The Treasure Hunter

My feelings about homework have been strongly affected by the school experiences of my own children and my granddaughter.  My four kids, who completed their education in the past century, almost never complained about homework or needed any help with their assignments. They also had plenty of time left to read books of their own choice and participate in after school sports.  On the other hand, my only granddaughter, who was as capable as her parents and uncles, went to high school early in this century and stayed up past midnight almost every night doing homework. When I went to the school to talk about the problem, I was told that the school was high-achieving and naturally expected much from all its students.  I transferred her out to a more progressive thinking school the following week.

As an elementary grade teacher the only homework I gave was reading. Later, when I became a principal, my teachers decided—unanimously—to do the same. They designated time amounts for each grade and asked parents to monitor them, without being too strict or reporting back to teachers. High school is a different world, however. There, students move through five or more classes per day, and each class is barely long enough for instruction, discussion, and a bit of practice. There is rarely time for adding on reading or writing. To make the situation more of a problem teachers do not know when their colleagues are giving difficult and lengthy homework assignments.

To form our own opinions let’s look at the research and then the unscientific results of interviews that I did with teachers. The research is decisive about which students benefit most from doing homework.  Middle school and high school students gain some benefit, but not elementary students.  Researchers don’t say why this is true.  At the same time researchers suspect that assigning large amounts of homework on a consistent basis adversely affects student performance. According to some of them, the amount of homework students have to do should be guided by the “ten-minute rule” which means that the total homework time for each grade should be no longer than ten times the grade level, figured in minutes. In other words, sixth grade teachers should assign no more than sixty minutes of homework. Unfortunately, however, this rule doesn’t help much because students vary widely in how long it takes them to complete the same piece of work.

In addition, some researchers have looked at the benefits of stressing a particular type of homework, but they have not been able to give definitive answers. The problem is that the types of reading or writing assignments vary in their difficulty. Reading a news paper report on election results may take only five minutes and be clear to all students, while reading an opinion piece on what should be done about the religious conflicts in Middle East countries may demand more time and thought.

Through conversations with several experienced teachers whose wisdom I respect, I learned that most of them favor reading for homework, either in a familiar textbook or a piece of literature introduced and begun in class. Their second choice was math problems also introduced and practiced in class. Answering questions about material read and/or discussed in class was not at all popular. Most of the teachers I talked to felt that such tasks were boring for students and did not improve their learning. When it came to having students do writing for homework there were differences of opinion. Elementary grade teachers were skeptical about giving students such assignments because they felt that young children need help throughout the process, and that parents should not be the ones to give it. In contrast, middle and high school teachers felt that some types of writing make good homework assignments, as long as there was preparation in the classroom beforehand.

Although teacher preferences may appear to leave homework questions still open, I saw a few restrictions coming through clearly. Teachers believe that they should stay away from assigning unfamiliar tasks or formats as homework because students tend to forget teachers’ instructions and become frustrated or rely on their parents for guidance. Teachers also try to avoid long-term projects to be done at home because student work outside the classroom cannot be monitored or guided by teachers.

In their interviews some teachers also mentioned one type of homework they liked that I did not ask about: interviewing parents or other adults about topics being studied at school. Although students needed help in the classroom beforehand in selecting and framing questions, most of them seemed strongly motivated to find out what their parents, siblings, friends, or strangers had to say. They wrote down answers or recorded them on cell phones and, once back in the classroom, classified them, counted them, and determined percentages. Teachers said that this type of homework almost always led to good discussions and writing about the results.

Although some of the problems in education today, such as swamping kids with too much homework or bewildering them with unfamiliar assignments, have not been answered by research or the teachers I interviewed, I hope they have stirred readers to think more about them. The demands now put upon teachers and students are greater than ever before, and can’t be met by longer school days or years or more work at home. What do you see as better ways to educate all our children?

Having dutifully waited a week for The Oregonian to publish my letter criticizing a new decision in the Portland (OR) public schools on how to teach reading, it appears that the only topic worthy of attention is the argument about teaching climate change.  For that reason I am posting the major parts of the original newspaper article, leaving out only the opinions of various consultants and school district employees, and my letter in response.  

