For Real?

ASCD provides excellent new briefs with stories covering the globe. I tend to read them in the morning over coffee but often I'm heated by articles end. My experience this morning is related back to an article from
2/12 "Did Help Get Left Behind"

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070211/19child.htm

One of my personal goals is to focus on being more positive and working within a more positive environment. Pulling out all of the positive elements in each experience. So, I go right to the Success Stories Section which reads...

Success stories. The result of all this testing is supposed to be improved performance. Ivan Small, the superintendent of schools in Poplar, Mont., tells one success story for that model. The law's requirement to break down test scores by poverty level, Small says, caused him to figure out why his low-income students were underperforming the higher-income ones. His findings, in turn, led him to replace old readers with a whole new literacy curriculum. It also changed the way he thought about homework. "There are multiple families living in a household of two or three bedrooms . ... Is there time or a place for homework?" The answer was often "No," so Small and his staff created an after-school study program.

Centennial Place Elementary School in Atlanta has also benefited from NCLB.The school had been collecting data even before the law was passed, but it had never separated out special education students. When it did, it found dramatic results. "We had a big gap," says Cynthia Kuhlman, the school's former principal. "Seeing that right there ... was a critical picture for us." The staff started giving these students extra help, reviewing their progress, and holding more parent conferences. As a result, proficiency levels rose from 41 to more than 80 percent.

OK.. success you say, so why would I be heated? Where was the leadership at this school that they weren't disaggregating data, analyzing data, using data to shape instruction? So NCLB forced them to "break it down" but the reality is when I read this I began to question the leaderships training and why they weren't looking for patterns in data well before NCLB?

The first paragraph about the man who (forgive the sarcastic tone) "found the root of inequality between his "low-income students and higher ones" because NCLB broke his scores out by poverty level?!!!! Come on here, did you just admit in a National Newspaper that you had never looked at your children's scores before in such a light?

My frustration lies with us as the professionals, that we are continued to be called on. If we are the leaders of our schools we need to begin to own ALL that goes with that and know how to guide instruction based on the data around us, qualitative and quantitative. Did we also admit through this article unless we are forced to collect data we don't and maybe we don't know how?!

Please come out from under the rock which you are hiding and if you're training wasn't adequate get some PD and/or ask for some guidance so you can be the instructional leader you could be.

My Daily Rant: Parenting and Education

My husband forwarded me an e-mail from a list serve friend of his about how he views his aloof level of involvement with his child as a balancing measure for his overbearing ex-wives presence. He refers to her level of involvement as "over the top" and used words like "micromanage" when describing her approach to homework time. Although this man, we'll call Carl, was reaching out for some feedback he presented his current parenting practices as adequate because they reflected the way he was raised. Verbiage that went like this..."My mom taught me to cook and sew and my dad taught me to fix the car. The extent of our conversation about school was asking how it was which was always answered with fine." Believe me when I say the sentences are just the beginning of Carl's opinion of school and it's place in home life and his obligation as a dad to his son he sees a few weekends a month.

I began to chuckle and thought since I love my husband and didn't want to scare his friend away I'd respond to him and let him choose whether or not he'd pass on my response. Turns out he sent it along. Stay tuned to see if I get burned up in the coming week! See below for my soapbox moment.

POST
wow.. I don't know that I can answer this because of his middle paragraph.. Can we move forward in our thinking and realize that our kids are living in a different world than we were? They are living in a place where they are exposed to massive amounts of information and pressure(s) through media and technology from birth. Through TV, Internet, music, etc.. the allowable information guidelines and protection that were present when we were young have been lifted. Almost all is fair game.

Kids aren't grappling with the same things we were as kids therefore the support they need looks very different than what we needed. Our children have the power to speak to what they need and instead of imposing what was comfortable for us as children why wouldn't we instead ask our kids what they need from us? Listen and ACT.

Of course this means we have to
1) give way to the fact the our children have very advanced minds and are in touch with what they need (yes even at 2 we have a daughter who speaks her mind, look out world!)
2) realize kids can be honest about their feelings
3) that we as adults can handle and HEAR what they tell us then act on it and not store it in our heads on reserve.

I told you last week I read that most household have less than 2 minutes of engaging conversation with their children each night. This isn't the superficial conversation, real speaking, listening, questioning, and feeling around where we each are in life. We are in a sad place if we think that less is more surrounding how involved we should be with our kids. Involvement takes many forms and doesn't have to revolve around school alone. Can we accept that our kids spend more time with our teachers during any given day than they do with their parents. There is a lot of power in being a part of that. But we also have to realize that teacher is parenting upwards of 25 kids at any given moment. And let's face it with testing constraints the focus on social support is muddled away by the need to prepare for testing

I would tell any parent to find their place in their kids life and be there as much as possible. THEY NEED US ALL THE TIME!

Balance is good but when coming from 2 parents it's not just about balance between them it's about balance within them. Sorry for the preaching but you know better than to e-mail this to me an expect a soft response. I'd tell him to get on board and stop being the parent he "thinks" he should be and be the parent his kid needs his to be.

Stay tuned for the results :)