More on CCSS & PARCC in Illinois

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch. Where are the unions on this mess? Read a career teacher's open letter to Cindy Kickna, President of IEA. This is what gives unions a bad name. Who do they really represent if not the teachers and students?

Just one paragraph:

Please, if you are going to take our money and purport to represent teachers collectively in Illinois, it is incumbent upon you to educate yourself about the reality of the monumental bamboozle that is corporate reform. I recommend Diane Ravitch’s book Reign of Error for starters, and her blog is a daily format for exposing the damaging effects of the move to privatize and profitize education. Todd Farley’s book Making the Grades is an insider’s expose of Pearson’s shoddy test design process and and standardized test-grading mills.

 

Ten Principles of Proficiency-Based Learning

Originally posted on CompetencyWorks:

The principles were created by the Great Schools Partnership. To fully appreciate term nuances, you might want to follow the links to the GSP "Glossary of Education Reform" website. Philosophically I find little to argue with here but, as always, it's seldom the principles that are in dispute. No, it's the method by which they are implemented. These 10 principles are intended as, "a good resource for states, districts and schools to start the conversation about the new policies and practices that need to be put in place". Great intention, however, our experience has been that the conversation starts and stops at the federal or state level where implementation becomes dictatorial or at best threatening. GSP tries to take a neutral position on the controversial elements of the principles. For example, browse to the Summative assessments link and at the very bottom of the page is the following:

Debate

While there is little disagreement among educators about the need for or utility of summative assessments, debates and disagreements tend to center on issues of fairness and effectiveness, especially when summative assessment results are used for high-stakes purposes. In these cases, educators, experts, reformers, policy makers, and others may debate whether assessments are being designed and used appropriately, or whether high-stakes tests are either beneficial or harmful to the educational process. For more detailed discussions of these issues, see high-stakes test, measurement error, test accommodations, test bias, score inflation,standardized test, and value-added measures.

1. All learning expectations are clearly and consistently communicated to students and families, including long-term expectations (such as graduation requirements and graduation standards), short-term expectations (such as the learning objectives for a specific lesson), and general expectations (such as the performance levels used in the school’s grading and reporting system).


2. Student achievement is evaluated against common learning standards and performance expectations that are consistently applied to all students, regardless of whether they are enrolled in traditional courses, pursuing alternative learning pathways or receiving academic support.


3. All forms of assessment are standards-based and criterion-referenced, and success is defined by the achievement of expected standards, not relative measures of performance or student-to-student comparisons.


4. Formative assessments evaluate learning progress during the instructional process and are not graded; formative-assessment information is used to inform instructional adjustments, practices, and support.


5. Summative assessments evaluate learning achievement and are graded; summative assessment scores record a student’s level of proficiency at a specific point in time.


6. Grades are used to communicate learning progress and achievement to students and families; grades are not used as forms of punishment or control.


7. Academic progress and achievement is monitored and reported separately from work habits, character traits, and behaviors such as attendance and class participation.


8. Students are given multiple opportunities to retake assessments or improve their work when they fail to meet expected standards.


9. Students can demonstrate learning progress and achievement in multiple ways through differentiatedassessments, personalized-learning options, or alternative learning pathways.


10. Students are given opportunities to make important decisions about their learning, which includes contributing to the design of learning experiences and personalized learning pathways.

CCSS to PARCC to FAILURE in Illinois

The Illinois PARCC results were released yesterday and with no surprises. Failure! It's happening in all the PARCC states. I know a little about why but I wanted the perspective of a teacher so I reached out to one for whom I have great respect. She's an insightful Chicago teacher of disadvantaged 8th-grade students who cares. Late last night she responded by email. The story she tells is sad and admittedly angers me as it should anyone who reads this. How could our so-called leaders be so incompetent? Or is it part of a plan to demoralize the students and teachers and in the process destroy traditional public schooling? Or are they just plain stupid? Here is her email. I have removed a partial sentence that contains personal information.

First of all, the students are not accustomed to taking a test on the computer.  There are different tools and if you don't have adequate technology in the building, it is hard to expose the students to all the different tools on the test.  I had to use a computer projected on my whiteboard to show the students how to use the tools.  Now we all know that we learn best by practicing it ourselves.  Students weren't given that opportunity because IL has failed to make sure that EVERY school in the State has the same resources (you know, like a functioning computer lab, for starters).  Students aren't used to typing answers either.  They had to explain in writing their thinking but most students don't have the typing skills.  So some just typed the bare minimum which probably wasn't adequate for PARCC evaluators.

