteer Program. That program, as you know, operates thruough our individual schools, but it really isn't set up to host specific tutoring programs designed by community members. In our Volunteer Program it is up to principals to idenfity the work of the volunteers. If volunteers do work on academic progjects in the schools it is under the supervision of a certificated staff member. If community members want to set up a tutoring program, they might be able to work through the community centers or perhaps the libraries.

"Thank you for your interest. I do understand that you have a huge commitment to our students and their academic success.

"Nancy"
I asked Dr. Stowell if she would build a “structure” for offering free tutoring to the students. I received no reply. On June 13, I asked her again, noting that school was almost out. I received no reply.
 
Dr. Stowell’s response isn’t the first “no” I’ve gotten. A few years ago, I asked an elementary principal about helping students in math skills. I was told I would have to use the district curriculum, I would have to include all types of learners, and I would have to include language arts along with math. Well, that sounds like the failing district program to me.
 
I took my request to the school board. I was told it’s an issue with collective bargaining, and that, to get around it, I would have to rent the school.
 
In January 2011, I tried again. I wrote to a new principal to say this:


"As you probably recall, I asked you a few days after school began last September about beginning a free tutoring program in basic math skills for students in the … program. You said you would think it over. I have reminded you about it a few times since then, in September, October, and November.

"Each time I met with you, I explained the situation with Spokane's K-8 math program, about Spokane's high remedial rates, high dropout rates, and weak passing scores on state math tests. I noted that the tutoring would take time and dedication to fill in the large number of gaps in the students' math knowledge. I said it doesn't have to be me who does it, that the point is to get the students the basic skills they need if they are to succeed in algebra and geometry.

"I am following up with you to find out what is happening on this.

"Thanks very much,

"Laurie Rogers"
This was the principal’s response (quoted verbatim – just cut and pasted):


"Laurie

"Thanks for your email. Like we talked about in December, I am working with our teachers on identifying what our specific students' needs are how to best address them.

"Hope you have a great weekend."
Oh, sure. Have a great weekend. I hope they all have a great weekend. I hope Celesta and her classmates are having a great weekend. Want to bet that the next time we turn around, the district will again blame us for all problems in math?

The fourth best way to help the students:

The community can build its own program for helping the students. This takes organization, money, student maturity, an iron will, and careful scheduling. It isn’t easy. We must find a building and supplies. We must track down students and convince them to come in on their own time to work on the subject that drove them half crazy during the school year. We must get permissions, background checks, and supervisors.

I’ve found that it takes about two months, an hour per day, five days per week, to move a student one grade level in elementary math. High school students would need to find an extra five hours a week for an entire year. What are the odds this would work? These are children. They have other responsibilities and interests. And many have given up on math.

Spokane’s central-office administrators are accomplished at deflecting blame – onto teachers, principals, students, a fake lack of money, societal issues, and poverty. They’re good at giving themselves raises. They’re good at protecting their administrative turf, and they’re good at staying employed in this district in the face of absolute failure. They are NOT good at doing what they’re paid to do: Build an effective academic program. For that, they should be fired. But who will do that?

When it’s time for you to vote for a replacement for board directors, please keep this in mind: A vote for the status quo will be a vote for failure – for the children, for the community, for you, the taxpayer, and for this country. When you vote, please vote for someone who will hold the superintendent accountable, who understands the math problem, who will push for real math instruction and for real transparency in decision-making and finances. Vote for someone who has the will, the integrity, and the backbone to stand up for the children, who will vote "nay" to wrong things, and who won’t just "go along to get along."

And please also have a great weekend.

Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is

Rogers, L. (June 2011). "District rejects community efforts to help Celesta - (part 3)." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/

This article was posted on educationviews.org at http://educationviews.org/2011/06/23/district-rejects-community-efforts-to-help-celesta-%e2%80%93-part-3/

District blames Celesta for gaps in math skills - (part 2)

By Laurie H. Rogers

[Note from Laurie Rogers: This is part 2 of a series of articles on Celesta, a grade-11 student in Spokane, WA. I interviewed her for a June 4 episode of “Cut to the Chase,” a local radio show hosted by Rob Chase for the ACN Network. Part 1 of the series described Celesta as lacking multiple basic skills in mathematics. Part 3 will discuss community efforts to help students like Celesta ... and the district’s response to those efforts.]