Unfortunately, I had to be more brief than I wanted to be because of word limits specified by the newspaper. What I would have liked to add was that in both elementary schools where I was principal we used no commercial reading programs or work sheets.  Our teachers knew how to teach reading from their own training and experience, and  they used only high quality literature that they believed was developmentally appropriate and appealing for their students.  In addition to group reading assignments and discussions, students were expected to read books of their own choice in their down time at school and for homework.  

During the 12 years of my tenure at a high poverty school in Oregon the state authorized a 3rd to 5th grade progress test in reading and math for all schools.  A report in The Oregonian noted: ” Only one school in the region, Cottrell GradeSchool  (our school) showed high gains in both math and reading.” At another time when both math and reading tests were given, the newspaper observed  that” Fifth-grade students in the tiny Cottrell School District scored highest in math tests among 44 elementary schools in North Clacamas and East Multnomah counties.” and “Cottrell, along with Damascus and West Orient tied for second place in reading.”

Portland Public Schools, searching for a new way to teach young students to read and write after years of struggle, has decided to go it alone.

At the strong urging of teachers and other educators who’ve sampled various reading series, Oregon’s largest district on Tuesday rejected offerings from every major publisher. Instead, it decided to buy six components from five companies and combine them into a unique reading and writing curriculum of its own.

Beaverton schools have already made a similar shift and will add the same main reading program that Portland picked, Units of Study in Reading, to all 33 of its elementary and K-8 schools this summer.

Portland picked teachers from about three dozen schools who tried the six components it plans to adopt, plus a seventh program it didn’t pick up, for much of this winter and spring. District officials measured some of the results, but so far have declined to release the findings.

Mainstream reading programs, which contain scripted lessons designed to teach phonics, fluent reading, accuracy, comprehension and vocabulary, are called comprehensive core reading programs. Research into how young readers learn, along with a big nudge from the federal No Child Left Behind law, enshrined them as standard in nearly all U.S. schools over the past decade and half.

But after Portland Public Schools’ current reading series, Scott Foresman’s Reading Street, didn’t pan out well, district officials were open to novel options. A district selection committee eventually suggested forgoing any mainstream reading series until at least 2023.

In 2014, the last year Oregon’s old state tests were given, 27 percent of the district’s third-graders failed the reading exam. In 2015, using the more challenging Smarter Balanced tests, 43 percent of Portland third-graders, including about 70 percent of blacks and Latinos, fell short of the national proficiency standard

This fall, the new approach will be fully implemented in all Beaverton elementary schools and in 10 of Portland’s 56 elementary and K-8 schools. Portland plans to provide the new materials to its remaining 46 schools over the next two years.

Both districts plan to rely heavily on teachers’ judgment to interpret test results and customize lessons, small group work and independent assignments to match the needs of individual readers, said Portland’s Martin and Beaverton’s Nicole Will, administrator for elementary curriculum, instruction and assessment

Both Portland and Beaverton plan three full days of training in August for K-5 teachers in schools adopting the new programs. The districts also plan to offer whole and partial days of training during the year. Portland will also pay eight full-time coaches for the 10 schools that get the books this year: Arleta, Bridger, Forest Park, Grout, Laurelhurst, Lewis, Sitton, Vernon, Vestal and Whitman.

To the Editor:

As a retired educator, still deeply involved with the teaching of reading and writing, I was dismayed to read that the Portland Public schools were still tied to commercial materials for teaching reading and considering combining pieces from several programs to create a new program. By this time experienced educators and their superiors should have learned that each child learns to read in his own time frame and in his own way, and that real literature and non-fiction are far better tools than anything concocted by commercial publishers.

Learning to read is not all that difficult when children are given interesting and well-written books for group activities and allowed to choose books that appeal to them to read on their own. It also helps when adults read aloud interesting books with illustrations on a regular basis. That is how children learn vocabulary and begin to understand the world outside their own homes and neighborhoods. Reading poetry helps too, because of the repeated word sounds and lines.