The CCSS are not specific enough.  The writers sure think they are but they are clueless.  For example, I am teaching 8.EE.1 right now, which are the laws of exponents.  I have no idea how in-depth I need to go with that but I do know it is on PARCC.  I could spend two weeks easily on laws of exponents but is it necessary?  I'm not sure.  It is a guessing game as to how deep you need to go.  I read some of the standards and I'm like whaaaatttt?   I have to Google it and get examples that I am hoping adequately address the standard.  I am also relying on other interpretations of the standard and am always left wondering - is this what the writers intended it to mean?  Do they not realize how many teachers there are in this state let alone who teach CCSS and the many interpretations that come with it?  Did the writers not realize that the stupid little example they provide italicized in the CCSS isn't enough and there are so many interpretations of just one standard??????  No one really knows what they want or expect because CCSS is not specific enough.  Kids also misinterpret questions.  I hope PARCC looked at common mistakes and analyzed whether or not the kids misinterpreted the question.  I know there were a couple of questions that students had asked me about and I could see it being a problem.

Students can do the problems if they are exposed to the types of questions that are being asked.  If I were provided resources that showed the many different ways a question could be asked that address the standard, I could expose my students to those questions.  They are children and need to be taught how to tackle questions that require extensive thinking.  They don't come with college degrees and shouldn't be expected to have that level of thinking.  Teachers don't even think of asking questions in some of the ways that they are asked on PARCC.  Give us plenty of samples so we can work with students and help them develop those types of thinking skills.  To just throw these questions at them with the attitude that they should know how to do it if they were taught a standard is unfair and does not work.

CCSS assumes that every child has the foundational skills.  The way the CCSS should have been rolled out is one grade at a time.  Start with Kindergarten.  Make all Kindergarten teachers teach it for a year.  Then the next year do K and 1st.  Then the following year K, 1st, and 2nd and so forth.  To expect my 8th graders last year to have mastered all the vague 8th grade CCSS without the 7 years of foundation was completely unfair to them and a waste of everyone's time.  These standards build on one another.  The creators knew they built in a progression of the math skills from year to year but none of them allowed for that progression to occur in the roll out.

I also don't know what to teach when.  They tested 75% of the CCSS on the first part of the PARCC test given in April.  Okay.  What standards comprised the 75%?  No one was told that and everyone just kind of went with whatever standards they wanted to teach throughout the year.  We were never told these are the standards that should have been taught by the time of PARCC.  So some of the questions my students were tested on hadn't even been taught to them yet because those standards were part of my 25%.

On the reading part, if the students had a question with two parts and they got the first part wrong, they didn't even grade the second part.  So right there, that sets the kids up for failure.

There were no resources available to CPS teachers last year either.  CPS wanted to make sure that math textbooks were aligned to the CCSS and did a review of textbooks to check for alignment.  The Math Department just released approved textbooks that schools could use in June.  I'm glad CPS took that time to really analyze the content of the textbooks but we were left Googling our materials all year.  Many schools were using EngageNY ( engageny.org).  I'm trying to use that this year but it assumes students have a strong foundation.  CCSS doesn't allow time to review skills.  CCSS expects you to just progress to the next standard because all the students mastered all the previous years' standards and for that reason you can just move on and not have to review anything- oh such a perfect setting that is far from reality!  I, as an educated math teacher, have to refresh my memory.  I need a review sometimes, especially with more advanced topics in Algebra.  Math seems more fortunate than Reading.  The Reading teachers have nothing.  They are constantly looking for articles, etc. online.   They are creating everything from scratch.  

Teachers received their degrees in curriculum delivery not curriculum creation.  We should have resources that contain materials that adequately help us teach the standards and provide us with a plethora of questions that help us expose student to those questions.  I was hired to teach not design.  Spending all this time researching the meaning of the standards, researching how in-depth teachers are teaching a skill in a standard, reviewing other interpretations of the standards, hoping that the materials we are using is adequate for the standard, etc. is draining on a teacher.  You never feel satisfied because you are never sure if you have taught everything that was expected to be mastered in the standard.