Celesta is an 11th grader in Spokane Public Schools who carried a 3.6 GPA, got As in all of her math classes, passed all of her math tests and who did so well she was placed last fall into honors pre-calculus. Unfortunately, she and many of her pre-calculus classmates lack proficiency in basic math skills (including long division, multiplication facts, the number line, and fractions).

Over a few days, I called Spokane’s middle and elementary schools to find out how they would help students like Celesta. I didn’t do anything silly like go undercover or assume a pseudonym; I just called them all as a concerned community member, offered my first name and gave them the scenario noted above. Then I asked them, “How do (I, you, we) help these students?”

You won’t believe what I was told.

Most district employees expressed concern, but it often came out in accusatory, unhelpful ways. Most had nothing to offer students like Celesta. There usually was a long pause on the other end of the line after I described her situation. Several expressed doubt about the truth of the scenario.

“How could that be?” they asked.
“I would just be appalled if that were true,” a high school counselor said.

I don’t understand their shock and surprise. The counselor who said he would be appalled should already be appalled that his school had a pass rate on the 2010 state math test of less than 30%. Students needed just 56.9% to pass that basic-skills test, and more than 70% of the 10th graders at his school couldn’t do it. The district’s overall pass rate for 10th grade math was just 38.9%. Four of the six middle schools had pass rates of less than 50% on the 8th-grade math test; two were at less than 40%.

Either these counselors and administrators already know of the low pass rates and of the district’s policy of socially promoting students regardless of what they've learned … or they don’t know. Why on Earth wouldn't they know? It’s their job to know.

So I took a deep breath and assured them calmly that the girl is real, her story is true, and I was wondering what the district had in place to help students like her. Nearly all recommended that she be tested for learning disabilities.

I haven’t tested Celesta for a learning disability. I have only tested her for proficiency in basic math skills, and she tested into 5th-grade math. It does seem odd that she would be in honors pre-calculus, with a 3.6 GPA, having passed all of her tests and with straight As in math – if a learning disability had kept her from learning basic math skills.

A middle-school counselor said something must have “slipped" Celesta's mind before she hit the pre-calculus class. I’ve heard that wild assumption before. Other administrators claim it about other students, also without proof, and in 2010, an administrator at Spokane Falls Community College said the math problem at SFCC isn’t because students didn’t learn enough math in K-12 – it was because they’d just forgotten it.

According to Celesta, at least half of her class has the same problem. Her pre-calculus teacher must continually stop teaching pre-calculus, she said, so he can teach basic skills. He showed them long division. He showed them the number line so they could subtract a negative. I asked the district employees: Did ALL of these honors students just forget? This observation was met with more silence.

A middle school principal talked about how poverty is such an issue for the students. This is the district’s go-to answer for student outcomes. In February, a district employee stated at one of my community forums that if we fixed the poverty problem, we would fix the math problem. But I had said nothing to anyone about Celesta’s home life. I asked Celesta for her reaction, and she was offended.

“I’m not that poor,” she said. “I’ve always had everything I needed. For someone to tell me I’m failing because I’m poor, that’s a little ridiculous.”

While there are strong correlations between family income and student achievement, poverty isn’t the problem with math. We could give every low-income family a million dollars and this district’s math program still wouldn’t have enough math in it. I noted to Celesta that lower-income families have fewer resources to pay for tutoring and outside help, and she expressed frustration.

“I don’t see why we need tutoring if the school is doing their job,” she said. “Why do I need to go to Sylvan to learn what [the district] should be teaching me? Why do I need extra help? Why aren’t they just teaching [it to me] in the first place?”

