Challenges (from the EISD website, Supe's Blog)

This year, (in educator talk that means school year 2012-2013), has been the most challenging year of my career.  I have faced a variety of health issues, ongoing construction, an ever tightening budget coupled with a surprising upswing in student enrollment, multiple new administrators in new roles, the development of a vision process and statement, reports on PreK, maintenance, random drug testing, safety and security, etc., etc., none of which were in the District Improvement Plan, which by itself is a major undertaking.  This is above and beyond the efforts to raise the bar, ensure to the best of my ability that we are constantly working to have ever higher outcomes in all our endeavors, and to inspire you to do the same.  We have engaged in this work in the context of another legislative session where absolute craziness seems to reign regarding public schools.  Bills proposing allowing private school students and home schooled students to participate in UIL, bills to remove low performing schools from the local school district, bills to create more charter schools, bills to allow de facto vouchers for rich kids in private schools, bills to alter the 4x4 and the End of Course exam, not to mention bills to actually fund public education still languish in the back halls of the state capitol.  On top of that an individual senator has decided to wage war on the very curriculum we and over 800 districts in this state use.  What a year!

As we emerge from the four day weekend surrounding Memorial Day and return to the last two weeks of school, I wonder how well we have done.  I know I have survived.  I believe you have survived.  Have we accomplished more than survival?  Have we improved?  STAAR results are just in and we are formatting those to get a good look.  As always we will see areas of great improvement and areas of disappointment.  Is this to be the bedrock measure of our success?  Are STAAR and EOC and AYP to be all that we hope to be?  Not just no, heck no.  It may be all that the state or feds care about, but it is not all that we care about.

We care about providing a safe school for the children of our community.  We care about providing a healthy school for the children of our community.  We care about promoting learning in a technologically rich and human nurturing environment.  We care about providing whatever is necessary for our kids to face a future that we cannot see nor can we predict.  We care about providing a host of enrichment experiences beyond the classroom in concert halls, livestock arenas and sports venues.  And we want to do all this in a climate of fewer resources and higher stakes.  I think we are amazing.  We have done all these things.  Not perfectly, not completely, but mostly!  We are educators, and it seems that no matter what the state, the feds or whoever throws at us, we rebound and work hard to be successful.  We have to.  Our mission is kids and their future.  What mission is more noble than that?

I have long bristled at mission and vision statements that include some version of the phrase, “teach kids to their highest potential.”  I do not believe that is possible.  I do not believe that is knowable.  What I believe is this:  we teach kids to our highest potential.  Yes, kids learn as we apply our own potential, our own guts and thoughts, our own caring and research, our own dedication and commitment to simply rise each day and come to work to help kids as best we can.  To help kids via our own individual potential.

As I think about our faculty and staff and our efforts to enrich and support and augment that potential I realize how blessed we are.  You are wonderful.  You treat major obstacles as simply speed bumps.  You find ways to make good things happen for kids.  Whatever the test scores show, you have worked your buns off for the sake of kids this year and I am deeply grateful.

Thank you.  I look forward to seeing you at our end of year BBQ lunch where we celebrate the year.  But for now, the challenges of 2012-2013 are mostly behind us.  I am gearing up for the challenges we have yet to see for school year 2013-2014.  And yes, we will face those together and we will do very well.

Thanks for all you have done this year.  I really appreciate it.

BW

Bullying Educators: CSCOPE (Part 3)

I should be doing other things.  I should be writing Board Notes, or checking on the new gym, or scanning the FEMA proposed guidelines, etc. etc.  However, I have a terrible confession to make:  I am a human being and a professional educator.  I am so upset by the turn of events yesterday regarding CSCOPE that I must take keyboard in hand to vent and explain so that I do not bust, and so that I can return to the work I should be doing.

Senator Dan Patrick announced yesterday with a certain degree of glee that CSCOPE had agreed to remove the exemplar lessons from its software.  He pushed for this.  He wanted this.  He announced elsewhere that this was the end of the CSCOPE era.  I am appalled, horrified and aghast.

