Teacher evaluations: So soon old, so late smart

The old adage - so soon old and so late smart - seems oddly appropriate as the conversations continue to swirl around how to evaluate teachers.

It seems as if the conversation has been raging for years - so soon old.

But it also seems that we are no closer to deciding how to evaluate teaching and what characteristics we should see in classrooms - so late smart.

In teacher evaluation, school administrators have played a large part in bringing us to where we are today. For many years, we allowed a system to be created that did not honor teachers. It was a system that looked for minimal compliance then rated almost everyone as satisfactory. Satisfactory was seen as excellent by many. We allowed this perception because we, the school administrators, were not willing or able to have deep and meaningful conversations about teaching and learning with teachers.

That is not to suggest that we have a host of teachers who are incompetent hiding beyond public view in our schools. Quite the contrary. the vast majority of our teachers are effective. A smaller subset of those teachers are very effective.

To be honest, and fair, teachers have also been complicit in our old teacher evaluation system. Teachers, in my opinion, were hesitant to be singled out as exceptional or above average and settled for the "satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory" rating system. Less turbulence in a system such as that.

Many teachers also rightly pointed out that the evaluation system needs to be more robust since judging teacher performance on just one or two hours out of a whole school year does not really give a well rounded picture of a teachers' talent.

Now, we have entered a new era. Now, thanks to legislation and changing perceptions, teachers must be rated. We must also use student data as a piece of evidence. In Michigan, 25% of a teacher's evaluation will be based on student growth during the 2013-2014 school year. The next year that increases to 40% and the year after that to 50%.

I am still not convinced that these changes will significantly change teacher evaluation. If a principal has been unwilling to have deep and meaningful conversations about teaching and learning in the past a new system will not change that. Administrators need to have the courage to do the job that they have been hired to do. The most important job of an administrator is to make sure that high quality learning environments are created in classrooms everyday. In order to do that an administrator needs to be in classrooms, talking to teachers, having conversations with students, and monitoring teaching and learning experiences.

That is not because the teaching and learning experience is poor. In my district good things happen everyday in the schools. But we can be better. We can be more reflective on what is working and what is not. We can be more reflective on how we use, or waste, time. We can be more reflective on what the student data is telling us about what students are or are not learning. We can be more reflective on if our students are engaged and interested in what is going on.

Teaching and learning is important. If we can use teacher evaluations as a way to elevate the conversation between administrators, teachers, and students about what is going on in classrooms then we will create the classrooms that we need to educate the students who show up in our classrooms every day.

Then we will not feel old and we will find ways to be smarter about the most important thing that we do in schools - teaching students.

Student success: Two ends of one road

There are two significant ends of a continuum that as a Superintendent I have yet to understand how to embrace.

On one end of the continuum are the good things we do as a district. I want to promote these good things. I want to give our community confidence that we are helping students and that we are making a difference in their lives.

The most recent example comes to us courtesy of the just released Michigan Merit Exam scores. Novi High School has among the highest scores in the state. We should be proud of that fact. Many of our students demonstrate a high level of achievement and the majority of our students are in the advanced and proficient categories.

When results like these are released, districts send out press releases concentrating on the positives. Local newspapers promote these achievement like here and here and here and here. The state even gets into the act with press releases promoting the upward trends.

All this is done with the best of intent. We want the public to have confidence that schools are doing the job.

But there is an opposite end of that continuum. While the majority of the students in Novi do exceptionally well, the truth is there are students that we have yet to figure out how to help. We don't like to talk about it in public because it is uncomfortable, but it is true.

So, often, we hide behind composite scores and we talk about "as a group" or "on the whole" our students are doing well. That way we - the state and districts - can report that things are going well without having to embrace or publicly discuss the things that are not going well.

But for certain students in our districts and in our schools things are not going well.

So how can I - the Superintendent - embrace the two ends of this continuum?

First, celebrate success.

Honor the work that our teachers do and celebrate the success of our students.

Second, don't hide the fact that we have some students who struggle.

When we try to hide those numbers we unintentionally devalue the students in those positions. We need to communicate clearly that we honor those students as much as we honor those that achieve at a high level. Additionally, we need to communicate that we will find ways to support and help those students succeed.

Third, recognize that some of the success that we have in school districts can be traced not only to our staff but also to our parents and community. Many of our students are successful because our parents provide the environment and support they need to be successful. The scores that are reported reflect, in some way, the efforts of our parents and community. As a district we have to be humble and grateful for the support that we receive.

