The news has spread rapidly-- Amplify, the education tech division of News Corp, headed by Joel Klein and funded by Rupert Murdoch, is headed directly down the tubes.
Klein is the poster boy for unqualified people in educational leadership roles, rising to the head of the nation's largest school system based on his extensive background as a lawyer. Since then, he has been one of the bright lights of reformsterdom. He has helped sell the idea that education is a threat to national security and argued about the power of education to overcome humble backgrounds by telling his own story (well, a story loosely based on his own life). Mercedes Schneider devoted a whole chapter to his exploits in Chronicle of Echoes, and even that is probably not enough space to trace his reformy footprints, from bolstering baloney groups like National Council on Teacher Quality and Jeb Bush's FEE to jump-starting the career or other well-connected clowns with no education background.
Klein has since tried to make his case for his handling of New York City schools in a book Lessons of Hope. The book contains all the signature Klein features, including a casual relationship with the truth. Klein is great example of the modern management principle that you don't have to know the business of the company you're running-- you just have to be smart, audacious and leaderly.
After New York, Klein decided to combine what he didn't know about education with what he didn't know about technology and con Rupert Murdoch into launching an education tech company. Amplify was going to be a player in the world of touch-screen based education. It's popular field for many reasons, not the least of which is the revenue stream involved. Note that Amplify's product was going to involve $299 for the wi-fi enabled tablet and a $99 subscription for the content.
That subscription fee represents a growing trend in the tech world-- why sell customers a product once when you can use a subscription fee model to keep them paying for the product over and over, year after year. But there's a major problem with using this business model with schools:
Tech wizard: Look! Electronic copies of books that won't wear out and can be easily updated!
Schools: Awesome! We won't have to spend millions of dollars to replace our paper textbooks every ten years.
Tech wizard: No, you won't. However, you will have to give us millions of dollars in subscription fees every single year.
Schools: We are now much less excited.
But Amplify had other problems. Like laptops that tended to melt and fall apart.
By April of this year, Klein was talking about "unifying" Amplify and getting the giant mess of money-sucking suckitude into some sort of orderly form that would placate investors and corporate overlords.
It wasn't enough. This week the news was that Amplify was "winding down" production on their disastrous laptops and would stop seeking new customers (an effort operating out of the same offices as their Yeti Locator and Loch Ness Monster Training divisions). They will totally keep providing support for their existing customers, and I'm sure you can take that promise straight to the bank. Meanwhile, they will take a $371 write-down on the education division (a write-down happens when you decide that the used Yugo that you've been swearing is worth $50,000 is actually worth $1.50).
In other words, Klein can now claim a Value Added Measure of negative $371 million. In other words, Klein has shown he knows how to make $600 million-- start with a billion.
They are now going to focus on their "digital curriculum and assessment products." And you just have to love the language of these sorts of corporate bloviation-fests. From the NYT coverage:
“As positive as this relationship has been, Amplify and News Corp. both
believe it is time to explore new and exciting strategic opportunities,
working with partners who share a deep understanding of what it takes to
be successful in education,” Mr. Klein added.
It makes me wonder what it is like to work in the corporate sphere up to your neck in refined bullshit all day, or how badly it messes with your head to constantly use language for the opposite of its purpose (communicate clearly and say what you mean). But we can hope that Klein does manage to partner with people who have a deep understanding of what it means to be successful in education, because I'm pretty sure that would be a career first for him.
Friday, August 14, 2015
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Go Home, CAP
On the heels of a recent tweet in which the Center for American Progress tried to pretend that politics had nothing to do with Common Core (at least, not until big meanies dragged politics in), CAP is now here to assert that CCSS math standards are both necessary and research based.
"How the Common Core Will Help the United States Bring Up Its Grade on Mathematics Education" comes perilously close to being the sort of thing certain bloggers might write if they wanted to make fun of folks like CAP. This is like a small museum of bad and discredited arguments for the CCSS.
First, it's "OMGZ!! Our test scorers are worserer than everybody elses!!"
American high school students also perform far below the international average in math. Currently, they rank 27th in mathematics, while Korean and Japanese students lead the world. Between 2003 and 2012, the average math score in the United States actually decreased 2 points, while Korea’s shot up 12 points.
Education historian Diane Ravitch has addressed this point roughly a gazillion times.
In 1964, when the first international test was offered in two grades to twelve nations, we came in last and next to last in the two grades but went on to have a stronger economy in the next half century than the other 11 nations that were tested.
We have always done poorly in the international testing game, and yet, somehow, we are not yet ruled by Estonia. There is no evidence of any connection between students ability to take a standardized test and a nation's fortune and future. None. Zero. Zip.