Over all, we should remember that reading and writing have been around for many centuries, and that the people who wanted and needed to use those skills found them easy to learn– often without a teacher, and certainly without any breakdown into separate skills, workbook exercises, or tests.

Sincerely yours,
Joanne Yatvin

With today’s post I have gone out on a limb to give my own ideas of where school costs should be cut in hard times.  I must admit that I was motivated more by my own perceptions of how many school districts waste money than by the real and reprehensible situation of the Kansas public schools.  In my own experiences as a principal, and later as the superintendent of a small rural district, we received a modest amount of funds, voted upon in the early years by our community and later determined by the state on the size of our student enrollment.  But we made our funds go farther by not buyong any student workbooks, commercial teaching programs, and only very few new textbooks.  Our teachers were smart enough and experienced enough to create their own units and student assignments and to pull together the background  information for teaching science and social studies.  We also put more money into our library for new books and technology than most schools and kept it open during the noon hour, and at other times for teachers to send small groups there to do research. To teach reading–plus history and geography– we bought paperback copies of high quality literature that provided a wide range of topics and reading difficulty so that teachers could choose what their students needed and were interested in without depriving other teachers and their classes of what they needed.  We always had enough funds to cover all our students’ needs and to provide for some special materials that teachers requested, such as plants, fish and their tanks, and small animals to observe for science units.

According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times, supplemented by an editorial in today’s edition, the public schools in the state of Kansas are in dire straights as a result of budget cuts over the past few years. In many schools, especially those in high poverty areas, class sizes have increased significantly, learning programs have been eliminated, teachers laid off, and the number of school days reduced. In addition, much needed building repairs and regular upkeep routines have been neglected. No action has been taken to close and replace old and decrepit school buildings that may be dangerous to students and faculty members. Finally, the current school funding system appears to favor schools in wealthy communities.

Although the Times blames the state Governor and the Legislature for creating these problems in order to give tax cuts to the wealthy, and for the failure to act where it is necessary; I am not qualified to make any such judgments–at least, not publicly. On the other hand, as a seasoned school principal and a district superintendent for ten years, I feel qualified to make suggestions for school district economies that would alleviate the bad situations that now exist and also to name areas that should not be touched. But I must also make clear that most of my suggestions are meant to be temporary actions in times of crisis.

The basic role of any school is to serve and protect its students. But, at the same time, the core responsibility of a school district is to do whatever is necessary to enable its schools to fulfill that role. Ironically, some of the actions and structures kept in schools by tradition are unnecessary. When financial conditions improve, a district needs to reconsider what is necessary and what is a pointless luxury. It is then the duty of the state legislature to pass legislation that will provide the funds needed to enable schools to operate effectively. Here are my suggestions:

1. Any school lay-offs should begin with employees who do not work directly with students or maintain essential school operations. District officials must first consider the necessity of members of their own staff and any outside consultants before layong off teachers, instructional aides, or school custodians.
2. In a time of fiscal insufficiency a school district should terminate any contracts with standardized test providers. If summative tests must be given under state law, they can be designed, implemented and scored by the teachers of the students to be tested. If such testing is not required by state law, it should be suspended for the duration of the fiscal emergency.
3. School districts should suspend the purchase of unnecessary classroom materials, such as workbooks and new textbooks. Teachers can design their own curricula and teaching materials. Old textbooks still physically intact can be used by students, and teachers can construct their own practice assignments.
4. Competitive sports and other out of school activities should be suspended. They can be replaced by intramural sports that do not require specialized equipment or student transportation.
5. Any school buildings determined to be unsafe for students and school staff members must be closed down until there are funds enough to repair or replace them.

At the same time that the above actions have been taken without damaging the needs and rights of students, districts have sometimes made the mistake of removing or reducing other programs and personnel that are essential to school functioning. One such program is the school library and its librarian. A fully functioning library with a trained librarian and up-to-date materials is essential for student learning and teacher assistance.

Finally, I have one more suggestion for schools to function in hard times: Enlist parents to volunteer for duties that do not include teaching or supervising students. They could help in the school lunchroom, make copies of materials for teachers, organize classroom materials, and post school rules, information notices, decorations, and student work in school hallways. Parents could also form committees to see what other help they could provide to teachers and students to make them feel better in hard times.

