Bammy Awards raise serious issues

Have you heard of the Bammy Awards? Don't feel out of the loop if you haven't. The Bammys, produced by Bam Radio, are an Oscars-type award ceremony honoring educators. Bam, which touts itself as "The voice of the Education Community," is an excellent online radio network that produces high quality education programming.

In 2012, the network created its own version of the kind of popular award shows that honor TV and movie actors, right down to the red carpet. Unlike the Golden Globes or Oscars, though, the Bammys honor educators.

It's about time hardworking teachers get some positive pub, you may be thinking. At first, I felt the same. After further consideration, though, I quickly realized that I am not a fan of the Bammys. And I'm not the only one. Check out the amazing response to Pernille Ripp's Bammy post here.

Ripp is not so much anti-Bammy, as she is opposed to how the ceremony was produced. She specifically takes aim at jokes that were told, which may or may not have been in poor taste, and the lack of actual teacher awards presented live.

My issue is different, as I'm against the whole idea of the Bammys, in their current form. Why do teachers need red-carpet treatment? Why should there be a "Best" librarian or principal? Don't we teach kids that they should love learning for the sake of learning?

I believe the creators of the Bammys are well-intentioned. Where they missed the point is with whom they honor. Being a teacher isn't about receiving awards. It's about kids.

So if Bam Radio wants to produce a big event, even including a red carpet, I say make it 100 percent about students. Put the teachers where they belong -- in the audience!

cross posted at ASCDEdge

Don't miss ROLE Reversal: Achieving Uncommonly Excellent Results in the Student-Centered Classroom, now available in the ASCD store, Barnes & Noble and at Amazon.com and Mark's new book, The 5-Minute Teacher: How do I maximize time for learning in my classroom

Is Education Reserved for the Wealthy?

Special to Role Reversal
Lael De Boer

Far before your student ever receives their high school diplomas, they are dreaming of getting in to the perfect college with its academic reputation, beautiful campus facilities, and amazing athletic teams. The acceptance letter used to be the only worry clouding that dream, but now the piggybank is beginning to

overshadow this concern with an even greater one: How will you afford college?

Photo credit: Phase3Profit.net

College tuition and expenses have risen drastically over the past thirty years. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average yearly tuition has risen from $9000 to the current price tag of $21,657.  While tuition has risen greatly, the average amount of financial aid remains below $8000. This gap between the expensive bills and the available aid is creating a generation of college graduates with enormous college debt and high school students without much hope.

Those with mutual funds and mansions may be able to afford the rising costs, but as we have watched the cost of a college education rise more than more than ten times what it was 35 years ago (Bloomberg), the rest of us are beginning to wonder if education is becoming unreachable for the average citizen. 

Preserving Your Chance at Higher Education

For those of you who have been depending on student loans to pay for college, the latest events in Congress should be of great concern to you. Until July 1^st, interest rates on student loans remained at 3.4%, but due to the inaction of Congress, loan rates just doubled to 6.8%. This additional burden is placing higher education further out of reach for many.

Education Week reports that student advocacy groups are looking for a one-year extension of the lower rate, but this is only a short-term fix. For those of us who want to see long-term change, it is time to get involved in the political scene, even if it is simply sending a letter to your representative urging them to take action on this issue. Politicians need to start moving towards a comprehensive solution.

Still, college and exorbitant bills are approaching quickly for many, and parents and students are desperately searching for ways to make it more affordable. With the new interest rate in mind, the best way to pay for college involves avoiding loans. Chelsea Watkins outlined some of the best steps for funding a college education without creating debt in a recent interview. The most important points boil down to being prepared, being educated on what is available, and putting your best foot forward.

1. Start Accruing Money Now – No matter where you go to college, having money saved up will help when those bills arrive. However, instead of simply saving for college, start accruing money by placing your college savings in accounts that will grow that money. Similar to how a college loan would cost you more in the long-run through interest payments, placing money in accounts like 529s, Roth IRAs, and Dividend Paying Whole Life Insurance will make you more money overtime by gathering interest, meaning you’ll end with more money than what you started with. 