CAP is going to go ahead and play cheat games with numbers anyway, just in case you aren't feeling properly panicked yet;
Even the most affluent American students scored significantly below the average score of other countries. For example, American students in the highest economic quartile scored 81 points lower than the average student in Shanghai, China.
Sigh. First of all, is there anybody left who thinks that the test-takers of Shanghai are representative of anything? Second, when we compare American apples to international apples, we generally do better. Not that it matters, but this is point on which CAP can stop chicken littling.
The Common Core math standards represent the culmination of decades of research into how students learn and are an extension of 30 years of standards and curriculum development by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, or NCTM.
Really? Care to directly reference any of that research? Because I'm pretty sure the story of Common Core math standards is that Jason Zimba went out and wrote them in his garage in the middle of the night. Did CAP use some fancy hyperlinks to connect directly to any research they wanted to offer as support. Nope.
But worry not. CAP has it covered:
The Center for American Progress has reviewed the literature and research and discovered several reasons why teaching for conceptual understanding of math leads to improved outcomes for students:
Again, that literature and research is not specifically referenced, and I have to tell you that even C-level bloggers such as yours truly try to be less sloppy and "oh just take my word for it" than this. Because this certainly sounds like an assertion you could back up with actual facts and research and stuff.
And this takes us right back to the premise embedded in this ridiculous article's ridiculous title. Common Core math WILL help the Us bring up its grades? It has been four or five years, depending on where you are, which means that most students have been common coring it up for at least half their academic careers. Are you telling me we can't see any signs of how much more awesome they are thanks to Common Core mathiness-- we can't see those results right now??! What are we waiting for? Why are these wonderful results still in our future? (And why do we frame the results as grades and not improved understanding?)
CAP wraps it up with some recommendations:
* Stay the course, because "through perseverance, the nation can improve the quality of mathematics education for all students."
* More PD for teachers, cause that'll help.
* Communicate with parents andhelp market the Core provide resources
* Make sure materials are high quality and fully aligned
* Incorporate "conceptual math" into teacher training
Shifting to math education of this caliber and depth is difficult and will likely challenge both teachers and students. States must support educators as they become fluent in and adapt their practices to ensure that students engage meaningfully with math and learn to think beyond simple formulas and processes. Otherwise, American students’ math performance will continue to slip below what the global economy requires.
"Will challenge"? Reading this article makes me wonder if CAP's office staff didn't just find an old article from 2012 stuck to the bottom of a pizza box and figured, what the hell, we can go ahead and run it now.
"What the global economy requires"? Which part of the global economy requires test taking? What exactly does the globally economy require? Please offer specific evidence, and show your work.
I suppose we could also go into the history of the math wars and the timeless battle between people who think numbers are for dealing with the real world and those who think pure, conceptual math is the real math, but we don't have time to watch the engineers and abstract mathematicians duke it out right now.
But even for CAP, this piece is off the rails, having passed through some time machine that simultaneous dulled the senses-- who, I wonder, was this reeling whip-saw tissue of discredited bunkum supposed to be for? Go home, CAP. You're drunk.
"How the Common Core Will Help the United States Bring Up Its Grade on Mathematics Education" comes perilously close to being the sort of thing certain bloggers might write if they wanted to make fun of folks like CAP. This is like a small museum of bad and discredited arguments for the CCSS.
First, it's "OMGZ!! Our test scorers are worserer than everybody elses!!"
American high school students also perform far below the international average in math. Currently, they rank 27th in mathematics, while Korean and Japanese students lead the world. Between 2003 and 2012, the average math score in the United States actually decreased 2 points, while Korea’s shot up 12 points.
Education historian Diane Ravitch has addressed this point roughly a gazillion times.
In 1964, when the first international test was offered in two grades to twelve nations, we came in last and next to last in the two grades but went on to have a stronger economy in the next half century than the other 11 nations that were tested.
We have always done poorly in the international testing game, and yet, somehow, we are not yet ruled by Estonia. There is no evidence of any connection between students ability to take a standardized test and a nation's fortune and future. None. Zero. Zip.
CAP is going to go ahead and play cheat games with numbers anyway, just in case you aren't feeling properly panicked yet;
Even the most affluent American students scored significantly below the average score of other countries. For example, American students in the highest economic quartile scored 81 points lower than the average student in Shanghai, China.
Sigh. First of all, is there anybody left who thinks that the test-takers of Shanghai are representative of anything? Second, when we compare American apples to international apples, we generally do better. Not that it matters, but this is point on which CAP can stop chicken littling.