I do not feel this way because I think CSCOPE is perfect.  I do not feel this way because I believe that all the lessons are appropriate, well thought out, or appropriately aligned.  I do not feel this way because I own stock in CSCOPE.  I am appalled that a state senator with a background in radio has taken it upon himself to bully a professionally developed and widely used curriculum management tool so that it better reflects his own values.  That is unspeakable.  That borders on McCarthyism.

835 of the 1000+ school districts in Texas use CSCOPE.  Each district chose and implemented CSCOPE in different ways.  We did not mandate that teachers use the lessons.  Some districts did.  Teachers in those districts complained about the lessons.  Teachers in our district complained about the lessons, but we did it via CSCOPE input channels and not on websites.  The lessons were written by educators, good hearted folks who spent time drafting lessons they hoped would align with the scope and sequence.  Some of the  1600 some odd lessons are great.  Some are not.  In testimony before Senator Patrick opponents complained that 7 lessons were anti-American and anti-Christian.  Really?  Texas educators writing lessons that are anti-American and anti-Christian?  No way.  Each of these lessons encouraged kids to think, to look at issues from multiple angles, to become an educated person.  Evidently this is not allowed.

There are a host of mechanisms in CSCOPE for review and edit of the lessons and unit exams.  Senator Patrick did not recommend that CSCOPE review and repair the questionable lessons.  He did not recommend that educators re-think some of the lesson content.  At first he pushed the requirement that the State Board of Education conduct a review of the lessons.  That was not good enough.  He set out to remove those lessons, all of them, for the few that some thought were questionable.  I believe he set out to abolish CSCOPE.

I find it incredibly scary that a non-educator with political power can dictate what instructional resources thousands of Texas teachers can access.  I especially find it scary if the reason to eliminate a resource is because of a political perspective that does not allow for other points of view.  If a single, non-educator, politician has that kind of power in Texas I wonder how free we really are as a profession to make our own decisions regarding instruction that best serves our kids.  In fact, I wonder how free we are to think at all in ways that are not consistent with his party line.  Not too free, it appears to me. 

And if the political rationale for eliminating the lessons in our adopted curriculum management program was to avoid indoctrination of our kids, what shall we call it when only one point of view, their point of view, is allowed to be taught?

If the rationale is not ideology but is economic gain then I am even more upset!

Now, back to work.

Violating the Prime Directive

Debbie was out of town last night so I snuck off to see the new Star Trek movie, “Into Darkness.”  In keeping with full disclosure, I am a Trekker.  I love Star Trek.  When the TV series premiered in 1966 my family would gather around the tube and watch each episode together.  In 1966 we were escalating our involvement in Viet Nam and the military draft was in place, LBJ was President, the civil rights movement for minorities and women triggered protests and violence, a sniper shot and killed people from the UT tower, and the hippie movement was well underway: an anti-establishment, pro free love and pro drug use sub culture that has had lasting impact on our country.  We were one year away from Woodstock and the mini-skirt was the rage.  Yes, 1966 was a challenging year.  Into this context premiered Star Trek.

The original Star Trek series and each subsequent spin-off began with the phrase, “Space: the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the Star Ship Enterprise.  Its five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”  Wow. This was something positive, a glimpse of a future that could be ours.  The crew of the Enterprise was fully integrated, not just with all flavors of humans but with aliens as well.  Women held key positions throughout the leadership structure.  This was the first truly multi-cultural TV series, and included in the series was the first televised kiss of a white man and a black woman when Kirk kissed Uhura. 

And the technology!  Wow.  Each member of the crew had a communicator that was a hand held device capable of calling anyone almost anywhere.  The science officers carried hand held computers that could provide a wealth of information at the touch of a finger.  Each ship had replicators so that whatever you wanted could be assembled and dispensed.  They had warp drive, the ability to transcend the speed of light, they had transporters, the ability to deconstruct anything at the atomic level, transmit that code elsewhere and re-assemble the structure.  Many of the far-fetched technologies have become reality and we now take for granted cell phones, computers, tablets, Internet, microwave ovens and even 3-D printers.  None of those gizmos existed in 1966 and the developers of each credit Star Trek for the inspiration to create.

