North Carolina's Letter Grades for Schools

On Saturday I attended a meeting of my education sorority.  One of the items we discussed was Friday's release of report cards for North Carolina's Public Schools that now include a letter grade for schools.  The majority of schools that received letter grades in the C, D and F range are schools that serve mainly those students who live in poverty.

The majority of schools that received grades of A and B were those serving more socio-economic advantaged students. This report card grade was based on EOG test results, a test that is taken in a 2-3 day period with students being tested on all they have learned in one school year.  It was mentioned in my meeting that if a teacher gave a report card grade based on one test given during a grading period, parents would be beating down the principal's door and calling the superintendent or school board members objecting to the grading system.  However, when our state legislature does something similar with this letter grade report card to the teachers and schools in our state, there is little reaction from the community.

All the schools in North Carolina are being graded based on a sample of a 3-4 hour reading test and a 3-4 hour math test that is given under intense pressure to students in grades 3-12.  The results of these two testing session are used to determine what a student is capable of doing and how well a school is performing.  The grade given to schools has little consideration of how much growth a school makes.  The performance scale is focused on how many students are on grade level on a few days in May each year.  It matters not that a student doesn't test well because they witnessed domestic violence in their home the night before, that a student has only had the meals provided for them at school over the last month, that a student has only been in the United States for 3 years and is not a fluent speaker of English but is tested and expected to be on grade level using English after 3 years, or that a student might be taking the test with a headache or minor illness but is afraid to miss school and take a make-up test.  We should all be up in arms over how our state legislature has mandated that schools be measured.

I happen to work in one of those schools that didn't fare very well on the state report card.  99.9% of the student I work with live in poverty and have bigger worries than school - they worry about their next meal or if someone in a gang might bully them the neighborhood they live in.  At the same time, these students are growing more in performance than their counterparts elsewhere in the district who live in affluence.  The thing is, these kids come to kindergarten often having heard very little English and never have experienced being read to daily the way kids from more affluent households have been.  The teachers at my school put in long hours trying to push their students in order to get them closer to that grade level mark.  They are making tremendous gains.  The majority of students grow more than one grade level per year.  Under this letter grade system for schools, because many of these students still score below grade level expectations, the school is punished.  The system does not factor in the fact that a student may start Kindergarten functioning at the level of a 3 or early 4 year old.  The child may make more than one year's academic growth, but if they started a year functioning at the level of a 3 year old, at the end of Kindergarten, they might just be at the level of a 4 year old.  By third grade, this same student might be functioning at the level of a 1st or 2nd grader and has made great gains since starting school, but if they are not on what a test given on a few days on May considers to be grade level, the child, the teacher and the school can be labeled as a failure.

The letter grade system only punishes and demoralizes those teachers who work in the most challenging of situations.  When a teacher is worried over if a child had a meal, has clean clothes or if they were victimized in their home the night before, academics are not the main concern.  These teachers worry over the basic needs of their students - food, clothing, safety.  Academics come in second to the basic needs of these students.  Yes, as teachers we push the kids academically; however, if a kid comes to school having not slept because they heard violence in their home or neighborhood, letting the child sleep and get rest in a place they feel safe might be more important at that moment than whether or not the child can read on grade level.  Our legislature needs a wake-up call to the realities of what many students in our state have to face on a day to day basis.  Our schools work tirelessly day in and day out to do everything possible insure that each student is all that he or she can be.  Rather than focus on who's on grade level, we need to be focused on what can we as a state do to help all our students reach their potential.

Love & Forgiveness

The last couple of Sundays, I've gone back to the church I grew up in for services.  Many of the members there are part of my extended family and it's meant a lot to have some of them come up to me and tell me how much I'm loved and how happy they are to see me at the services.  It's helped me realize that letting disagreements take control robs you of time with those who, even when there's a disagreement, love you.

Today, I sat in church and reflected on an infant sent to us over 2000 years ago; a child who as an adult modeled unconditional love and taught us about forgiveness.  When you let anger and hurt feelings take control of your heart, you're letting a form of evil have control in a situation.  In finding the ability to move past hurt and move forward with love, you are doing what Jesus taught us to do.  I was Googling verses on forgiveness today as I reflected on what I wanted to say in this blog.  The verse below seemed to speak to me today:

Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  Colossians 3:13

The ability to forgive and let go of hurt is one of the biggest challenges any person can face.  I hope and pray that during the holiday season, those who are holding grudges and struggling with being able to forgive and let go of hurt find the ability to do so.  Grudges and hurt only lead to suffering and misery for all involved.  This is the time of year to remember that God so loved the world that he gave us his only son.  If he can give us that gift, how can we not share the gift of love and forgiveness with one another.

Teaching Kids The Value of Money and About Gratitude

I've been reading about the family that has decided to cancel Christmas and it has me reflecting on what is being bought for children today.  I can remember as a child, Christmas was a special time and my brother and I often got very nice gifts at the holidays from "Santa", our parents and grandparents. At the same time, we were raised with a realistic view of what we could have and what things cost.  I earned an allowance from an early age and was encouraged to buy some things for myself to learn about the value of money.  We also learned about doing for others in need at the holidays.  At church, we collected items for the homeless shelter, observed our parents working with others at the church to help families in need around the holidays and learned that valuable lesson of what it means to be blessed to have the things we have.  

