High School options

Meg Dickinson covered the High School options from the Unit 4 Special Board Meeting last night:

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/education/2011-11-28/champaign-board-again-considers-high-school-options.html

 

Unit 4 has made available a draft report of Dr. Bob Malito’s brainstorming session on what to do with our High Schools. In the introduction, he says:

This draft report is to develop ideas and open up public discussion on this important topic:

1. Some possible options are offered for input. We are seeking corrections, additions, and/or ideas on the pros and cons lists.
2. Allow the Board, staff, parents, and local taxpayers an opportunity to offer reactions/input.
3. This is an evolving document for the purpose of: discussion and obtaining input

 

As part of that “public discussion” and seeking input/reactions, they also have a Survey available. The survey has 3 questions for each of the 5 Options, basically, likes, concerns and comments. There is no section to comment on the report overall.

 

I like that the Unit 4 Board and Administration have put up a survey and are making their draft report publicly available. I still desire a more interactive forum (ie, bulletin-board style forum), or perhaps an encouragement to do the discussion on facebook (ylech, I can only imagine how that would look). I applaud the effort to gather feedback, I just wish it was more palatable. Even the Study Session last night, how much interaction was there? How many people stood up to voice their concerns? I was not able to attend so I have no idea, and the NG does not really tell that side of the story. Were there even community members at the meeting?

 

I’ll not offer too much commentary on the report itself until more people have read it. Go form your own opinions first. We can chat more later.

 

 

What is Education all about?

Premise

We all know education is a good thing. We believe we have a “right” to education. We hear about how the “system is broken”, how America is lagging in the global market. There is something inside us that compels us to ask “What is wrong?”

 

One perspective of where we are today

There seems to be a popular belief that the US is trailing a number of major players in the Global Education map. This idea is reinforced when we are treated to articles, charts and live coverage. On the topic of reform, Michele Rhee is really shaking things up with StudentsFirst.org, as demonstrated in the 2010 documentary “Waiting for Superman”. We have Federal initiatives like “No Child Left Behind” that attempts to spur us on towards higher standards. As a nation, we have been concerned about the education of our children and young adults for a long, long time. I hear lots of talk of reform, of blaming parents, teachers, administrators, etc. Locally, I am hearing the word “rigor” pop up a lot. Personally, I am not 100% clear what “rigor” means in the context of education, but there seems to be a sense that we need more of it, we need to produce people that are more ready for the workplace to help us compete internationally.

 

I have to ask, are things really that bad? Is this what we really need?

Another gathering at Houlihans today

For those interested, you are again welcome to join us at Houlihans at 11:30 today.

 

Last week we had a number of discussion about reform, what that means and local efforts. There is a huge desire to step up the accountability for reading levels – no good reason why 3rd graders cannot read.

 

There is no official agenda today. I did invite folks from our nascent “PTA Tech” group, but only one person responded, so…. a Board Member might stop by. A couple other folks from the community have expressed a desire to come at some point, but no official cameos yet.

More thoughts on “reform”

I want to be careful about this word “reform”. I am starting to realize it has a lot of baggage. So let me say right out that when I use this word, I mean “acknowledging the good that already exists and needs to remain, that which is not so good will be either replaced with something better or otherwise improved”. Note there is a lot of subjectivity in that. But I also want to strike for balance.

 

So while looking at nochildheldback, which led me to look at waitingforsuperman, I now find myself on the Waiting For Superman Facebook wall, which seems MUCH more current. A recent post points me to a TIMES article which I found refreshing in the sense that it takes to heart the need to focus on the lower ends of the SES spectrum. Or at least, that was my take-away. My trouble now is trying to thread the needle between things like socialism, the vaporous “American Dream” and our own inherent greed.

 

More later.

Superintendent Search Profile

Lynn Peisker sent out a KCN. I like it. So should you.

Attached is the profile that has been developed for the next Superintendent for Champaign Schools.  The Board will use this document to guide them as they meet with the six candidates recommended by the search firm on November 7, 2011.  This document is so important because it is based on what you – our parents, staff members and community members – indicated as your priorities for the next Superintendent.  Thank you to those who took the time to respond to the survey, and/or attend one of the focus groups or the forum at Centennial High School that was sponsored by the Junior League of Champaign Urbana Forums.  This report will assist the Board as they enter the next phase as they interview and search for a new Superintendent of Schools.  We anticipate that over the next month or so, two to three applicants will be identified as the final public candidates.  We will once again welcome your input at that time.