2. Understand Financial Aid – The amount of aid that colleges and the government will provide depends greatly on your EFC and the college’s % of Need Met. Your EFC (Expected Family Contribution) is the amount of money that the family is expected to pay for their student’s education. This number is calculated by examining the students and parents’ income and assets. Your “need” is than determined by taking the Cost of Attendance for an education institution and subtracting your EFC. Colleges vary in the amount of need they meet. Attending an institution with a higher % of Need Met means that you will receive more financial aid and will pay less out of your own pocket.

3. Put Your Best Foot Forward—Colleges determine their financial aid packages around a variety of factors besides need. Students already know that grades and their entrance exam scores affect their acceptance into college, but should remember that these factors also affect their financial aid awarding. Colleges also examine the strength of students’ applications. Doing what you can to ensure a stellar application and entrance essay will make colleges want you, thereby making them offer more aid in order to secure your

Lael De Boer writes for Launch Education, studies English Language Arts and writes everything from research papers and literary analyses to creative fiction. She is an avid proponent of proper English grammar usage and has become a keen editor from years of academic proofreading.

Don't miss Mark's book ROLE Reversal: Achieving Uncommonly Excellent Results in the Student-Centered Classroom, now available in the ASCD store, Barnes & Noble and at Amazon.com

Can we be this bold?

Brilliantly bold ideas about education from consultant Will Richardson. Thanks to Lisa Nielsen for sharing this.

So, can we be this bold?

Don't miss Mark's book ROLE Reversal: How Results Only Learning Will Change Education as We Know It, due in early 2013 by world education leader, ASCD

Learning for learning's sake

Photo credit: The Learning Institute

Several times, I've commented on posts at Joanne Jacobs' blog that a teacher's ultimate goal should be to create a love of learning in students.

Students should want to learn for learning's sake -- not because I tell them to learn something and certainly not for a grade.

My contention that creating a lifelong love of learning is paramount is often a point of contention in the blogosphere.

"Why should creating independent learners be the ultimate goal in education?" one inquisitive reader recently asked.

This seems so easy that I'm amazed by the question.

Is there another, better, goal for teachers?

Why can't change be this easy?

This video by my friend, Angela Maiers, will clarify the question asked in the title of this post.




So, why can't it be this easy?

Bye-bye honors, Bye-bye cheating

Lots of people around the blogosphere are rankled over a lawsuit parents filed on behalf of their cheating son.

The Sequoia High student was unceremoniously jettisoned from his honors class after copying homework, which violated the honor code he'd signed.

Fearing that the ejection  might interfere with his ability to qualify for an elite college, mom and dad are suing the school district.

Sure, this sounds petty and ridiculous, but what if we eliminated the "honors" tag on classes? Maybe the pressure to get higher grades might dissipate and the enthusiasm for cheating might quickly vaporize.

Do we really need honors classes?

That sounds good, but. . .

Let me begin by warning you that this is going to be a rant. It's a rant about the naysayers -- educators who interrupt every suggestion with "That sounds good, but. . . ."

It's clear to all who know me that I teach in a progressive, student-centered classroom. This doesn't make me unique; it just means I'm in the minority in the education world. I get that, and I'm doing all I can to encourage  more teachers to leave the traditional world and do what's right by their students.

Many traditional teachers are willing to make the change. I get dozens of e-mails, tweets and comments on this blog weekly from teachers who share heartfelt stories about transforming their classrooms, as I did a few years ago.

Ah, but I digress. Back to the naysayers. I simply don't understand why so many educators, who purportedly teach students to be open-minded, can't even consider the possibility that there might be better strategies than homework, worksheets and tests.

No matter what research I quote or how much personal success I share, all too often, the response is, "That sounds good, but. . . ." Then comes an endless stream of excuses as to why they can't abandon their traditional practices.

The conversation that garners the most "buts" is about feedback over grades. Ironically, I find many teachers who understand the deleterious effects of points and letter grades. The second I bring up replacing them with narrative feedback, though, I get, "That sounds good, but I don't have the time;" or "That sounds good, but they won't do it if I don't grade it."

Ridiculous.

My students never wonder about points or letters. They relish the feedback they receive. I know, because they actually thank me for it. Does feedback take time? Sure. If you're afraid of work, I'd suggest a profession other than teaching.

So, as you can see, all of the "That sounds good, but. . ." is driving me crazy.

Any suggestions?

Progressive, collaborative, dynamic social learning

Why haven't the traditionalists figured this out?

