Tag Archives: curriculum

Tucson Grapples With Ethnic Studies Ban

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The Arizona Department of Education gave the Tucson Unified School District an ultimatum: Eliminate all ethnic studies courses or face massive financial sanctions.

The district was found out of compliance by the state of Arizona according to HB 2281, which orders districts in the state to stop teaching courses that promote ethnic solidarity. The district’s Mexican-American studies courses came under fire in early January 2012 after a review by the department of education. In a swift decision made days after the state ruled their program was out of compliance, the TUSD school board voted to eliminate all Mexican-American studies classes and associated books on Jan. 10.

“The approved motion required that district staff revise the core social studies curriculum to increase its coverage of Mexican-American history and culture and to provide a balanced view of diverse viewpoints on controversial issues,” said TUSD Superintendent John Pedicone in a letter to parents in the district on Jan. 12. “It is important to know that this decision was difficult and not without consequences.”

This is the not the first time TUSD’s program has come under fire. The district’s Mexican-American studies program was first ruled in violation of the law last June by Arizona’s state superintendent, John Huppenthal. The district appealed this ruling, although it was overturned by a state judge. This past January was the second time the district was found failing to comply, which is why the state has threatened financial sanctions.

“It’s discriminatory and anticonstitutional,” says Norma Gonzalez, a former Mexican-American Studies teacher with TUSD and the founder of a campaign against the law through Change.org. Gonzalez says these courses are what engaged the Hispanic students, who make up roughly 60 percent of the 60,000 students in the district.

Since the decision in January, many teachers have been left in the dark about how they will go forward. “For lack of a better term, I’m in limbo right now,” said Gonzalez on Jan. 31, nearly three weeks after the decision. “The district has not come forward yet and said what I or my colleagues are allowed to do. The only thing that is definitive is what we’re not allowed to teach.” Gonzalez’s petition to make banned Hispanic books available, and not be stored in an off-site storage facility, garnered nearly 15,000 signatures within one week of its launch on Jan. 24. To view the petition, visit www.change.org.

District Administration, March 2012

Climate Change Is the New Evolution Debate

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In November 2011, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) polled its 600,000 members and found that 82 percent had faced skepticism around climate change education from their students, and 54 percent faced skepticism from parents. Most notably, NSTA reported that several of their respondents noted the political polarization of climate change education and the effect it has on their teaching. Climate change has been a divisive issue, particularly regarding its role in the classroom, for a number of years. In 2007, President Barack Obama—then Sen. Obama of Illinois—introduced a bill to Congress to establish the Climate Change Education Program, which ultimately never became a law. The decision to include this discussion in the curriculum and how to tackle it has been largely left to states and individual districts.

Many legislators are asking that climate change be treated in a similar fashion to their handling of the evolution vs. creationism debate—that equal time is offered for their skeptics to weigh in. Tennessee, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Kentucky have introduced state laws with these standards, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a nonprofit providing resources to schools and parents, has made one of its core missions advocating for evolution and now climate change in classroom discussions.

“We have been hearing for several years now that teachers were getting pushback on teaching climate change, and some of the playbooks used by those promoting teaching ‘both sides’ was very similar to the attempt to have evolution ‘balanced’ by creationism and intelligent design,” said Mark McCaffrey to Oregon Public Broadcasting in January. McCaffrey is spearheading the Center’s new initiative. “From my experience working with teachers, it is clear that the so-called ‘controversy’ about climate change science is a major impediment to teachers and the polarized political climate around teaching the topic is a big problem.”

New national K12 science standards are expected to debut at the end of this year that many predict will include climate change. Educators and legislators alike foresee the debate will only intensify from here.

District Administration, March 2012

A Small Community’s Innovative Curriculum Coaches

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Lizzy Kloiber, secondary curriculum director of Celina (Texas) Independent School District knew the district needed coaches, and was determined to find a way to pay for them.