Here is the profile itself:

No Child Held Back: The White Paper

The first part (called a “module”) of the NCHB free online course involves reading the NCHB white paper. I mentioned this briefly, but after trading a few emails with the author (Yovel Badash), I decided to take the time to read and comment on it. Plus, he is trying to get a “conversation” started on this topic, so to avoid sounding really stupid I wanted to gather background information and my own thoughts before I foray out into someone else’s world.

Here goes. I will emphasize that, point-by-point, I find myself in an amazing amount of agreement with Mr. Badash. My comments below reflect mostly where I have questions and/or concerns.
The quote on the cover is 

Champaign PTA Council President’s Dinner

Last night, the PTA Council hosted a PTA President’s Dinner honoring PTA Presidents for all the hard work. I was quite impressed by the representation of school principals and members of the BOE. I had an opportunity to finally meet Angela Smith (Franklin Principal who has been in the news lately).

 

What was really awesome about this time was the Panel discussion held right after dinner with members of the Board; in attendance were (right to left) Greg Novak, Sue Grey, Tom Lockman, Kristine Chalifoux and Jamar Brown. Dr. Bob Malito was also sitting on the panel and spoke a few times.

 

A question was asked about the two newly soon-to-be-empty positions (Beth Shepperd and Dorland Norris), and both

Pedagogy

Pedagogy ( /ˈpɛdəɡɒdʒi/ or /ˈpɛdəɡoʊdʒi/^[1][2]) is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction.^[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy

After reading about NoChildHeldBack, I started browsing the Huffington Post, or  HuffPost. Their Education section has a bevy of articles – wow! Several caught my eye, and one that stood out (for me) was an article about “Independent Learning” based on an example from Mexico.

Reading through the article calls to mind some kind of enlightened, futuristic, sci-fi learning atmosphere, you know, with sterile white walls, everyone wearing robes, an austere, almost holy silence except for a few sharing ideas. From my own experience teaching at Parkland, I know how engaging the students to teach each other has profound and amazing affects. When I am in the middle of a “learning environment” and am subjected to hour upon hour of a blathering monologue, my “learning” peaks somewhere in the first 10 minutes and my brain turns to mush after that. Is it possible, or even practical, to pursue this kind of “instructional strategy”? When I hear teachers in the area that have gone outside the box, I hear some amazing stories. Granted, there are amazing stories even inside the box. I cannot discount that. I guess a big part of me just really wants to escape the trap of “one-size-fits-all”.

This also calls to mind the “Pedagogy of Oppression”, from Brazillian author/educator Paulo Freire, who touches on this very topic. Coincidence? What in the world are they doing south of the US?!? Again, I confess that I am biased because I have a very strong dislike for the way we “teach” around here (don’t ask me about college). I recognize that there are different styles of learning, and some people actually do a pretty good job of transferring knowledge via the old standby lecture format. But what about those of us who do not?

Robert Niles “Why I send my children to public schools”

The following article was forwarded to me this morning (your name will remain anonymous for now *grin*):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-niles/public-schools_b_1002466.html

 

 

Mr. Niles raises a lot of good points. I have not yet had time to even take a look at the numerous comments he has collected, nor his responses to those comments. I intend to. Eventually.

 

As I told the person who sent this to me, my main concern is that all these issues have a common root, IMO. From my point of view, it seems like we can boil down the issues to a lack of social justice, a lack of caring for our neighbors. The old cliche “love others as you love yourself” comes to mind. We have got the “love yourself” part down pat.

 

And here is what I mean by this. We have a ton of “haves” in our community. And we have a lot of “have nots”. And borrowing from the Occupy jargon, we even have a few “have-a-whole-heck-of-lot-mores”. As Mr. Niles points out, the children at the bottom end of that spectrum seem to be the most endangered, I would say the most crucial aspect to measuring community health, and even they seem to be doing better than 20 years ago. It would make sense that even these kids are getting something out of education. That’s the whole point of public education, right? And yet I feel quite strongly that if we were to get over our pride and allow ourselves to take a holistic, 10,000 foot view of Unit 4 or public education in general, we would be compelled to “throw in our lot” and collaborate, to cooperate, to come together as a community and reinforce the idea that everyone is valued for who they are, not necessarily what they do.

 

Trust me, I know that is not easy. It is so natural, so ingrained, to think about all the hard work one has done to reach a certain place in life. And then to look at someone else, someone who might have gone to jail, someone who might have made some really bad choices in life, someone who might be “lazy” and cannot or does not work, to look at these folks and start making comparisons or judgments. I confess, I have been there, I know what it is like. Yet, does that really help? Who gains when that happens?

 

Yesterday I mentioned No Child Held Back (http://nochildheldback.com/). Yovel wants to start conversations. I am all for conversations. But I also yearn for action. So let’s get the conversation started. And be ready to put one foot in front of the other.