Finally, as a district we need to focus on each student. Every student - whether he or she is the student who excels or the student who struggles - deserves to be in a challenging instructional environment. We cannot let those students who are successful just coast because they already know the curriculum just as we cannot let the students who struggle sink because they take extra time and effort.

Every student is important and deserves to be challenged.

So, what is a Superintendent to do? How can I celebrate the good we do while at the same time clearly express that the students who struggle are important and that we have plans to help them succeed?  

FISA courts, national security, and student testing: What's the connection?

What follows may be a stretch but hang with me. I think there is a connection.

Recently on NPR author Tim Weiner was interviewed about our national security program, the FISA court, and the recently revealed government surveillance program.

While interesting, none of what he said really related to my world until he said the following:

"Our capacity to collect (information) far exceeds our capacity to analyze and act."

Bells and whistles went off in my head. This is part of the problem in American education. Everyone it seems wants to collect information. However, collecting information is not the most important part of what we do. The critical act for us is analyzing information, figuring out what the information is telling us.

In our district we have tried to streamline the information that we collect. We do benchmark assessments with the NWEA twice a year only. Aside from state assessments we try to limit other more formal assessments. The informal classroom based assessments are meant to provide more timely, focused information.

Some of the teachers, and most likely the principals, in my district might argue, some rather passionately, that we test students too much. In the first month of school we give both the NWEA and the MEAP (state required) assessments. We also administer the Fountas and Pinnell assessments. Throughout the year we also administer unit pre/post-tests, end of course or end of semester exams. We administer the MME (state required) assessments to 11th grade students that includes the ACT assessment. We also use the EXPLORE and PLAN assessments with our 9th and 10th grade students.

While that seems like a lot of assessment, the total time for the standardized assessments is less than 2% of student hours over the course of a year. Honestly, we use about the same amount of time lining up students at the end of the day.

I would not disagree that the best use of classroom instructional time is for instruction. However, an important component of effective instruction is understanding what students know and can do. That requires assessment. So at some level assessment needs to be given some time to occur over the course of the year.

The question is, as Mr. Weiner so eloquently put it, do we have the capacity to analyze and act?

I believe we have the capacity. In the case of education, an additional question is do we have the will?

I know that we have teachers and administrators who are willing to and who have the ability to look at data and see what is going on in the life of a child. \

But sometimes it is easier to rely on our hunches or our informal observations or our experience with a child. I would not disagree that those are important and valuable pieces of information. But the information we can gather from more formal assessments is also valuable. It gives us another perspective that can either help us confirm or reject what our more informal data collection has revealed.

Teaching, it has been said, is both art and science. We need to remember that as we try to sort through the data that we collect on our students. We cannot focus on the data to the exclusion of things we see in the classroom. We cannot focus on our classroom experience to the exclusion of what more standardized assessments tell us.

We must be better than those who collect data for national surveillance. They have become quite adept at collecting data. We have traveled a piece of that road. Now it is time to make sure that we are also prepared to analyze and use the data to help students learn.

I am a number, but that doesn't tell the story

I'm a number.

I have an age - 56.

I have a weight - 212.4. That's still high but down from what it was last summer. (It will be down later this summer. Check back for updates.)

I have a waist - 34. At least I tell myself that it's 34. I'd like it to be a 32 but right now it is probably more like a 36.

I have a height - 6'1".

I have a blood pressure - 110/60.

I have a pulse rate - 65 while resting.

I had an ACT test score - 28 - although I am a little unsure how long that is really good for.

I have a shoe size - 11. Although with some shoes I need a half size bigger and with others I need a half size smaller. Don't ask me why - I can't explain it.

There is a number for almost any part of me.

One might argue that I could be defined by my numbers. They, in theory, tell you how healthy I am, how fast I am, how smart I am.

These days there are people who want to use numbers to define our schools. Match a test score with a teacher and whiz-bang you have a number that will tell you if that teacher is doing a good job.

I happen to believe that numbers are a good thing.

But I think numbers are being asked to do things that they cannot do.

Numbers can give you information but they can't give you answers.

People give answers. People figure things out.

So while we have a lot of numbers with schools what we are missing are answers.

Numbers can't define schools anymore than numbers can define me.

Numbers can describe me. They can identify very specific parts of me. But numbers don't tell the whole story.

Numbers can't tell you about why I laugh or smile.

Numbers can't tell you what I care passionately about or what I love to read.

Numbers can't tell you why I love baseball or why I am so bad at golf.

But numbers are easy to find.

So sometimes we invest numbers with magical powers that they do not have.

Numbers give information but people give answers.

So in my school district we are forced to use numbers to evaluate teachers. And we will.

But we will also ask teachers what they know about the numbers. What do the numbers say?

