At the teachers' expense?

Walk into my school around 7:45am and you will see teachers bustling around, collaborating, and lesson planning.  Stay until 5pm and you will see teachers still hard at work.  Contract hours are from 8:30am until 2:45pm, yet very few teachers work those hours.  Most teachers come early and stay late with no overtime pay.  Teachers do it willingly because they believe in their profession and do it for the children. 

On June 15, 2011, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his self-chosen Chicago School Board unanimously decided to freeze the 4% raises that teachers receive each year that are worth about $100 million.  According to the Chicago Tribune, CPS is currently about $712 million in debt.  Is it fair that it is the teachers that have to suffer?  Or should the teachers simply be happy to be employed during this economic crisis and understand where the Chicago School Board is coming from?

According to Jean-Claude Brizard, new Chicago Public Schools CEO, “I have the utmost respect and admiration for teachers and all that they do for our children. But today's Board action was taken in response to the massive financial crisis facing our system. My team is now tasked with developing a balanced budget and presenting it to the Board and the public in August and our promise remains to minimize any impacts on the classroom and our kids.”



Jean-Claude Brizard



Of course, this was all the buzz at school the next day.  Most teachers have something to say and an opinion to share.  As teachers, we are constantly spending money on classroom supplies and books.  It is part of the job and many teachers do it willingly and without blinking an eye.  But now, without a raise, it may become more difficult with the average CPS teacher earning $69,000 per year.  Lucky for some CPS teachers, 75% will receive some sort of slight pay raise due to step and lane changes according to years of service and increased education/credentials even with the 4% raise being revoked.

On June 22, 2011, over 1,000 Chicago Teacher Union (CTU) members, parents and students marched and picketed downtown at the Chicago Board of Education to show disapproval of the removal of the 4% raise.    

Is a strike the answer? 

Should the contract be re-opened?

For the most part, the revoked 4% raise will not force teachers to leave the profession.  But is it fair?  Can budget cuts happen in other areas rather than at the teachers’ expense? 

Ms. S

Inquiry Approach vs. Coverage Approach

All too often we see a teacher standing in front of the classroom feeding information and facts to students.  As Mrs. J mentioned, this is what Friere called the “banking method”.  The teacher is the know-all and has the duty of filling the mind of the student, whereas the student’s job is to memorize. 

Do we not want our children to grow up to be independent thinkers who are curious about our world?  Do we not want children who have the skills to research the topics they are interested in?  Because so many teachers feel the pressure to teach to the test, inquiry-based learning is often-times put to the side.  As a two-time Boundless Readers grant award winner (http://www.boundlessreaders.org/), I was fortunate to be a member of a professional study group this past school year (2010-2011) as well as this upcoming school year (2011-2012).  The professional text that we studied and just recently finished is called Comprehension and Collaboration by Stephanie Harvey and Harvey Daniels. 

Inquiry circles need to be a part of the curriculum in every classroom.   As educators, we need to teach and model for our students our curiosity about different topics because it will eventually (and hopefully) carry over to them in their lives.  Children need to learn how to do accurate research and how to evaluate websites.  We need to prepare our students and teach them how to formulate “wonder” questions that they will eventually research and find answers to.  Unfortunately, this is seen as “not structured” by many people and is therefore the first type of teaching and learning to go when worries about test scores occur and teachers feel the pressure.  Fostering curious learners is not new in education.  This idea of constantly questioning comes from Socrates, a Greek philosopher, whose pedagogy remains talked-about today.  Socrates believed that right questions lead to clarity, understanding, and further inquiry.  He said that it is not a clarity that is given to you by others, but arrived at by your own questioning.  He said that you basically cannot have knowledge without knowing the right questions to ask.  So why are so many teachers continuously dumping information into their students’ minds?  Why do we still see students reading text and answering “right there” questions?  We need to embrace students’ natural curiosity by supporting inquiry learning in our classrooms.  Teachers need to stop the busywork and worksheets and instead give students opportunities to research interesting topics, synthesize the information, and eventually ask more questions so that knowledge and understanding are gained. 

Check out the chart—Inquiry Approach versus Coverage Approach:

Here’s something to try:  Don’t look ahead, just read this text until you feel you understand it well (from Comprehension and Collaboration book).

MS2 Phage Coat Protein—RNA Interaction

This system is being studied for three reasons: (1) it is an example of a sequence-specific RNA-protein interaction, (2) it participates in a well-behaved in vitro capsid assembly reaction, and (3) it is a good model system to study how protein finds a target on a large RNA molecule. Available are an X-ray crystal structure of the RNA-protein complex and an NMR structure of the free RNA hairpin target. Current efforts focus on understanding how the thermodynamic details of sequence-specific "recognition" is achieved. We have made mutations in all the amino acids believed to make contact with the RNA and are evaluating the affinity of the mutant proteins to the normal RNA target as well as to targets that have single atom changes in either the bases or the phosphodiester backbone. It is already clear that nearly all the contacts predicted by the co-crystal structure contribute to the total free energy of binding. Thus, unlike several protein-protein interfaces that have been analyzed in a similar way, there are no "hot spots" that dominate the affinity. However, we have several examples where affinity and specificity are defined by structural elements of the RNA in its free form.

