Career Education as a School Responsibility

ASCD Express is looking for short, 600- to 1,000-word essays on the theme "Career Education as a School Responsibility." The theme description is below, and guidelines for submissions are here. Send us your submissions by April 28, 2010. 

Education pundits call the bachelor's degree the new high school diploma, so getting on the college train seems to be an eventuality for more and more high school graduates. Or is it? As high school commencements take place, not a few students, parents, and school leaders may be wondering, Couldn't schools being doing more to ensure that kids are better prepared for a job now? What should secondary schools be doing to help students explore career choices and connect school subjects to real-world work? How can high schools team up with community partners to offer robust internships that give students knowledge and hands-on experiences in fields they may one day be employed in? How can partnerships between colleges and high schools provide students with footholds in a future career? What highly valued job skills, such as collaboration and communication, should schools teach?

Can't Get Kids to Read? Make It Social

In his March "Digitally Speaking" column, Bill Ferriter articulates a common classroom concern, "How can we possibly teach reading when our kids just won't read?"

Though troubling, it's not surprising that students aren't into reading on the terms generally set by schools. Schools are one of the only text-driven environments the Net Generation experiences; their world is far more tuned to collaborative learning and social media. So, Ferriter says, schools can bring students back to deeper reading by making it social and blurring the line between fun and work. These ideas will sound familiar to anyone at Don Tapscott’s ASCD Annual Conference general session.

Diigo is one of the tools Ferriter uses in his classroom to make reading social. It allows teachers to create secure groups where students can bookmark, highlight, and annotate any online text. Before diving into Diigo, the class establishes communication norms, discusses differences between digital and face-to-face conversations, and determines strong and weak examples of annotation. Ferriter also defines five specific roles for students working in shared annotation groups.

Social reading has not only brought Ferriter’s students back to deep engagement with text, but it's also broken learning out of the classtime box. His students read and annotate text at all hours of the day; they want to follow and contribute to the developing conversations among their peers.

Can Changes to NCLB Make Students "College and Career Ready"?

President Obama's recent announcement that he wants changes made to NCLB so that students are prepared for college and a career after high school has raised some questions among educators. Many critics wonder how this preparedness can be accurately measured and want to know what tools educators will have at their disposal to try to determine student readiness.

The proposed changes call for common standards with an emphasis on students' cognitive skills, a move which has seen support from educators and could help students become "ready" for life after high school. Other education professionals worry that the changes will not fix the system and that the proposals are too broad and sweeping to have a significant effect.

Is it possible to determine if a student is "college and career ready"? Will these changes improve America's education system?

Are the Schools a 'Feminized Society'? (1973)

In a November 1973 article from Educational Leadership, Albert H. Yee makes his case that schools have become "feminized," saying, "Studies report that the values and practices of elementary schools favor girls and discriminate against boys."

Read the article: "Are the Schools a 'Feminized Society'?" (PDF)

The evidence Yee cites isn't quite overwhelming, though. Perhaps most entertainingly, Yee quotes P.O. Sexton, author of The Feminized Male: Classrooms, White Collars, and the Decline of Manliness. Sexton describes boys and schools as "locked in a deadly and ancient conflict that may eventually inflict mortal wounds on both." Yee also cites researcher J. D. McNeil's argument that boys' reading achievement is worse than girls' when taught by a female teacher, but equal to girls' under auto-instructional methods.

You Can Relate

Oh, no—that word again. Relationships.

Read on to see how I wrestle with Bob Marzano’s Chapter 8 of The Art and Science of Teaching: "What Will I Do to Establish and Maintain Effective Relationships with Students?"

Summary:

Marzano summarizes the fairly thin research on the relational aspects of teaching and reinforces what we all intuitively understand: the more positive the relationship, the better the behavior and performance of the student. He offers two sets of suggestions for maintaining good relationships with kids: one that communicates "concern and cooperation," and one that communicates "guidance and control."

Stuck in My Head:

In my post on Chapter 7, I put forth the theory that the "logical sequence" of the chapters in this tome indicates their relative importance to the teacher. This worked for Chapter 7, but not for 8, I'm afraid. It is my dearest hope that you're not waiting around until you're finished writing your rules, administering your consequences, planning your lessons, and arranging your classroom before you put your finger to your lips and wonder, "And now . . . what about my relationships with my students?"

That being said, it is implicit in nearly every chapter up until this point that you really can’t do any of these things successfully without knowing your children as individuals. The first sentence of Chapter 8 states it outright, calling it a "keystone . . . perhaps to all teaching." But if this is the case, why isn't this, well, Chapter 1?

Should We Extend School?

Through the lens of chronically failing students up for retention, Deirdra Grode wonders how we might rethink

• The school day;
• The school year; and 
• When schooling starts for a child.

As a caveat, she also asks whether dramatic changes to school should be applied solely in high-poverty, wide-gap areas.

In "To Retain or Not to Retain" and "Rethinking How Schools Are Structured," Grode's experiences show that truly serving failing students means exploring solutions outside either traditional retention or social promotion. What's your school doing to serve these students? How are you rethinking school?

ASCD Unveils 2010 Leg. Agenda, Responds to White House ESEA Blueprint

The Obama administration’s blueprint for revising the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was released a little over a week ago to mixed reactions. Many education groups expressed support for the measures outlined in the blueprint, but others, including the big teacher unions, took issue with the plan’s approach to ensuring educator effectiveness.

ASCD stands in support of the key components of the blueprint, which align with the association’s 2010 Legislative Agenda (unveiled earlier this month at ASCD's Annual Conference) and our Whole Child Initiative.