Do you suffer from the Lemming Condition?

Award-winning actor and author, Alan Arkin, tells a brilliant tale in his young adult novel, The Lemming Condition. The story is an allegory on conformity, as Bubber, a lemming, is faced with following his entire race to self-induced extinction.

Bubber struggles to decide if he should participate in what appears to be an insane death walk, only to constantly be told by family and friends that this is just the way things are.

I won't ruin the ending, but let's just say that Bubber isn't your garden variety conformist.


Several conversations with colleagues have me wondering if Arkin's lemmings could have just as easily been today's teachers -- legions of people who conform daily to the principles of traditional methods and administrative pressure to teach to the test.

Like Bubber, we are constantly told this is just the way things are.
Bubber was faced with extinction. One must wonder, are we next?

Results-only learning can appease the reformers

In a brilliant post at The Answer Sheet, edited by Valerie Strauss, New York city school principal, Brett Rosenthal, writes about everything that is wrong with school reform.

Among other things, Rosenthal suggests that the current reform movement attempts to solve education woes by eliminating teachers unions, promoting more teaching to test and, perhaps worst of all, creating a teacher rating system that will potentially undermine the effectiveness of teachers and damage impoverished students' chances at receiving a good education.

Although I agree with Rosenthal on all points, I also believe the best way to placate the reformers may be to stop fighting them. Reformers want more testing and more teacher accountability. Teachers hate testing and don't want to be rated based on test results. In a Results Only Learning Environment, students develop a thirst for learning. They become avid readers, curious researchers and effective problem-solvers.

Because of this, students in a ROLE perform well on standardized tests, as they look at it as one more easy hurdle to conquer. So, if we convert to results-only learning, teachers can have their cake and eat it too.

We can be outstanding educators and we can appease the reformers.

President Obama: you just lost my vote

Photo credit: Care2 Make a Difference

"You lost a lot more than me," Mr. President. "You just lost my vote."

Annette Bening's perfectly-delivered line during a climactic moment in the movie, The American President, is one that should resonate with President Obama, as tens of thousands of angry teachers in New York are likely saying the same thing today.

One day after New York teacher rankings were published, those educators and hundreds of thousands more nationwide are outraged, and we're not just mad at the idiots in New York who allowed this useless data to go public.

I'm certain that I speak for many of my colleagues when I say that the blame for this must fall squarely at the feet of President Barack Obama. After all, a monstrous $5 billion of Obama's education budget is intended to "tie teacher pay to performance." Don't assume for a second that "performance" means how well teachers actually teach. This is all about standardized testing -- something Obama suggested he'd fix, while campaigning four years ago.

Being kind, I'd say Obama has fallen short of his goal of fixing No Child Left Behind. Being accusatory, I'd say that Obama has flat-out lied.

If anything, during Obama's presidency, American education has gotten much worse than it was when he arrived. Not only are we still stuck with the monster that is high stakes testing, now teachers are being judged by this insidious data, which even most people outside of the profession realize is nothing short of illogical.

I proudly supported Barack Obama four years ago. I even campaigned form him. When things were going poorly his first couple of years in office, I defended him. Enough is finally enough. I can no longer support a president who has turned his back on education. I can't defend a purportedly-intelligent man, who wasn't smart enough to hire an educator to run his education department. I can't stand by a leader who values numbers over people.

President Obama has lost me as a supporter. He's lost more than me, though. He's just lost my vote.

Do your students know that you know their names?

Photo credit: designscollage.com

I recently listened to a scintillating presentation from Dr. Russ Quaglia, of the Qualia Institute. In his work on student aspirations, Qualia and his people survey students and educators around the world about perceptions of one another, among other important interpersonal items.

During a lecture, Quaglia announced that 50 percent of respondents nationwide say that their teachers don't know their names. Would you ever have guessed this to be true? Even if you see 150 students daily, you certainly know all of their names a couple of weeks into the school year, don't you?

"How often do you call every student by name?" Quaglia inquired, allowing the question's impact to settle for several seconds, before continuing. If a week passes, Quaglia continued, and you don't say a student's name, wouldn't she wonder if you know it?

I try to say every student's name daily, but I'm sure there are days that I fail to do so. Would all of my 112 students answer that question the way I want?

What about yours?