The Common Core math standards represent the culmination of decades of research into how students learn and are an extension of 30 years of standards and curriculum development by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, or NCTM.
Really? Care to directly reference any of that research? Because I'm pretty sure the story of Common Core math standards is that Jason Zimba went out and wrote them in his garage in the middle of the night. Did CAP use some fancy hyperlinks to connect directly to any research they wanted to offer as support. Nope.
But worry not. CAP has it covered:
The Center for American Progress has reviewed the literature and research and discovered several reasons why teaching for conceptual understanding of math leads to improved outcomes for students:
Again, that literature and research is not specifically referenced, and I have to tell you that even C-level bloggers such as yours truly try to be less sloppy and "oh just take my word for it" than this. Because this certainly sounds like an assertion you could back up with actual facts and research and stuff.
And this takes us right back to the premise embedded in this ridiculous article's ridiculous title. Common Core math WILL help the Us bring up its grades? It has been four or five years, depending on where you are, which means that most students have been common coring it up for at least half their academic careers. Are you telling me we can't see any signs of how much more awesome they are thanks to Common Core mathiness-- we can't see those results right now??! What are we waiting for? Why are these wonderful results still in our future? (And why do we frame the results as grades and not improved understanding?)
CAP wraps it up with some recommendations:
* Stay the course, because "through perseverance, the nation can improve the quality of mathematics education for all students."
* More PD for teachers, cause that'll help.
* Communicate with parents and
* Make sure materials are high quality and fully aligned
* Incorporate "conceptual math" into teacher training
Shifting to math education of this caliber and depth is difficult and will likely challenge both teachers and students. States must support educators as they become fluent in and adapt their practices to ensure that students engage meaningfully with math and learn to think beyond simple formulas and processes. Otherwise, American students’ math performance will continue to slip below what the global economy requires.
"Will challenge"? Reading this article makes me wonder if CAP's office staff didn't just find an old article from 2012 stuck to the bottom of a pizza box and figured, what the hell, we can go ahead and run it now.
"What the global economy requires"? Which part of the global economy requires test taking? What exactly does the globally economy require? Please offer specific evidence, and show your work.
I suppose we could also go into the history of the math wars and the timeless battle between people who think numbers are for dealing with the real world and those who think pure, conceptual math is the real math, but we don't have time to watch the engineers and abstract mathematicians duke it out right now.
But even for CAP, this piece is off the rails, having passed through some time machine that simultaneous dulled the senses-- who, I wonder, was this reeling whip-saw tissue of discredited bunkum supposed to be for? Go home, CAP. You're drunk.
Education, Inc. Premiere
Brian Malone has written and directed a new documentary that belongs with your collection of films that make the current assault on public education clear and vivid. And the film's official release is tomorrow.
Education Inc is in the fine tradition of Food, Inc. It provides both a specific and important story and a clear and comprehensible overview of the larger forces shaping the small battles in education. The small picture is of events in Colorado, where Jefferson and Douglass counties find their school boards being bought up by outsider interests and their schools hammered by the folks who want to see public education run by private corporations.
The larger picture shows how this local battle is just one manifestation of forces that are dismantling public education across the entire country. Here's the trailer:
Tomorrow is the official launch of the film, though copies have been available for a while now. Many "official" screenings are scheduled across the country (you can find a partial listing here), but you can also go ahead and buy a copy ($15 plus s/h), then screen the film in the comfort of your own home.
This is one more opportunity to bring clarity and real information to the education debates. Check out Malone's film-- if not tomorrow, then as soon as you're able.
Education Inc is in the fine tradition of Food, Inc. It provides both a specific and important story and a clear and comprehensible overview of the larger forces shaping the small battles in education. The small picture is of events in Colorado, where Jefferson and Douglass counties find their school boards being bought up by outsider interests and their schools hammered by the folks who want to see public education run by private corporations.
The larger picture shows how this local battle is just one manifestation of forces that are dismantling public education across the entire country. Here's the trailer:
Tomorrow is the official launch of the film, though copies have been available for a while now. Many "official" screenings are scheduled across the country (you can find a partial listing here), but you can also go ahead and buy a copy ($15 plus s/h), then screen the film in the comfort of your own home.
This is one more opportunity to bring clarity and real information to the education debates. Check out Malone's film-- if not tomorrow, then as soon as you're able.
Careers on the Curve
God bless Sheri Lederman.
The New York teacher is in court this week, standing up for herself and for every teacher who suffers under New York's cockamamie evaluation system. If she wins, there will be shockwaves felt all across America where teachers are evaluated based on VAM-soaked idiocy.
