Monday, September 21st, is the United Nation's 27th annual attempt to promote an International Day of Peace. We are asked to pause and reflect. Or perhaps set aside our personal or political anger. To cease fire. For one day.

We are asked to inspire our students to celebrate this day of peace in their own way. And perhaps we should. Maybe the adults ought to all just chill for 24 hours. Maybe we just take a break from spewing venomous hate speech at Town Hall Meetings or calling the President a fascist or the second coming of Pol Pot. Maybe we ought to quit shouting across the great divide: "You Liar!" You racist!

Maybe on International Peace Day we stay in our seats when we might otherwise rush the stage and yank the microphone out of some 19-year old entertainer's hands to promote Beyonce. Maybe we accept the line judge's call instead of threatening to shove the "f-ing tennis ball down her throat". Maybe we disarm. Maybe we turn down the volume on our talk radio stations. Maybe we have a civil discussion without a deer rifle slung over our shoulder.

Maybe we make this International Day of Peace about our kids. Before someone gets hurt.

Last week the House Speaker warned that the climate of hatred towards the President is starting to feel very much like that of San Francisco in the late 70's-- when Dan White's voices urged him to murder city councilman Harvey Milk, a gay rights activist. She was immediately vilified. Her political adversaries accused her of encouraging Americans to assassinate the President. But all week long cable news pundits were saying the same thing: that we are witnessing a zeitgeist with potentially frightening consequences if some nut gets too close to those in power who were elected by the "people".

We've been here before. We heard Bobby Kennedy's powerful speech on the Mindless Menace of Violence in America... just before he too became a victim of it.

On this International Day of Peace, a ceasefire in Afghanistan and Africa and Iraq and the West Bank and in the border towns of Juarez and Tijuana would be a blessing.

But I'll settle for a day in which our children are permitted a moment to lend their voices to the tumult-- their prayers for peace.

So at El Milagro we will commemorate this Day of Peace. And I'm sure we'll hear about it. We'll hear that we should be using our instructional time more wisely and preparing our kids for the standardized tests. Or that we are putting ideas into their heads. Or we are teaching them to be soft. Or to be socialists.

But the 7th and 8th grade students in Mr. Medina's class have already made 1000 origami cranes and inscribed them with a wish for peace. They will wear white to signify their solidarity. And they will lend their voices by vowing to keep a day of silence.

Each student will carry a Pledge Card that says:

•Today I am silent.
•Today I am silent... reflecting on peace within myself.
•Today I am silent... reflecting on peace within my family, my school, my community, and the world.
•Today I will walk in silence with my classmates and we will stand for peace.
•Today I am silent... for the last time!
•From this day forward, I will raise my voice in defense of others. I will be an advocate for peace, non-violence, and justice for all people.

By Tuesday the International Day of Peace will be over and we will not likely have effected any real change in the world. At least for now.

There are still 1000 origami cranes. The wishes they bear will be released to the universe. The prayers they carry will come from children.

By Kevin W. Riley
El Milagro Weblog

Posted by LeaderTalk Contributor at 9:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

And then I thought about how Plato or Socrates or Antisthenes or one of those old ancient smart guys tried in earnest to convince the world that writing was somehow inefficient use of one's intellect. It seems like educators have a habit of missing important trends.

So I wrote my own post about the topic. And in making the case that my IPhone is smarter than your kid's teacher... I was really suggesting that maybe we should be handing out cellphones instead of banning them.

I don't mean to pitch for Apple but my IPhone is a pretty powerful device. It's like a laptop, but more portable, adaptable, affordable; even more durable. Like Apple's answer to the Swiss army knife, it offers, among other things, too many learning tools to ignore:

• A GPS device
• Up-to-date maps and street level photographs taken around the world
• Complete, unfiltered internet access for research
• Thousands of Aps, like the ones for Twitter and Facebook and other social networking functions
• A link to your Kindle and countless books and periodicals
• Access to You Tube and Podcasts
• Instant updates on the stock market and the weather
• (Almost) unlimited music through ITunes
• The ability to translate words and phrases from any language including ASL
• A calculator

Plus its a phone which obviously connect users via text and telephone with people anywhere in the world.

And I guess that is what the objection is: Board members are afraid that kids will be texting their friends all day. Which of course they will-- in classes that are not engaging or interesting or relevant.

So should we ban IPhones or harness them to ignite our children's creative energy and natural passion to learn about things that matter?