Why indeed? Why do district counselors and school administrators not have a firm grasp of the depth of the district’s deficiencies in math? “How can that be?” I kept hearing. Do they not see the low pass rates? Do they not see students struggle and fail, yet get passed through – and even be placed into advanced math classes? Do they not know about the district’s high remedial rates and dropout rates? Do they not see the district-wide anxiety over math, and the district-wide dearth of procedural skill? They should because I see it, and I don’t get paid taxpayer money to see it.

A high school counselor then decided Celesta must have been cheating to get her 3.6 GPA if she now has issues in pre-calculus. Startled, I said, “Pardon me?” He said, “Yeah, she must have cheated or lied. Or, maybe,” he added helpfully, “she’s had a traumatic brain injury.”

I asked Celesta for her reaction.

“It makes me feel sad that they’d jump to that conclusion,” she said. “I know I’m a good student. I know I work hard. I know that I’m smart and that it’s really hard for me right now that I’m struggling. And for someone to tell me that I have a learning disability or my brain has been damaged because I don’t know math because I wasn’t taught? It’s pretty hurtful. It’s not my fault. I have to go to public school every day. That’s what I have to do. It’s not my choice to be there, and it’s not my choice to do the lesson plan. I’m learning what they’re teaching me. If I’m not learning it … when I am a very attentive student, and I’m there, and I’m trying … Is it my fault?”

Celesta said there never was any indication that she or her classmates were struggling, that they had learning issues, or that there were gaps in skills. This year has been a shock. It isn’t that pre-calculus is so hard, she said. It’s just become clear to her that she and many classmates are missing basic math skills that they need to be successful in that class. She fought hard and wound up with a final grade of C.

“Even if I study really hard, and I go in and get help, and I get extra help from my old math teacher,” she said, “I just seem to always hit a 60% on all my tests, no matter how confident I feel about them. … Before this year, everything was fine. I would get my tests back and maybe I’d get a 3 out of a four, and that still isn’t very OK with me. I always strive to do the best. Usually, I’d go in and try and retake, but in pre-calculus we cannot retake tests. That’s what really kills me. I can’t try again. … I just have to accept that I’m failing.”

Well, I don’t accept it.

I’ve found that it takes about two months, an hour a day, five days a week, to properly tutor a student through one grade level in K-8 math. Celesta is missing about six years of basic skills. She’s leaving for the summer, and I’ll try to help her by email. It will be a challenge. She’s 17, and it’s the summer, and she’s visiting family. We plan to connect when she comes back in the fall. It’s daunting, but I’m willing to fight for her if she’s willing to fight for herself.

Math was always a strong suit for Celesta, one of her favorite classes. Now, she isn’t interested in taking any more math classes. But if she doesn’t, her dream of earning a business degree is over.




Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is
Rogers, L. (June 2011). "District blames Celesta for gaps in math skills - (part 2)." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/

This article was published June 9, 2011 on educationnews.org at: http://www.educationnews.org/blogs/157780.html

Who cares about Celesta? - (part 1)

By Laurie H. Rogers

[Note from Laurie Rogers: This is part 1 of a series of articles on Celesta, a Spokane high school student whom I interviewed for “Cut to the Chase,” a radio show hosted by Rob Chase for the ACN Network. The show is located at 630 on the AM dial. This interview will air locally Saturday at 6 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., and on Sunday at 10 a.m. Part 2 of these articles will discuss the district's response to my queries about how to help her.]



Celesta is a high school junior in Spokane Public Schools. She’s a good student – “attentive,” she says. But she’s missing basic math skills, and she’s struggling to get through her 11th-grade math class.

Celesta has a dream. She wants to be a business owner. She plans to attend university and get a degree, with a major in business and a minor in accounting. She says she wants to “run some kind of business of my own. I want to be in charge.”

Celesta has one more year before she is supposed to graduate and go to college. Without intervention of some kind, when she takes college entrance exams, she's likely to test into arithmetic. She’ll have to pay for several non-credit-bearing remedial math classes before she even begins college math classes. She'll be at risk of failing those remedial math classes. Almost 50% of the students who take those classes at our local community colleges do not pass them.