There are plenty of folks covering the trial, though I recommend the blog of Alexandra Milleta, a teacher educator who went to high school with Lederman. Her coverage of the first day is a particularly clear view of how curves factor into all this mess.
Talking about the curve is the best way to help civilians understand why these teacher eval systems are giant heaps of baloney. If you're old enough, you remember curves because they suck-- get yourself in a class with the smart kids who all score 100% on a test and suddenly missed-one-question 95% is a C. Of course, younger civilians may not have such memories of the curve because over the past few decades most teachers have come to understand that curving is not a Best Practice.
Evaluating teachers on the curve means that even if the VAM-sauce score actually meant something, the teacher evaluation itself will not mean jack. In a system in which every single teacher is above the bar in excellence, those teachers who are the least above the bar will be labeled failures.
Let's be clear. This does not serve the interests of parents, students, schools or communities. In such a system the meaning of "excellence" changes every year, and teacher ratings have no connection to any absolute standard. This is like a measurement system in which, instead of clear measurements like 8 centimeters or 10 feet, items are measured "longer" or "shorter." It is meaningless and provides no useful information for parents, students, schools, communities, or the teachers themselves.
It serves the interests of one group, and one group only-- the group of policy makers who want to target some teachers for punishment. It is a particularly useful if that group doesn't really care which teachers it targets as long as it gets some of them.
As Milleta reports on the testimony of Professor Aaron Pallas of Teacher College, he makes several points about the capricious garbagosity of NY's system, including this:
Third, the model is not transparent on what “needs to be done to achieve effective or highly effective ratings” which is a requirement of the law.
Actually, as with any norm-referenced test (particularly those in which the new norm is referenced freshly on the fly every time the test is given), we do know what needs to be done to get a better score or ranking-- in order for me to do better, my colleagues must do worse. Under such a ranking system, my colleagues and I are standing in a long line, and the closer to the head of the line I am, the better my score. So I need to get the people in front of me pushed back behind me somehow. At a minimum, I need to avoid helping them. If I'm a really nasty sumbitch, I can try to sabotage them.
At the very least, under this system, it is in my best interests to hope for the failure of my colleagues.
That's a career on the curve. Year to year uncertainty, knowing nothing for certain except that my colleagues and I can only succeed at the expense of each other, and that such success will ultimately be based on biased tilted twisted rankings that will shift from year to year for no rhyme nor reason.
Let's hope the court gets that. And even if it doesn't, let's hope that Sheri Lederman's suit will be an educational opportunity for the public.
The New York teacher is in court this week, standing up for herself and for every teacher who suffers under New York's cockamamie evaluation system. If she wins, there will be shockwaves felt all across America where teachers are evaluated based on VAM-soaked idiocy.
There are plenty of folks covering the trial, though I recommend the blog of Alexandra Milleta, a teacher educator who went to high school with Lederman. Her coverage of the first day is a particularly clear view of how curves factor into all this mess.
Talking about the curve is the best way to help civilians understand why these teacher eval systems are giant heaps of baloney. If you're old enough, you remember curves because they suck-- get yourself in a class with the smart kids who all score 100% on a test and suddenly missed-one-question 95% is a C. Of course, younger civilians may not have such memories of the curve because over the past few decades most teachers have come to understand that curving is not a Best Practice.
Evaluating teachers on the curve means that even if the VAM-sauce score actually meant something, the teacher evaluation itself will not mean jack. In a system in which every single teacher is above the bar in excellence, those teachers who are the least above the bar will be labeled failures.
Let's be clear. This does not serve the interests of parents, students, schools or communities. In such a system the meaning of "excellence" changes every year, and teacher ratings have no connection to any absolute standard. This is like a measurement system in which, instead of clear measurements like 8 centimeters or 10 feet, items are measured "longer" or "shorter." It is meaningless and provides no useful information for parents, students, schools, communities, or the teachers themselves.
It serves the interests of one group, and one group only-- the group of policy makers who want to target some teachers for punishment. It is a particularly useful if that group doesn't really care which teachers it targets as long as it gets some of them.
As Milleta reports on the testimony of Professor Aaron Pallas of Teacher College, he makes several points about the capricious garbagosity of NY's system, including this:
Third, the model is not transparent on what “needs to be done to achieve effective or highly effective ratings” which is a requirement of the law.