Let's ask Plato. Or then again, maybe not. Educators have that nasty habit of missing the most important trends.

Kevin W. Riley
El Milagro Weblog

Posted by LeaderTalk Contributor at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

And as street musicians, they are all we have of whatever the soul of America ever was.

There is that haunting Washington Post social experiment called "Pearls Before Breakfast". Perhaps you read it. Or not. Perhaps you were on your way to work in your busy life as a school leader and you were just too stressed to stop and listen.

1,097 commuters raced past the street musician in L'Enfant Plaza in Washington DC one January morning, on their way to their beltway jobs as policy analysts and consultants and government workers. They heard him. But they didn't listen. They kept their heads down and avoided eye contact. They stayed clear of his violin case for fear they would be shamed into fishing for a few loose quarters. Some had their IPods on so they could drown him out. Others had cell phones-- the perfect ploy for the frenetic train patron already enwrapped in the day's e-mail and text messages.

And that was their loss.

He was no vagabond fiddler begging for a cup of coffee. He was Joshua Bell, one of the world's most renowned classical musicians, playing some of the most elegant music ever created on a $3.5 million Stradivarius that was hand-crafted in 1713. On this particular morning, Joshua Bell managed $32 in tips from a handful of passer-bys who took the time to listen. It was "Chaconne", written by Johann Sebastian Bach and just a few days before, Joshua Bell had played it in the Boston Symphony Hall to a capacity audience who each paid a minimum $100 a ticket to hear the performance.

Last week Paul McCartney played a free concert on a rooftop in New York City and he had a very different reception.

Perhaps the commuters were just a little more familiar with Paul McCartney than they were with Johann Sebastian Bach. (I know I am.) Perhaps they had allowed a little more time in their morning routine so they could afford a few extra minutes to stop and listen. Perhaps something in the loud bass and amplified foot pedals spoke to the soul of New Yorkers in a way that a violin-- however sweet or eerie -- could not speak to Washington DC bureaucrats in a hurry to make their first morning meeting.

Or is it the context? Or the fear of strangers in a train station? Or a general distrust of street performers? Or the fear of being scammed? Or worse?

Or are we in too big a hurry? Or does the music matter? Or do the arts matter? Or does Washington or New Orleans or New York City matter?

The Washington Post formulated a question for their action research: "In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, does beauty transcend?" They hypothesized that it would and that Joshua Bell would draw too big a crowd and pretty soon there would be anarchy. There wasn't. He played and no one noticed.

Well, almost no one.

In his beautifully written summary of the experiment in L'Enfant Plaza, staff writer Gene Weingarten writes:

"There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money,from the vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away."

Our students report back for school next week. They will pass by in search of sweet music that genuinely stirs them. I for one, will not abide the adults that rush them past when they only want one glimpse of that brilliant virtuoso that seems to give life a fleeting instant of meaning; or they pop their IPod headphones out to listen to a song whose name they cannot pronounce.

by Kevin W. Riley
El Milagro Weblog

Posted by LeaderTalk Contributor at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What a compelling confluence of events this week:

• California in near collapse as they face a $25 BBB-illion deficit!

• A Stanford University concludes that students in charter schools are not faring as well as students in traditional public schools.

• California Charter Schools Association invents a new scheme to hold charters more accountable.

• California's highest performing school, a charter school, emerges as a beacon of light in an otherwise dark and tempestuous storm. Or not.

So how do these seemingly separate events connect?

A change is gonna come.

I am inspired by Tehran and the passion of the people there. I have been reading "iranelection" tweets from Twitter's Trending Topics. The courage is there. The hope for a better future. The vision of a better way. The leadership. The synergy.

So I wondered how we capture the energy of this historic moment and bring it home from Persia. My state, California, is reeling. The proposals coming from our Terminator on how to bridge the mind-boggling deficit are absolutely disastrous as they apply to our children:

• Cut $4.5 billion from K-12 public education
• Cut Healthy Families (health insurance!)
• Cut CalWorks (aide to families)

Simultaneously, Stanford University determines that charter schools aren't the answer... or more accurately, they are not consistently the answer. According to the report issued on June 15: 17% reported academic gains that were better than traditional public schools and 37% showed "gains" that were worse. Perhaps that inspired the California Charter Schools Association to come out a few days later with their own scheme to "hold charter schools more accountable for their academic achievement."

