schooldog

Return with me now to our state’s high stakes achievement testing, the High School Proficiency Exam (HSPE), the backbone of No Child Left Behind in our state.

As the counselor to this year’s juniors, I watch the results of my students closely. Prior to testing this spring, two hundred and fifty students, or about half the class, had either failed one or more of the reading, writing, and/or math tests, or had failed to take one.

The math HSPE this year underwent the third reinvention for my class. It was designed to be given late in the school year and as an End of Course assessment (EOC) in Algebra or Geometry. Though this is a somewhat different story to that of Allen and efolio, reported recently (7/17/11 School Bureucracy: Don’t Think Too Far Ahead), the moral is similar, and the story involves yours truly.

In January I heard by the grapevine that there was some question whether or not members of my class who had taken the math assessment once, but not passed it, would be given an opportunity to take it again, so I inquired carefully of the correct parties in our district if in fact this group of students would be given the math test again. The question arose because, by the rules of the state graduation requirements, if a student has taken the math HSPE, now the EOC, at least one time, but does not pass it, they can still graduate by taking two full years of math “after tenth grade.” Though there appeared no rational reason why these students would not be given the test a second time – even budgetary reasons wouldn’t seem adequate to exclude them — I wanted to be in a position to advocate for sanity if in fact the powers that be were seriously considering the lesser option.

By the lesser option, if students who had already taken and failed the test were not allowed to take it a second time, then their only means to meet the state math standard would be to pass the two years of math after tenth grade. One could say “Well, just pass the blessed classes,” rightly enough, but in the washout I anticipate there would be a small number of students who would not graduate, in this era of accountability, because of failure in math courses when they might realistically have passed the math HSPE/EOC on a second try.

Long story short, I was assured by a reliable source that all students who had not passed the math test would be given the new test this June. So knowing my students to have their head in the sand, by periodic visits to classrooms and via a letter my administrator and I sent to parents of the kids involved, I broadcasted the necessity of taking the math HSPE/EOC in June. I know my message got through to a substantial number, because alongside the plea to take the test was a directive to affected students to make sure they enrolled in “two years of math after tenth grade.” In the ensuing registration process, I was pleased at the percentage of students who in fact heeded my call.

Fast forward to June 1, the day before the test. By various channels I started to get discordant information. Students who I expected to take the test were informing me they had been told there was no test for them, and they were assigned to be in a “holding tank”, the library. I started to get a few phone calls from parents who had paid attention to my earlier letter, and were understandably confused when their kids came home saying they weren’t assigned to a testing classroom. Finally, I tracked down the good administrator in charge of the testing. She confirmed that students who had already taken the math HSPE wouldn’t be taking the test, contrary to my earlier information, because they “had not been given tests for everyone” who had previously taken the test but not passed. Demonstrating some lightness on her feet, she did allow a relatively small number of the affected students to take the test if they wished because she said there were a limited number of unassigned tests available.

Later the day of the test I felt I had my hand metaphorically slapped when she and I talked. Relative to the confusion students were obviously coping with, I told her that I had checked in January, was told all of those who had not passed would be given tests, and related the steps I had taken to make sure the information was widely and correctly understood. Apparently I had acted without consulting her, who I had not even known would be test coordinator, despite the fact I had acted with my class level administrator’s knowledge. Which begs the question, given the assurances I had originally been given in January, why would I consult about promoting the specifics of state graduation testing? The answer in bureaucratic reality: there was anxiety about egg on face.

Later I learned to my satisfaction that in fact we did have enough tests for all students who needed them, which may have been why the hand slap I felt was a light one. Other schools, sister schools in our school district, did in fact have all the needed tests. Why would we alone not have the requisite number?

The decision to not retest students who had taken the EOC once, but failed, may have had to do with the large number of students we had to test at one sitting, and the difficulty of finding enough appropriate testing stations, but that is only speculation — I had no seat at the decision table.

But the point is not that a bad decision was made, if in fact I am correct. The point is that this employee (moi) took what he thought to be reliable information and had the initiative to run with it, doubting correctly that anyone else would take it upon themselves to adequately inform my students of the realities facing them. Isn’t that how a system is supposed to work? Information from upper decision making levels provided to the gears of the operation so that actions staff takes and decisions staff makes are properly oriented to the bigger picture?