 

Celina (Texas) Independent School District, roughly 100 miles north of Dallas, has 2,000 students across its four school campuses—and they’re all Bobcats, says Lizzy Kloiber, secondary curriculum director, referring to the district’s unifying mascot. The community is tight knit, she adds, with most teachers having grown up in the district, and families regularly mingle at church or at high school football games each weekend.

Prior to 2009, the best rating the district had received from the Texas Education Agency was “recognized,” and Kloiber, who joined the district in July 2009, feared the district was in a rut and that its achievement was going to flatline. Inspired by Jim Knight, a research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning, Kloiber began investigating the possibility of implementing instructional curriculum coaches in Celina’s high school, which has over 500 students. The coaches would observe classrooms and point out best practices for teachers, while also mentoring new teachers and tutoring at-risk students. After finding out the district was eligible for a Texas Title 1 Priority Schools grant, formerly known as the School Improvement Grant, Kloiber and a team of administrators from the high school and the district drafted a plan for curriculum coaches in the spring of 2010. Former Celina Superintendent Rob O’Conner was initially hesitant. “I had to convince him,” says Kloiber. “He knew it was a hoop jump, and you’re really working when you take money from the state. But we knew what was coming down the pipeline in terms of state budget cuts, so it was a no-brainer.”

Finding Funding

Celina ISD was by no means at the bottom of the barrel in student achievement level, and Kloiber and administrators knew receiving the money was a stretch.

“We knew it was really a shot in the dark,” says Donny O’Dell, interim superintendent of Celina ISD and former assistant superintendent. “We knew several schools would apply because of the money involved, but we felt like we had a great plan and that if the plans were really looked at, we had a very good chance of receiving the grant money.”

In July 2010, they got the call. “I thought it was someone pulling my leg,” says Kloiber, who was shocked to see the Texas Education Agency appear on her caller ID. The agency had, in fact, awarded Celina ISD $5 million.

From Teachers to Coaches

By August 2010—one month later—the high school had selected four master teachers with over 20 years of experience to serve as curriculum coaches. They would teach one class each and spend the remainder of the school day monitoring classrooms.

“Giving them this leadership role really awakened them,” says Kloiber. “Teachers, particularly those who have been with the district for some time, can get into that cruise control mode.” Every day, each teacher in the high school has at least one or two curriculum coaches monitoring the classroom. According to Kloiber, the high school had to ease into this transition to garner a working relationship between the teachers and the coaches. The goal, she says, was not to point out what teachers were doing wrong, but to demonstrate best practices, to show where they could improve, and to serve as an extra set of eyes in the classroom. During the first six weeks, the coaches serve strictly as helpers.

Kloiber says that if the teachers don’t trust the coaches, “they’re going to have a bad taste in their mouth about it. This is a small community, and many of these teachers have known each other since the beginning. It was an adjustment, but they’re welcoming the support.” After six weeks, the coaches begin pointing out strengths and weaknesses in each lesson plan and how teachers can engage students who may be falling through the cracks. The other component includes serving as mentors to new teachers, which includes one-on-one coaching and professional development through School Improvement Network’s PD360, CSCOPE Curriculum System and Support, and Eduphoria, which better connects administrators with teachers. Nearly half of new teachers leave the classroom after the first five years, says Kloiber. Investing in a quality workforce is vital.

The coaches also pair up with at-risk students, whom they tutor for an hour each week. “There is a great amount

of small group work going on all over the building,” says O’Dell. “The instruction level has improved, and the struggling students have a feeling that someone cares about them.”

New Vertical Alignment

One of the greatest changes that has come out of this program, says Kloiber, is the vertical alignment that has emerged between the middle and elementary schools.

According to Kloiber, this is the result of work by determined middle school leaders. “They took this on themselves,” she says. “They contacted the lower schools, dug into data, and wanted to see what is going on in the classrooms and what kids need to be prepared with by the time they enter the high school. They are committed to this community and have so much ownership over this.”

