Linked Learning a Secondary Educational Transformation Model

I found this article written in Ed Source last week and saved it to share with you all.  I hope that you will take a little time to read it.  There are a number of reasons that I share it that relate to the transformation of the secondary education system in California.  

Most of you have heard me speak favorably and passionately about Small Learning Communities. You may have heard me speak as passionately about Linked Learning as well.  I see Linked Learning as the natural evolution of Small Learning Communities.  I see both as the needed structural change in secondary schools to give our students the best opportunity to succeed in the future by being college and career ready upon graduation from high school. Linked Learning is not about making students into job ready individuals in any particular field.  It is about giving students the experiences necessary to function successfully in their post-secondary years by continuing their education; by finding valuable and meaningful work opportunities; by preparing students to understand their role as citizens living in the USA; and by giving each student life choices that will allow them to live with their family in a happy and healthy way.  To meet all of these goals we just cannot continue to do business as we have been doing it for over 100 years in the United States.  Our society and the world have changed, we have to make necessary changes also.

Change is not easy, but it seems to me that some of the cause of making change difficult for educators is that there is not a lot of depth of knowledge and sharing of information among those in our profession and with those in the public.  We need to have a better depth of knowledge about Linked Learning and related areas of change such as the Common Core, Next Generation Science Standards, 21st Century Skills, and alternative educational delivery models as professional leaders in education so that we can speak with conviction and passion about why change in our profession is so important.  We are not asking people to change just for the sake of change.

The California Legislature over the past two years has approved $500 Million dollars to be given as grants to local and regional LEAs for the purpose of sparking the change to Linked Learning in our secondary schools.  This is the biggest amount of money approved by any State for this purpose.  According to the CDE, our legislature and State Board of Education see Linked Learning as the transformation model for secondary schools.

This makes me happy because it takes into account the importance of instructional content, skills, and deep thinking; along with the need for student motivation and a sense of their connection to what they are being asked to learn in order to move our students forward in their preparation for college and careers.  Please take a few minutes to read this article and I would love to hear comments from you.

Here is the link to the article that I am referring to:

http://edsource.org/2014/preparing-teachers-for-career-pathways/70362#.VHTCdIf4vnE?utm_source=Jane%27s+daily+email+Nov.+25%2C+2014&utm_campaign=Daily_10-17-14&utm_medium=email

Learning from the Successes of Others in Educational Settings

I am a product of a very large public school system.  I worked for 37 years in that same system.  I care greatly about the students, parents, staff, and the system itself, but I am feeling very badly about something that I helped to bring to this large system, but is not leading to improvement.

As one of the reform leaders in Los Angeles' educational system, I fought for a variety of school types to come into our system.  I believed that we could do a better job of educating our children from kindergarten through high school.  I was given the opportunity to help lead reform of our high schools away from very large comprehensive models to smaller environments that would support both students and adults.

It has always been my belief that we must find a way to educate all of our kids.  If we cannot, we need to let others who can do it better.  For this reason, we created small learning communities and small school structures in all of our district's high schools.  At least we received and approved plans for all high schools to recreate themselves into some type of smaller structure.  Included in this work we were given the opportunity to bring some very special models to our district, New Tech and Big Picture. 

Unfortunately, the financial downturn hit and hurt badly causing changes at district and school levels that for many schools, but not all, stopped reform from progressing.  I had to stand in front of our Board of Education on several occasions and explain our restructuring plan, including the building of new small schools.  One Board member would mock this effort by calling these new small school schools, "Turbo Charged Schools" because he felt that they were expensive.  My response to him was always the same.  We have to introduce new "proof points" into our district.  We know that if we can create the right environment with well prepared staff members and gain the support of parents, that we can better educate all students.

What did I mean by "proof points"?  I believed then and still believe that we need to look and learn from models of education different from what we have historically had in our district for many years.  We need these alternative models to be learning opportunities for the district and for the educators.  I even believe that when we have successful models of learning in our neighborhood charter schools that we should learn what we can from them.  We do not have to copy exactly what any other institution is doing, but we can find what they do better than we are doing, and figure out a way to introduce something similar into our schools.