Actually, as with any norm-referenced test (particularly those in which the new norm is referenced freshly on the fly every time the test is given), we do know what needs to be done to get a better score or ranking-- in order for me to do better, my colleagues must do worse. Under such a ranking system, my colleagues and I are standing in a long line, and the closer to the head of the line I am, the better my score. So I need to get the people in front of me pushed back behind me somehow. At a minimum, I need to avoid helping them. If I'm a really nasty sumbitch, I can try to sabotage them.
At the very least, under this system, it is in my best interests to hope for the failure of my colleagues.
That's a career on the curve. Year to year uncertainty, knowing nothing for certain except that my colleagues and I can only succeed at the expense of each other, and that such success will ultimately be based on biased tilted twisted rankings that will shift from year to year for no rhyme nor reason.
Let's hope the court gets that. And even if it doesn't, let's hope that Sheri Lederman's suit will be an educational opportunity for the public.
$$-based Layoffs
Way back in 2011, Education Next published one more piece in the continued battle against teacher seniority. "Managing the Teacher Workforce" follows the standard track of the genre-- it defines "managing" as "deciding who to fire" as if that were the only important management function, and it doesn't consider a single effect of a school system in which teachers must combat each other to hold onto jobs, or how much crazier that competition becomes if they must battle each other with the chaos-fueled random noodles of VAM-sauced testing.
But it does offer this one moment of clarity and honesty about what the fight against seniority is all about.
However, were districts to adopt policies that allowed administrators to dismiss teachers according to their effectiveness rather than their seniority, they could lay off fewer teachers, achieve the same budgetary savings, and increase the overall efficacy of their teaching force.
Got that? If we could just lay off teachers based on how much they cost, we could lay off fewer teachers to get the same budget cuts.
The report doesn't discuss the implications of this factor, either. What does it do to teaching to turn it into the very definition of a dead-end career in which the minute you start to make the big money, your career is over?
Nope. Only one insight interested the "researchers"-- if we cut the more expensive teachers, we can save money without leaving ourselves quite so short-handed. Granted this was back in 2011. If anybody sees any evidence that the anti-seniority crowd has changed their mind on this, please let me know, but I won't be holding my breath.
But it does offer this one moment of clarity and honesty about what the fight against seniority is all about.
However, were districts to adopt policies that allowed administrators to dismiss teachers according to their effectiveness rather than their seniority, they could lay off fewer teachers, achieve the same budgetary savings, and increase the overall efficacy of their teaching force.
Got that? If we could just lay off teachers based on how much they cost, we could lay off fewer teachers to get the same budget cuts.
The report doesn't discuss the implications of this factor, either. What does it do to teaching to turn it into the very definition of a dead-end career in which the minute you start to make the big money, your career is over?
Nope. Only one insight interested the "researchers"-- if we cut the more expensive teachers, we can save money without leaving ourselves quite so short-handed. Granted this was back in 2011. If anybody sees any evidence that the anti-seniority crowd has changed their mind on this, please let me know, but I won't be holding my breath.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
NY To Parents: Get Stuffed
The final "official" numbers are in for last year's New York opt out, and they are huge-- in the Empire State, one out of five students did not take the Big Standardized Test.
Faced with that kind of massive revolt, one might expect that the Head Honcho of Education in NY might select any of the following strategies;
1) Take a good, hard look at the test and ask why it is seems to have alienated so many parents and families.
2) Reach out to the Opt-Out community to ask why, exactly, they have such a problem with the BS Test.
3) Go back to the drawing board and ask if the BS Test is really measuring any of the things it's supposedly measuring
4) Make a commitment to use information gathered to improve, alter or otherwise make less odious the BS Testing.
One might expect that the Head Honcho would even choose all three of those options. But it turns out that one would be wrong, because instead state education commissioner MaryEllen Elia selected
5) Ignore the opt-out parents and make threats against the schools that their children attend.
Yep. In a conference call with reporters, Elia said that "the state Education Department is in conversations with the U.S. Department of Education working on a plan regarding possible sanctions for districts with high opt-out rates."
Those sanctions could range from a phone call to the superintendent along the lines of, "What the hell happened and how do you plan to fix it next year" to withholding Title I funds.
There are several messages here. One is that, all PR noise to the contrary, the feds are still fully prepared to tell states exactly how to run their education business, local control and complaints about federal overreach be damned.
But the other, larger message is aimed directly at parents. It's only two words long, and the second word is "you."
Exactly how far Elia expects school districts to go in strong-arming, coercing, and otherwise dragging recalcitrant parents to the shores of the BS Testing ocean are as yet unexplained. How badly does Elia expect schools to punish parents and students in order to avoid being punished by the state (which is itself trying to avoid being punished by the feds).
