Miracle School's Secret Sauce

Here's news of yet another miraculous charter school. Can we look closely and see what the secret of their success might be.

Southland College Prep School in Chicagoland had 100% of its mostly-Black graduating class accepted to college. It's the sixth straight year for this achievement, and it's been covered widely in the area. The school is the only charter high school in the state to earn an exemplary rating, and it seems devoid of the kind of nasty undertones of T.M. Landry Prep, another miracle school that turned out to be much less than a miracle.

So if Southland is one of the charters from which public schools can learn something, what can they learn.

Well, there's the usual attrition thing. The 116 graduating seniors started out as 163 freshmen. So between the self-selection process of application and the self-unselection process of leaving the school, Southland gets to have a culture of students and families who are committed to the educational goals.

There's the school day. Southland students are in school for nine hours.

There's the course requirement, which is higher than the course requirement for most schools in the region.

There's the school size, which is small enough for a personal touch. The school serves 530 students, smaller than the small town/rural high school where I taught. However, Southland has a teacher-student ratio of 12-1 or 13-1 or 15-1, depending on who's telling you. Both administration and staff have been pretty stable.

And Southland "depends on philanthropic support" to keep its programs and extracurriculars going. And it has a Parent-Teacher organization with a goal of 100% parental participation (and a $10 membership fee).

Does the PR puff things up a bit? Sure. According to the Niche website, while Southland touts its many high-level college attenders, a large percentage are heading to Illinois State or U of IL at Urbana. And hey-- college is college. If you care about test scores, the school has 42% reading proficiency and 22% math.  And they've been at this long enough for there to be numbers on how many Southland graduates finish the colleges they were accepted to. According to the Illinois Report Card, 75% of the class of 2016 needed remedial courses at community college-- but on closer examination, that amounts to 12 out of the 16 students who went on to community college.

And while 100% of the grads have been accepted to college, the report card shows that in 2016, shows that 85% actually enrolled. Which is still not too shabby. And roughly half of the student body is free or reduced lunch. I couldn't find any numbers on students with special needs.

I am not here to slam Southland. If every charter looked like this, we'd be having a different charter conversation in this country. Is 100% college acceptance the goal for all schools to shoot for? Certainly not. But for an explicitly college prep high school, it makes a certain amount of sense.

But back to my main point-- is there something here that public schools can learn from? Let's check the list:

Small school with small classes.

More hours in the school day.

Extra financial support.

Involved and supportive families.

High academic requirements.

Shaking loose any students who don't feel the school is for them.

Do you see anything there that folks working in public education don't already know? No, neither do I. There isn't a public school in the country that doesn't already know that it could thrive given these tools. To every politician and critic who points at a Southland and asks public schools, "Why can't you do that?" The answer is, "We could-- if you let us play by those rules. Of course, you'll have to think of something to do with all the students and families who decide that that level of intensity is not for them."

The secret formula for "miracle" schools (well, real ones and not the ones that are completely faking it) is the same as always-- committed students, committed families, extra time and money, lots of support and resources, high standards, and an open exit door for those who don't want to meet those standards. Basically, most of the things that public schools ask for when policy makers say, "Nah, we'd rather go open some charter schools instead."

This is one of the great sources of frustration and grievance when it comes to public schools versus charters. Public school advocates feel as if they're having a version of this conversation:

Public school: If you would let us have a good set of oil paints, we could create a great mural.

Policy guys: No, that's too expensive and messy and you just can't have them.

Public school: Fine. We'll try to make do with these old water colors. And-- hey, who took our brushes?!

Policy guys: Wow, that's an ugly painting. You should try to create something more beautiful like they did over at the Amazing Charter School. You could learn a thing or two from them.

Public school: Yeah, that's not bad. How'd they do that?

Policy guys: We got them a good set of oil paints. Also, we gave them your brushes.

Why The Big Standardized Test Is Useless For Teachers

In schools throughout the country, it is testing season--time for students to take the Big Standardized Test (the PARCC, SBA, or your state's alternative). This ritual really blossomed way back in the days of No Child Left Behind, but after all these years, teachers are mostly unexcited about it. There are many problems with the testing regimen, but a big issue for classroom teachers is that the tests do not help the teacher do her job.

Folks outside of schools often imagine that one of the benefits of the test is to check to see how students are doing and adjust instruction accordingly. Unfortunately, the tests provide no such benefit.