                -Olke Uhlenbeck, Interdepartmental Biological Sciences, Northwestern University

Okay, now you need to take a comprehension test:

1. How many reasons are there for studying this system?
2. What is the nature of the in vito capsid assembly reaction?
3. Current research focuses on what details of the sequence-specific recognition?
4. How many “hot spots” dominate the affinity?
5. In what form are there examples of RNA where affinity and specificity are defined by structural elements?

So, you probably got all 5 questions correct, right?  This is to show you how a teacher can “cover the material” but the students truly have no understanding or knowledge.   Need I say more? 

                Ms. S

Charter Schools: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Part II

Charter Schools are a big topic today in the educational reform debate. Both Rham Emanual, Chicago’s new mayor, and his appointed Chicago Public Schools CEO, Jean-Claude Brizzard, support charter schools and school choice. There are 48 charter schools in CPS today. In Diane Ravitch’s book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, she takes a close look at charter schools. They are public schools under private management. They must follow only some of the rules and regulations that regular public schools do and they receive federal funding. When charter schools were originally proposed they were to be run by innovative teachers that would develop ways to help children failing in the traditional school system. It would provide an alternate choice for struggling students. Schools would be tailored to their needs and produce better results. This sounds like a great idea. However, this is not how many charter schools are functioning now. Today charter schools are run using a business model where competition and return on investments are expected.

Janelle Scott, an educational researcher, discusses the presence of venture philanthropy in charter schools. Philanthropies such as The Walton Family Foundation (Wal-Mart) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are putting their money into charter schools. However, they are not just giving their money to schools they expect to see increased student achievement and to have a say in the policies of the school. Charter schools need the money for their school so they will do what is expected of them to get it. Since test scores are what determines student achievement today enrollment may be adjusted so that charter schools accept the most desirable students. Scott states in her article, The Politics of Venture Philanthropy in Charter School Policy and Advocacy, “There is evidence that some charter schools have disproportionately low enrollments of special education students, English language learners, and boys, populations generally known to perform more poorly on standardized assessments.” When charter schools selectively enroll students they ultimately leave a larger portion of high-needs students to be taught in the regular public schools. This undoubtedly affects the test scores of the public schools. Charter schools boast of high test scores and greater student achievement but many are not educating the same students as public schools. It is difficult to make a true comparison.

Scott also explains that some charter schools have a “high attrition rate”. Children who are struggling or not conforming to the rules of the charter school are either leaving or being expelled. Ravitch discussed the study of a KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) charter school that found “60 percent of the students who started in fifth grade were gone by the end of eighth grade. The students who quit tended to be lower-performing students”. When these children leave they will return to regular public school classrooms. In the end it seems that charter school are not schools developing new innovative ways to help struggling students. Instead they are attracting the most motivated and successful students and discarding the rest.

All children have the right to a good education, and although public schools are not unflawed they accept all children and work to provide them with a quality education. Are charter schools really doing what they were intended to, servicing children who were struggling in the traditional school system? Are they providing choices in education that high poverty children would not normally receive? It seems as if the competition between charter and public schools and the focus on producing increased student achievement has created an unsuccessful attempt at school reform that may in the end only hurt the students involved.

Mrs. J

Charter Schools: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I am lucky enough to have a preschool program, in a regular neighborhood school, that parents are excited to enroll their children in. My classroom remains full all year despite a high mobility rate in our school neighborhood. We generally have a waiting list of children that can be called if a spot becomes available throughout the school year. I work hard to develop a classroom where the children are engaged in student centered activities and projects that connect to their interests and build on their prior knowledge and experiences. As I speak to the parents throughout the school year they have expressed their happiness with the program and the education their child is receiving in my classroom.

You would think that this positive experience would encourage parents to continue their student’s education at our school. However, something changes once their child leaves preschool. At the end of the school year I ask the parents if they intend to enroll their child in kindergarten at our school. This year five out of twenty-one children are opting out of their neighborhood school and enrolling their child in a charter school. When one parent informed me that her child would be going to a charter school next year, she stated that her other three children go to the charter school already. She said the children take a bus to school at six o’clock in the morning and they have school activities until 6 o’clock at night. She said, “It’s a great program”, and went on to say that I would be a great fit in that school.