Seven years later, I am finding that there is little if any learning taking place between schools in our own districts, or from those schools that we created within or outside of our district.  Charters exist and will continue to exist.  We should not fight that, but we should accept them for what they are and use them as an opportunity for our own big system learning.

I just read an article from EdSource about the City Arts and Technology High School in San Francisco.  Not only is this school producing great student achievement results, but it is doing so with a student body very similar to the student body of most urban schools.  If they can do it, why can't we?  We can certainly improve our results, but not without learning what this Envision Charter is doing in San Francisco and what other district and charter alternative type schools are doing in our own neighborhood and around the nation. 

As educators, we hope that we are continuous learners because that is our vision for what we want for our students.  Continuous learning requires that the learner remain inquisitive and reflective, and always searching for something being done more successfully by others.

I would recommend that educators, especially in secondary schools read the article about Envision's City Arts and Technology Charter High School and think carefully about how you could bring "deeper learning" to your school.  Check out the article at:  http://edsource.org/2014/charter-school-integrates-deeper-learning/65448?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EdsourceToday+%28EdSource+Today%29&nord=1#.VBB6m018OUk

Let me know what you think about the need to learn from others, both in your own district and outside of your district.  Should we be isolationists or should we be continuous learners?

NAEP Report of Cost of Missing School on Student Achievement

EdSource reported yesterday on a NAEP analysis of student academic progress as measured by the NAEP assessment for 4th and 8th graders.  This test is often called the nations report card for reading and mathematics achievement.  I believe that this analysis is worth reading, because you do have a way in your schools to address the issue, at least when MISIS is finally up and running.

It is shocking that in the USA every year from 5 million to 7.5 million students miss close to a month of school.  Students with significant numbers of absences score significantly lower than students who are present regularly.  In fact at both 4th and 8th grade students with significant numbers of absences are at least a full grade level below the other students in their yearly growth.  We have known for some time that this data is true for middle schoolers based on Johns Hopkins University's seminal research by Robert Balfanz.  We also have always believed this to be true based on our experiences in the classroom.  I know that LAUSD has made student attendance a major priority, and for good reason as is shown by multiple studies.  I am sure that this is true of other districts in California and around the nation.

The purpose of sharing this article with you is to point out that you have a way to address the attendance issues described in the article at your school site.  Let me remind you that in My Data is a program called "Early Alert Secondary" and "Early Alert Elementary" that can give you very important information about student attendance on a monthly basis that can allow you to address student attendance in a variety of ways.  I know the value of this program because before I retired, Cynthia Lim and I worked on putting the program together for the use of schools. We worked on it for approximately nine years before we were both in a position to bring it to fruition.  It has been improved since I left, but the main issue is that it can report to you all students on a monthly basis who have had a drop in attendance for even one month.  The idea of this program is to catch students who are sliding in a variety of areas, in this case attendance, before the slide gets so far along that it is difficult for the child to recover.  (If your district does not have a way to quickly find students who are slipping in their attendance or in other significant areas, speak to your district leadership about how that can be created with the student information data that you already have in your computer system.)  Once identified it becomes very important for a school staff member, counselor or SLC advisor, to check in with the student and the parent as to why the drop has occurred.  It may be that the student was sick with the chicken pox, in which case, all that is necessary is to be sure that the child knows what is necessary to catch up.  However, it may be something much more severe such as a family divorce, or illness which is causing serious conditions at the home.  In this case, more intensive intervention is necessary.  We can give the students the intensive intervention when we identify the need.  It is great if you have sufficient and significant resources to intervene, but most schools do not have that need fulfilled.  But teachers, counselors, and administrators can give the time to intervene to be sure that the student and the parents know that someone at the school really cares about the welfare of the student.  That caring attitude may be just enough to keep a student with a spotty attendance record from becoming the drop out statistic that we frequently see from excessively absent students.