In the 2010-2011 school year, the district used $1.3 million from the grant and currently has $1.7 million to use over the next two years. Although funds are running out, Kloiber is confident that the district will continue the coaches well into the future and branch out into the middle and elementary schools.

“We’re happy where we are and where we’re headed,” Kloiber says. “What happens is the tests become harder and rigor goes up; that’s when your data starts to flatline. When I look out at graduation, I want to see CEOs and college recruiters wanting our graduates.”

District Administration Magazine, Oct. 2011

Scofield’s STEM Initiatives Shown to Congress

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For two years now, Scofield Middle School, Stamford’s magnet school with a focus in science, mathematics and technology, has used two Hewlett Packard grants to fund new initiatives exploring water quality around the school. The grant money—$330,000 through an Innovations in Education grant and a $160,000 Catalyst Initiative grant—has allowed the school to purchase laptops, scientific calculators and cutting-edge geographic information systems (GIS) to collect data about the water surrounding the school and integrate their findings across the curriculum.

Their work has not gone unnoticed. Last Thursday, Principal Jan Rossman and Assistant Principal and project administrator Brian Olkowski went to Washington D.C. to share their work at a congressional hearing. The two were invited after presenting at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in Philadelphia in June.

“We were fortunate enough to get these grants, and we discussed how they allowed us to get the technology into the school and what it ultimately can do,” said Olkowski.

The congressional hearing, Student Literacy in a Digital World, discussed how education needs to evolve to reach students in a digital era. Nonprofit organizations including the National Coalition for Technology in Education and Training and the International Reading Association were attendance along with districts from Arlington and Philadelphia for their use of technology in the classroom.

“Our presentation at ISTE focused on our STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] work at the school, and ISTE helped get us in the door with the congressional hearing,” said Olkowski.

What stemmed the STEM learning at Scofield began two years ago after there was a water contamination from termite pesticide in its neighborhood. The incident, said Olkowski, was a “teachable moment” and the school applied for two grants through Hewlett Packard to fund the technology and professional development to get the students outside to learn about testing for water quality, data collection, and how our history, such the Industrial Revolution, impacted our environment. The school has also partnered with its now sister school in China, the Middle School Attached to Shandong University, to share practices of how to test, assess and evaluate water quality. In September, the school will welcome a delegation of three teachers and 16 students from its sister school in Jinan, China where they will collaborate together on the water testing project at Scofield.

“It’s an interdisciplinary approach to get the kids more involved in science—and we’ve seen positive results,” said Olkowski. “When kids get hands-on experience they become interested in a project and stick with it.” Although funding for the project is in its final year, Olkowski says the technology is already in place and the project will be continued into the future and is not contingent upon new grant funding.

Patch.com/ Stamford, CT: Aug. 2011

Education Reform Must Include the Arts

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Arts education is being left out of the national conversation about how to reform schools, according to a report released May 6 by the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

The report acknowledges that tight budgets and high-stakes testing has placed arts education on the back burner, but it affirms that there are cost effective models to incorporate the arts across the curriculum that, when done properly, can raise student achievement, attendance rates and behavior.

“Waiting for Superman, Race to the Top, i3 grants–we’ve seen all these solutions that have been charted as the magic bullet in education. It seemed to us that arts education is a solution that’s been hiding in plain sight,” says Rachel Goslins, executive director of the President’s Committee. Arts curricula, says Goslins, helps not only art-savvy students, but particularly, at-risk students as well.

“It’s the only place they feel like a success. There’s no right or wrong answer. It gives them a sense of connection with their school,” says Goslins. Cash-strapped states can find ways to incorporate the arts into their curriculum, according to the report. One math teacher had students create mobiles to help demonstrate linear equations.

