Speaking of Gaps....

First, my sincere apologies for being very absent-minded lately. I will be trying to post more regularly on the blog to help create a more continuous dialogue.

Second, Tim's post about the poor teachers "feeding" the achievement gap was really interesting. The first Newsweek article was fascinating! I can begin to understand this concept and the difficulty in defining what is a bad teachers. Additionally, it is unfortunate teacher unions do not place more emphasis and/or encourage skills development for improving teaching performance. I would think, being in the business of teaching, that teachers would need to meet some union standard or participate in career development or evaluation standards. But then again, how do you implement this? How do you enforce it without inserting more government bureaucracy? Hmmm....

What has prompted changes in the teaching profession, where recruited teachers are not up to the previous standards? It was a surprise to realize that weaker teachers were often paired with weaker students. Somehow this does not seem reasonable. Teachers should be held to a high standard with strict consequences. Teachers are responsible for future generations!

Tim, what are your follow-up thoughts? What do you think about charter schools?

Well....as a parallel to the educational system, there is also a gap in the criminal justice system. I think I am going to research and find some supporting facts and data for this concept. However, for now, I will begin to explain my perspective. First, I do not believe the gap exists on the law enforcement level. This stage is simply acting upon the commission of crimes and their influence more or less ends after suspects are booked into jail and perhaps lasts into a trial. I believe the majority of the gap occurs between the court and the method for corrections.

Prison and jail are simply no longer deterrents. Recidivism is on the rise and many "repeat" offenders are continuing to commit many of the same crimes with little evidence of stopping. In the State of Washington, shorter prison terms seem to be a popular trends among courts, for example, in a particular case, a drunk driver who was travelling 50 mph in a 25 mph zone who hit a pedestrian, killing them, and left the scene only to be arrested by detectives 24 hours later, recieved seven years in prison. However, what is not often revealed is only 2/3 of the sentence is served while incarcerated. Often times, the last 3rd (or more) is servied while in community custody (probation or parole).

Since this post is beginning to ramble on....my final thought is the need for creating programs geared to changing behavior through other means than incarceration alone. I support skill development programs, labor-intensive programs, counseling, and substance abuse education. More to come....

The Role Teachers Play In The Achievement Gap

I've been meaning to get to how teachers impact the achievement gap. They are arguably the most influential group, considering that teachers are the ones directly interacting with hundreds of students every day. Everyone else largely provides the scaffolding teachers and students work in. Obviously, bad framework makes it harder to progress, but not even the best-designed skyscraper will stand in the rain if it's made of cardboard. That's kind of what it's like to have a bad teacher.

A couple articles passed along to me highlight some of the problems with teacher accountability right now, and how painfully hard they are to fix. The first (available here) highlights how little accountability there is in teaching right now. There is practically no way to weed out bad teachers right now, and statistics back this sobering fact up. The second (available here) digs into the struggles with teacher unions.

The bottom line is that ineffective teachers are feeding the achievement gap. They are arguably the biggest culprit, and also arguably the most realistic area for improvement.

While I understand that it is a union's responsibility to protect its worker's rights, I wish teacher unions better recognized how badly it reflects on the good teachers when so the bad ones continue to pass through unchallenged. I believe it is in a teacher union's best interest to explore teacher accountability too, though that does not seem to be the mainstream thinking at the moment. There are sporadic glimmers of hope from time to time though.

Typical Morning

My mantra, especially with the fifth graders I work with, is "always an adventure." Here is a sampling of what I'm talking about. Actual questions and quotes from about 75 minutes of action with fifth grade band students this morning:

• "I'm usually at the bus stop at 6:45, but I woke up at 6:47 so I had to hurry out of bed and get my clothes on. I didn't have time to go to the bathroom or anything.  I ran to the bus stop, and it was just about to leave when I got there! Is it okay if I go to the bathroom?"
• "You should have brought your saxophone today. It sounds WAY cooler...It sounds like jazz."
• "What was the first book Dr. Seuss wrote?"
• "She's scary!" (accompanied by a finger point, and hiding behind my back)
• "Who invented the printing press?"
• "I broke my foot...(I ask about it)...Yeah, it hurts. It feels like it's burning."
• (I ask if this student had a Mountain Dew this morning) "NO! PEANUT BUTTER!"
• "Can I go to the bathroom?"
• "Can I get a part for Nottingham Castle?"
• "I left my book here last time. I think someone took it by accident."
• "Can I get a part to Star Wars?"
• "SHE'S SITTING IN MY SPOT!"
• "Can you fix my reed?"
• "My clarinet doesn't sound very loud today."
• "Is it okay if I go to the bathroom?"
• "My ears hurt!"
• (I complement a student on being ready for class) "HE KNOWS MY NAME!"
• "Can we play number 55 after this?"
• "I can't hear myself play."
• "Is it alright if I go to the bathroom?"
• "Can Mr. Chalberg play Star Wars at the end of class?"
• "It's my birthday tomorrow...(I ask if the student came down just to tell me that)...Yeah."

Always an adventure.