The result of research tells us that no matter how good of a job that we do at delivering instruction, if we cannot get kids turned on to school and to learning, the great delivery will matter very little.  You have the opportunity to utilize this recent research of NAEP results analysis and to utilize a powerful tool available through the LAUSD (or through your district) student information system to save the educational lives of some of our students.  The only ingredient not guaranteed is the will to save these excessively absent kids by school adults.  Encouraging our educators to build strong caring relationships with every student as well as building their own instructional practices have to go hand in hand.  

I hope that this message leads to finding ways at your school to improve the student attendance that can lead to so many lost years of learning for many students.  Relationships leading to student motivation are critical, but frequently lost in our professional development efforts.  I will share more on motivation and student learning in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks for listening.  By the way, you can find this and other educational topics on my blog at larrytash.blogspot.com.  If you have not visited it, I invite you to do so.  You may not agree with everything, but hopefully, it will get you to think about some of the topics that I have covered.

The EdSource article is available at:

http://edsource.org/2014/empty-classroom/67019?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EdsourceToday+%28EdSource+Today%29#.VAeej_ldXmA

I look forward to your comments on this topic and any others on my blog.

California Tenure Law: A Quandry for Me

Recently, we have been hearing a lot about changes in the tenure laws for educators through out the nation.  When policy to change the law was presented in California, I was initially onboard for the need of this change.  After some deeper thought, I am finding that my position continues to wobble and change.  Let me share with you my thoughts.


As a school principal, I found it very frustrating that I had several teachers who needed to not be in our career field, but even though I gave them the necessary paper work to be classified as unsatisfactory, they either remained at my school, or were moved to another school.  As a director of schools, I actually worked with one of my principals to gain a dismissal on a horrible teacher, but in accordance with the State tenure law, the teacher with the assistance of the educator's union, appealed the decision, and they won the appeal.  My district had the right, but chose not to appeal that decision due to legal costs that it would require.  So, that teacher remained an employee in my district for another five years, but never again taught in a school.  He sat in an office and was paid.  He settled with the district to receive full retirement benefits and to have the district pay his legal costs.  These are examples that are only a small number of the cases faced by administrators of all levels at any time.


These examples led me to believe that the tenure laws in my state were getting in the way of providing students the best possible educational experience.  So, my initial thoughts were, yes, if the law is changed these teachers that I described above would not have remained in their teaching positions for as long as they did, therefore, I obviously should support the change in the law.


After thinking about the tenure law more thoughtfully without bringing in my personal emotions, I made a case for myself that doing away with tenure could have a negative impact on the teaching profession that I had to consider.  Let me explain, from an administrator's point of view, the other side of this case.  As a principal, I frequently spoke to my teachers about the need to be risk-takers in developing instructional practices.  I always told them that without risk-taking, new and improved teaching practices would never be developed.  I also realized that with my staff of about 90 teachers, I was looking at one or two who needed to go, the remainder were strong and dedicated educators who cared about their kids.


If tenure were to be removed, would good teachers be so willing to be thoughtful risk-takers, or would they decide that they were better off being safe as they developed their instructional plans everyday.  It is pretty hard to get teachers to be risk-takers in the first place, but without the protections and security that even good teachers need to feel, they would be reluctant to try new ideas out in their classrooms.


My quandary is that I might be "cutting off my nose to spite my face" if I pushed to end tenure.  Yes, I could rid my system and the profession of bad people, but I would moving a lot of good teachers toward mediocrity because of their loss of security. 


Assuming my arguments on both sides are correct, what do you think would be the wisest thing to do for the educational profession?  Is there a compromise model that provides the safety net for good teachers, but allows us to move poor teachers out of our profession more easily? 


I look forward to hearing from you on this dilemma for me.

Preparing Our Students for Their Post-secondary World

This morning, I was discussing an article that I recently reviewed in my blog with a wonderful middle school principal who cares dearly for her students, and cares deeply about how those students are taught and prepared for their next level of education in high school.