First, the timing does not serve that purpose. Tests are being given now, close to the end of the year. By the time test score come back, these students will be in a different teacher’s classroom. There will be zero opportunity for a teacher to say, “Okay, these students are having trouble with fractions, so I’d better review that unit and add some extra instruction on the subject.” Those students are gone. New students arrive with their own test scores, but their new teachers have no first-hand knowledge of how instruction went last year.

But that’s not the worst of it. Even if the tests were great (that's a discussion for another day) and the results came back instantaneously, they would still be of little use for informing instruction.

Imagine that you are a basketball coach, tasked with training your team for great things. Imagine that when game day comes, you are not allowed to be in the gym with your team to see them play, and that they are forbidden to tell you anything about how the game went. You aren’t even allowed to know about the opposing team. All you are allowed to know is how many points your team scored. And yet, somehow, you are to make efficient use of practice time to strengthen their weaknesses. You can practice the kinds of skills that you imagine probably factor in a game, but you have no way of knowing how they use those skills in a game situation, or what specifically you should try to fix.

That’s the situation with the standardized test. (Well, actually, it's worse. To really get the analogy right, we'd also have to imagine that as soon as the ball left the players' hands, a blindfold slammed down over their eyes, so they don't really know how they're doing, either.)

You would think that part of analyzing the results of a test would involve looking at which items students missed and what kinds of mistakes they made, so that the teacher can identify and plug the holes in student knowledge. But as part of training in “test administration ethics,” teachers are sternly warned that they should never even look at the test questions. In many states, students are required to sign a pledge that they will not discuss any test questions with anyone at all. Nor are any of the test materials released once the test has been administered. When the results of the test come back, teachers see a score. That’s it. Nothing that shows them which questions were missed or which wrong answers were frequently selected (a good guide to where instruction is failing). Some tests provide a breakdown by content area, but often that is so vague that it’s useless; for years in PA our ELA “analysis” from the test said either that the student had problems in reading fiction or reading non-fiction.

More detailed information is certainly possible. The PSAT results include question by question breakdowns, including which answer then student selected and which answer was the correct one, and there are a very few states that do a better job.

So why don’t the big standardized state tests provide that kind of feedback? Why do the tests stay locked in a black box of secrecy?

The test manufacturers claim that this is about fairness and accuracy, and in the past the PARCC folks have fought an aggressive (and losing) battle against students on social media spreading word of testing items. That’s a legitimate concern, but it doesn’t explain the need for secrecy after the fact, unless of course the test manufacturers intend to keep costs down by recycling test items from year to year.

The secrecy also makes it difficult for teachers, parents, and students to challenge questionable content. Occasionally word gets out of a particularly egregious example (e.g. the infamous talking pineapple test items), and there is plenty to question. Now that I’m retired, I can admit it—I peeked, every year. Most teachers do. The reading portion of the tests involves many opinion questions masquerading as objective judgments with answers that are highly debatable, but because the tests are hidden under a cloak of proprietary secrecy, those debates never happen.

The secrecy ultimately serves test manufacturers, not teachers or students. As it is, even if the tests are generating data about student learning and teacher instruction, but that data is unavailable to teachers and students in levels that are granular enough to be useful. Because the tests are high stakes, they drive instruction, but because they are hidden in a black box, they drive it in vague and not-very-useful ways. The assessments that teachers create on their own, administer to students, and then examine in detail, are far more useful for informing instruction. The tests now taking up hours of school time may be helping somebody, somewhere, but not anybody who actually works inside those schools.

Originally posted at Forbes   

OH: State Ed Board Joins Takeover Law Opposition

HB 70 is an Ohio law that strips a school district and its elected school board of all their power and hands it, via an academic distress board, to one person-- a super-powered CEO. The law was rammed through the legislature in less than 12 hours under the direction of then-Governor Kasich, and so far it has been used to take over Youngstown, Lorain, and East Cleveland schools (three districts that are, coincidentally, neither very wealthy or very white).

I've been following the story in Lorain (site of my first teaching job), where things have gone poorly. The CEO job created by HB 70 is undoable-- the CEO must be expert in all aspects of running a school district, he must bring that expertise to bear in fixing the specific problems in a troubled school district, and he must do so against the backdrop of a district that has been disenfranchised in all ways.  It's hard to imagine the person who could handle that challenge, but it's also hard to imagine someone who could do a worse job of meeting that challenge than Lorain's state-imposed CEO, David Hardy, Jr., a TFA product with a striking lack of people skills who has tried to apply charter management methods to an entire district.