As if we could be more accountable. My students families are being moved around the community like they are on roller skates. Their homes are being foreclosed. Their parents hang on to their jobs with that white-knuckled fear that the worst of the economic damage has not run full course. 1/3 never had health insurance to start with and now the potential cut to the programs that link children to pediatricians and optometrists and dentists are on the chopping block. Collateral damage.

Then, for a fleeting moment, it is not all doom and gloom: I discover an LA Times article about a charter school that is "spitting in the eye of mainstream education." Hope? One of California's very highest performing schools is actually a charter school! It sits in a low income community in Oakland and has managed to defy all Stanford odds and achieve an Academic Performance Index of 967!

But wait. Not so fast. This school... the one that every school in America should emulate... the one to whom we should run to analyze and replicate; the one Governor Terminator called "a miracle" and the Koret Foundation determined was the "model for public education in California"... may have soared to its amazing heights on the wings of Icarus.

So now I am processing this whirlwind of events that have played out on multiple levels. I scale in and out of them as easily as manipulating Google Earth. First the 20,000 foot satellite view and a crisis a world away. Then the street view. I can see the economic realities come home to roost; I can see them parked in the driveway. But there are no easy answers, no quick fix solutions. Anywhere.

It is Saturday and the first full week of summer vacation for our students.

I am watching, out of the corner of my eye, as motorcycles burn on Tehran streets. The video is shaky but what do you expect from amateurs running through chaos with cell phones and downloading history on CNN IReports? Freedom finds its throat in the fury there.

Next week promises to be at least as interesting. There is only one outcome we can predict with any confidence or accuracy-- somehow, some way...

A change is gonna come.

Kevin W. Riley
El Milagro Weblog

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This past week we completed the 2009 version of the California Standards Test. It is a standards-based test designed to assess the degree to which children mastered the standards at their grade level. If they get higher than a scaled score of 350, they will be considered "proficient" and everyone will be happy.

Of course, anything less than that means they are "not at grade level" and it will be a reason for great concern. And if 45% of our overall students or 45% of our Latino students or 45% of our English language learners are not at grade level, the state of California will declare us to be a "Program Improvement" school.

So here is what I don't get.

If we have a standards-based curriculum, and students' mastery of those standards is determined by a standards- based assessment (in our state: the California Standards Test), then why aren't kids grouped in classrooms according to their mastery of those standards? In other words... a true, standards-based school.

Where do we see standards-based schools? In that Taekwondo studio down the street-- the one in your neighborhood strip mall.

Not so in your school or mine.

In fact, in a few weeks we are going to promote quite a few students to the next grade level who have not yet mastered the standards for this year. We'll know who they are, because those will be the students who don't do so hot on the California Standards Test. We will agonize over the perennial "promotion/retention dilemma", we'll choose our poison (social promotion being the lesser of twin evils)... and we'll promote each student whether they are ready or not. But at least we are not sending them to spar against accomplished opponents throwing spinning heel kicks.

The significant difference is that in Taekwondo we group students by their demonstrated competence. In public schools we group kids according to 1) their chronological age and 2) the grade level they were sitting in when the clock ran out at the end of the game last June. Our 11 years-olds are fifth graders no matter what level of mastery they have attained in school. And next month, they will become 6th graders and they will struggle to catch up all year until it is time to take the California Standards Test again. When that time comes, they will be handed the Sixth Grade Test-- not because they are ready for it... but merely because we placed them in a student grouping called "Sixth Grade"!

So what if we organized our students for instruction according to the martial arts, mastery-based model that is thousands of years old instead of the archaic, age-driven system that we all perpetuate today?

For starters:

• Students would be grouped according to where they are on the continuum of standards.
• We wouldn't need grade level groupings at all.
• Students would move fluidly forward and back according to their demonstrated needs and evidence of mastery.
• Teaching would be far more differentiated.
• Students would progress at their own pace.

With regard to testing:

• Some 11 years-olds would take the 4th grade version of the California Standards Test... because that is the level they are ready for.
• Some 11 year-olds may take the 7th grade test.
• Some 11 year-olds might take the 5th grade test for math, but the 3rd grade test for language arts.
• Every student would be "at grade level" because, as in Taekwondo, they would be taking a test to demonstrate what they can do. It is geared to their level... so they will all be--by definition--"proficient".
• Since all students would be proficient, schools would not show up as "Program Improvement" and the states' metrics that are now based on counting percentages of proficient students would be obsolete. So they will need new metrics.