I am not looking for numbers to give me an answer.

I am looking for a teacher, a principal, a person to give me an answer.

The numbers might be able to tell me what a student scored. A teacher will be able to tell me what it means. A principal will be able to help me understand.

Why the world is different and schools must be as well

Boeing, according to the Seattle Times, is now using robots to "wash, apply solvent to remove dirt, rinse and then spray two different paint types. They reach,even into complex spaces inside the open wing root that must be painted for corrosion protection."

It used to take a team of painters 4.5 hours to apply the first coat of paint. The robots do it in 24 minutes.

The inspiration for this change - the automobile industry. 

Jobs that used to be there are no longer there. Those jobs have been going away for a long time. Those of us who live in the industrial Midwest have seen this trend - have lived this trend - with the automobile industry for quite some time. As we continue to move forward the routine jobs, the manual jobs, the jobs that used to pay well will continue to go away. 

They will be replaced by jobs that require students to think more and do less.

Those of us who educate students understand we need to educate students to program the robots instead of educating students to paint. 

The world will always need doers but the present and the future require schools to produce thinkers.

Did I learned anything important in school?

Did I ever learn anything important in school?

Yes.

But, of course, I'm supposed to think that. I'm a Superintendent.

The question is what?

Neil Gaiman has said:

I've been making a list of the things

they don't teach you at school.

They don't teach you how to love somebody.

They don't teach you how to be famous.

They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor.

They don't teach you how to walk away from someone

you don't love any longer.

They don't teach you how to know what's going on

in someone else's mind.

They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying.

They don't teach you anything worth knowing.

Each of us could add to the list that Mr. Gaiman started.

They don't teach you how to laugh.

They don't teach you how to enter a room and feel comfortable.
They don't teach you how to react when you get

a phone call with terrible news.

They don't teach you how to be a friend.

The list could go on and on. School does not teach us everything. 

But is it true that school doesn't teach you anything worth knowing? No!

School doesn't teach us everything. It is not supposed to. School can't teach us everything. There is just too much to know.

That's where parents, grandparents, friends, uncles, aunts, and others come in.

That's why we develop passions and interests and do our own research. 

But that brings us back to the question that we started with - what did I learn in school that is important?

It's not so much that school taught me specific things that I will remember all my life - although it did. I learned about the periodic table and simplifying equations and the APA method of citations for papers. I learned specific tasks to help me complete specific homework assignments. I learned multiplication tables and spelling words. I learned the classics and the not-so classics. 

I followed the tried and true math trail - algebra, geometry, algebra 2, and pre-calculus. I circled the globe learning about countries. I wrote papers. I completed projects in shoe boxes. 

I learned the curriculum that was taught. And that was important.

The things I learned in school prepared me for college. It gave me a foundation that allowed me to continue learning. 

But I also learned the curriculum that was not taught and that schools on occasion don't want to recognize.

I learned that people are not always nice. I learned that some people turn their backs on you and others embrace you. I learned that navigating the social pathway helps you learn a lot about yourself and a lot about other people.

I learned that looks are not everything. I learned that some people think they are.

I learned that some adults are your advocates and some adults are not.

I'm in a school because I believe in schools. Can schools be better? Absolutely.

Do I believe that schools help people learn things that are important? I believe that they do!  

On Teacher Appreciation Day, I would like to say thank you

I've had teachers whom I've loved.

Miss Hixenbaugh, 4th grade teacher at Inez elementary School. She had never married, stood over six feet tall, drove a Studebaker, and promised a Hershey candy bar and a dollar bill to any student who had perfect attendance. Plus, she was a wonderful teacher. We wrote stories, we acted out plays, we enjoyed coming to school every day.

I've had teachers whom I've respected.

Coach Braig, 10th and 11th grade Latin teacher at Sandia High School. He looked me in the eyes when he talked to me, challenged me to do better in his class, and always said hello to me when I walked by his classroom.

I've had teachers who challenged me.

Miss Ely, 10th grade English at Sandia High School. She helped me see that I had a voice and that I should share that voice with others. She challenged everyone in our class to try and do things differently, to engage people, to make people hear what you were trying to say.

I've had teachers who let me know that someone besides my Mom and Dad cared for me.

Mrs. Getz, 9th grade Speech teacher at Monroe Junior High School. She spent time helping me learn how to be on the debate team. She made sure that our class won the after-school PTA party. She laughed and cried with us because she cared.

Today, May 7th is officially Teacher Appreciation Day.

For all those teachers who have touched my life, had a hand in making me who I am today, challenged me, cared for me, inspired me, and taught me - I say thank you!