As we discussed in the article on Google Hiring Practices (see the previous blog entry), we began to discuss the value of having experienced versus inexperienced teachers and what each brings to the table.  I told her of my own experience with new schools that opened in the early 2000s with strong visions, but with young staff members who bought into the vision completely.  We found that it is much easier to get younger educators to look at a 21st century educational model and willingly adopt it, but if left without the support of experienced team members, the most passionate person cannot succeed in the field of educating young people.  So, our learning was that a balanced approach to teaching and learning is necessary with a staff that is experienced enough to know best practices and protocols for the age of the students being taught; and a young enough staff to be willing to accept new ideas and visions that differ greatly from the traditional educational model of secondary education in this country.

While the conversation was interesting, it suddenly took another turn that requires some thought and consideration by educators.  Both of us have experienced for many years that by the time many students enter high school, they have given up on their opportunity for success (high school graduation).  Many students have literally learned to see themselves as failures and incapable of learning.  What a dangerous learning experience these students have received in the nine years that they have been attending school.  If you do not believe in yourself, or feel that you are capable of learning, then your chances of finding success in high school will be minimal.  We often speak of the need to be sure that our students learn to persevere and to be resilient.   Instead of learning these important personal lessons that can lead to success, these students have learned failure and once they learn the feeling of failure, they find that it is reinforced over and over again. (Right now I can hear some defensive educators saying, why blame us for students who feel this way?  Don't their parents play a role in causing this sense of insecurity within their children?  Of course, this is true, but we cannot control what goes on in the family dynamics, we only have control of the educational process and the time they spend in school.  So, it is my belief that we have plenty to think about as teachers to help students to be resilient and strong individuals.  We may be the only good chance some students have for finding success.)

So, the question becomes, what can we do to reinforce success for students in school, beginning in pre-school, so that we do not create generations of students who feel incapable of academic success.  (Unfortunately, it has been my experience that students who feel unsuccessful in school K-8th grade, translate that feeling of failure to many aspects of their lives, including the kinds of people they befriend, the types of workforce positions they feel qualified to reach, and the inability to do higher level thinking in any area of their life).  Do we lower our standards to make kids successful?  Do we give every student a graduation experience whether they earned it or not?  What actions should educators take to help all students matriculate through school in a positive way?

We know that when we give students anything without real effort being involved, they know that the value of the gift has less meaning.  We cannot give kids A grades, or diplomas if they have not earned them.  Students know when a positive comment or response is fake or real.  It feels real when they have put out effort and earned the praise or recognition.  Lowering standards will not change the way students see themselves.  Building meaningful and honest relationships with adults in their educational life can make a major difference.  Honest adults can share constructive criticism that is useful much more satisfactorily than if the feedback a student receives from a teacher is only a poor grade on a paper or test.  Real feedback is one of the most significant learning experiences for anyone, we need to provide it to our students in a way that allows them to learn and grow.

Almost every job or career in our nation is built on relationships.  Students who are successful are usually much better at interacting with their peers and with adults of consequence in their life.  They tend to be more successful at interacting with people they do not know very well.  This ability, however, comes from confidence that they believe "I am an important and valuable person".  So, they role of the teacher is to work with every student to help them gain knowledge of themselves and to trust they can be and will be valuable members of our society.  These students will be better prepared to enter high school, and successfully meet the post-secondary options that will be available to them in years to come. 

The structure of a school tells us a lot about what is most important in the mind of the school leaders.  If information and test results are all that education is about, it will show by making report card grades and test scores the most valued areas of education discussed with students.  The success of students in both of these areas have more to do with effort, resiliency, and perseverance than in how smart they are.  Schools should not be about producing smart kids, but rather about producing educated kids who are personally prepared to meet the challenges in our society.

Google Hiring Practices, What Does it Say to Educators?

Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of people operations for Google was recently quoted in a New York Times article, "Google had determined that 'G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. ... We found that they don’t predict anything.'”  This comment is just the tip of a much bigger story that has profound impact on the educational community.  You can find the entire New York Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html?_r=0.  I hope that in response to my comments you will all read it and reflect on Mr. Bock's take on education through your own educator's filter.

Here is what comes to mind for me.

The role of education in our society has made a major shift.  It is about preparing all of our students for college and careers, and preparing them to successfully live in our 21st century society as a good and happy citizen.  I am not sure that this sounds different than what I was told in teacher education school in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but there is a giant difference.

Our process of education in the USA due to changes in technology, globalization, and the needs of our society to maintain its strong leadership and financial position in the world must evolve its educational system so that all students have the chance to thrive.  Some steps are in place for this evolution and some schools and districts are moving forward at a faster rate than others.

Here are my initial thoughts about this article.  I look forward to hearing and sharing yours.

We know that the current Common Core Standards are based heavily on the original SCANS report that came out in 1990 and was updated to the 21st Century Skills in the early 2000s.  So, all of us are working now with the goal of preparing all students for college and careers.  If you think about education in the bigger picture, it is all about the world of work, and preparation for living in our society in the 21st century. College is just an additional step in preparation for entering the job market.  So, hearing what Google has to say is very telling.  I would love to discuss this article with you, if you have time.  It is not long but worth the time.  

Let me say that even before you read it, the executive is not putting down a college education, but rather is drawing a conclusion that the right set of skills have to be learned by all employees whether they learn it through a formal or less formal education.  Are we preparing our kids for the world of the future, or the world of the past? Common Core, I believe is a good step in the right direction.  It is about applying learning, not just re-stating information.  We know the skills that are being asked for, it is now our job to be sure that every student gets the educational experiences in the classroom (or outside the classroom) that support our societal and their personal needs of the 21st century.

I have believed in what I am sharing here for a long time.  I remember that in college learning the teachings of John Dewey was important.  Unfortunately, when I entered my early teaching jobs, John Dewey's thinking was not present, nor wanted by most of my colleagues.  As an administrator, I tried my best with some success, to bring change to the teaching and learning practices at my school.  We had a good level of success with that.  Now, with the Common Core, I see our best opportunity to evolve our American educational system to better provide experiences that prepare students for the lives they will be living, in and out of work.

A story that I have shared with teachers on a number of occasions was an early sign to me of change becoming more common in the work place.  My son was fortunate to attend a university where a great medical school came to select up to eight students per year for early acceptance to their program.  So, at the end of his sophomore year, he was accepted to their medical school with the only condition being that he completed his BA/BS in any field of his choice.  I found it interesting that he was told that he did not have to take any additional science courses, since he had completed his required pre-med classes successfully and proven to the selection board that he possessed the skills needed for the field of medicine. They told him that they would give him whatever knowledge he needed once he started medical school.

What were they looking for?  I was told that they were looking for humanity majors for the field of medicine.  I was told that the interview process and the student's ability to react quickly to questions was important.  I was told that they wanted students who had shown success in analysis and synthesis and could be problem solvers and critical thinkers.  I was told that they wanted people who could take initiative and be leaders in this profession.  I was told that they wanted students who could handle the workload and had the comprehension skills needed for all of the reading and interpreting required of this profession.  After reading the article about Google, it did not sound so different to me than what a medical school admittance officer had shared with me over ten years ago.

It is my hope that the conversations around articles such as this take place around the USA with educators listening and leading the discussions.  Barack Obama has shared in his two presidential acceptance speeches the importance of preparing many more students for STEM fields if we wish to maintain our position in the world.  He is asking that our educational evolution be sped up to address our national needs.  I see this being supported by Common Core, if we have the necessary conversations with our educators that lead to a change from the status quo of education and moves us to a new 21st century place for educating our kids.

I hope that you will comment back to me and share your thoughts.  I would love to extend this conversation.  Thank you for reading.