Since we are a charter school known for our willingness to try stuff, we are intent on pursuing this model. We know we will have to do our homework and that we will be accused of 'gaming the system.' And yet, our real intention is to completely align our school-- curriculum, assessment, and student groupings-- to a standards-based model.

The Adams County School District 50 in Denver, Colorado is already taking a courageous lead on this. And I'm sure there are others.

But I am wondering...

What questions, suspicions, criticisms, warnings, come to your mind when I describe this project?

Hearing no comments... we are going to go full speed ahead!

"...Joonbi...shiyak!"

Kevin W. Riley
El Milagro Weblog: http://kriley19.wordpress.com/

Posted by LeaderTalk Contributor at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

by Kevin W.Riley, Ed.D.
El Milagro Weblog

Blind faith because for all that is at stake with this thing, there is an extraordinary lack of control over the outcomes. And make no mistake, we have a healthy regard for the importance of the results and for the unintended consequences engendered by another testing season. How high can the high stakes be?

• These test results will follow every one of our students for the rest of their school careers.
• Future teachers will rely on these results when considering students for afterschool programs or AP classes; for participation in athletics and performing arts; for placement in the bluebirds reading group or tracking them into a school life of eternal and uninspired remediation.
• Specialists will determine that some students are gifted, by virtue of the advanced score in math or reading. Others will diagnose sometimes-arbitrary learning disabilities because a student scored significantly lower than they otherwise would have been expected.
• Schools will (illegally) consult the test results of new students registering at the counter to determine "if there is any room" or whether they should try the school down the street.
• Others will consult the scores as the final straw before banishing 'delinquent' and chronically low-performers to continuation school or independent study or homeschooling or some other equivalent of learning in Siberia. (Watch how frequent this occurs in...oh, let's just say... the weeks immediately before testing! When I was the director of the juvenile court schools for San Diego County, we could bank on a swelling enrollment of students kicked out of their neighborhood schools just weeks before the CST!)

Can high stakes get much higher? Yes... actually they can.

• Presidents and governors and mayors and school board members all run on the promise that they will raise the scores--if not the stakes-- in high stakes testing.
• Superintendents can extend their brief tenures by another year and principals can delay their "return to the classroom" on the strength of a good test outcome. Or not.
• Veteran, tenured teachers feel the pressure too. And since most boilerplate union language allows them to transfer to the district's higher achieving schools as a benefit of seniority... they often do.
• Meanwhile, low achieving schools experience the constant turnover of veteran teachers seeking higher ground and novice teachers prematurely folding their careers for lack of support or training.
• And so low performing schools (and schools in low income areas) are far more likely to be staffed by teachers with less experience. Younger teachers. Teachers beginning to raise families of their own. Teachers who, when they are raising families of their own, take extended maternity leave and entrust their students to itinerant, long-term substitute teachers who have far less experience than the inexperienced teachers they are replacing.

But the stakes get even higher when you track the migratory patterns of families and wealth within a community.

• Young, education-savvy couples consult websites like greatschools.net to determine where the best schools are in a community-- as determined by metrics like the Academic Performance Index (API).
• So higher test scores create a better reputation for the school district and a stronger selling point for real estate agents.
• Ultimately, the shifting and moving of families within a community are more likely determined by the API of schools and districts than any other factor (aside from the cost of homes.)
• Just as the veteran teachers flee low performing schools, so too do high performing students! As their parents become more financially stable, they will join the migration toward higher API scores and the illusion of better schools.
• Thus our school communties continue to shift according to the integration of public education's two most consistent outliers-- socio-economic status and API scores. It's a brain drain.

So when we administer the California Standards test beginning on May 4, we will do so fully aware of the high stakes with which we are playing: children's school careers and the scope of life opportunities afforded them, the careers of educators and politicians, and the distribution of talent and resources within our communities.

There is, in the end, an incongruence here. We have a universal desire to improve our schools and our students' learning, but a system of assessment that produces a host of unintended consequences-- not the least of which-- is the perpetuation of the very achievement gaps we seek to explain and mitigate through high stakes testing.

We'll do our part to buck the data trends. El Milagro. High stakes and we are "all in".

Posted by LeaderTalk Contributor at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

What is your headline?

While the nation waits nervously for the Obama Administration to breathe life back into our moribund economy, the President has set his sites on other issues that are equally as important. Like our schools. Last week, in an address to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C., he shared his vision for public education. The next morning the newspaper said: "Obama looks for schools to improve."