It would help middle school teachers if there were a requirement that primary and intermediate teachers were required to have endorsements in a subject area.  Many K-5 teachers lack the confidence in math and do not adequately teach it.  So the gap is going to widen even more with CCSS.  Students are going to have an even shakier foundation than pre-CCSS.

Okay.  I'm tired.  I hope it helps.  Excuse any grammatical errors.  I wanted to just get something to you ... and any other free time this weekend requires me to devote it to lesson plans and figuring out the CCSS.

Oh yeah - wait till next year when the data for Science is released.  Those NGSS are complicated and Science teachers have no materials to adequately teach them.  The fun continues!

OECD Report on Computers and Learning - Nothing New

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a report titled "Students, Computers,\ and Learning: Making Connections". The conclusions are not surprising.

At the international level:

Over the past 10 years, there has been no appreciable improvement in student achievement in reading, mathematics or science, on average, in countries that have invested heavily in information and communication technologies for education. In 2012, in the vast majority of countries, students who used computers moderately at school had somewhat better learning outcomes than students who used computers rarely; but students who used computers very frequently at school did a lot worse, even after accounting for the students’ socio-economic status.

“School systems need to find more effective ways to integrate | technology into teaching and learning  to provide educators with learning environments that support 21st century pedagogies and provide children with the 21st century skills they need to succeed in tomorrow’s world,” said Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills. “Technology is the only way to dramatically expand access to knowledge. To deliver on the promises technology holds, countries need to invest more effectively and ensure that teachers are at the forefront of designing and implementing this change.”

The United States:

The socio-economic divide in Internet access in the United States has not yet closed. In 2012, about one in five (20.2%) disadvantaged students – those among the bottom 25% in socio-economic status – did not yet have a link to the Internet at home. In the same year, 97% of the remaining students (those among the more advantaged 75% in socio-economic status) had access to the Internet at home.

Fifteen-year-olds in the United States perform above the OECD average in the PISA tests of digital reading (511 points on the PISA digital reading scale). They are also better than average in evaluating which links can lead them to relevant pages as they read on line. When looking for information on the web, only 11% of students navigate in an unfocused way, if at all – compared to 15% of students, on average, across OECD countries.

In 2012, schools in the United States serving 15-year-olds had about five school computers available for every nine students. The students-per-computer ratio of 1.8-to-1 is one of the lowest among the 34 OECD countries.

A particularly obvious and significant finding:

The report found that the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students in digital reading was very similar to the differences in performance in the traditional PISA reading test, despite the vast majority of students using computers whatever their background. This suggests that to reduce inequalities in digital skills, countries need to improve equity in education first.

1:1 Lessons Learned from LAUSD Continue

We've all heard of the LAUSD 1:1 debacle but as the title states, "The saga continues: Report finds ongoing iPad problems at LAUSD". At a cost of $340,000, the Washington, D.C.-based American Institutes for Research conducted a review of the current 1:1 situation. They released their report on September 2. What they discovered is that little has changed and that the district continues to fail at proper planning, testing, preparation, and execution. Something I could have told them for far fewer dollars. Back in October of 2013 a guest blogger at K12 News Network published a chart that details the difference between a successful implementation and the LAUSD failure. Very telling. The questions that continue to go unanswered is, Why did LAUSD officials mess up so badly and why do they continue to do so? What is wrong at the district level?                          

 

Training vs. Development

Over at rapidbi.com is another attempt at explaining the difference between training and development. The site targets businesses with the primary purpose of selling online software applications, but once in a while, there are articles of value. This one could apply to any organization and is worth a read. Here a few highlights:

In general:

Traditionally training has comprised the of learning a set of skills. Or predictable actions or behaviour. This change in skills and behaviour is usually aimed at improving the current job performance of an individual. Training may also prepare an individual for a potential job or role.

Development not only seeks to improve performance in a role, but seeks to bring out some form of maturity growth. Development is used to increase the potential of an employee as well as equip them to be ‘better’ individuals.

