Gaining perspective in life

We talk a lot about goal setting in our district. 

We have district goals.

I have Superintendent goals.

We encourage our teachers to establish learning goals.

Another way to look at goals is captured by Candy Chang in her talk about "Before i die I want to . . ."

I like goals.

Goals help me focus.

This TED talk gives me an important perspective on goals. Perspective is important in life. Focusing on things that matter, things that make a difference, things that will bring joy to my life will in turn provide others the opportunity to gain perspective as well. 

Stop bashing tests and talk honestly about student achievement

Many people criticize standardized testing.

Just this week the Washington Post ran a story about the revolt in Texas over funding standardized testing.

The Seattle Times ran an editorial about teachers who boycotted giving a standardized test.

I would think that we would have come to agreement on whether standardized tests should be part of the school culture by now. After all, we have been giving standardized tests for a long time.

Yet the conversation keeps going. Kind of like Bill Murray's movie "Groundhog Day" - the same thing over and over again.

I believe that it is important for us - the school community - to be able to identify clearly for a student and a parent the skills of that student. Students come to school to learn. We should be able to identify what a student has learned by being in our school. If we can't do that - if we can't say with confidence that our teachers and our school has helped in these ways - then why should a community support the schools.

I understand that there is a lot more to educating a child than just what goes on in school. Poverty, parental expectations, opportunities to learn, experiences outside of school, student desire - the reasons for the differences in student performance is long and complicated.

But we should be able to identify for ourselves and for our students and parents what students learn when they are in our schools.

Should we rely only on a standardized test to do that? Of course not.

Should we rely only on the grades that a student earns to do that? Of course not.

Should we rely only on the in class teacher assessments to do that? Of course not.

We need to have multiple measures that communicate a complete picture of the strengths and weaknesses of a student. Each different measure gives us a perspective. We need to take each of the perspectives and mold a complete picture of student performance.

We owe it to ourselves and to our students to find a way to use the multiple and varied tools that we have to help students know their strengths and weaknesses.

Is it easier to be a successful football coach or a successful teacher?

Teaching is hard work.

There is no other way to say it.

But why?

I found a glimpse of why it is so hard when I read this in a Sports Illustrated article on college football:

(Coach Jimbo) Fisher explained that since taking over (as head coach at Florida State), he had hired a nutritionist to monitor what players ate. He had contracted a mental-conditioning coach to change how players thought. He had inherited two strength-and-conditioning- assistants, then hired six more and was on the verge of bringing on a seventh to ensure that players received more individual attention in the weight room. Fisher then asked the boosters to dig deep because he needed more. He wanted better dorms for the players and an indoor practice facility.

In my district, the expectation is that teachers will do all of those things. I don't have the luxury of hiring a nutritionist or a mental-conditioning coach or a strength coach.

I hire first grade and third grade and math and Spanish and Japanese and history teachers and expect them to attend to all of the variety of issues that a first or third or eighth or eleventh grader has.

If a student needs to learn to focus, I expect my teacher to help them do that.

If a student has to get organized, I expect my teacher to help them learn to do that.

If a student needs work on the basics, I expect my teacher to help them with that.

College football coaches have it easy. They get to hire strength coaches and nutritionists and tutors. The coach needs to have a vision but they get to hire people to help execute it.

Teachers, on the other hand, have to have the vision and the ability to execute.

So, Jimbo Fisher and Nic Saban can be acclaimed as great coaches, and they are, but to really see a successful person find a teacher!

Can Nick Saban teach me anything?

I'm a football fan.

My dad, from Oklahoma, instilled in me a respect and love for the game.

Bud Wilkinson and the University of Oklahoma's 47 game winning streak were part of the lore and legend that surrounded the house I grew up in.

So football is part of me. Which leads me to respect what Nick Saban has done at Alabama over the past 6 seasons.

This past Monday, Nick Saban and his Alabama Crimson tide won their 3rd national championship in four years.

The question is how can Nick Saban be that good?

A glimpse of why Alabama and Nick Saban are that good is captured in this article by Michael Weinrib. The author suggests that it is Saban's drive to be the best that propels him toward excellence. At one point, the author explains, Saban was asked why he continued to do what he does.

And Saban sort of stared down the questioner for a second, and then he said this: "Why do you do what you do? Are you driven to be the best at what you do?"

The author goes on to connect Saban's drive to an example that Martin Luther King Jr. used when he was encouraging people, students in particular, to strive for excellence. In an article in the Seattle Times that captures Dr. King's words to a group of junior high school students in 1967, Dr. King is asking, "What is your life's blueprint.?"

Dr. King says to these students:

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.

So what can I learn from Nick Saban? I can learn the lesson that he learned from Dr. King and from his father. Be the best at whatever you are!

It's a new year - Make a difference!

Here's a short video on making a difference.

Perhaps, as this new year starts, we can all commit to making a positive difference everyday.

It's a simple goal - but one that we can achieve.

Embrace life

As the sun rises outside my office I watched a video of Steve Jobs talk about life. Steve Jobs was a complex man, who like all of us, was not perfect. But this video made me reflect on my life, what I am doing, and where I am going. What do I want out of life?

Who's college ready?

What does it mean to be college ready?

Here's a quiz that uses profiles of real students. Can you tell which one is college ready? (To read the chart: Amy’s ACT English score was 32; her math score was 19; her reading score was 35; her science score was 28; and her ACT Composite was 29.)

So which one was college ready?

ACT explains the college ready score in the following manner:
Empirically derived, ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks are the minimum scores needed on the ACT subject area tests to indicate a 50% chance of obtaining a B or higher or about a 75% chance of obtaining a C or higher in corresponding credit-bearing first-year college courses. 

Most of us understand the composite score on the ACT.

As you can see these nine students have a variety of composite scores:

	ACT Composite
Amy	29
Bob	30
Cal	22
Deb	22
Eve	30
Fay	29
Gus	24
Hal	26
Jan	29

One might guess that those who are college ready are the students with highest composite score.

That guess would be wrong!

There are two students who are college ready in this list. They are Call and Deb. The students with the lowest overall ranking are the two students that ACT would say are "college ready."

Bob and Eve with composite scores of 30 are not considered "college ready" in all four subjects because they did not score at one of the ACT cut scores. Bob did not meet the cut score in math and Eve did not meet the score in science.

The students with the lowest ACT composite scores are, according to ACT, the most "college ready" of the group.

Why?

Because they hit the magic thresholds.

	ACT English		ACT Math		ACT Reading		ACT Science		ACT Composite
ACT Scale Score Cut Score to be considered college ready	18		22		21		24		Not used
National Percentile Rank	37		63		53		80
Michigan Average	18.3		19.3		19.4		19.7		19.3
Class of 2010 National Average	20.5		21		21.3		20.9		21
Class of 2010 MI Average	18.9		19.7		19.7		19.9		19.7

This chart shows the magic numbers according to ACT. On the English sub-test of ACT in order to have a 50% chance of earning a "B" or better or a 75% chance of earning a "C" or better in the freshmen level English class, ACT's research says you need a minimum score of 18. That score of 18 is at the 37th percentile. Said another way, 73% of the students who take the ACT hit the college ready score in English.

You can also see that in science a student needs to earn a 24. That score of 24 is at the 80th percentile. Only 20 percent of the students in the United States who take the ACT hit the college ready score in science.

This all leads to another question: Does a student have to be college ready in all four subjects to be successful in college?

The answer is no.

We could use this data to hammer our teachers and say that they are not preparing our students to be successful in college. But that would be wrong!

Or we could look at this data and use it for its intended purpose - continued dialogue about what our teachers are doing right and what our teachers can do to get better.