In Chicago, one dance instructor had students reciting physics terms, such as “momentum” and “center of gravity,” while learning different dances. A principal in the Bronx noticed such high levels of student engagement with the arts that he moved the school’s art courses to Mondays and Fridays to encourage more kids to come to school and help counteract truancy. “There’s a diverse patchwork of approaches,” says Goslins.

“Different communities can build different models based on the resources that are available to them.” To read the full report, visit www.pcah.gov.

District Administration magazine, June 2011

Middle School Transformation Plan Will Continue — For Now

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What began as an update on the status of the Middle School Transformation plan at Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting became a two-hour presentation of research, data and firsthand testimonials from Superintendent Joshua Starr and Stamford’s middle school principals and teachers.

Overwhelmingly, Starr and the middle school faculty said that the schools have made progress since they began implementing a program that would eliminate the four-tiered tracking system that groups students by ability. The new system has two groups — honors and college preparatory — and teachers said they would like to see a more heterogeneous mix of students rather than the addition of a third group.

“It was a very thorough presentation, and I think any questions we had about whether or not to go heterogeneous in the classes have been answered,” board member Julia Wade said.

“I would like to assess the data, think about the presentations and continue the discussion about the transformation at another time,” John Leydon, chairman of the Teacher, Learning, and Student Achievement committee and outspoken supporter of an additional group, said.

Although Leydon did not speak to the topic at the meeting, one reason an additional group is being sought is to better tailor instruction to student’s needs. “Shouldn’t we go beyond just the data and look at the individual needs of students in terms of placing them?” board member Geoff Alswanger asked.

When pressed by board member Jackie Heftman to confirm whether or not he plans to propose a resolution to revert back or increase grouping in the middle schools, Leydon said he was not “at this time.”

Starr began the presentation with research dating back to the 1960s on tracking students in Stamford and around the country. He said that not only has tracking students not shown any signs of improving student achievement, but it creates an environment of de facto segregation with the majority of low-income, black or Latino students in the lower groups.

“Bottom line — if you’re going to get serious about addressing the achievement gap issues, tracking must be dealt with,” he said.

In addition to removing tracking, the Middle School Transformation plan included a boost in instruction time and an enriched curriculum, particularly in math and now in literacy, according to Deputy Superintendent Winifred Hamilton.

Caitlen Sheeran, a seventh-grade language arts teacher at Turn of River Middle School, not only supports heterogeneous classes, but also was a student in Stamford Public Schools at a time when tracking was in place. “I saw firsthand what tracking did to my classmates,” she said. ” I can see it at our reunions. What Dr. Starr is talking about is a very real thing.”

Sheeran said her students are rising to challenges of the course materials. She recently taught a John Steinbeck novel — traditionally a high school reading — to her class using the book club model, a new program in the Middle School Transformation plan. Students that a few years ago were still reading at a third grade level were grasping the material and were noticeably proud.

“There is nothing as an educator more rewarding than to hear that,” Sheeran said.

The Transformation Plan has not been implemented in the eighth grade and, as a result, Heather Lorenz, a social studies teacher at Turn of River, says she still sees the segregation in her class. “De facto is when we put policies in place that end up segregating kids,” she said. “Kids at the bottom believe they’re just at the bottom and they don’t want to try.”

Wendy Lecker, co-president of the Stamford Parent Teacher Council, said she was very satisfied with the presentation made to the board. “That presentation made me proud to say I live in Stamford,” she said.

Board of Ed Vice President Jerry Pia said that the presentation was “excellent,” but expressed that the board will always review programs in place and that a resolution regarding grouping is always a possibility.

“We have a program in place here — a boat going in one direction,” he said. “The program is growing, changing, moving and has a life. Does that mean the boat won’t veer a little to the left or right? Absolutely not.”

Patch.com/ Stamford, CT: May 2011

Common Core’s Implications for Special Ed Students

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Forty one states, to date, have jumped on the Common Core State Standards bandwagon, adopting common curriculum benchmarks for general education courses in language arts and mathematics. The standards, created by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, are raising the bar for special education students as well. According to the standards, students with disabilities— defined as students eligible under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA )—“must be challenged to excel within the general curriculum.”