But to me the most profound philosophical component of the Star Trek series and all the subsequent series and movies, was the Prime Directive.  This directive set the ground rules for the exploration of the universe.  This directive can be found in the Articles of the Federation, Chapter I, Article II, Paragraph VII, which states:

“Nothing within these Articles of Federation shall authorize the United Federation of Planets to intervene in matters which are essentially the domestic jurisdiction of any planetary social system, or shall require the members to submit such matters to settlement under these Articles of Federation.  As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Star Fleet personnel may interfere with the normal and healthy development of alien life and culture.  Star Fleet personnel may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship, unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral obligation.”

I have oft wondered what life on this planet would be like if we had the equivalent of the prime directive for the various nations and cultures here.  Perhaps fodder for a reflective exposition.

So much for my justification and sentimental attachment to Star Trek.  The newest episode is JJ Abrams continuous re-write of the original series complete with Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura, Scotty, Chekhov and Sulu, all played by a new and young cast.  Love it.  The following may include some spoilers, so for fellow aficionados you may want to skip the next paragraph if you have yet to see the movie.

Early on in the show Kirk gets in serious trouble for violating the Prime Directive.  His motives were heroic.  His intentions were pure.  But, he violated the Prime Directive and paid the price.  This is a young Kirk, a potentially great Star Ship Captain, but still impulsive, bold and indifferent to rules he does not like.  Star Fleet mandated painful consequences for such a violation.  Bureaucracy, it seems, exists even in the idealized world of Star Trek. 

All the above was the wind up.  Here’s the pitch.  Should public education adhere to the equivalent of the Prime Directive?

I am not sure we have a choice.  Our mission is in fact in direct opposition to the Prime Directive.  Our mission is to take what the majority in our culture define as essential learnings, behaviors, knowledge and skills and intentionally transmit and impart those attributes to every kid who walks in the door.  It does not matter what their culture is.  It does not matter what their belief system is.  It does not matter where the kid and his or her family are on the cultural evolutionary scale and the cultural values scale and the socioeconomic scale.  We are directed to impart from our bureaucratic pinnacle the State Legislature and TEA.  In fact, we are held accountable via a high stakes test to see if we have sufficiently altered the existing student culture and values and knowledge on a yearly basis.  Wow.  This is the antithesis of the Prime Directive.  We are sanctioned if we do not successfully violate the Prime Directive.

It is the disappearance of the equivalent of the educational Prime Directive as espoused in Star Trek that has forever altered public education in this country.  There was a day when the local community and the local Board were clearly in charge of what was taught and what the variables of success were to be and how they were to be measured.  Districts adopted their own curriculum.  Districts set their own calendars.  Districts decided how to evaluate teachers.  Districts decided whether to put emphasis on academics or athletics, band or Ag, college readiness or career development.  All of that is gone.  The decision to set all those goals, parameters, measures and outcomes at the state level have robbed the local public school culture of the reality that they are a local school culture.  (It remains amazing to me that the folks who set these standards are not educators.  At least the Prime Directive was developed by Star Fleet officers.)  I want to stand and scream that one size does not fit all, but I am held accountable for our ability to ensure that false rubric.

We have just finished the last round of high stakes state accountability tests.  I know principals and teachers who are losing sleep awaiting our outcomes.  I know kids who were sick to their stomachs prior to taking the test.  I see our schools totally modified the schedule and priorities to prepare kids for the re-take if they did not pass the first time.  We have abandoned what we care about most to achieve what the state, our equivalent of the Federation of Planets, cares about most.  We are to standardize each kid’s learning and ability to prove they have learned.  Regardless of their culture, their ethnicity, their income, their family values, our community values, we must interfere and intervene with state mandated prescriptions. 

Yes, Captain James Tiberius Kirk.  I am sorry you were punished for violating the Prime Directive.  Take some comfort in that I will be punished if I do not. 

Live long and prosper.

Whose Schools?

No doubt I shall rant again regarding the actions and outcomes of our Legislature.  As we are now in the home stretch of the Legislative session several observations occur to me.