There is an interesting exercise often used with organizations that are trying to arrive at a sense of common purpose or mission. They are invited to look into the future, four or five years after their ideas have been implemented, and to envision how the headlines in the local paper will describe their success.

So if we were to ask President Obama to project what the headline for the Washington Post might be on the morning of March 20, 2013, exactly four years from today, he might predict that it will say:

'"ACHIEVEMENT GAP EVAPORATES AMIDST POWERFUL REFORMS"

There is cause for such optimism. In his address to the chamber he outlined his five pillars for education reform:

• Invest in early childhood initiatives
• Develop standards and assessments that promote 21st century skills: including problem solving, critical thinking, entrepreneurship and creativity
• Recruit, prepare and reward outstanding teachers
• Promote innovation and excellence; raise the cap on charter schools and extend the school day and school year
• Provide every American with the opportunity to pursue quality higher education

NCLB has been a debacle, not on the scale with the housing market meltdown perhaps, but close. After 8 years of narrowing our curriculum to basic skills, for example, our 8th graders remain 9th in the world in mathematics. So the President wants a return to a climate of innovation, where we teach children to think and solve problems beyond bubbles on a multiple choice test. If he succeeds the headline might read:

"5 PILLARS CREDITED WITH INSPIRING CHILDREN TO THINK AGAIN"

Last week's news headlines addressed more than just the President's remarks however. One headline in Time Magazine read: "Report Says 1 in 50 US Kids are Homeless." In light of our fragile economy, that number can only get worse. The study's definition of homelessness included children who live in the streets, in shelters, or who are doubling up with relatives. It described the link between children's life circumstances and their level of academic achievement: homeless children are twice as likely as other children to be retained. With each school change they are at risk of falling as much as six months behind. 25% have witnessed violence. 75% are in elementary school. Nearly half suffer from anxiety and depression.

Of course those of us who work directly with children and their struggling families every day in Title I schools have been aware of these trends all along. But in the ethos of NCLB, to call out the obvious difficulty of learning to multiply fractions when your family is living in an old Volkswagon is merely "making excuses"; an aversion to being held accountable. (For the record, I am more than willing to be held accountable as a school leader. I would just like someone to be accountable for the fact that there are children in America who have to sleep in a Volkswagon.)

Perhaps if we get the "5 Pillars" right, and we get the economy breathing again, we might see a headline on March 20, 2013 that says:

"DRAMATIC GAINS IN STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT TRANSCEND ALL DEMOGRAPHICS" or
"AMERICAN CHILDREN NOW FIRST IN THE WORLD IN SCIENCE!"

There was yet another headline last week that trumpeted the release of a joint study between the University of Colorado and ASU. This report identified seven "out-of- school" factors that also profoundly influence students' academic success and lead to inequalities among children. Those factors include prenatal care, health care, food insecurity, environmental pollutants, family stress, neighborhood characteristics and the absence of extended learning opportunities.

Like most schools, we realized long ago that we cannot unilaterally eliminate these out-of-school factors, so instead we use our resources and the innovative nature of our charter school to foster "resiliency" in children; we enhance their ability to rise above their life circumstances and achieve at the highest levels in spite of the obstacles. We teach our students to build on their personal assets. We have, in fact, become experts on the topic of childhood resiliency, a very non-NCLB approach to engendering student achievement.

Taken together, last week's headlines dramatically illustrate how the future of our nation, our economy and our schools are all so inextricably bound.

On March 20, 2013, four years from now, I predict that my school will have benefitted from our own forward momentum as well as the implementation of President Obama's hopeful vision for our economy and our schools. If I could project the headline in the local paper for that day, it would say:

"CALIFORNIA'S TOP PERFORMING SCHOOL LIVES UP TO ITS NICKNAME: EL MILAGRO"

I'm just curious, school leaders, especially those of you who are saving a nation- four years down the road from now what will your headline say?

Kevin W. Riley
Cross-Posted with a Little Different Spin at El Milagro Weblog

Posted by LeaderTalk Contributor at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

stimulus | 'stim yul us
noun (pl. -li | -,li)
• a thing that rouses energy in something or someone;
• an interesting and exciting quality

On this, the thirty-day anniversary of the historic Inauguration of our 44th President, this much is clear: when it comes to leadership, Barack Obama has some game! In just four weeks (about the time it took most of us to figure out where the restroom was in our new school), President Obama has named and re-named cabinet members, passed a nearly $800 billion stimulus package, flown to Denver, Phoenix and Ottawa, launched Hillary into the Far East, visited a Washington DC charter school and took Michelle to dinner on Valentine's Day. Whether you agree with his policies or not, there is much to learn from this president's powerhouse approach to governing.

