Voices: A call for conversation around closing schools

Veteran educator turned consultant Peter Huidekoper, Jr., lays out his thoughts around the pros and cons of closing schools, and calls for more conversation.

Voices: Educators and winter blues

A veteran educator turned consultant says it’s time for teachers – many hitting the mid-year blues – to sign up for summer workshops.

Voices: Asking the wrong question about turnaround

A veteran educator turned consultant argues that schools serving sixth- through 12th-graders might be a good approach to transforming the quality of secondary education. But they won’t appear by magic.

Voices: Teachers, time and common sense

A veteran educator turned consultant says longer school days and years probably make sense for kids – but can teachers really handle more time added to their schedules?

Voices: On Election Day, pondering education’s purpose

A veteran Denver educator turned education consultant argues schools need to prepare students for life – not just jobs.

Tim Tebow and new teachers

We make mistakes. We can’t handle the snap from center. We forget to take attendance and email the front office with the names of the absent students—and so we get a call, at 9 a.m., in the middle of class. “Sorry to interrupt but—”

We can’t find the open receiver. We don’t see the student who is silently disengaging. But Monday morning’s review of the tapes, and an irate mother’s phone call, alert us to our failure.

We can’t get our feet set and we throw another wobbly pass. Don’t scramble too much, we are told. Don’t look overwhelmed, the new teacher is told. Relax. But even the most basic issues can fluster us—how to keep eye contact with our students while also making good use of our much-needed notes, with all the questions we were writing until late last night. When to “stay in the pocket” and when do move around. The teacher must do both; we want to connect to these individuals—especially students who need a one-on-one check at their desk, that brief aside–perhaps a pat on the shoulder of praise, maybe a question, an easy toss they can handle, to give them confidence and get them in the game.

We’d like to feel more comfortable. But there are five ferocious 300-pounders charging at us like bulls, desperate to knock us down: A concussion—or a separated shoulder—waiting to happen. There are 25 adolescents who aren’t ready to give us their trust just yet, a few who are off-task before we can even get the class focused on this morning’s topic, a couple of whom seem all too willing to test us, to see how far they can go ….before we call for help.

After a year, turnaround schools’ performance lackluster

It got our attention: Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan “Announces $3.5 Billion in Title I School Improvement Grants to Fund Transformational Changes Where Children Have Long Been Undeserved” (August, 2009).  When we learned a year ago that over $37 million of that would come to 16 of Colorado’s lowest-achieving schools, over three years, to help raise student achievement, we again took note.  Another year has now passed. How’s that going? Any positive news for those “underserved” kids?

One assumes the federal government is interested in seeing that the grants to Colorado, especially to Denver Public Schools and Pueblo City Schools, the two districts receiving most of these funds, ($14.8  and $12.9 million respectively over three years to turnaround six schools in each city) will be well used.

One assumes the Colorado Department of Education is taking a careful look at how well year one funds, totaling over $10 million to our 16 struggling schools, have been used.

One assumes DPS (about $4.6 million this first year) and Pueblo 60 (over $4.2 million), especially, are taking a close look at how these funds have been spent and how well improvement efforts are going.

One assumes they are looking at a variety of measurements to gauge effectiveness and success.  For we all agree that in the complex effort to turn around or transform a low-performing school into a good place for students to learn and grow, there are many factors and variables to consider.

However, one also assumes that CSAP data, while just one of the many measurements, is considered an important piece of the puzzle.  So here are the 2011 CSAP achievement results—the percentage proficient and advanced—compared to the previous two years, and compared to the goals set by the schools (and/or districts) when they applied for the turnaround or transformation funds (these goals are found here).

Most folks will want to see growth scores too, and I am sure the state and districts will examine those.  But as I have written previously, let’s be careful not to exaggerate those 55 percent growth scores as great news.  The goal—yes?—is still proficiency.

An apology to the class of 2013

In a few weeks the class of 2013 will begin its junior year of high school.  We know enough about the skills and knowledge of our 11^th graders to see we must do something different for almost half of them during their last two years of high school—their last chance for a “free, public education”—if they are to graduate with the academic skills we expect of seniors.  If we do not, many will walk off that stage with a high school diploma in late May 2013, but without the skills needed for success in college.  Perhaps we will owe them a heartfelt apology.

“Overall, 28.6 percent of recent high school graduates in Colorado need remediation upon entering a higher education institution.” (In 2009, that was 8,606 students out of 30,042 first-time high school graduates assigned to remediation in at least one subject.) “The cost of remedial education increased from $13 million last year to $19 million this year…. As higher education funding continues to be cut, these numbers appear even more ominous.”
2010 Legislative Report on Remedial Education, Colorado Department of Higher Education, 2/4/11.

I have kept in touch with several former middle school students, now entering 11^th grade.  Most will have many good choices available to them as they reach graduation.  In a few cases it won’t happen without extra effort.  Several years ago, when one junior—a former student—scored low on the 10th grade CSAP and the PLAN (a pre-ACT) assessment, her parents brought her in for a few tutoring sessions.  Scores improved.  After graduating she went on to a state university.  Motivated students, from supportive families.  They’ll be OK.

But when we see at least half of Colorado’s 10th graders are not proficient in writing, math, or science (in 2010, 50 percent in writing, 67 percent in math, and 50 percent in science scored Unsatisfactory or Partially Proficient), and 30 percent are not proficient in reading, isn’t it clear we need to rethink how we serve these teenagers during their final two years of high school?  Especially when we know they may not have parents advocating for them, or they may doubt the necessity of going the extra mile before they graduate? (Hey, can’t I just zip through a few credit-recovery courses?)

Opinion: Innovation Act: Unfulfilled promise?

In 2008, after 15 years with an ever-growing number of charter schools in Colorado, Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law the Innovation Schools Act. Many thought it might be “the next big thing,” bringing a new surge of public schools seeking more control over their budget, personnel, curriculum, etc. The language in the bill and its [...]