Taxpayers have been fighting back against HB 70 with everywhere from the courts to the legislature. This week they took their fight to the state board of education, and the state board (despite the resistance of the state superintendent) heard them loud and clear.

The state board unanimously passed a simple resolution:

The State Board of Education does not support House Bill 70 of the 131st General Assembly.

This resolution came after hours of testimony from Lorain, East Cleveland and Youngstown. Testimony included:

From Henry Patterson, Lorain native and member of the first ADC: The economic and educational realities on the ground in Lorain did not occur overnight, and reversing the problems will require time.  The original pre-HB 70 academic distress commission was making progress, working hard, keeping a close eye on things, and enjoying a cooperative relationship with Lorain locals and the state education department. And they knew better than to ignore the community. The city schools need help but "This current disengaged top-down non-accountable model does not work."

The current board president offered a new plan, and observed that they are currently seeing no progress, but a lot of money is being spent, and if the state doesn't help get this under control, the city schools will be stuck with an even bigger mess than they started with.

A parent. Concern about how the law was passed, CEO was selected. Changes were extreme and haphazard, misinformation-- "I don't want to call anybody a liar, but there were things put out there that were untrue." We could leave district, but that would help only my children. Who will advocate for the other children. Privatization instead of help.

VP of school board. We tried to embrace HB 70-- and it didn't help. Help us hold the department accountable. We are paying the price for this experiment. This has to get fixed. Children are at risk.

Head of teachers' union, Jay Pickering. We would have 200-300 teachers plus many students here if school were not in session. We are experiencing a toxic work environment-- intimidation, threats, retaliation by administration on teachers. Lot of violence in the buildings. Restorative justice put in place but nobody was trained. Kids are concerned. Seniors have heard so many derogatory comments by CEO. CEO was a no show for academic awards dinner.

A parent. Unqualified administrators-- half have temporary certificates. Special area teachers are being given Title I duties. Pleads with Superintendent DeMario to come to Lorain (he hasn't been). She breaks into tears.

A parent. Toxic atmosphere. Building administration keeps dropping the ball; he hired inexperienced people. Perhaps because CEO doesn't like to be questioned. We are not putting on a show (as CEO suggests)-- this is our reality, and we will live with the effects long after he's gone.

A parent. New ADC engaged at first and stopped. Other state-appointed ADC members will not engage with community.

Teacher and member of ADC. High school student attendance is 50% of teacher evaluation. I asked ahead of time if admins would be qualified; he said yes, and not so. Lack of communication. CEO won't work with board. He has a really big list. Time to end this "carnage and unmitigated disaster."

The issue of Standards Based Grading was also brought up-- implemented well into year, with little training and a directive to throw out a month's worth of prior grades.

All of this led to the board resolution.

Meanwhile, HB 154, which was intended to both dissolve current ADCs and repeal HB 70, won strong approval in the house and has become part of the budget language (HB 166) which is good news-- but it must still get past the Senate, where opponents will try to head this off.

Watch in particular for Senator Peggy Lehner. Lehner heads the Senate education committee, and while she's been forced to admit the inherent problems with the bill, she has not been friendly to efforts to roll back HB 70. HB 70 has as its endgame the privatization by charter takeover of the affected districts, and Lehner has been nationally lauded by charter organizations. Here's one item that Cleveland.com turned up in her financial disclosure paperwork:

Lehner reported $9,945.70 in travel reimbursements. The Ohio Senate reimbursed her $3,812.64 for mileage. Excellence in Education in Action, the dark money wing of the school choice lobbying group founded by Jeb Bush, reimbursed her $1,204.32 (the financial disclosure form does not say where Lehner went, but she was reimbursed for expenses on Dec. 1, the closing day of the group’s national summit in Nashville, Tennessee).

Lehner also spends a lot of time listening to Lisa Gray who-- well, she deserves an entire post of her own, but the short form is that she's the queen of corporate charter privatization advocacy in Ohio. Lehner appears to be a master of concern trolling ("Well, of course that's a problem, but let's not do anything rash"). If I were still an Ohioan, I would be contacting my senator and telling them I like the language about takeovers just the way the House sent it over.