Today’s post is another gem from the blog “Literacy and NCTE”. I am grateful to Lu Ann  Mc Nabb for keeping this feature going with essay after essay by wise teachers who continue to make me believe that there are still good things happening in our public schools.

Today’s author is Martha Brockenbrough, the author of several books for young readers who has also worked as a teacher, journalist and editor.

I don’t envy teachers these days. You know what you’re up against—I don’t need to tell you.

But what I can tell you, as a writer, a parent, and a former teacher, is this: The things that drew you to the profession are still the truth about why teaching matters. You are a teacher because you love and value children and because you believe that caring about them is the best way to help shepherd them into a hard-edged world.

Given the importance of this quest, the long shadow cast by standardized tests is more than ridiculous. It’s an outrage. No child is motivated—except in the most transient, soul-damaging ways—by standardized tests.

So what does work with children, especially when it comes to reading and writing? That thing you already know how to do. That thing that drew you to the classroom in the first place. That thing that means you will never forget the best teachers you ever had.

It’s love.

And this is what it looks like.

It looks like Mrs. Cleveland, my third-grade teacher, who knew I needed something to get through the math that scared me. She planted a branch in the corner of the classroom and called it a tree, and she hung strips of paper on its twigs, each of which contained a word. When I was done with my math, she let me pick a word and use it to start a story. And she read every one of those stories and told me I was a writer.

It looks like Ms. Adams, who understood why I never had money for books from the Scholastic catalog, and sometimes bought books for me with her own money.

It looks like Mr. King, who had us write down the titles of the books we read, who never questioned our choices, who simply encouraged us for reading.

It looks like Mr. Bayley, who read to us for 10 minutes every day even though we were old enough to read to ourselves.

It looks like Tom and Mike, who weren’t even officially teachers—but who were coaches who knew I wrote stories and volunteered to read them, even though they weren’t any good.

Love also looks like teachers I observe today, including Mr. Hankins and TJ Shay, making sure students are reading strong, contemporary books that help them feel what it means to be a human being. And it looks like librarians Andria Amaral and Shauna Yusko, who literally keep their students fed, because no one can learn on an empty stomach.
This is more important than using reading as proof of achievement or intellectual prowess. Books are a safe space for us to practice being people, for us to understand the complexity of our own thoughts and feelings and the reality of the complexity of others in our lives.

Great teachers keep that safe space intact and honor it. Great teachers know that the act of protecting the curiosity and individuality of our students is powerful fuel. Kids who are secure and loved as learners have everything they need to perform at their highest levels on standardized tests.

They don’t need to be taught to perform to them. They simply need to be shown that unfolding themselves as they are—with courage and hunger and resilience, with self-respect and respect for others—is everything they need to succeed in this world.

How does love look in your classroom or library? Like games? Letters to future selves? Stories? Snacks? I’d love to know.

Meanwhile, thank you for what you do. I am a writer today because of the teachers who loved me. There is a test that measures that: life itself. I owe my happy and productive one in no small part to them, and to people like you.

Today’s post is in many ways a summary of all the things I have written about in this blog and other places over the past several years.  It seemed to me that readers could  benefit from seeing all my ideas condensed and consider whether the things I propose would really make positive changes in American education. Let me know what you think.

Having complained long and loud about the misguided school reform schemes that have dominated  public education over the past several years, I think it’s time for me to step up and offer my own ideas for making schools work. Be warned that my proposals are not only unorthodox, but also teacher-biased, and cheap. Well, at least cheaper than the test-drenched practices now in place.

My version of school reform is based on two premises: (1) poverty and its accoutrements are the major causes of students’ poor academic performance (2) the principals and teachers who live their professional lives in schools are the ones best qualified to make decisions for schools and to implement them.

Convert schools in high poverty areas to full-time community centers.

By moving as many community services as possible into school buildings and making them available in the evenings and on weekends, schools could provide  social supports to poor families more efficiently and economically and also add recreational and self-improvement activities now in short supply.