But in the end most of my efforts came to naught, and I am left with trying to ensure that all students who need the two years of math are in fact so enrolled. As I left school for the summer, I had identified approximately forty students who were not so enrolled, with only about ten seats available in open classes. We need another full section of some math or another.

Honestly, a relatively small percentage of the students I am talking about would have passed the math HSPE/EOC, as long as it is about the same rigor as earlier tests. If it proves to be a test easier to pass, as cynics might suspect, given the stakes involved, then my students have truly had the playing field skewed on them by being denied the opportunity to take the test.

Finally, I am left with my friend Allen’s dilemma, to be or not to be. When one can suspect one’s efforts will be brought down by the detours of the system, will one take new initiative when circumstances call for it? Clearly the answer for too many in schools is to not to bother, but to cocoon themselves in their classroom, with their students, and do what they can do in their relatively circumscribed territory. Take the good vacations, enjoy the kids and colleagues, and believe that some good comes from one’s honest efforts.

For some, I suppose, that is enough — an honorable enough compromise.

My sister-in-law, Tricia, who is an elementary teacher in another state, tells a tale in which administrators require that teachers post objectives each day in the classroom and advise students why they are doing what they are doing. Makes sense, good practice. Teachers in my school do similarly, I believe. The idea is to create a cognitive set as to where the lesson is going, and thereby enhance student engagement in the learning process. Unfortunately, in Tricia’s tale the motions of the requirement gain primacy over the spirit of the idea, not unlike in the Student Learning Plan example I posted earlier (“School Bureaucracy: Beating the System 6/21/11), but more subtly so.

Yes, teachers in Tricia’s school post their objectives dutifully for the occasional administrative visitor to observe. Some will have their three or four objectives to rotate, “because they don’t come in often enough to recognize a given objective has been recycled.” Others will have objectives so general as to cover just about any circumstance of learning.

The administrative requirement to “show me”, and to monitor the forms rather than the substance, has at least two deleterious effects. The first of course is that form triumphs over substance, and a legitimate idea is subverted. Teachers focus more on pleasing the principal than doing the disciplined work of being intentional and clear about each lesson.

The second consequence is the separation of what should be an administrative/teacher team into separate camps, into the predator and the prey. Just as students hide behind a remarkable veil from teachers, who thereby don’t see all the comings and goings of drugs, alcohol, gang activity, love worries, and all the myriad things that really occur in kids’ lives, teachers also hide behind the veil of the forms expected, cat and mouse. What should involve trust and true teamwork between administrator and teacher — that is, the work to improve kid learning and kid motivation — ends up being clogged with bureaucratic rigidities. The chain begins up the line with state, or even federal requirements, and is passed down to superintendents and the district level. Principals then must respond in forms to their superiors, which brings us fully down to the grass roots school level and stories such as Tricia’s about objectives. That which is the reality up the chain becomes the reality down the chain.

Clarity of purpose linked to revolving data is a powerful process via which to attack weaknesses in both individual students and in a classroom as a group. Without such intellectual discipline, which typifies a legitimately professional approach, the wandering prevalent in educational things as they are is itself poorly challenged. Clear and respectful communication between teachers and administrators, in some important sense as equals, is essential to such professional discipline. This ideal, difficult to put into practice in the best of circumstances, is a casualty in Tricia’s example.

In my own school, teachers have to track how that they have provided accommodations to special education and 504 students. The tracking is done as much to supervise as to provide documentation in case of lawsuits, from which our district has suffered. But in this particular case my impression is that admin and teachers travel on adjacent pages. Good work has been done by admin types to make the task as little onerous as possible. I have overheard admins telling teachers to make sure they document at least once a month, rather than the daily documentation which would make the action ludicrously burdensome.

Moreover, teachers have also altered their classroom management to provide common accommodations, such as extra time on tests, and complex assignments broken down to component parts, to all students, regardless of legal requirements, thereby simplifying compliance, and perhaps even shifting instruction in generally positive directions. It is tempting, if overly enthusiastic, to wonder if the original point of all the enabling legislation was not just to level the playing field for individual students, but to force general change in classroom practice.

Though I would not say that this latter example indicates all is well in our particular school house, it does demonstrate what can happen when teachers and administrators collaborate on solutions to the kinds of sticky problems we face.