Metaphors for leadership abound-- in Fortune 500 Company CEO's, NBA basketball coaches, and admirals who have captained naval ships. You can find their books in Borders or read about them in Fast Company. Or you can follow CNN on Twitter and study how one man, our president, has approached his first month on the job and confronted the most complex and urgent crises of our generation.

So whatever your role in schools might be, here are "20 Leadership Lessons" from the dynamic presidency of Barack Obama:

1. Keep your eyes on the prize: There is nothing like a wordle to know you are consistently 'on message'.

2. Invite them to the barbecue: Stepping outside of the hallowed halls helps to build social networks with allies and adversaries alike. "Kegger at the White House!"

3. Don't wait: Hit the ground at a sprint and knock over the furniture. Launch and learn!

4. Keep your family first. Period.

5. Feed your inner gym rat: Stay fit!

6. Bipartisan "process" is secondary to doing the right thing: So do the right thing.

7. Be resilient: After the inevitable setbacks, betrayals, and disappointments... you have to bounce back stronger.

8. Don't be a sap: "I am an eternal optimist," said the President. "Not a sap!"

9. Read stuff!

10. Don't give up your Blackberry: Especially if it is your link to the only people who will tell you the truth.

11. Speak to the conflict: When you speak from the heart to the needs of people that didn't vote for you, that's real Servant Leadership.

12. Have some courage. Enough said.

13. Sneak out to dinner: (But leave your Blackberry at home.)

14. Change the culture to change the outcomes: Replace the curtains hung by your predecessor and then make up your own rules.

15. Stand tall on the shoulders of giants: Don't wobble, they became giants for a reason.

16. Appreciate the ghosts. (If I lived in the White House I would walk around at night and listen to the spirits whisper.) Our schools have a history too.

17. Surround yourself with the best people you can find: Build your own team of rivals.

18. You belong in the room: So when you feel like you are over your head, it is good to remember that you were hired for a reason.

19. Communicate... communicate... communicate: Make it your gift.

And finally, whether you are an urban school district superintendent, the assistant principal of a small elementary school, or the most powerful leader of the free world, one month on the job--

20. Remember that HOPE is what brought you here.

Kevin W. Riley
El Milagro Weblog

Posted by LeaderTalk Contributor at 9:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As I write this post we are approaching midnight on the west coast. It is January 19. In a matter of hours, Barack Obama will ascend to the presidency. In that ascension there are unfathomable challenges and opportunities. He will be asked to shoulder the weight of the world-- and simultaneously, to redeem America's promise of equality and justice-- once... and for all.

Posted by LeaderTalk Contributor at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

On January 2, 2009, I challenged readers to consider what happens to our students when you test them in a language that is not their native language, and then pass judgment on them and on their teachers based on the predictable results! I invited readers to take a quiz and to not be discouraged by the fact that the quiz is in a foreign language.

This issue is huge. It has less to do with test scores and more to do with how we are preparing our children to compete globally. Or not. (Check out who is about to become the largest English speaking country on the planet.) Of course our students need to speak English, but why aren’t they speaking other languages, too?

Anyway, if you took the quiz you experienced what many of our students experience. They may know the material and have the skills in math or reading or writing– but their academic proficiency (and intellect, motivation, potential, etc.) will be determined primarily by their ability to master a second language and the confidence they have in themselves as second language learners.

Here were the 3 questions:

Question Number 1:

Если ваша профессиональная репутация, ваша школа рейтинга, и будущее ваших учеников были все зависит от детей, каким образом осуществляется на стандартизированных испытаний, которые приведены в иностранном языке, вы должны:

А. выступаем за то, чтобы дети предоставили оценки на их родном языке ,

B. энтузиазмом участвовать в вашей государства осуществлять в учебных злоупотреблений;

C. вид, что исход отметив делать с языком, или

D. привести ненасильственного протеста

Question Number 2:

كاليفورنيا يطالب بأن تتخذ جميع الأطفال أنصبتها المقررة باللغة الانكليزية للأسباب التالية :