“We have to provide all students with an education to be ready to have a career when they leave their K12 experience,” says Chris Minnich, senior membership director at the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Special education students will be held to the same both in the classroom and on the assessments. Two consortiums— Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PAR CC) and SMARTER Balanced Assessment—were granted Race to the Top funds to develop assessments for the new standards by 2014. The assessments apply to what’s known as two percent special education students, which are special education students without severe cognitive disabilities.

According to Minnich, states are in various stages of adopting the standards, with some states and districts farther along than others. Florida began modifying its special education curriculum nearly six years ago. As of 2011, Florida will no longer approve modified courses, in which special education students aren’t expected to master as much material as in general education courses.

“It’s about having higher expectations for all of our students,” says Bambi Lockman, chief of the Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services with the Florida Department of Education. According to Lockman, since the state began its alignment of standards, special education students have improved 3 to 5 percent annually on both language arts and mathematics.

“The transition to the Common Core will be challenging, but it’s not going to be extremely difficult because we’ve already had high standards in Florida,” she says. “I think we are going to see students having access to the general curriculum.”

Lockman notes that this change doesn’t come without intervention as specified in each student’s individualized education plan (IEP). Extra classroom support, variation in the instructional approach, small group discussions and assisted technology are just some examples of intervention that will be needed for the students to excel in a general education classroom.

District Administration magazine, Feb. 2011

Alfie Kohn’s New Salvo in the Progressive Education War

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Alfie Kohn, renowned author, speaker, and progressive education advocate, continues his fight against traditional classroom teaching in Feel-Bad Education. Kohn’s 12th book is a collection of essays detailing—as its title suggests—how conventional teaching, testing, praise and punishment methods create an environment unsuitable for learning.

“This book contains articles about everything from why self-discipline is an overrated concept, to the disturbing policies now referred to as ‘school reform,’ to a tongue-and-cheek essay about 21st-century schooling,” says Kohn, describing the book’s major themes.

One message Kohn addresses is the topic of unconditional teaching, which stems from a previous book, Unconditional Parenting. Unconditional teaching, according to Kohn, involves showing students that even when they make mistakes or fall short, we still care for them. As a result of pressures to raise test scores, “one Florida superintendent observed that ‘when a low-performing child walks into a classroom, instead of being seen as a challenge, or an opportunity for improvement, for the first time since I’ve been in education, teachers are seeing him or her as a liability,’” Kohn writes in Feel-Bad Education. This, believes Kohn, “is the epitome of conditional acceptance.”

Kohn hopes this book and others will resonate on a larger scale with educators around the country and funnel into the classroom. “The best administrators are creating a democratic environment of professional development—not dictating to teachers,” says Kohn. “Likewise, the best teachers are creating democratic classrooms. This is where the best learning takes place—in the process of making decisions together.”

Feel-Bad Education will be available in April 2011. For more information, visit www.alfiekohn.org.

District Administration magazine, Jan. 2011

Proposed Bill Would Create a Nation of Bilingual Students

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Many language advocates are hoping to see the Elementary and Secondary Education Act promptly picked up by the 112th Congress in January—with a new bill included. The Excellence and Innovation in Language Learning Act, introduced in July 2010 by Reps. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), proposes $400 million in funding to teach world languages to K12 students.

Language programs have declined under tight budgets and assessment constraints imposed by No Child Left Behind, says Vivien Stewart, senior advisor for education at the Asia Society. Stewart believes the need for language learning, however, has never been more important.

“These are where the jobs of the future are going to be,” says Stewart, noting that more companies are going global and that there is a greater need from a national defense perspective for graduates with bilingual capabilities.

