2016: State funding for education is not keeping up with costs per student

SCPP = State Cost Per Pupil. This makes 7 straight years under Branstad that education funding has fallen short of SCPP. That means school districts either fire teachers, or they raise local taxes.

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Considering putting your child in a gifted-talented program?

A parent in another district asked me about putting her child in a new program for gifted children in their district.

I have a question. If one of your children had had the opportunity to go to an exceptionally-gifted program within your school district, would you have sent him/her? Even if it meant you had kids at another school?
I'm facing this decision and my pro/con list seem to balance each other out. The curriculum for Adam [not his real name] is amazing. Classroom laptop, Spanish every day, twice as many field trips, inquiry based, Skyping with countries, global discussions, and a math/reading/etc curriculum that's two years ahead of grade level.
But it means leaving his sister at her school. She could go to the same school as Adam, but she doesn't want to, nor would I make her.  Plus I worry about socialization, even though they integrate the students for lunch, art, recess, strings, music, p.e., and field trips. (Plus, it sort of disturbs me that our district spends so much on this academy for such a few students when their general gifted programs need work)



I will try to respond with the proviso that I don't know your children nearly well enough to respond!  Nor their current situation nor the new school :-) 

Having said that, I get excited when I hear "inquiry based."  Done right, that can be wonderful learning.  Spanish every day -- if primarily oral -- would also be exciting.  American schools are ridiculous for teaching kids a foreign language but never learning how to speak it.  The other points I'd ask questions about: Is this a one-to-one laptop program (each child has their own)?  Those are exciting too, if done right, but I don't have first-hand experience and I'd want to know if it's been shown to be useful for kids Adam's age.  The Skyping and global discussions can be good spurs for inquiry learning.  And great motivators if the kids present their projects to an "audience" of students in another school.  Heck, any audience does wonders for student motivation. 

Is this a daily program or would he just go there a few days a week?  The socialization question is an important one but only you can answer that.  I guess I'd also want to know what is the attitude within the program.  I've seen GT programs that talked explicitly with the kids about how they were unique, which I think has the potential to foster an elite attitude.

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Links for NAESP Presentation, April 2011

Richard Allington article, What We've Learned  http://www.readingrockets.org/article/96

Jim Collins article on Good to Great  http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/good-to-great.html

Richard DuFour article on PLCs  http://pdonline.ascd.org/pd_online/secondary_reading/el200405_dufour.html

Mike Schmoker article, The Crayola Curriculum   http://mikeschmoker.com/crayola-curriculum.html

Larry Tash's summary of Douglas Reeves   http://www.middleweb.com/MWLresources/accountaction.html  

Jerry Valentine article on Instructional Practices Inventory 

https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/3565

Improving Instruction through Evaluation?

This semester I'm teaching "Evaluator Approval:  Improving Instruction" at the University of Northern Iowa, as an adjunct.

So here's my question:  can a principal improve instruction through the standard teacher evaluation process?

Here are some of the issues:
Teacher A tells me: "Evaluations do no good unless the people being evaluated are given specific help for the specific problems noted. My evaluations were always good, but they didn't help me become better....I don't mind a criticism if the critic can explain how or why something else would work better. I do mind it if they just make a statement that gives me no help and nothing to work on."

Teacher B tells me their concern: "when the administrator tells you what they expect, but they've never had to do it except in isolated situations. Real teaching is never isolated. But quite effectively administration is isolated. I sincerely believe that ALL administrators would be (for lack of a better term) better if they had to teach in the regular ed setting 1 year out of 5."

I agree with Teacher A; sometimes I can see the problem but I don't know how to fix it.  And that relates to Teacher B: I don't know how to fix it because I haven't done it myself.

To me the answer is that the principal is not the solution-giver or the expert, but the coach.  A basketball coach may never have successfully executed a jump hook but knows how it should be done and can call on others to model it.  And the coach can work with the player as he/she gets comfortable with the shot.

What are your issues with teacher evaluation, especially as a means of improving instruction?

Presentation at NAESP Convention, April 2011

I will present at the National Association for Elementary School Principals convention in Tampa.  The topic is "No Excuses:  Practical Steps Towards Changing Your School."

Here's the description:

How do you get started changing your school, especially if your staff isn’t thrilled about change? We will discuss how to build momentum for change and how to increase the odds that it will succeed. You can do it with the resources at hand. What changes might you have to make in your own attitude or approach to the job? What committees or structure can you put in place? What models can you use? And – what pitfalls should you look out for? The speaker, a veteran principal in a variety of schools, will encourage audience discussion and sharing.