This is what New York has come to-- in an article about Common Core, testing, and opt-out, chancellor Merryl Tisch ends up with one of the more reasonable-sounding quotes: “I can't imagine that anyone has any interest in withholding Title I funds from school kids in New York State,” she said. “To me, it just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. I understand carrot-and-stick, but I also understand inflaming an already tense situation.”
I suppose it could actually get worse, and by test time we may be treated to images of Elia holding a gun to the head of a cute puppy and announcing, "Parents, if too many of you opt out, I will kill your principal's pets." Or maybe she'll aim her appeal directly at the children by telling them, "Every time a child doesn't take the state test, an angel loses its wings and plunges straight to earth."
But until things get that ugly, we'll just have to settle for vague threats against schools, indicating that local districts will suffer if New York parents insist on exercising their legal rights.
Faced with that kind of massive revolt, one might expect that the Head Honcho of Education in NY might select any of the following strategies;
1) Take a good, hard look at the test and ask why it is seems to have alienated so many parents and families.
2) Reach out to the Opt-Out community to ask why, exactly, they have such a problem with the BS Test.
3) Go back to the drawing board and ask if the BS Test is really measuring any of the things it's supposedly measuring
4) Make a commitment to use information gathered to improve, alter or otherwise make less odious the BS Testing.
One might expect that the Head Honcho would even choose all three of those options. But it turns out that one would be wrong, because instead state education commissioner MaryEllen Elia selected
5) Ignore the opt-out parents and make threats against the schools that their children attend.
Yep. In a conference call with reporters, Elia said that "the state Education Department is in conversations with the U.S. Department of Education working on a plan regarding possible sanctions for districts with high opt-out rates."
Those sanctions could range from a phone call to the superintendent along the lines of, "What the hell happened and how do you plan to fix it next year" to withholding Title I funds.
There are several messages here. One is that, all PR noise to the contrary, the feds are still fully prepared to tell states exactly how to run their education business, local control and complaints about federal overreach be damned.
But the other, larger message is aimed directly at parents. It's only two words long, and the second word is "you."
Exactly how far Elia expects school districts to go in strong-arming, coercing, and otherwise dragging recalcitrant parents to the shores of the BS Testing ocean are as yet unexplained. How badly does Elia expect schools to punish parents and students in order to avoid being punished by the state (which is itself trying to avoid being punished by the feds).
This is what New York has come to-- in an article about Common Core, testing, and opt-out, chancellor Merryl Tisch ends up with one of the more reasonable-sounding quotes: “I can't imagine that anyone has any interest in withholding Title I funds from school kids in New York State,” she said. “To me, it just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. I understand carrot-and-stick, but I also understand inflaming an already tense situation.”
I suppose it could actually get worse, and by test time we may be treated to images of Elia holding a gun to the head of a cute puppy and announcing, "Parents, if too many of you opt out, I will kill your principal's pets." Or maybe she'll aim her appeal directly at the children by telling them, "Every time a child doesn't take the state test, an angel loses its wings and plunges straight to earth."
But until things get that ugly, we'll just have to settle for vague threats against schools, indicating that local districts will suffer if New York parents insist on exercising their legal rights.
Back To School List
I'm a little late on this, since most retailers rolled out Back to School displays months ago and are currently starting to clear those out so that they have room for Christmas Sale displays. But I always mean to write about this because like so many things from which people can make a buck, Back to School shopping has gotten out of hand.
So as a father and a professional educator of several decades, I have an important message to parents about your back to school shopping.
Chill.
People are trying to get you to panic. Do not do it.
In some cases, the pitch is strictly commercial. Which is fine. That's what businesses do. Work your way into Office Depot's Back to School offerings. Everything you could conceivably or inconceivably need is here, with the exception of the Winnebago needed to cart all of this stuff to school, because for a place like Office Depot, Back to School is Christmas and Mother's Day wrapped up in one revenue generating package.
But here's the non-business Great Kids website, offering parents a list of Back to School necessities that may also necessitate a second mortgage (if, as a parent, you are able to afford a house in the first place).
Back to School supply lists seem to have the longevity of cockroaches, surviving unchanged over centuries. For instance, like many other sources, Great Schools includes this on their list of "basics."
Scissors (blunt ended for younger kids, pointed for older ones)
Um, no. Do not send your older children to school with pointy-ended scissors. And while Great Kids recommend highlighters, they do acknowledge that these "are probably unnecessary for kids in kindergarten through second grade." Yes, because five-year-olds have a tendency to highlight walls and desks and their own faces.