HB 70 is on the ropes, but it's not done yet. Now is the time to give that extra push to get it out the door. Kudos to the people of Lorain who have been telling their story over and over and over again in hopes that it would make a difference-- because it has. That's a lesson for public school supporters in all states.

Success Academy Violates Student Privacy (Again)

In a way, I can almost sympathize with Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy. Schools can find themselves in a real bind at times. A student can go to the media (social or traditional) and tell a story of how he was repeatedly hauled into the principal's office and disciplined because he was fighting bullies who picked on him for being gay, and the school must hold its tongue, even if it has a folder thick with reports of the student's repeated harassment of students that he suspected of hitting on his girlfriend. A student can claim to be unfairly punished for no reason, even if the school has a folder for that student showing a history of bullying. The schools may be armed with a defense, but they can't use it.

In every story of how a student was treated by a school, the school has its own story. It may be a legitimate story, or that story may reveal that the school behaved just as badly as the student claims. But the public is not going to know, because schools have a mandate, both legal and ethical, to treat student privacy as sacrosanct.

"Don't cross me, you little tattletales!"

This is as it should be. Teachers and staff have access to an enormous amount of student information, and so they have an obligation to keep that information just as private as humanly possible. It is a fundamental ethic of teaching, both because it's the only decent way to behave and because if families and students couldn't trust the school, it would never be able to do its job (and there are plenty of examples of places here families don't trust the school, and the school function suffers because of it).

There are certainly moments in which schools and individual teachers drop this ball. But for the most part, schools take privacy seriously. Here's an example-- I was the football game announcer for twenty years at my school, and in the last of those years, I was instructed to no longer call for a round of applause for an injured player limping off the field by name, because naming the injured student over the loudspeaker was probably a violation of HIPAA.

Success Academy has a history of problems with the whole student confidentiality thing. Back in 2015, NPR ran a story building on the growing controversy surrounding Success's aggressive handling of discipline for even its littlest students. The story reported on on student's experience, so Eva, feeling punched, punched back by opening this five-year-old child's personal records to the world. In the world of public education, a few million jaws dropped-- because you just don't do that. No matter how bad you think the story is making you look, you absolutely do not defend yourself by violating the confidentiality of a child. For one thing, it's against the law (FERPA), and for another thing-- you just don't do that. There may not be another act in her checkered charter career that so clearly demonstrates that Moskowitz just doesn't get schools or education or what she's doing with them.

Well, she's done it again.

Earlier this month, Alex Zimmerman wrote a story for Chalkbeat about how New York City schools are failing so many students with special needs. The story profiled one particular student, and a portion of that student's story included Success Academy. Success didn't care for how they came off in the story, so they responded by sending the reporter the student's file, right down to her learning plan and notes from the school psychologist.

You just don't do that!

Even if you sincerely believe that the child has slung mud at your school, what kind of grown-ass professional adult (drawing a half-million dollar salary) then gets in a mudslinging fight with a child?

The family has filed a federal privacy complaint, so I suppose that Success Academy might be facing some real trouble, like maybe a sternly worded letter in a file somewhere.

In fact, as Chalkbeat reports, no school has ever lost a federal cent over a FERPA violation. But then, most education professionals don't violate the law not because of fear of consequences, but because it would be so fundamentally unethical, such a violation of trust and abuse of power.

Success is protected, once again, by the hugeness of New York City. Moskowitz could never pull this kind of thing in a small town, where the breach of trust would put her out of business. Who would send their child to a school where the paperwork includes "In the event that you try to complain about us, we reserve the right to spread your private and personal information all over the media." It's n ot a compelling way to recruit.

DFER Tries To Swing A Primary

We live in interesting times. So many folks are sure they know what "most people" think or "most people" want, but it's hard for anybody to have a clue because the great American industry is the business of trying to sell a particular opinion. Even when the Russians mess with us, their disinformation campaigns focus not on lies about policy (free college will make your hair fall out) so much as on creating impressions of what certain people think (Miners for Trump, faking angry Black internet commenters).

This is also the nature of our elections, where people are (or at least are perceived to be) less interested in who has the best policies and more interested in knowing who's winning.

So if you have a policy that you want to plug, you could try to argue the merits of that policy with a candidate or their staff. But if you want to do something other than just argue the merits, then you argue that the policy is hugely popular and a political winner. And a good tool for that is a poll.

Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) is definitely for reformster ideas, but not all that Democraty. They are one of those groups that is interconnected with many other reform outfits, and who operates on the theory that they should have a seat at the education table because they say they should. Education Reform Now is the advocacy side of the group. And since the advent of Trump, and really, since the groundswell of insistence that the Democratic Party stop backing the privatization of public education, they've been working hard to maintain their clout.

How About A PR Poll?

All of this brings us to DFER/ERN's newly released polling data. Right now all we get is this slick pamphlet of results, put together by Charles Barrone, Dana Laurens, and Nicholas Munyan-Penney. Between the three of them, we find connections to 50CAN, Fordham Institute, Teach for America, and assorted consulting and government jobs.

The poll focuses on Presidential voters and Democratic primary voters, because the target audience here is the field of forty-seven Democratic Presidential hopefuls and their policy staff, plus other lawmakers and lawmaker wannabes. The basic message of this document is "You should support charter schools, because all the cool voters love that stuff."

Put another way, this was not a poll aimed at finding out what's really going on out there-- this is a poll ordered up to help stop the erosion of charter support among Democratic candidates. This becomes particularly clear when we see what they left out of the second of the two surveys.

The data here are softer than fresh play-do. We're actually looking at selected results from two polls (in the case of the second, very carefully selected). The information about these polls is stuck in the endnotes.

First: Do Democrats Love Charters?

In the first (by Bennenson Strategy Group-- more about them later), 1,004 Presidential voters, including 415 Democratic primary voters, were interviewed by phone at the beginning of last June. They were asked to rate their views on "Public Charter Schools," which brings us back to the use by charter schools of the term "public." Charter schools are not public schools; they are private schools funded with public money. But calling them public schools makes them sound less objectionable. In these polls, language is everything. Imagine if, instead, responders had been asked how favorably they viewed using public tax dollars to send select students to private schools.

But respondents were asked to "rate their views" of public [sic] charter schools on a scaler from very favorable to very unfavorable. 50% of the Presidential voters gave charters a "very favorable" or "somewhat favorable" rating; DFER has just combined those two ratings into one category which is yet another way to massage the data so it looks more favorable. Democratic primary voters were 51% unfavorable. So they broke that down further to determine that most of the unfavorable rating comes from White Democrats; this involved breaking the 415 Democratic primary voters into three categories, but we don't have those numbers. Nor do we have a more detailed explanation of the script the pollster followed to get these results. DFER frames its summary as "voters of color were more than twice as likely as White Democrats to hold favorable opinions of public [sic] charter schools."

Second: Cherry-picking the Millennial Data

The second batch of data are pulled from a GenForward survey of 1,910 millennials. There's a full survey covering a bunch of questions that you can find here, but DFER has chosen to just pick a couple of questions for its report. This survey used two sample sources, including both phone and web modes, worked up via the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, and though the DFER write-up touts this as the opinions of "millennial voters," I see nothing in the original survey to indicate that respondents were selected from among those who voted in previous elections (nor could the 18 year old respondents have done so). The full survey, Millennials and Public Education in the United States, is pretty hefty, but DFER has pulled just a single response-- the majority of millennials support charter schools, with citizens of color leading the pack again.

Now, that's an accurate-ish report of the finding in the GenForward survey; that support for charters is mostly "somewhat support," with "strongly support" coming in behind "somewhat oppose." Here are some other findings from the survey that DFER did not choose to include:

* Millennials, across race and ethnicity, name increasing school funding as the most important way to improve public education-- and they rate that over options like school choice, improving teacher training, and hiring more teachers.

* 75% of all millennials believe that paying teachers more would do more to improve public education than creating more charter schools.

* There's also big support for vouchers for low income students to attend private schools, but it still comes in far behind "give schools more funding" as a fix.

* Very few millennials consider "lack of school choice" the biggest challenge facing public education.

* Most millennials give their own education a B.

Third: Back To the "Public" Dodge

Now DFER turns back to Bennenson and some carefully fudged questioning. Those surveyed were asked how high a priority it should be that "families have access to a variety of public school options no matter where they live or how much money they have."

Well, that's a carefully loaded question. First, we've hidden charter schools behind the word "public." And look-- you may disagree with me that charter schools are not public schools, but even if you are among the folks from Betsy DeVos to Governor DeSantis to charter fans on Twitter, at a minimum you ought to accept that the issue is not settled and certainly not settled for the general public. Again-- let's rephrase this as "the government should use your tax dollars to send select students to a private school" and see what the numbers look like.