The proposed bill by Reps. Holt and Tonko includes three prongs: for the U.S. Department of Education to coordinate an effort to build up the nation’s language capacity; to develop a state coalition to recruit highly qualified language teachers; and to partner K12 schools with higher education institutions to develop a K16 model for language instruction and assessments.

“We need to empower the next generation of Americans to shape the globe, not follow it,” said Rep. Tonko.

The bill is currently garnering signatures of support from superintendents and members of Congress hoping it will be included and that ESEA reauthorization will be passed in the upcoming months.

E-mail Heather Singmaster at HSingmaster@asiasociety.org for more information.

District Administration magazine, Jan. 2011

The iPad—Breaking New Ground in Special Education

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After the release of the iPad, 3 million of which were sold in just 80 days, Apple received an unanticipated reaction from the autistic community. Unknowingly, the company may have stumbled upon a revolutionary framework to change the future of special education technology.

The iPad has the same multitouch capabilities as the iPhone, although the screen is larger—approximately 10 inches. Its lightweight nature makes the iPad portable, and its touchscreen is visually appealing, capturing the attention of special education students. Many different applications can be downloaded to the iPad to maintain schedules, tell stories, learn lessons, and reinforce positive behavior. Application capability aside, Apple products are a fraction of the cost of other communication devices from companies such as Dyno Vox and Prentke Romich Co., which can cost upwards of $10,000.

One of the most popular, and most expensive at $189.99, applications is Proloquo2Go, which is available for the iPhone or iPad. This application is used for augmentative and alternative communication and provides natural sounding text-to-speech voices. The application list for communication, social skills, math, behavioral skills, and language arts is long—and growing.

The touchscreen capabilities of the iPad—along with its predecessors the iPod Touch and iPhone—have stirred interest among developers to create applications to suit the needs of special education students.

“There are so many different features developers can put into these applications,” says Eric Sailers, a speech-language pathologist at La Mesa Spring Valley (Calif.) School District. “It’s creating a multisensory product for children with autism and special needs. Kids who used to have difficulty using a mouse on a computer can use their fingers to touch and drag things and get immersed in the application.”

Janet Lishman, cofounder of the Autism Education Network and the Bay School, finds the iPad’s scheduling aspects to be the most effective, especially with her own children. “The structure of the schedules is really what works best,” says Lishman. “Long ago children would write their schedules on clipboards and carry them around. Now these schedules have words, pictures and audio reminders to stop one task and start another.”

Pilot Studies

Bill Thompson, a school psychologist with the Orange County (Calif.) Department of Education, is charting the iPad’s effectiveness with his students. The Orange County DOE has a special education program that consists of approximately 500 students from the districts within the county. This year, these students began pilot studies to see how well the device aligns with their curriculum and to evaluate its cost-effectiveness. The program currently has 10 iPads that are used with all students at some point in the day. Five of these 10 are under Thompson’s watch as he tries to develop a uniform policy for their use.

Thompson began noticing the advantages of touchscreen devices three years ago with the launch of the iPod Touch. Thompson himself developed two special education applications: Look2Learn and Stories2Learn. Look2Learn helps students develop communication skills by expressing their needs with recorded audio and photos, while Stories2Learn allows students, parents and educators to create personalized stories to demonstrate personal cues and teach social messages. Both are available for the public to purchase and download.

“We are able to do things that we couldn’t do with a single-use device,” says Thompson. “We can work with one student who is learning letters and shapes, then turn around and use it with another student who is learning yes or no questions. The applications allow for so many different levels and have so many purposes. It’s really critical for schools.”

According to Thompson, the Apple touchscreen products are more affordable than other single-use special education devices on the market; however their ability to serve other functions, such as delivering music, movies and Web content, may make them less desirable for funding by insurance companies.

In time, pilot studies being conducted in classrooms around the country will paint a picture of how these devices impact autistic students. In the meantime, many educators in the autistic community may agree with Lishman on the iPad: “For autism, it’s a dream.”

District Administration magazine, Nov. 2010