What about a site like Real Simple, the website/magazine devoted to helping wealthy folks make their consumption less conspicuous? Their "essentials" list includes an art smock for elementary and pre-school students. Okay, fine. My own children had art smocks at home (from the popular dad's Old Shirts brand). But essential for school? I'm imagining twenty-five children arriving on the first day and asking the teacher, "Where do I put my smock."
And glue. Specifically glue sticks. Every single list has glue sticks on it. Do we have a national epidemic of Unglued Things in Schools?
Oh-- and these. I see them on lists, in stores, in the mall. Everywhere, in fact, but in actual classrooms:
The worst notebooks ever! You can't make mistakes, and when you rip one page out, another one falls out, too. And if you've taken important notes elsewhere, you can't add them to this, unless-- oh, wait!! NOW I understand the glue sticks!
Backpacks, folders, organizers, twelve different kinds of writing utensils, seventeen different kinds of bound and unbound paper, lunch boxes, a dictionary and a thesaurus!! Cozi gets a bonus point for putting a flash drive on their list, but most lists are composed of the same classic items that Great-Great-Grandma's mom was guilted into buying for Back to School.
So, parents, here's my Back to School to-do list for you.
Step One: Wait
Prior to the first day of school, do not buy anything except things you want your child to have. If your child is organizationally challenged and needs the world's most aggressive trapper-keeper, go ahead and get it. If you and your child agree that a Phineas and Ferb lunchbox is essential to get off to a great new start, I applaud your good taste. Go for it.
But if you are eying the glue stick display or the utility box loaded with 143 colored pencils strictly because you think the school will put your child back on the bus if she shows up without those items, just wait.
Neither my wife (elementary) nor I (high school) expect students to show up on the first day with anything other than a sleepy smile and a hopeful attitude. If the school actually needs your child to bring anything to school, they will tell you. Backpacks may have to fall within particular guidelines. Teachers may want particular notebook configurations. And every school now comes with its own batch of tech requirements.
Contact
Talk to your child's teachers before you need to. Go to open house. If scheduling is tight, make a phone call or an e-mail. Let your school and your teachers know what your expectations are. These are easier conversations to have when you're not in the midst of a child-related crisis. The school or teachers may give you the impression that they are too busy to have a non-critical conversation with you. Too bad for them. Have it anyway, but be focused and businesslike. Whenever dealing with teachers and schools, it's helpful to remember that we measure time out in very short increments. "Just one more thing," may mean nothing to your schedule, but to your child's teacher it may mean the difference between getting to pee or not today.
Gather contact information. Know who to contact about what, and how best to contact them.
Build partnerships
Some of the most effective work for Getting Things Done or Fixing Screwy Policies involve partnerships between teachers and parents. We know what is going on, but you are far more likely to be listened to. I can tell my boss that the new brown widgets are a terrible idea, but it's when the office starts taking phone calls from cranky parents that things will actually happen.
Where there is bad policy (and right now there is bad policy everywhere), parents and teachers have to build coalitions to fight back, as well as fighting back in their own ways. As a parent, you're going to have to find out who your allies are within the system.
Find out what the needs are
My school does not need glue sticks. On the other hand, the district stopped buying facial tissue for classrooms a few decades ago. My sister-in-law would send boxes of kleenex to school with her kids every month or so. It was greatly appreciated. Just ask a teacher-- what is something you're going to have to buy with your own money that I could get for you.
But mostly, relax
Despite what the world of consumer marketing is suggesting, there is very little that your child must absolutely have for the first day of school. There's little data to suggest that students who show up without art smocks and glue sticks all end up working for sub-minimum wage and living alone in a one-room apartment over a bar while eating cat food warmed on a hot plate.
What your child needs the first-through-last day of school is a positive attitude and support, along with constant reminders that school is important and that the child herself is a valuable and worthy human being. Yes, the ritual of Buying New Stuff for Back to School can be a great way to build excitement and enthusiasm for school, but it doesn't have to break the bank. Meanwhile, the school year is a marathon, not a sprint. I've seen hundreds of students hit that first day bright and happy and full of hope, fully intending that This Year will be different, but the dailiness of school wears it away. They don't need your support on just one day, but every day.
So as a father and a professional educator of several decades, I have an important message to parents about your back to school shopping.
Chill.
People are trying to get you to panic. Do not do it.
In some cases, the pitch is strictly commercial. Which is fine. That's what businesses do. Work your way into Office Depot's Back to School offerings. Everything you could conceivably or inconceivably need is here, with the exception of the Winnebago needed to cart all of this stuff to school, because for a place like Office Depot, Back to School is Christmas and Mother's Day wrapped up in one revenue generating package.