This is also loaded by the "no matter etc" clause. How many respondents are going to think, "No, I want to say that if you are poor or live in a crappy neighborhood, you ought to have a crappy school." Nor did the pollsters ask a question such as, say, "Which policy choice would most help improve schools in poor neighborhoods."

The other loaded questions include the "importance of expanding charter schools so that every child has a chance to attend a school that meets their needs" which is only a slightly fairer framing than asking about the "importance of expanding charter schools so that every child can have a pony and an x-box." In other words, it's assuming facts not in evidence and making claims for charters while pretending to ask about them. Do charters give every child a chance? Nope. Charter preference for students who have few special needs or who don't speak English as a second language have been oft-noted, and that's before we even get to stuff like the Texas rule that lets a charter refuse to accept any student who has ever been sent to the principal's office.

And the survey also asks if it's important that "public school options include access to charters, magnet and career academies irrespective of zip code or income." Again, this is not compared to any other options and again, the inclusion of zip code and income make it less likely that respondents will say no.

In all cases, the shades of answers (respondents cold rank priority from 1 through 7) are compressed, so we can't see what the nuanced spread is here. Just the highs and lows-- and the mediums have been omitted entirely from the charts. The resulting charts indicate big support for all three propositions, just as they were designed to do.

One More Really Shady Detail

I've been typing "Benneson Strategy Group" because that's how it's listed in the report. Except there appears to be no such group. Instead, lets talk about the Benenson Strategy Group-- a group that is not exactly a polling outfit. Instead, their home page touts their "reputation as a premier consulting and strategic research firm." Also, "We help leaders connect with, persuade and activate the audiences you need to win." They handle "rebranding" and "building reputation" and "strengthening trust."

This is not the Gallup Poll crew here.

The endnote also indicates that Benenson is working "in consultation with 270 Strategies," and those guys are also not pollsters. 270 Strategies is a "progressive digital strategy firm" founded by veterans of both of Barack Obama's campaigns.

So What Can We Learn Here?

Well, DFER will pull all sorts of baloney to try to further the cause of corporate education reform and privatization. This is not news. They would very much like to convince the Dem candidates who are not already on their team (looking at you, Cory Booker) to join up. Also not news.

Is this piece of "research" completely useless? Not entirely. If any of the Democratic nominees fall for this baloney, that will tell me something important about that nominee. A nominee who actually falls for this doesn't deserve my vote, and one who tries to use it as cover can't be trusted. Any legislator who is influenced by this baloney also deserves some extra scrutiny. This report is a big piece of smelly dead bait hanging on a rusty hook; I'm hoping only a few candidates get suckered.

Parenting Is All About Losing

As I've been immersed again in the world of children's music, I'm struck by how much of it is sad. Not "when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall sad," but a kind of melancholic ache behind the music itself.

I think it's the losing.

My wife asked me the other day, "Is it always like this?" We had turned around and had one of those moments when you realize that your baby looks like a small child, an undersized person, but not an infant any more. It's a truly mixed moment emotionally, one part pride and joy at how big your child has grown, and one part sadness and loss because there was an infant just here a moment ago and now that tiniest person is gone forever.

"Yes," I said, and I think back to my older children who are now in their early thirties with children of their own, and I can't even count how many versions of those people have gone by. It's not necessarily all transitions into new versions of themselves, but every step of growth is a step away, a loss of something. You knew everything about them. They lived under your roof and had their own room and you saw them every morning and last thing at night and you were keyed into their every need and then, not in a long slow glide, but in a seemingly endless series if jerks, like tectonic plates snapping past each other, each of those things is lost.

Not that it's all loss and sadness. Every stage of my older children's lives was the best so far, the best until the next new stage revealed itself to be even better. They get stronger and wiser and more terribly beautiful each time. It would never be enough to try to hold them back, to trade the unnatural prolonging of one stage for an unrealized better stage to come. Not that some parents don't panic and try some emotional equivalent of binding their children's legs so they won't learn to walk or run. It never works. Children were born to grow, and grow they will, with or without our help. We can only make the process better or worse, but we can't stop-- only do damage by trying.