In restructuring school building use, the only adjustment to the daytime programs would be the addition of basic health and dental care for students. During evening and weekend hours, however, libraries, gyms, meeting rooms and computer labs would be open, offering a variety of activities for adults and young people. In addition, inexpensive and nutritious evening meals could be offered in the school lunchroom.

Turn over the management of high-poverty schools to professional educators.

We need to lure the best principals and teachers into low performing schools by offering them incentives of autonomy, professional advancement, and higher salaries. Under the leadership of a dynamic principal, chosen by the school staff and parents, schools would be empowered to create their own structures, including a principal’s cabinet and grade level instructional teams. Within each team, roles and salaries would be differentiated according to teachers’ expertise, and willingness to take on additional responsibilities.

Evaluate teachers on their own performance, not those of students

Although principals’ views of teachers’ competence are not perfect, having a wise and alert administrator observing what teachers do to help students learn is the only rational way to evaluate them. Not only formal observations should count, but also classroom drop-ins, finding a teacher in the library helping some kids with research, noticing how often a teacher volunteers to do something extra for the school, seeing a teacher eating lunch at her desk while she reads student essays, and teacher leadership among colleagues.

Offer early retirement to burned-out teachers and incentives for ineffective younger teachers to resign or transfer to non-teaching positions.

At present, removing an unsuccessful teacher in any school district is a long, unpleasant and expensive process. But the problem is not teacher tenure. It is the lack of evidence of failure that makes attempting to remove a teacher look arbitrary or vengeful. The first step to improve the situation is to insure systematic evaluations of  teachers with prompt feedback and offers of assistance. Ultimately, all teachers marked for dismissal should be provided with counseling, a dignified resignation process, and some incentives.

Cut reliance on commercial educational materials for students while increasing teachers’ professional development opportunities

Rather than depending on slick commercial programs and their disposable materials (i.e. workbooks), schools would do better to invest in high quality literature, technology, and reference books for students and professional books and university courses for teachers.

Increase the size and power of the school library and make the librarian a key figure in the education of students

Every school needs a full-time professional librarian/technologist along  with an aide so that the library is open full time during the school day and perhaps for a while after school closes. Not only should every class have a regular weekly library time, but also times when teachers can sign up to send small groups for specific assistance in finding and using library materials. School librarians should also meet with teacher teams to plan units to be taught and make sure that the materials students need are available. To make these things happen fully funding a school library should be a high priority for the principal and the school district.

Provide poor children with the background knowledge and support they may have missed at home and in their community.

What makes school difficult for most poor children is not their lack of ability but their meagerness of social, cultural and literary experiences. What many have missed out on is being read to, having substantive conversations with adults, visiting museums, parks, forests, and beaches, and being members of an educated community. To learn academic content and skills successfully, poor children need a school environment that is not only welcoming and supportive, but also rich in books, hands-on activities, cooperative learning, and exposure to the world outside their home community. Every high poverty school should receive additional funding for student field trips and in-school music and drama performances.

Reduce the number of standardized tests and the time devoted to test preparation

Not only do standardized tests now dominate schools’ curricula and classroom teaching time, they are extremely expensive and of little value beyond informing local districts and state officials about schools’ average test scores. Within our schools today tested subjects crowd out other subjects, and test preparation becomes almost a subject in itself. In addition, tests influence teaching style in general making it shallow and formulaic to fit the limitations of a multiple choice testing format. Both students and schools would be better served if standardized tests were given only every four years and classroom teachers were allowed to use their own methods and judgment to determine the extent and quality of each student’s learning.

Make every school a place where students want to be

In the recent studies of  test scores from school to school and district to district, researchers cite student absenteeism and indifference to learning as some of the causes of low scores and stagnation in student progress. If instead of advocating for better teaching and more rigorous students expectations, schools concentrated on providing classes and assignments that appealed to students’ interests and also gave all students opportunities to make decisions and play important roles in school operations we would see better performance from  everyone.

Although I could add a few more change proposals to my list, I believe that those above are the basics. Through my experience as a teacher and a principal I learned  a  lot about what helps teachers to teach well, children to learn, and schools to be the the healthy, happy places I have known and the even better ones I still dream of.