Why schools don't make AYP

No Child Left Behind

Why can’t schools make AYP? Let me count the ways.

10. Remove reading and math support teachers from the school because they are making AYP.

9. Remove the assistant principal because they are making AYP.

8. Remove the auxiliary teacher because they are making AYP.

7. Instruct the Special Ed kids only in Corrective Math and Corrective Reading.

6. Insist that the schools have 95% attendance or better, disregarding flu season and inclement weather.

5. Change the structure of the support staff in the central office. Dismantle the offices and department heads for Reading, Math, Science, Social Studies, and the Arts. Make all of the new hires generalists and then send them out to a school to counsel the science, math, reading and social studies teachers on how to teach specific topics in their fields of expertise. Require the former reading teacher to give staff development to the math specialists in the region. And vice versa.

4. Test the students every 6-8 weeks to see if they are improving in the achievement scores. Make each test be taken on computers. Allow one week every 6-8 weeks to review all the students’ mistakes, to reteach and retest them so they can pass the next Benchmark test.

3. Increase the disparity of the various school systems by relying on property taxes to fund the schools. In this way, schools in poor neighborhoods are guaranteed less funding for their schools.

2. Rely on this one test and attendance of both staff and students be counted in the AYP equation. Do not take into account that teachers can get pregnant, have operations, catastrophic illnesses, accidents, etc. and have to miss school because of circumstances beyond their control. Count their absences against the school for attendance.

1. Require that the students identified as Special Ed. Perform at or above proficient on their grade level of the State test. Hello? There is a reason why the children are designated as needing Special Ed services! If they carry that designation, then it has been determined that there is something preventing them from performing at grade level and Federal law requires that I teach them at their instructional level, not grade level. Schools who have not made AYP six years in a row are considered failing schools. Why should my school be identified as failing to educate the students when all grades have improved their test scores except for the Special Ed kids?

Violating an Agreement

 "There is a mutual agreement from both parties not to make comments about each other that are "malicious, wanton, or reckless in nature or...reasonably foreseeable to injure" their respective reputations. The non-disparagement agreement covers the members of the School Reform Commission and employees of the District, but not outsiders including the mayor." according to the notebook.org , August 24, 2011

That being said, I am not exactly sure that this will violate that agreement but I am writing it anyway.

As someone who has been teaching for 36 years, I have almost seen it all I'd guess. Curricula have come and gone, strategies have been touted and disfavored, the neighborhood has changed in economic advantages/disadvantages, children's attitudes have gotten increasingly hostile, principals have come through the door each with his/her own style and requirements, district superintendents have come and gone in the same manner as the principals, and I have lived through at least 5 or 6 School District Superintendents.

I thought Paul Vallas was bad as Superintendent, with all the patronage that went on in his tenure. During the latter years of my teaching career  the PSSA (Pennsylvania System of Student Assessment) was born and the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Act was voted into existence. I have no quarrels with the PSSA, as it forced all of the school districts in PA to get on the same page regarding curricula. I do have a problem with NCLB, as it laid the foundation for vast amounts of funny business foisted upon us by  superintendents desiring to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)

The many 'reforms' I have witnessed have come and gone. It seems that every ten years or so another professor somewhere 'discovers' an educational disaster and sets about fixing it. The worst reforms have been in Reading/Language Arts. Some of the trends are: Three reading groups, word lists + phonics + spelling; No reading groups, inventive spelling, emphasis on the individual, no phonics; Back-to-Basics bare-boned word list, phonics, spelling; Guided reading with both whole class instruction and reading groups with spelling and 'word study'.

Guess what? We are still having major problems with the students' reading abilities and are due for a second round of yet another reform strategy. I can honestly say the majority of the students at my school read better and do math better than when I first walked through the school doors. We had many more children failing and many more doing well, but it is the middle group which has enlarged. That middle group, which can go either way academically, is huge now as compared to 1982. While both the upper and lower groups have shrunk, their former inhabitants are now in the middle - not quite proficient and not quite failing. What we do with this group will eventually govern how the school is viewed as working or failing. Although our school is on its third year of NOT making AYP, we feel that we are on the move forward. But that might not count for anything in the long run, as making AYP is the be-all and end-all.

With the arrival of Paul Vallas as superintendent in Philadelphia, the job of teaching has become particularly disjointed and unappealing. Going for a one-size-fits-all curriculum, he instituted programs that served no one well and were headed by his relatives and friends. The Voyager Program for after-school tutoring had way too many pieces to be effective and was not 'rigorous', a word frequently used in education and hated by teachers. The Math tutoring program, the Princeton Review, was too computerized and touted methods diametrically opposed to our Everyday Math curriculum.  Everyday Math is an effective program but needs extensive staff development for the teacher as it presents concepts in a manner in which the teacher was not taught. There is a steep learning curve for the teacher but if you can stick it out and truly follow the methods, you will be rewarded by students who can think mathematically. During this period of Vallas' tenure, the teachers' professional development in Everyday Math disappeared or was severely curtailed. In addition, Vallas' choice of Regional Superintendent for our region was a verbally abusive man who walked noisily and carried a big stick. He was loved by few.