أ. انها حقا جيدة للأطفال

ب. لأنها أكثر موثوقية وسيلة لتحديد ما تعلمه الأطفال

C. لأنها ستوفر معلومات قيمة والمعلمين حول ما يعرف الطلاب

د. وسوف نتأكد من الطلاب لا يملكون غير عادلة رئيس جامعة كاليفورنيا تبدأ اللغة الأجنبية

Question Number 3

Λαμβάνοντας αυτό το παιχνίδι δεν είναι ένα έγκυρο κριτήριο της τη νοημοσύνη μου, διότι:

Α. Δεν μιλούν καμία από αυτές τις γλώσσες

Β. Είναι απλά μια προσομοίωση

C. Είμαι πραγματικά πολύ έξυπνη και μόλις πήρε suckered σε αυτό το κουίζ

D. Αν όλοι μιλούσαν αγγλικά δεν θα είναι απαραίτητα αυτό το κουίζ

Did you pass? You don’t know? Well here is the translation:

Question 1, which was written in Russian, asks:

If your professional reputation, your school’s ranking, and the future of your students were all dependent on how children performed on a standardized test which is given in a foreign language, you should:

A. Advocate that children be provided the assessment in their native language

B. Enthusiastically participate even if you consider it educational malpractice

C. Pretend that the outcomes have nothing to do with language; or

D. Lead a non-violent protest to end the demoralizing practice

Question 2, written in Arabic (thanks to Google Translate), asks:

California demands that children take all of their assessments in English because:

A. It is really good for kids

B. Because it is a more reliable way to determine what children have learned

C. Because it is consistent with the “English Only” agenda

D. It will make sure no student has an unfair head start on the UC foreign language requirement

Question 3, which I am sure was all Greek to you, asks:

Taking this quiz is not a valid test of my intelligence because:

A. I don’t speak any of these languages

B. It is just a simulation

C. I am really very smart and just got suckered into this quiz

D. If everybody spoke English this quiz wouldn’t be necessary

Your score on this quiz doesn’t matter very much. Your answers, however, are critical!!!

Kevin Riley

Posted by LeaderTalk Contributor at 6:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It is a rainy Christmas Day in San Diego and I am not thinking about gifts a much as I am thinking about how children are gifted…

And how we have tried so hard for so long to defy NCLB’s gravitational pull toward the homogenization of our curriculum by stubbornly celebrating the multiple intelligences…

And how we might be even more effective when we return to school in January if we can continue to recognize the many ways that children can be gifted. Or intelligent.

And how we so casually recite the 7 intelligences as if we were naming the days of the week or Disney’s dwarfs: verbal, mathematical, spatial, musical, interpersonal, Saturday, intrapersonal, kinesthetic, Grumpy, Sneezy, Dopey…

And how we have come to accept Gardner's word as Gospel when it comes to intelligence and how we weave his word into our work-- or we do not…

And how the newest “intelligence” that Howard Gardner identifies—the one that we haven’t quite figured out how to recognize (let alone celebrate)-- is the one he simply calls the spiritual intelligence…

And how sometimes I think that the spiritual intelligence is the strongest of my intelligences, and sometimes I can hardly find it at all…

And then on this rainy Christmas Day when I should be playing with my daughter’s new PSP I am instead reflecting on my students and my colleagues and my family and what a collective gift they are to me….

And so, for the moment, I resolve to seek the gifts we find in others and continue the journey to wherever the spiritual intelligence might take me...

And I wonder where your gifts have taken you.

(Simultaneously Posted on El Milagro Weblog).

Kevin Riley

[cross-posted at the old LeaderTalk blog (including comments)]

Posted by LeaderTalk Contributor at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s not a great picture. At least artistically speaking. There are eight of our students and only Brandon even looked at the camera. The lighting, such as it is, is purely accidental. If you didn’t know the subject you would click past it and move on.

But we can’t. We know the subject. And we know how they came to be sitting in the courtyard there in the shadows of those majestic buildings. For us there is tremendous symbolism in that picture from UCLA.

So let me ask you, as an educator, when did you first know you were going to college?

As the youngest of three wayward boys, I was the first in my family to even graduate from high school, let alone go to college—or get a degree. When I was the age of the students in the picture, I could not have predicted a doctorate. Or running a school. Or reading the blogs of colleagues on Saturday morning. I went to college by accident and only to play football. For many of you I know the story is the same. Our students have their stories too. And for most, the journey to a university campus is too often one of pure luck, or providence, or childhood fantasy, or accident.

