New Terrain

The achievement gap is everywhere. This one is to the whole village being a part of the solution. This one's to the Sylvia's one of the world, inspiring, pushing, and making it possible for people in real situations to get the access they need to better lives. And, as always, this is to the folks out there making it possible for themselves.

It was 102 degrees at 12:52 pm and the warehouse smelled like a warm, musty mix of wood, dust and oranges. Even though it was 8 minutes to their closing time, the young woman manning the register cheerfully helped me fill my sacks of oranges and grapefruit. As she waited patiently for me to nitpick through the slightly bruised (but incredibly delicious) fruit we started talking about my work with teachers and the local high school sports teams.

Then I asked her if she was still in school, either high school or college. Her big grin dropped for a moment and a wistful look crossed her face, replaced instantly with a smile. No, she said, she had to drop out in 11th grade, but when she was there, she got really good grades, all A's and B's. But she decided she needed to stop because she needed to help her family with money, and she was staying up late working all night anyway and sleeping her way through class-- it didn't seem like it was worth it. So she dropped out. But yeah. Looking back now, it would have been nice if she could finish. And her grades were really good too...

I told her I was really sorry to hear that had to happen-- I had students in that situation who had to make tough decisions too. What school did she go to? And would she want to return to school?

Yes, she would, she would love to go back. But right now, you know, with money and stuff, there's always work to do and to take care of her kids and husband. There's so much. But, she did check out a program recently that helps people get their GED and develop a vocational skill like child development or becoming a nursing assistant.

As soon as she mentioned this program, her eyes lit up. We were leaned over against the register counter just talking as the other warehouse workers were looking our way, trying to cover up the fruit to close down. But she kept talking about this fantastic local program that helped high school dropouts get their degrees and train for more skilled jobs. They even offered childcare service for when students are in GED classes, and sometimes you can earn a scholarship that will help cover your books and help earn your gas money to get to the course.

That sounds like an amazing opportunity, I exclaimed. Have you signed up? Are you going to do it? She shook her head maybe, that at first she didn't think she had the time, the money to do it before she could get a scholarship, and she still needed to work. But she really wanted to and was going to try her best to find a way to make it happen.

Before recently, she was really unsure and didn't think it would be possible, but after talking to Sylvia, the woman who ran the center, she wanted to make it happen no matter what so she didn't have to keep working at the fruit warehouse. Sylvia was really great, she explained. Sylvia made her realize she really could get her GED and get a better life through the vo-tech school.

We stood there talking by the counter until her boss walked by and gave her a look that made her hurry to ring me up. Before I left, I gave her my business card, grabbed her hands and told her best of luck, and that even though it will be a struggle, with her hard work and perseverance, she could make it happen. She looked at the card and smiled broadly. Thank you, she said, no one had ever told her that before.

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know the magic bullet to closing the achievement gap is having and keeping great teachers in the classroom. But I also know that the fastest way to lose someone away is to force them to do something.

I wrote this article, Growing School Leaders, months ago about a professional development model new principal Natalie Basham is using to meet the needs of both her students and staff.

I hijacked a class I was supposed to be observing yesterday. I couldn’t help it. I may have left my job as a special educator last summer to become a program director for Teach For America to build my educational management skills, but I still love teaching.

It’s a dilemma many ambitious educators face: to continue teaching the students they love and hone their craft as educators, or try to move to the next level in school management and have a broader impact. For many teachers like myself, this means going beyond being named department head or grade-team leader; we are looking for roles in which we can move beyond our own classroom walls, influence instruction, and create change in school systems.

Basically, at the risk of sounding spoiled, we want it all. And we don’t necessarily want to wait 20 years for our turn. In other fields, especially in business, exceptional employees with a history of exemplary effectiveness—regardless of the number of years of experience—are given promotions and more influential assignments. Why shouldn’t this happen in schools?

Well, in fact, in some spots around the country, it is starting to happen. In an effort to provide more instructional support, as well as build a pipeline of future school leaders, some administrators are trying a grow-your-own approach.

Take Natalie Basham, principal of the IDEA Academy and College Preparatory Mission in Mission, Texas, a charter school that is scheduled to open in fall 2008. Basham’s school is part of the IDEA Public Schools in the Rio Grande Valley, a charter network whose central mission is to prepare low-income students to succeed at four-year colleges. As a key part of the school’s instructional program, Basham has created a layered staffing and support system for teachers.