Enrollment is decreasing steadily in our school. In 2006 our student enrollment was 471 this school year we have 295 students enrolled. If enrollment continues to decrease our school could close. Parents seem to feel that alternative schools will provide their children with a better education. Some parents believe that these charter schools automatically have the best teachers and will provide the best opportunities. I wonder where they get these ideas. Are these schools truly benefiting the children attending? Are the children receiving a better education? Are there negative aspects to charter schools that people may not be seeing?

To be continued…

Mrs. J

Memorization vs. True Understanding

In my previous blog I discussed the effects that standardized tests are having on the curriculum. The accountability movement has forced educators to teach to the test and therefore, has created a curriculum that is narrow and test driven. Along with this narrowed curriculum I feel that it may be affecting the teaching methods being used in the classroom.

Teachers feel the need to “cover” all the topics being tested before March, when the ISAT is given. This may cause educators to teach concepts and content only on the surface. This does not allow students to have deep knowledge of the content and skills being taught. There is little time to connect the learning to the children’s lives, create background knowledge, and allow for students to discuss and engage in thoughtful conversations about the topic. Instead many teachers feel the need to quickly fill the children with knowledge so they can be ready for the test. Active engaged learning seems to be pushed out of the classroom by state tests.

In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire, an educational theorist, defines this type of teaching as the “banking” method. The student’s job is to memorize content. Students are viewed as “receptacles” to be filled by the teachers. Freire states, “The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is.” Accountability based on tests seems to follow some of the same ideas. The better a teacher fills a student with knowledge the better they will do on the test. If they do well on the test you are a good teacher. Do you really think it could be this easy? Is teaching simply filling someone with knowledge? Don’t other factors come into play? Can a good teacher really be determined by standardized test scores?

Freire explains, within the banking method, “The scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits.” Students simply are to remember the information given to them and to recall that information for the test. It does not engage children in thoughtful conversation about the topic utilizing higher order critical thinking. This stifles students’ creativity and learning. Instead of the banking method Freire explains that inquiry should be the basis of learning. He states, “Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” Students need to be encouraged to grapple with their own thoughts and question the information given. This will foster true understanding.

As teachers, especially now, it is hard to stand up and get your voice heard. It is not easy to express concern about the new education reform ideas that are imposed upon us. However, choosing to simply carry out the plan given to us without asking questions can have negative consequences. Each choice in our classroom needs to be given careful consideration, and in the end must have the children’s best interests in mind.

Mrs. J

What is a "good teacher"?

How should teachers be held accountable for the teaching they do each year?  What makes a teacher a “good teacher” versus a “bad teacher”?  In recent years, education and teacher accountability has changed due to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law that was signed in January 2002.  With this law, schools are now looked at as being a “good school” or “bad school” from the standardized tests that the students take.  Are we only worried about test scores now?  What message are we sending our students…that only Reading and Math matter because they are the tested subjects?  Because the arts, history and science are not tested, they do not matter and should not be valued?  Students, teachers, principals and schools are to this day judged based on the test scores because of NCLB.  Is this fair?  Is this reforming education? 

The media, politicians and general public like this idea of evaluating teachers based on test scores as it seems very practical to them.  They do not see and understand that many children are living in terrible conditions, being abused, are surrounded by drugs and gangs each day and are going hungry. As a result, these children are not capable of performing on the tests and yet it becomes the teacher’s responsibility and problem.  Reform is a slow process.  In the Diane Ravitch video, she mentions that in order for reform to happen there are certain “things” that schools need.  She says that “schools need a rich and balanced curriculum, a good environment for teaching and learning, activities (the arts) for students, a stable and experienced teaching staff, good teachers, able leadership, willing students and the freedom to use tests diagnostically to help students and teachers rather than to give out bonuses and punishments for the standardized test scores”.   All too often these standardized tests have become “the curriculum” at many schools because teachers are feeling the pressure to have their students perform each year.  There are too many classrooms where the environment and learning is all “test preparation” and as a result, fear has been instilled in the students’ minds. 

So, what is a “good teacher”?  Is a “good teacher” one who has soaring test scores or is a “good teacher” one who instills lifelong learning into students?  As an eighth grade teacher, my personal goal for my students is that they all become lifelong readers through independent reading.    I spend much of my time as a teacher writing grants so that I have an extensive classroom library where students cannot wait to read the latest and greatest young adult novels. 