Training compared to Development

Comparison Chart of Training & Development

COMPARISON	TRAINING	DEVELOPMENT
Meaning	The action of teaching a person a particular skill or type of behaviour.	The action of providing the opportunity for an individual to improve their general knowledge and abilities for their overall growth.
Term	Short Term	Long Term
Focus on	Present/ immediate need	Future role
Concentrated towards	Job & ability	Career & possibility
Who leads?	Trainer	Self
Purpose	To improve the work performance or capabilities of an employee.	To prepare individuals for future challenges.
Number of people	One or many	Only one
Aim	Specific job or role related	Conceptual and general knowledge

The Purpose of Training

To provide the ability to undertake a task or job

To improve productivity and workforce flexibility

To improve safety and quality

To develop the capability of the workforce

The Purpose of Development

More productive management and leadership come from better educated and informed managers. Research has shown that the performance of managers can be improved through:

Better knowledge

Changing attitudes

Increased capability and skills

The purpose of ‘development’ is to improve leadership effectiveness through planned and structured learning. A planned approach to developing managers and leaders will enable the growth of managers. It will also provide for the future needs of the business or organisation.

The article emphasizes that training is best conducted on-the-job rather than in a classroom.

In the past (the 1970s & 1980s), training was associated with being in a classroom with a trainer or instructor. A training course started at the beginning, ended at the end, and everyone in the room got the same things.

The world has moved on.

I have pontificated on this point before. Too often we all sit through a training workshop on a particular subject in which we have no or little interest or of which we really need some small part. That "some small part" is presented, but we miss it while looking at our smartphone messages. Besides, even if we heard the lecture and observed the demonstration, could we have performed "some small part" on our own? We'll never know. What is needed is just-in-time performance oriented training (POT): (1) need identified and communicated, (2) subject matter expert appears and trains to the task, (3) repetitive performance of task, (4) critique and re-training as necessary.

How to Create a Simple Budget In Excel

This is a monthly budget I put it together for a friend who was frequently overdrawing his bank account. It tracks daily expenditures and balance. While simple, it contains some unique features. Here is an example for downloading and modifying to your needs. It is not necessary to understand the formulas in order to use the budget spreadsheet. You can just change the categories of expenses, notes, target amounts and prepopulated expenses then record your daily expenses as they occur.

If you wish to see all the formulas in the spreadsheet at once:

• Windows PC - ctrl + ` (the acute accent key, found next to the number 1 on your keyboard)


• Mac - Cmd + `

Note that the columns automatically expand so as to reveal the formulas.

The primary purposes of this budget are to track expenditures, let users known what the ending month's balance is likely to be and pinpoint exactly where they stand at all times during the month .

• The white fill space (F6:AI31) is where users enter expenditures. Inserting explanatory comments in the cells can be helpful (right click on the cell, click Insert Comment and enter your comment. Comments are denoted by a small red triangle in the upper left corner of cells.

• Cell B3 [=MIN(INDIRECT(D3):AI5)] contains the lowest balance based on the following:
  
  
  
  • Cell B2 contains the likely ending balance based on projected income less the target expenditures [=F3+SUM(F4:AI4)-D32].
  
  
  • in cell D2 [=(HLOOKUP(TODAY(),F2:AI5,4))] which return today's balance and
  
  
  • cell D3 [=CELL("Address",INDEX(E5:AI5,MATCH(D2,E5:AI5,0)))] which returns the location of today's balance.
  
  
  
  


• And cell B4 contains the date that the lowest balance will occur [=INDEX(F2:AI2,MATCH(B3,F5:AI5,0))].

Row 3 beginning at Column F reflects the amount available as each day begins and Row 4 beginning at Column F reflects the total of the amounts incoming during that day. Row 5 beginning at Column F reflects the amount remaining at the end of the day. Rows 3 and 5 are computed automatically and Row 4 is input by users.

Each month is recorded on a separate Excel worksheet. To get started funds carried over from the previous are automatically recorded in cell F3 and the first date of the month is carried over from the last date of the previous month plus 1 into cell F2. The remaining cells in column 2 are computed by adding 1 to the previous cell. The days of the month are returned from a VLOOKUP function [=VLOOKUP(WEEKDAY(F2),$AM$2:$AN$8,2)] from the array at AM2:AN8.

The panes are frozen at F6 to facilitate entering and viewing date in the white fill area [View>Freeze Panes>Freeze Panes].

The light blue fill cells in Column D are the monthly target expenditures for each category. The red fill cells in Column E are the actual expenditures that seldom change so are prepopulated. The darker blue cells in Column E are the expenditures to be recorded as they occur. All the cells in Column E are computed by a simple sum of each row 6 thru 31 [e.g. =SUM F10:AI10)]. The totals of Columns D and E are in Cells D32 and E32. The debit row  (Row 32) sums each expenditure column. The cumulative debits and credits are reflected in rows 33 and 34 respectively.