Shelly Terrell challenges you to "reveal their strengths"

In her 30 Goal Challenge, educator/presenter/blogger, Shelly Terrell, encourages teachers to improve their interactions with students and colleagues in 30 specific ways.

In Goal #4, she challenges us to "Reveal their strengths."

Are you ready to take the challenge?

ASCD presenter sounds like a ROLE guy

ASCD conference presenter, Watts Wacker, sounds a lot like someone who understands a Results Only Learning Environment. Get a glimpse of what his 2012 ASCD conference presentation will look like below.

Teacher meetings are deflating

I've always said that faculty meetings are the place where good ideas go to die. Sounds cynical, I realize, but think about it the next time you attend one. Bring up something innovative and see how quickly it's shot down by a principal.

After a couple of grade-level meetings, led by teachers, I realized that these gatherings are just as deflating as the faculty meetings conducted by principals.

It's one complaint after another -- most of them about the same things, students not performing or high stakes testing.

In addition to eliminating the test, I'm in favor of eradicating all meetings.

The numbers don't add up

While looking at students' grades in other classes, I came across several that didn't make sense. (Of course, by now, you know that grades, in general, don't make much sense to me.) Take a look at this example: 

In a class with 391 possible points, a student has 195 for a 50% F.

Seven of the assignments have 100% scores, which account for 73 points, meaning the student is perfect on nearly 20% of the material. Obviously, this is not a completely inept kid.

Three missing assignments account for 49 points -- 13% of the total. How much incentive does the student have to make them up? Based on the late penalties outlined below, I'd say there's very little incentive.

The student is penalized 25 points for several late activities. These penalties are harsh -- 50% of the value of the activity. Pretty tough for a 13-year-old. If I turn something in late to my principal, I certainly don't lose half of my pay.

Our sample student receives 28.5/99 on two tests, with no evidence of a retake on either. (Don't even get me started on the problem with two tests being 25% of the value of what a student produces in 45 days of work.)

These numbers simply don't add up. I got to thinking that if a report card grade is absolutely necessary, why can't we at least help students like this one taste a little success? So, I did some basic math, and here's what I came up with.

Raising the bar

 

If the late penalties are eliminated completely, this adds 25 points to the student's total score. Assume that the teacher does some re-teaching/coaching and the student retakes both tests. If the student improves to just 60% on both, her test total increases to 59/99.

These two simple changes (eliminating late penalties and bringing low test scores to just 60%) bring this student to a grade of C. Even if the student gets only 50% on one of the test retakes, she'll still get a C-.

I'd much prefer narrative feedback over the grade, but if some effort is made to help students perform well and embrace learning, the grades they have to get will increase. Then, perhaps they'll feel better about themselves and develop a thirst for learning.

As long as numbers exist, they might as well add up.

Harvard study misses the mark

I have been known to complain about bad or misinterpreted research. Today, I came upon another flawed study, courtesy of education blogger, Joanne Jacobs.

In a post citing a Harvard study on so-called "great teachers," Jacobs reveals that lengthy research by some Harvard educators shows a connection between what the folks at Harvard refer to as "value-added" teaching and going to college and making money, among other things. The study suggests that if students have teachers who are better than average, then these students will make more money than the students who have had bad teachers.

The Harvard study is based on, brace yourself, standardized test results. A "value-added" teacher is one whose students improve their standardized test score from one year to the next. Students in the study are considered successful if they make more money than students who didn't have so-called "value-added" teachers or if the students with "good" teachers went to college or -- my personal favorite -- didn't get pregnant as a teenager.

Am I the only one who thinks this may be the biggest waste of time researchers have ever put into a study?

How would you spend 71 billion dollars?

Congress recently approved more than $71 billion for education for the fiscal year ending September of 2012. Of course, hundreds of millions are set aside for Race to the Top and other useless organizations like Teach for America.

I did some quick math and learned that if the government simply divided the money equally by the number of public school students, it would mean schools would have roughly $1,400 per student. Granted, this isn't a huge amount, but if we knew there would be at least this much yearly, imagine what schools could do to improve education.

Just spitballing, my first thought was to put an iPad, loaded with powerful applications, in the hands of every student. These would last a long time, so in subsequent years, the $1,400 per student could go for other useful education materials.