As a teacher, I now work in a school that serves the kids of those families in need and see those without coats, enough to eat and those in homes where neglect and abuse happen.  I have also worked with and known kids who come from homes where their parents can afford to buy them a multitude of things they want.  I have seen families who indulge kids with things to make up for being busy at work or as a way to try an make up for something unfortunate that may have happened in the child's life.   My observation is that many of these kids haven't necessarily developed an entitlement attitude; it's that they haven't learned what it means to earn some of these things that they have been given.   

 I often worry when buying things for my boyfriend's daughter, that I may be guilty of indulging her wants and not taking the time to teacher her about the value of earning things or that maybe we are not doing enough to teach her about the fact she is blessed to have things and not every child out there has these things.  As one of the adults in her life, I know that I have a responsibility to teach her about setting goals and working toward earning some of the things she may want.  I also have the responsibility of helping her develop an attitude of gratitude and a knowledge of the importance of doing for others.  The question I think many adults in the life of a child have to wrestle with is how do I teach these lessons in a world where so many of the kids around have.  Even my students who live in poverty talk about having iPads and X-Boxes at home because their families want them to be like most kids in our materialistic society and have these things.  These families go in debt or do without necessities to give their kids the things that are valued currently in the have the latest and greatest gadget culture.    

So, how do we teach our children to appreciate having things, that it's okay not to have everything our friends have and that some things we have are earned, not handed to us easily?  I think it starts with learning about money, it's value and it's use.  At school, part of the Social Studies curriculum is financial literacy.  The thing is, teaching kids about money at school doesn't ingrain habits of how to use money day to day.  Our kids get those lessons by watching and learning from the adults in their lives.  It's easy to want to protect kids and not let them know about money and the problems that come with managing expenses.  At the same time, it's important that kids hear about what things cost so they can learn to value what they have.  I know of some parents who explained to their kids that Santa has elves to pay and reindeer to feed and sends a bill for the things left at Christmas.  These parents gave their kids a budget once they were old enough and the kids had to make their wish list based on what that budget was.  Another family I know only allows their children three gifts at Christmas in connection with the gifts of the Three Kings who visited Baby Jesus. Kids earning an allowance by doing chores to contribute to the family and having that money to buy some of your wants on your own is another way to teach the value of money.  Talking about saving for something for the family, such as a new big screen TV, is another way to teach the lesson of valuing money.

There's also making sure kids learn those lessons about helping those in need.  Even if you are not involved in a church that provides opportunities for your child to learn these lessons, you can teach about helping those in need.  Taking your child to choose and buy a toy to donate to a toy drive, having your child help pack up old toys and clothes to donate to a charitable organization that helps those in need provides the opportunity to have those talks that develop the attitude of gratitude.  

Truly, the challenge of avoiding the "entitlement" attitude being formed in children is up to the adults in their lives.  Adults have to not give in to that peer pressure from society to give their kids or themselves everything wanted in our materialistic society.  It is our job to instill the attitude of gratitude and the ability to work and save in order to obtain some of the things we want.

Summer Means Both Fun and Worry

As excited as I am for summer and the time I will have to learn new things at ISTE in Atlanta and at the Alice training I am attending at Duke University, I'm also worried about my students at school.  Summer for them can be a time of uncertainty.  Many of the kids I work with live in poverty and the meals they know will be there for them at breakfast and lunch at school are not necessarily easily received in the summer.  Yes, my school hosts a summer feeding program; but that's no guarantee that the parents of my students will be able to get the kids to the cafeteria each day for the meals that will be offered.  I also worry about the academic backslide these kids will encounter when they are not in the rich learning environment that school provides.  So many of their parents juggle multiple jobs and deal with the stresses of living in poverty and as a result lack the time or energy to just talk with and read with their kids.  At a workshop I attended last week, we heard the data about how so many of our kids in the high poverty schools come in and make large gains and then they go home for the summer and the data collected shows that over the summer these kids can lose 4-6 months of growth during their summer backslide.  So, as we go into the last weeks of school, I know that we have to use every minute we have to grow our students as much as possible because the more they grow the better.

Best Practices With Digital Resources

Graphic I created during a DPI
training session I attended
in the winter of 2012.

For my EDTC 6070 class,  I was asked to blog about the best practices in use of digital resources in the classroom.  As a technology teacher in a high poverty school, I see students and teachers on a daily basis who struggle with using technology as an educational tool.  In terms of best practices, I think the key is that the curriculum has to drive the activity and the technology has to be a tool.  All too often, I see teachers who use technology as the means to keep students occupied through games so they can assess or work with small groups and they fail to see technology as a tool that can foster student learning through project based learning activities where technology is a tool used to build knowledge. 

I think we are failing our teachers in providing the support they need to start using technology as an instructional tool as part of the T-PACK Model.   Content standards should drive instruction and teachers need to have knowledge of how to effectively integrate technology tools with the instruction they will be offering.  Pedagogy is moving towards the teacher serving more as a facilitator with students rather than lecture style instruction.   In order to support that shift in pedagogy, schools need strong instructional technologist coaching our teachers with how to best utilize technology tools as part of their instruction.  Project based learning is one of the best ways for having students use technology as a learning tool.  In my school, I have been collaborating with our Science specialist on a project with fifth graders.   In her classes, groups of students have been inventing their own brand of sneakers.  With me, students are working in collaborative groups to develop a commercial using iMovie or Animoto to sell their product much as an inventor would to profit from his or her invention.  The focus of the commercial project is to develop persuasive writing skills.  This is an example of how to use technology as a tool with students to reach that “Sweet Spot” where engagement and learning are maximized.