I sit here as superintendent of Edna ISD.  I report to a Board of Trustees, elected by our community.  The community believes the schools in Edna are theirs.  They talk about “our schools.”  They support schools through tax dollars, approving bonds for new facilities, fund raisers, attendance at events, etc., etc.  The Board clearly believes they govern our schools.  They are elected officials, wrestling with limited resources while seeking to accomplish our mission in light of the community’s desires for our kids and schools.  We built the buildings.  We hired the staff.  We build the budget and approve it.  We selected programs to implement.  We adopted the discipline policy and approve the handbooks.  I drive around checking our campuses.  I think of them as our campuses.  I interact with teachers and administrators and think of them as our employees.  I attend athletic and fine arts events and think about our kids performing for our schools.  I accept ownership and responsibility for this district, the schools, the kids, the employees.  Nothing thrills me more than success, and nothing worries me more than failure to meet our desired outcomes.  Yes, we think of Edna ISD, this highly complex, mission driven, human endeavor called local public schools as ours.

We are wrong, of course.  We discover that we are wrong every time the Legislature meets.  We are not a local school system governed locally.  We are state school system governed from Austin, sometimes Washington.

In this session the state is changing who may or may not participate in UIL events.  Why isn’t the UIL doing that?  Why aren’t local districts doing that?  The state is considering changing graduation plans and requirements.  Why aren’t we doing that?  The state is adding programs and topics that we will be required to teach.  Why aren’t we doing that?  The state is adding new requirements for training of administrators.  Why aren’t we doing that?  The state is adding the requirement for additional personnel on each campus.  Why aren’t we doing that?  The state plans to shift more money from public education to other experimental models like charters and vouchers.  Why would you take money away from the systems you manage?  The state is adding requirements regarding truancy.  Why aren’t we doing that?  The state is changing the way we evaluate teachers to include test outcomes.  We aren’t we doing that?  The state is making it easier for dissatisfied parents to attend another school.  Why would they do that?  There is even a suggestion that unacceptable schools be removed from their local districts and placed in a state-wide district under a Commissioner appointed superintendent to turn them around.  Amazing.  Take away our schools?

The most outrageous activity the state engages in, in my humble opinion, is designing the accountability system.  The state is likely to move from a range of Exemplary to Unacceptable to a range of A to F.  Why?  Was there confusion with the previous system?  The state has already moved from TAKS to STAAR.  Why?  Does that mean that all previous graduates who earned a diploma after being monitored by TAKS were not really graduates? 

Virtually no one in the Legislature is an educator.  They are making stuff up.  They are treating public schools as their own little experimental petri dishes.  They have no idea of the consequences of their actions.  They are listening to reform minded, wealthy folks like Bill Gates and Walton Foundation for their inspiration.  They are not reading research on these efforts, nor are they talking to educators.  They will pass laws and adjourn for a year and a half while we try to implement what they require.  They are not listening to professional educators.  They are listening to a radio talk show host.  If improvement occurs by increasing the measures, then why not develop the same strategy for the Legislature? 

The most amazing part of all of this is that the state acts as though the schools are theirs to do with as they please, but assumes no responsibility, no ownership of the outcomes.  If they require something that makes things worse in school systems are they losing sleep?  Do they feel accountable?  It seems to me that it is only rational that if you make the rules you should be held accountable.  If our schools end up more strapped for money with more requirements and an accountability system that makes more of us look bad, is the responsibility ours or the folks who set that up?

It is time to hold the Legislature accountable for the laws they pass.  If public schools fail, the Legislature structured the system that made that happen, and it is their failure, not ours.  If the schools belong to the Legislature, then take some ownership!  Why not enact legislation that helps public schools, promotes public schools, and works to improve public schools and their communities? 

There is something seriously wrong if I assume control of an organization for the purpose of improvement, reduce funds, increase accountability, increase mandates, and set about hurting that organization in a variety of other ways.  If I am charged with the operation of schools and the schools get worse I suspect I should be fired.  If the schools belong to the Legislature, not us, then they are doing a terrible, terrible job of management and oversight.  They are hurting us. 

Time to fire them.