Keep in mind, this is in addition to the millions districts get each year from tax dollars and existing government funds.

The way this gigantic pile of cash is currently dispersed, though, most of the nearly 50 million K-12 public school students are left penniless.

So, how would you spend 71 billions dollars?

It's time to put a square peg into a round hole

Photo via Flickriver.com

In a brilliant article, posted on Valerie Strauss's The Answer Sheet, San Francisco State professor emeritus Mark Phillips shares the following anecdote:

"Edwin Abbott’s classic book, Flatland, tells the story of a square that falls into a world of three dimensions. Returning to his two-dimensional world, he tries to explain his incredible experience. But how do you explain a cube to someone who can only conceptualize two dimensions? Ultimately he’s branded a heretic and jailed."

This got me thinking about my own attempts at education reform. As I share with colleagues the results-only strategies I use, I'm often greeted with skepticism. Fortunately, I've yet to be branded a heretic, but some of the dissenters have recently become vocal. Still, it seems that many of today's teachers struggle with change.

As Phillips writes, "Most teachers and administrators, dealing with the daily challenges of teaching, don’t have the luxury of thinking beyond the present paradigm."

Some, however, simply don't know when it's time to put a square peg into a round hole.

Exposing bad homework research

A heartfelt email from a new teacher prompted yet another post on the deleterious effects of homework.

Robert Marzano

Tony says that his school district is big into the teachings of Robert Marzano, specifically his book, Classroom Instruction that Works. 

"In the book," Tony writes, "they end up saying the research shows deliberate moderate amounts of practice homework are recommended (with caveats of grading and informative feedback), so is this research wrong?  Or are there exceptions to the homework idea?"

Unravelling Marzano
With all due respect, Marzano's evaluation of the research is inaccurate. In an article in Educational Leadership, Special Topic / The Case For and Against Homework (2007), Marzano and Debra Pickering cling mainly to the work of Harris Cooper, whose homework research spans decades. Marzano and Pickering carefully extract quotes from the mountains of research Cooper produced from the 1980s to the mid 2000s. Of course, they take what supports their argument and ignore some of Cooper's own admissions about the ineffectiveness of homework.

Marzano and Pickering rail against Alfie Kohn, who offers a much clearer interpretation of Cooper and dozens of others in his 2006 book, The Homework Myth. What Marzano and Pickering fail to mention, that Kohn so eloquently reveals, is that Cooper's research incessantly relates the effectiveness of homework to grades -- which are subjective measures of a student's achievement. (If I assign homework, my student doesn't do it, and I give her an F, this will easily bear out the supposition that not doing homework hurts achievement. The same scenario will obviously work in reverse.)

In a very telling study in 1998, which Marzano and Pickering conveniently omit, Cooper states that he found no significant relationship between homework and grades or between homework and scores on standardized test results for younger students. The study found only a moderate increase in grades for older students doing homework (Kohn, p. 33) and, as previously stated, connecting homework to grades is a pointless endeavor.

Marzano and Pickering also dwell on the statistics of several meta-analyses on homework by Cooper, John Hattie and others. Again, the problem with all of these, which Kohn dutifully explains, is that the proponents of homework measure it against grades and test scores. This, alone, is enough to discredit all of these researchers, because grades and tests are poor ways to evaluate learning. Continuing to evaluate the merits of homework against these useless measures only acknowledges that grades and tests are okay, in the first place.

What Marzano and Pickering offer that is useful for teachers working at schools which mandate homework is the section of the EL article that supplies guidelines for homework. For example, they suggest that it should be purposeful and involve parents in appropriate ways. If you are assigning homework, which you shouldn't, this is certainly good advice.

Summarizing
So, back to Tony. "Is the research wrong?" I'd say, as far as Marzano evaluates it, definitely. "Are there exceptions to the homework idea?" This depends on how you look at the word.

I'm fine with students working outside of class, as long as they choose when and how to do so. Reading, as evidenced here, is really the best thing students can do outside of school. This too, though, should be their choice, and it should never be connected to any grade or test. I wouldn't call these activities homework.


References

Kohn, A. (2006). The homework myth: Why our kids get too much of a bad thing.
     Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Press
Marzano, R. Pickering, D. (2007). Special topic/The case for and against homework. Educational Leadership. 64, 6. pp. 74-79.