Unless we put them in the picture.

We took all sixty of our 8th graders to Los Angeles last Spring and spent three days touring colleges and universities there. We went to Cal State LA, UC Irvine, Long Beach State University, UCLA, and of course, the University of Southern California. We stayed in a hotel in Santa Monica and I have ever been so proud of a group of students—or so inspired.

As close as we were to Hollywood and Universal Studios and Knotts Berry Farm and Disneyland-- we didn’t see any of those places. Our only side trip was to the Museum of Tolerance. The real attraction-- the power-- was in spending time on those campuses; feeling the energy, shopping in the bookstores, walking through classrooms… and seeing so many college students who looked just like our kids. 57 of our 60 students are Latino. 2 are African American. We are a low income, Title I school. Every one of those students knew how unlikely it was for them to be sitting on the wall at UCLA on a Spring afternoon when they would otherwise be back at school struggling through their algebra.

It is getting harder and harder for families to send their children to college. It is getting harder to finish, too. In fact, the US is 15th out of 29 nations in college completion rates-- just ahead of Mexico and Turkey. Moreover, Latinos like the students from our school that we call El MIlagro are least represented on our college campuses. Even though they are the fastest growing ethnic group in the US, they make up only 11% of college enrollment. This of course explains why only 12 percent of Latinos age 25 and older have received a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to 30.5 percent of non-Latino White students.

Despite such odds, there is still is a well-lit path to college if we are willing to show our students where it is. In fact, when we piled off the buses by the bookstore at USC, we were greeted by a Pre-med student who was hand picked to be our campus tour guide. He knew our students and the challenges they faced. He was one of our alumni, a past graduate of El Milagro with a little brother now in our 7th grade. (Just one more surprise — one more piece of diligent and intentional planning by our counselors Ryan and Marisol!) He wasn’t a regular tour guide and to tell you the truth he didn’t know the campus all that well. He pretty much knew where his classrooms were and the bookstore and the library. But that too was telling. He was not there to play. He knew the sacrifices that others had to make so that he could attend this extraordinary institution; to live his dream and some day return to serve his community as a doctor.

He did know where the athletic department was though-- where all 7 of the Heisman Trophies are displayed. There was the one from Mike Garrett and Charles White and Marcus Allen and Matt Leinart and Carson Palmer and Reggie Bush and yes, OJ’s is there too. We passed by and looked at each one and kids like Fernando knew exactly what that trophy represented and what it means to have so many in one room.

The next day, just before lunch, Ryan and Marisol lead their daily groups in the main courtyard at UCLA. The tours were structured so our students had some time to reflect. In the groups they could ask questions and share pictures and write in their travel journals. The group sessions challenged them to share their dreams and their personal epiphanies.

“So what have you learned in your visit today?”

“As you sit here on these steps and look around this campus, what do you think you have to do right now—in preparation to go to school here?”

“What image has created the most powerful impression on you so far?’

They all shared and listened.

“It’s not just the goals we set for ourselves,” Maria said. “We have to stay close to each other and surround ourselves with people who have the same goals that we have.”

“High school seems different to me right,” Miguel said. “I think if I want to go to UCLA, I need to start preparing today. I need to approach school in a whole different way. I need to get serious…because I can do this.”

Fernando was still thinking about those Heisman Trophies he saw the day before on the other side of town. Everybody knows that Fernando is a great football player. He has unlimited potential. As an athlete. He started to articulate what the past three days had meant to him and how no one in his family had even set foot on a college campus like this before. Something clicked, sitting there in the hallowed air of UCLA. “Those Heisman Trophies were sick,” Fernando said. “But I know, I can’t count on football to get me to college.”

Fernando and his classmates finally figured out why we wanted to load them on to buses and spend three days looking at universities when they were only in the 8th grade.

He looked at Ryan and Marisol and tried to say thank you but he just put his head in his hands and started to sob. He wasn’t alone. For Fernando and all of his classmates from El Milagro, the road to college will not be an easy one. And for some it will be improbable.

But then… there they are sitting in the courtyard in that picture from UCLA.

P.S. On June 20, 2011, I will be posting an announcement on my blog declaring where each of these 60 students are going to college. I can’t wait. In the meantime, this Spring, we are taking 60 more students to UCLA.

(Cross posted on El Milagro Weblog.)

Kevin Riley

[cross-posted at the old LeaderTalk blog (including comments)]

Posted by LeaderTalk Contributor at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)