Still, I do not want the original point to be lost. In this era of federal and state intervention, and therefore of reporting, at what juncture does all this emphasis on reportage to the level above detract from the real non linear business at hand, namely change, true teamwork, and focus on the substance?

I do grudgingly agree that the requirements of No Child Left Behind have prodded change is a bludgeoning kind of way, which may be the only means to induce accountability from the federal level. My point is simply that there is a cost to this attempt at control that unintentionally subverts the goal, and may even prevent the kind of professionalization of teachers and respect given them that seems to be the bedrock of the relative success of other nations’ schools.

Allen was the vice principal I worked most closely with last school year. He and I shared stewardship of the class of 2012, then juniors, and had since Allen had been hired when the class members were freshman. In his mid to late thirties, he had formerly been a guide in Alaska, and I thought was at once tough with discipline as well as provided an open ear to the realities students faced. I was lucky to be working with him.

There are probably two schools of thought about how to implement change in any organization. One is the carefully planned out method. Get all the details right down to the last fastener, think through all permutations that the process might follow, problem solve potential problems, etc.

The other school of thought takes an idea, sets up some initial parameters, and enters startup without the careful preparation characteristic of the other schema. Along the way, tweaks are made, sometimes big tweaks, as the shortcomings of the plan are revealed in the working of it. The advantage of this type of approach is that one can get going, without becoming bogged down in endless planning. Make a decision, get on with it, improve it.

In my experience, schools pretty much subscribe to the latter line of thought, because of the unwieldiness and the cost of bringing all parties to the table for careful planning, and the tightness of the work schedule of building staff. And also, to some degree, I think due to a plain old lack of professionalism, the legacy of relatively protected jobs and the unconscious knowledge that, whatever the outcome of the new initiative, there would still be a new batch of kids coming in the door the next year. Unlike a miscalculation in the private sector, the business would continue, regardless.

So it was by this latter chain of events some years back our high school entered the early phases of a “Culminating Project” for seniors. Through many ins and outs, the plan persevered, finally becoming enshrined as a state graduation requirement, which our admin had seen coming down the road.

As the plan matured, some of the detail of the Culminating Project was to be entered on a computer data system called “efolio.” Students were to enter records of their best works from different classes, parts of community service and job shadow efforts, and so forth. Though with some fiddling students could manage the system, the truth was that it was overly complicated, abstruse in some spots, and in the end vitally underused by students, who expressed their displeasure by their passive aggressive attitude toward the whole idea.

Allen, who I introduced earlier, knew teachers and other staff who experimented with the system developed the same negative vibe.  Rather than sit on his bureaucratic duff, Allen listened intently to his own experiences with the program, as well as the many negative and specific testimonies of staff and students. With the help of one of our technologically savvy staff members, Marcia, he developed a concept for both simplifying and improving efolio. He then persuaded other administrators and the larger district honchos to meet with the efolio vendors. The upshot was a much simplified “click and drag” environment that still left the kids grousing about the Culminating Project, but finally with much less substance about which to complain.

Note this is another positive story of assertive staff dealing with bureaucracy. Man sees problem, man listens, man networks, man and support build a better mousetrap, progress made. Way to go, Allen.

That is why I am sad to report efolio is no more in our school, and Allen’s entrepreneurship will remain only a memory.

Toward the end of school this year we advisors (the Culminating Project was coordinated through our Advisory system) were abruptly notified by email that we were to create a folder for each one of our advisees on a server drive that students could access. Next, classroom by classroom, students were to log in and transfer the contents of their efolio account to that drive, to save it. The cost of efolio had been judged to be prohibitive in the current budget realities, and our use of the vendor had been terminated. Not entirely clear who made the decision, though rumor had it that other high schools in our district planned to continue with efolio.

It is true that students, already dismayed (mostly whining) by the requirements of the Culminating Project, and alienated by the fits and jerks of its history, have likely been handed a legitimate complaint in their confusion as to which end is up.

More to the point, the initiative taken by my friend Allen to solve a problem has gone to waste, another good idea into the waste bin when its champion moves on, which Allen did at the beginning of the just finished school year. It may be if you and I were privy to the details of the decision, we would have reached the same conclusion — that efolio had to go. But should we blame Allen if in his heart of hearts concludes, “Why try?”