This is the season where parents feel it. Some of these changes sneak up quietly, and you never see them coming until you turn around and think, "Good lord, he's like a little man." But some you can see barreling toward you from far away. The Prom. Graduation. The stuff that forces a parent to realize "There are only so many days left with this person, and then she'll be gone, and dammit, she's actually excited about it but please, oh, please God, let me have just a couple more extra days with this person before I lose her."

Mother's Day is tied up in ancient history and churchiness and Civil War stuff. The modern version  became quickly tied up in commercialism to the point that one of its major founders withdrew her support. So I guess it's just fortunate that it lands here in May, when parents are counting down those last days and can use an excuse to say "Come here and actually look at me for a few minutes before you go back to planning your escape."

Teachers go through the cycle of loss, too, but without the burden of having known the students when they were a younger version of themselves. Where a teacher can just be delighted by a students progression, a parent always has to feel that pang, however tiny, of loss. I expect that when I was in the classroom, even with parenting under my belt, I sometimes failed to really appreciate and hear that parent stress, that sometimes I was unthinkingly saying, "Look at how great a job they're doing of leaving you behind. Look at how swiftly you're losing this one!" It's on the not inconsiderable list of ways in which I could have been a bit more sensitive.

I don't want to overstate the case. Good parents are excited and filled with joy to see how great and strong and brave and capable and awesome their children can become, and it is an unspeakably great big warm ball of blasting sunshine to experience your children as grown humans, fully themselves and making their way in the world.

But there is always the losing.

I had to take a break in the middle of writing this to go hold Twin B, who stirred from his nap and needed to be held for a bit while he fell back asleep. My chest and arms are still warm from where he was lying. Some day the little guy who needs me to wrap him up in my arms so he can feel comfortable will be gone, a bigger stronger little guy in his place. That's a great thing, a thing that is as it should be, and the thing that puts a little core of loss in the heart of parenting.

ICYMI: Do You Feel Appreciated Now Edition (5/12)

So, teachers, did this week do it for you? Here are some pieces to read while you bask in the warm glow.

A Bridge Too Far

Wow. Florida Senator Tom Lee (R) is a long time supporter of charters, but during this last round of legislative baloney he stood up to say "enough." Accountabaloney reports some of his speech and it is rough and honest and nobody paid attention, but you should.

Firing Day At A Charter School  

What's it like to teach at a charter? This former charter teacher talks about the ritual of firing day.

Teachers Are the Classroom Experts

Steven Singer on the absence of teacher voices in education coverage.

Teacher Appreciation and Fair Pay

Jan Resseger on what would really make for a good TAW.

How NOT To Evaluate Education Policy

Jersey Jazzman once again provides the invaluable service of explaining clearly why a talking point is baloney. Here he takes on the "four times more likely to attend a successful school" PR.

Who Do I Appreciate? Music Teachers. 

I can't disagree with Nancy Flanagan here.

Florida Teachers: Arming Us Is Most Dangerous Decision Ever

And dumb.

Cyber Charters Aren't Free  

Susan Spicka speaks up for Pennsylvania taxpayers and students    

Thoughts About Reading from a Classroom Veteran

Fewer tests. More reading for pleasure. And stop buying programs. A Florida teacher speaks up.

If Education Advocacy Were More Like Pharmaceutical Ads

Yes, it's the reformy Robert Pondiscio. Read it anyway.

Success Academy Being Sued For Violating Student Privacy 

It's a fairly gobsmacking violation, too. But you know how it is-- rules are for little people.

FBI Investigating Tennessee Voucher Vote 

There was a lot of horse trading done to get the necessary votes. Apparently actually bribing legislators is bad.

Can Choice Save Public Schools Revised 

Well, this is kind of interesting. Deborah Meier looks at her own evolution on the subject of choice.

Policies Harmful for Children of Color 

Wendy Lecker looks at some misguided policies in education reform, including the rise of the school resource officer.

Louisiana's Voucher Program Featured As Failure

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider looks at LA vouchers, recently held up as failures (spoiler alert: they are)

5 DeVos Puzzlers

Valerie Strauss looks at some of the striking things DeVos did-- and didn't-- say at EWA gathering.

Why The Tests Must Be Kept Secret 

Continuing to pursue the mystery of why the Big Standardized Test must be kept shrouded in secrecy.

Knewton Is Gone

John Warner looks at the passing of the big data giant, and we shouldn't throw a party just yet.

Rebranding My Mom

Not an education story, but a great little essay for Mom's Day. What happens when your mom loses her job?