You wouldn’t expect Celesta to be in this position. Currently, she carries a 3.6 GPA. Up until 11th grade, she passed all math tests and got As in all math classes. She’s always been considered to be a good student. In fact, because they all did so well in their math classes, she and more than two dozen other students were placed into honors pre-calculus. There was never any indication before this year, she said, that they had gaps in math skills, or learning issues, or that they were struggling in any way. None was considered to be a special education student.

Celesta said she and many of her classmates aren’t proficient in algebra or geometry, but the problem is deeper than that. Their pre-calculus teacher must continually stop teaching pre-calculus so he can teach basic math skills to his class.

“Pretty much every day I hear him say, ‘Well, you should have learned this already, but we have to go over it,’” Celesta says. “It makes me feel stupid … He’s not really that sweet about it. He’ll be like ‘I’m teaching this lesson and half of you are gonna get it and half of you won’t, and a quarter of you will never get it.’ And I just feel like that quarter that’s never gonna get it.”

I tested Celesta a few weeks ago using a basic skills test, and she tested into 5th-grade math. However, her lack of proficiency with multiplication facts and division puts her into 4th-grade math. This year is the first year she’s ever seen long division, she says. Her pre-calc teacher showed the skill to his class, but there hasn’t been time to learn it to mastery. A deficiency in division inhibits students in any number of mathematical procedures, including determining averages, isolating variables, and simplifying fractions.

Celesta also doesn’t know her multiplication facts. This honors student couldn’t tell me what 6x8 equals. She didn’t know what a radical is. She expressed doubts about her ability to convert from fractions to percents to decimals. On the pre-algebra portion of my test, she got one answer out of 20 correct.

“I wish that I would have got direct instruction in the first place,” she says. “I feel like it is a better approach to math, and that if I did learn it that way in the first place, I would be very successful right now. But because I don’t know that, I need to sit there and pretty much have someone baby me, as much as I hate to admit it.”

If Celesta tests into remedial math at Spokane Falls Community College, she might not get direct instruction there, either. Not long ago, SFCC began offering its remedial math classes with an approach that looks a lot like the approach that has already failed Celesta.

How many young people in our communities are in Celesta's position? The district implies that Celesta's story is rare, but Celesta isn't alone or even unusual. In fact, students in her position are now the norm in America's public education system. I hear stories like hers all of the time. Every day. All day.

When I talk with younger people in my community -- in restaurants, fast food venues, and businesses around town -- they'll eventually confide -- somewhat sheepishly -- that they dropped out of college because they couldn't get through remedial math, or that they struggled in school but hope to go back. It hurts my heart to hear their doubts about their own abilities. I know those doubts were fostered in them by a self-serving bureaucracy that refuses to acknowledge its massive error in math. I try to reassure them, but it's a lot to explain in a few minutes. They go away, still certain that they just couldn't cut it.

Whenever I pay for purchases and wait for change, I watch the younger crowd stumble to do it correctly, often making mistakes, then not understanding as I count it back for them. And math isn't their only weakness. Their handwriting (usually just printing) is atrocious, their spelling is imaginary, their punctuation and grammar non-existent. This is not their fault. This is the district's fault.

And Spokane Public Schools isn't alone in having failed these people. The problem is mirrored across the country - from border to border and from coast to coast. When I talk with others about this -- teachers, parents, students, advocates -- their stories are the same as mine. They saw the problem, many spoke up, all were patronized and dismissed, and their district's administration just rolled over top of them. And the children in their communities continued to be failed.

Who cares about Celesta and all of these other poorly-educated children? Caring about them means caring about our communities and about our country. They are the face of our future, and they are not prepared.

 
 
Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is
Rogers, L. (June 2011). "Who cares about Celesta? - (part 1)." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/

This article was published June 6, 2011 on educationnews.org at: http://www.educationnews.org/blogs/157609.html