A love of reading is cherished and eventually spreads to all the students during the school year.  As a teacher, there is no better sight than having a box of books arrive and students begging to open up the box to check out the new books.   I have never once had a student not read for me in my four years of teaching.  Many of them come into eighth grade saying they hate reading and will never read a whole book, but they all eventually have a shift in thinking as they spend more time in my room.  Recently, the eighth graders were asked to write about their greatest achievement in 8^th grade or what they are most proud of.  Out of 96 students, 18 students chose to write about reading being their greatest achievement this year.  Keep in mind, I teach in a school where books are not in the homes, many students have never read “for fun”, and most of my students are far below grade level in reading.  Also, that 8^th graders are very hard to please J  Read some of their responses:

·         “My best achievement in 8^th grade is learning how to love reading.  It made me realize that I can open up a different world and I can imagine and can be creative.  It can help me in life because it changed my attitude about reading.  It was a good influence on me because finally a teacher did not stop believing in me.  Ms. S—she kept pushing me and I started to get into reading.” RC

·         “My greatest achievement in 8^th grade is reading.  I think it’s awesome because I’ve never read a book in my life.  Every time I see a book and it looks good on the front, I read it and it’s really boring.  This year really changed the way I pick out books and read books.  I will change the way I read forever—it probably changed my life.” RR

·         “My greatest achievement in 8^th grade is improving my reading.  I improved my reading by choosing different genres and harder adult books.  I used to read books that were too easy, but now I read books at my lexile level.  I have Ms. S to thank for that.  Hopefully when I get older or graduate, I will keep improving my reading and never stop.” VG

·         “One of my greatest achievements in 8^th grade is that I actually read books.  I have never really enjoyed reading until 8^th grade but I think that’s because I never had somebody show me such a wide variety of books like Ms. S and I really like her and her class.  I don’t just fake read, I really read them.  That’s what I used to do—fake read because I wasn’t into my books.  Now I’m always 100% into all the books.” AB

·         “I’m most proud that in 8^th grade I was able to find a teacher that loved reading as much as me  Ms. S’s library was a dream come true.  I love her books.  She showed me authors and books I would never in my life read.  It has opened my eyes to many things.” SD

What makes a teacher a “good teacher”?  Is a “good teacher” one who helps children love school and love reading, or is it the teacher who drills the students and has high test scores?   Am I a “bad teacher” because my test scores are nothing to celebrate?  Or, am I a “good teacher” because I’ve helped change the opinions of many teenagers regarding school and reading?

Ms. S

What are Students Learning?

Being a preschool teacher I am fortunate that I have quite a bit of freedom in my classroom. I feel that it’s necessary to develop the whole child. I need to facilitate growth physically, socially, academically, and emotionally. I have the freedom to do this though projects and activities in the classroom that integrate all areas of learning. I have the luxury of including art, music, social studies, science, health, and physical education along with reading and math activities in my classroom. Even though I have regular observations from my principal and vice principal they are not accompanied with the same scrutiny and critical eye that my fellow colleagues receive. The other teachers in my school shoulder the burden of producing good test scores. This drastically reduces their ability to provide students with a broad and rich curriculum.

This year especially I have felt stress and frustration throughout the entire school. You must produce a class with good test scores or else the school may be put on probation, you may lose your job, you will be labeled a bad teacher, the school will be closed. These are all threats that teachers and principals are faced with on a daily basis. The tension in our school was strong; it could be felt by the parents, teachers, administrators, and students. Topics of discussions in staff meetings all revolved around the need to prepare students for the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT). It was the only focus.

Teachers were expected to follow very strict curriculum maps that would keep the children on track to learn all the information necessary to produce good results on the test. If an administrator found that you were deviating from the plan you must explain why. How was this helping the students to prepare for the ISAT test? If students had difficulty understanding some of the concepts there was little time to stop and re-teach. You must move on otherwise you would not cover everything that would be on the test. Many of my colleagues struggled with this. They knew what they were forced to do was not in the best interest of the students. It was not good teaching. However, refusing to do so would cause friction between themselves and administration and may cost them their job.

In Diane Ravitch’s book, Death and Life of the Great American School System How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, she discusses the negative aspects of the accountability movement. She puts into perspective the repercussions of focusing only on the test.

“The consequence of all this practice is that students may be able to pass the state test yet unable to pass a test of precisely the same subjects for which they did not practice. They master test-taking methods, but not the subject itself. In the new world of accountability students’ acquisition of the skills and knowledge they need for further education and for the workplace is secondary. What matters most is for, the school, the district, and the state to be able to say that more students have reached 'proficiency'."

When we simply teach to the test are we helping the student’s in any way? They may be able to pass the state test, but have they truly mastered the content in that test? To look even further, is this test going to create a student that has the knowledge to achieve at the next grade level, in the workforce, or in college?

I feel that these tests have their place in education. They can provide teachers, administrators, and school districts with valuable information; however, it should not account for the students entire curriculum focus. It should be one tool among many used to determine the students understanding. These tests have drastically narrowed the curriculum. Physical education, art, music, social studies, health, and science are given little to no attention in the classroom. Reading and math are the only focus. Students need a broad and rich curriculum that prepares them to be unique and creative thinkers.

Mrs. J