The arrival of our just-departed Superintendent, Arlene Ackerman, brought a new Regional Superintendent as bad as the last. It seemed that Ackerman replaced the Regionals with people made in her own image - mean, dictatorial and full of their own power. They rule by intimidation of the principals and teachers, rewarding those who do their bidding and embarrassing those who have the audacity to question. We lost a good principal to those tactics. Jury is out on this new principal, but I hope she has the guts to stand up for her teachers and for what is right and not just go along with the edicts of the Region.

Ackerman will not be missed by many, although her supporters are vocal, they are few. She earned the nicknames "Queen Arlene" and ":mean Arlene" honestly. I hope her Assistant, who is now our Acting Superintendent has learned what NOT to do, as the teachers as well as the principals were no friends of his predecessor.

I look forward to a new school year with much trepidation due to the changing of the guards and the fact that we did not make AYP again. Will the bell toll for good or evil? Time will tell.

Have I violated Arlene's agreement? I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Still learning!

A Tale of Two Mothers

I watched a young mother on the trolley with her 3 year old. She sat her son by the window but insisted that he sit down on the seat rather than look out the window. As soon as she sat down, she called someone on her cellphone and proceeded to chat with them for the next 15 minutes or so. Sitting across from the two of them and slightly behind, I had the perfect place for watching interactions. This mother sat with her back to the child!

After about 5 minutes, curiosity got the best of him and he knelt on the seat in order to be able to see out the window. "Look!" he exclaimed with glee, "A truck!"

Mom paid no attention as he patted her on the arm. He tried again. "Mommy! Mommy! A truck right there!"

"Shut up!" she replied, clearly irritated. "I can't hear."

He was quiet for a few more minutes until he spotted a fire engine. You could see his whole body react to the sight of the big red hook and ladder. He broke into a big grin, bouncing on his knees and patted the window. "Mommy! A fire engine! A big fire engine! Look! Look! Oh! a firemen waved ! Look Mommy! He waved at me!"

How could you resist that plea? The child was clearly overcome with joy at the response from the firefighter. "I told you to shut up!" she screamed as she smacked him, "Sit down! What do you think you are doing! I can't hear. I told you that. Sit down and shut up or I'm gonna smack you again!"

The little guy didn't even cry, as though he were accustomed to this reaction and sat down for a few minutes. As his mother had finished the call, instead of putting the phone away, she began to play a game at this point. The little guy eventually got up on his knees to look out the window but didn't talk to his mother again.

Same trolley, different day.

A trolley pulls up to the stop and a young mother gets on with her son, about 3 years old. She has obviously just picked him up from daycare - his fists are clenched around some colored pages upon which he has drawn some scenes.  She is also on her cell phone. "I'll call you back when we're home," she says, "We're on the trolley now. Can't talk."

She sat her son by the window but insisted that he sit so he could look out the window. As soon as she sat down, she took the papers her son was holding and proceeded to chat with him about them for the next 10 minutes or so After she was satisfied that he had told her everything about his day, she instructed hime to look out the window and find squares. "Look at that big box the man is carrying" That is a square!. Can you find a square?"

The young boy looked dutifully for squares as Mom helped him. "Look at the building. Do you see any squares? Where are they?"

He excitedly poinnted out the various geometric shapes his mother requested. She praised him each time he found one and gently corrected him when he didn't. "That looks like a circle, but see the shape? It's a little flat in the middle. We call that an oval."

The entire time they were on the trolley with me, they conversed. He asked her questions when she told him it was his turn to question her! I was delighted with the whole process. Not once did she glance away, hoping that he wouldn't say anything to her. She was totally focused on him, as it should be. They talked about what happened at school, where they should go on the weekend, who has more dogs - Mom-Mom or Aunty?, what color the cars were, how many cats sat on the step. It was amazing!

Can you guess which child will sail through school? Can you guess which one will know shapes and colors before he gets to Kindergarten? Can you guess which child will be willing to try new things or have a discussion? Can you guess which one will have a great vocabulary when he gets to school?

It's not hard to figure out the answer.

When my youngest daughter was four years old, she had to visit the doctor on a day she was under her grandmother's care. Mom-Mom was not sure where the doctor's office was, but her granddaughter was able to tell her where to turn and what was coming up next because we talked about it on the way to previous doctor visits. Mom-Mom was impressed that a child could give her such excellent directions. She was only able to do it because she was an observer as we traveled, something I encouraged.  Her first words read were the street signs on the way to kindergarten. Words like Locust, Spruce, Market, Chestnut, Walnut, Arch, Vine, Haverford and even Westminster. The only one that stumped her was Wyalusing!

Since the advent of cell phones and game boys, we have enabled a generation of kids to get by without having face-to-face conversations or observing their surroundings. This just doesn't happen on public transportation either. How many parents buy vans or SUVs with DVD players? Put the kids in their car seats and boosters, turn on the DVD and drive without having to talk to the kids. They don't have to look out the window to notice shapes, colors or the number of cats on the steps. All the entertainment is electronic.

How sad! What have we learned by depending on all these pieces of modern technology?

That discussion is dead?