As Basham hires her team of 13 teachers for the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade classes, she is strategically selecting certain individuals to hold a dual role as instructional coaches. While the coaches will continue to teach, they will have fewer classes than other teachers in order to build in time for their mentoring role. In this position, their responsibilities expand to include observing other teachers, providing one-on-one feedback, data-based problem solving, and developing professional development action plans—that is, much of the clinical training principals, professional development directors, and administrators take on in most schools.

What stands out are the kinds of educators Basham has hired to join her in this critical role. The teacher-coaches’ experience level ranges from 2 years to 20-plus years. All are exemplary teachers with proven leadership skills and the ability to analyze instruction and data. Only one has held a formal school leadership role before. None have administrative degrees.

But based on the teachers’ previous work with students, adults, and data, Basham says she is confident she can train them to have the necessary management, support, and analysis skills to become instructional coaches.

“I believe I can train people to be leaders. I have trained people to do it,” Basham, a former Teach For America teacher and program director, explained. In addition to running the school and working with teachers, she will also provide direct management training and support to her coaches. “It’s what I would have liked,” she notes.

But why give standout teachers leadership skills that may ultimately take them out of the classroom? For Basham, it’s about providing an embedded support system and attracting ambitious educators in order to create a dynamic academic climate for students. “My primary goal is not about retaining teachers,” she says.”It’s about maximizing student achievement.”

“My responsibility is to develop teachers’ leadership,” she adds. “I want the best [for my teachers], whether I’m included or not, because they’re the ones teaching and leading the students in the classroom. It’s high stakes. We gotta get kids ready for college.”

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I wrote this for Teacher Magazine's new discussion forum. Join in on the talk and copy some titles down for the next Amazon order!

Decoding

This book, Teaching Phonics And Word Study In The Intermediate Grades, lit the light at the end of the tunnel for me in my first year of teaching middle school special ed. For someone who managed to inpsire friends and family to donate over 1,000 books over two years to my classroom, it's pretty embarassing to admit that for the first two months, my reading class consisted of students rolling around the floor and listening blankly to my explanations of prefixes and root words. None of kiddos could decode words at the third grade level and most didn't know what a long-a sound made. It was bad and I didn't have a concrete way to break down basic decoding instruction. Then I went to a fabulous Teach For America session where I was introduced to the wonderful world of chunking, prefixes and sight words. This is a great book for those looking for a ground-up way to teach decoding to older students. The lists of high-frequency words, most common roots/prefixes/suffixes, and chunking examples are great lists to photocopy for student centers.

Behavior Management

Hitting, yelling, profanity, sexual harassment, truancy and refusal to do anything at all, etc., are common problems all teachers face and have to learn to control in their own classroom. Be consistent. Have explicit expectations. Follow through. Fine. Done. I learned quickly, however, that the real problem with behavior management happened outside of my classroom, and at first, seemingly out of my control. When a 11-year-old attacks another student in my classroom and threatens everyone else, that wasn't quite something I could contain with a phone call home. The problem was that there were no clear school policies, and rarely an administrator available to uphold any logical policies we devised. As a result, students learned quickly that few consequences would be upheld outside of the teachers' classroom (in cases where the teachers actually upheld consequences, of course). I couldn't stand the chaos and anarchy by January. Luckily I wasn't the only one. I teamed up with the dorm counselor (my dear, dear friend Dawn), and a bunch of teachers ready to make changes, and we initiated the Positive Behavior Intervention Supports program in our school. It wasn't easy-- it took much cajoling of the school board and principals for their financial and professional support and it's still a struggle to get teacher, family and student buy-in-- but the infrastructure was developed, we started the program and we can be proud to say that we didn't just sit around and complain-- we initiated change. Change can be slow, but the impact is there. Shout out to Dr. Frankland of Western New Mexico University for introducing it to me and the rest of her management class!

Differentiating Novels

It wasn't exactly a book for teaching, but it was a lifesaver when it came to teaching special ed and differentiating effectively in reading class. I am a huge fan of Barnes and Noble's abridged copies of classic novels. With these leveled books(Tom Sawyer at 2nd-3rd, 3rd-4th, and 5th-6th grade levels), my students with disabilities ranging from mild learning disabilities to mental retardation were able to engage in tear-jerkingly high level discussions about race, author's purpose and morality.

At the same time, these kids were incredibly invested in deeply understanding literature they knew college students read. They began discussing these high level concepts outside of class to impress their general ed peers. And impress them they did. Talk about developing life skills. Alas, I only did this my second year of teaching. But their end-of-year gift and summer reading assignment? Huckleberry Finn at their appropriate reading level. I have never seen so many teenagers cradle their Mark Twain novels like they did with their PS3's (or whatever kids call those newfangled toys these days).

Add your favorite teaching books to the discussion at The Best Books on Teaching.

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)