But here's the non-business Great Kids website, offering parents a list of Back to School necessities that may also necessitate a second mortgage (if, as a parent, you are able to afford a house in the first place).
Back to School supply lists seem to have the longevity of cockroaches, surviving unchanged over centuries. For instance, like many other sources, Great Schools includes this on their list of "basics."
Scissors (blunt ended for younger kids, pointed for older ones)
Um, no. Do not send your older children to school with pointy-ended scissors. And while Great Kids recommend highlighters, they do acknowledge that these "are probably unnecessary for kids in kindergarten through second grade." Yes, because five-year-olds have a tendency to highlight walls and desks and their own faces.
What about a site like Real Simple, the website/magazine devoted to helping wealthy folks make their consumption less conspicuous? Their "essentials" list includes an art smock for elementary and pre-school students. Okay, fine. My own children had art smocks at home (from the popular dad's Old Shirts brand). But essential for school? I'm imagining twenty-five children arriving on the first day and asking the teacher, "Where do I put my smock."
And glue. Specifically glue sticks. Every single list has glue sticks on it. Do we have a national epidemic of Unglued Things in Schools?
Oh-- and these. I see them on lists, in stores, in the mall. Everywhere, in fact, but in actual classrooms:
Backpacks, folders, organizers, twelve different kinds of writing utensils, seventeen different kinds of bound and unbound paper, lunch boxes, a dictionary and a thesaurus!! Cozi gets a bonus point for putting a flash drive on their list, but most lists are composed of the same classic items that Great-Great-Grandma's mom was guilted into buying for Back to School.
So, parents, here's my Back to School to-do list for you.
Step One: Wait
Prior to the first day of school, do not buy anything except things you want your child to have. If your child is organizationally challenged and needs the world's most aggressive trapper-keeper, go ahead and get it. If you and your child agree that a Phineas and Ferb lunchbox is essential to get off to a great new start, I applaud your good taste. Go for it.
But if you are eying the glue stick display or the utility box loaded with 143 colored pencils strictly because you think the school will put your child back on the bus if she shows up without those items, just wait.
Neither my wife (elementary) nor I (high school) expect students to show up on the first day with anything other than a sleepy smile and a hopeful attitude. If the school actually needs your child to bring anything to school, they will tell you. Backpacks may have to fall within particular guidelines. Teachers may want particular notebook configurations. And every school now comes with its own batch of tech requirements.
Contact
Talk to your child's teachers before you need to. Go to open house. If scheduling is tight, make a phone call or an e-mail. Let your school and your teachers know what your expectations are. These are easier conversations to have when you're not in the midst of a child-related crisis. The school or teachers may give you the impression that they are too busy to have a non-critical conversation with you. Too bad for them. Have it anyway, but be focused and businesslike. Whenever dealing with teachers and schools, it's helpful to remember that we measure time out in very short increments. "Just one more thing," may mean nothing to your schedule, but to your child's teacher it may mean the difference between getting to pee or not today.
Gather contact information. Know who to contact about what, and how best to contact them.
Build partnerships
Some of the most effective work for Getting Things Done or Fixing Screwy Policies involve partnerships between teachers and parents. We know what is going on, but you are far more likely to be listened to. I can tell my boss that the new brown widgets are a terrible idea, but it's when the office starts taking phone calls from cranky parents that things will actually happen.
Where there is bad policy (and right now there is bad policy everywhere), parents and teachers have to build coalitions to fight back, as well as fighting back in their own ways. As a parent, you're going to have to find out who your allies are within the system.
Find out what the needs are
My school does not need glue sticks. On the other hand, the district stopped buying facial tissue for classrooms a few decades ago. My sister-in-law would send boxes of kleenex to school with her kids every month or so. It was greatly appreciated. Just ask a teacher-- what is something you're going to have to buy with your own money that I could get for you.
But mostly, relax
Despite what the world of consumer marketing is suggesting, there is very little that your child must absolutely have for the first day of school. There's little data to suggest that students who show up without art smocks and glue sticks all end up working for sub-minimum wage and living alone in a one-room apartment over a bar while eating cat food warmed on a hot plate.
What your child needs the first-through-last day of school is a positive attitude and support, along with constant reminders that school is important and that the child herself is a valuable and worthy human being. Yes, the ritual of Buying New Stuff for Back to School can be a great way to build excitement and enthusiasm for school, but it doesn't have to break the bank. Meanwhile, the school year is a marathon, not a sprint. I've seen hundreds of students hit that first day bright and happy and full of hope, fully intending that This Year will be different, but the dailiness of school wears it away. They don't need your support on just one day, but every day.
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