In this month’s Is It Good for the Kids? column, ASCD Executive Director Gene Carter writes, "The education leaders from across the country who developed ASCD's 2010 Legislative Agenda believe that it's time for federal education policy to support a whole child approach, helping to ensure that all children are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged."

ASCD educators believe the blueprint represents a good first step from the federal government in supporting this type of whole child approach. Adds Carter, "We are especially encouraged by the administration's emphasis on effective teachers and leaders for every classroom and school; a complete education that prepares students for postsecondary success; and services and supports that lead to successful, safe, and healthy students."

What do you think about ASCD's legislative agenda? Do you agree that the White House’s blueprint signals support of a whole child approach to learning and teaching?

Virtually Educated

ASCD Express is looking for short, 600- to 1,000-word essays on the theme "Virtually Educated." The theme description is below, and guidelines for submissions are here. Send us your submissions by April 14, 2010.  

Whether students are taking online courses with an unseen instructor at a virtual school or attending class as an avatar in Second Life, the online delivery of education is all around us. Underneath the commercial hype and glitzy technology, what are the advantages and drawbacks of online education? Will some form of virtual education become the norm? This issue will look at a variety of virtual education programs in schools in the United States and other countries. How are educators and their students using new Web platforms, like Twitter, or "older" ones, like blogs, to increase student understanding and engagement or extend learning beyond the classroom?

ASCD Scholars on Annual Conference

Presenting at a local, state, or national conference and sharing what I know and do gives me the opportunity to reflect with diverse peers and develop the leadership I bring back home.

What did presenting at the 2010 ASCD Annual Conference mean to you? What did you present? Who was there and what were their reactions? What did you learn, and through your presentation(s), how did you grow? In terms of the material you presented, what are your next thoughts and next steps?

(Note to ASCD Scholars: remember that most Scholars' presentation materials are available in our shared Dropbox file.)

—ASCD Scholar Facilitator Jen Morrison

Ten Ways to Become a School Leader

Principal Mike McCarthy has more than 30 years of education experience under his belt. During this time, he has taught prison inmates and math classes and has been a successful school leader, guiding students through their educational careers. In this week's most-clicked SmartBrief article, McCarthy reflects on what he learned during this time and offers advice on how to maintain a well-run school.

McCarthy lists the 10 most important qualities, ideas, and responsibilities an educator must embrace to be successful. From implementing a vision to making hard decisions and quick changes, McCarthy's valuable information will help educators on all levels create a strong classroom experience.

Fed Up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project

"It's very challenging to teach students when they are eating school lunches that don't give them the nutrition they need and deserve"—so begins the first post on Fed Up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project, the blog of a teacher dedicated to eating school lunches with her students every day of 2010 and sharing the experience with her readers.

Subsequent posts begin with a large, vivid photograph of the day's offerings and a description, such as, "Today's lunch: spaghetti with meat sauce, green beans, a breadstick, chocolate milk, and a blue raspberry Icee thing." Throughout the blog, the anonymous Illinois educator emphasizes that she isn't simply out to criticize the school food program. She wants to illustrate what kids are actually eating and bring to light issues that school administrators and others may not always appreciate: packages that are hard to open, for example, or servings that seem too small.

Peppered with personal stories of her relationship with food and recollections of lunches from her own school days, this teacher's blog is engaging and informative.

An Effective Model for Content Reading (1982)

When educators promote reading skills across the content areas, students gain a deeper and more meaningful understanding of whatever subject area they're studying. The challenge is how to get classroom teachers to incorporate reading into their regular instruction.

In the October 1982 issue of Educational Leadership, professors of education Mary Dupuis and Eunice Askov explore a Pennsylvania program designed to encourage educators to promote reading aptitude in their classrooms.

Read the article: An Effective Inservice Model for Content Area Reading in Secondary Schools

The Content Area Reading Program (CARP) was a validated program that three junior high schools in Pennsylvania used over the course of five years to teach teachers how to develop reading instruction and informal evaluations while following their own subject-specific curriculum.

Noting that many content teachers have negative attitudes toward teaching reading in their classes, Dupuis and Askov were particularly impressed with the program's enduring outcome: More than a year later, teachers not only used the techniques they learned in CARP, but they also maintained a positive impression of them. The authors conclude by reviewing the various principles that contributed to the program's success and recommend ways for educators to incorporate content-area reading in teacher inservice models.

NCLB Guilty of "Readicide"?

Post by submitted by Kelly Gallagher, author of "Reversing Readicide," in the March 2010 issue of Educational Leadership.

In my article, I suggest that schools have become coconspirators in the decline of reading. Specifically, I lay out four contributing factors:

1. Schools act as though they value the development of test takers more than the development of readers.
2. Schools are limiting authentic reading experiences.
3. Teachers are overteaching books.
4. Teachers are underteaching books.

Looking at these four contributing factors of "readicide," I can't help but think that all of them, in one way or another, are driven by the mandates of No Child Left Behind. Sitting on my desk right now is Diane Ravitch's new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Ravitch, a former assistant secretary of education and initially a leader in the drive behind national multiple-choice testing, has now come to see that NCLB has been harmful to our children. She writes:

No Child Left Behind had no vision other then improving test scores in reading and math. It produced mountains of data, not educated citizens. Its advocates then treated the data as evidence of its 'success.' It ignored the importance of knowledge. It promoted a cramped, mechanistic, profoundly anti-intellectual definition of education. In the age of NCLB, knowledge was irrelevant. (29)

Ravitch, a leading conservative voice in education, has reversed course and repudiates positions she staunchly defended for years.

What are your thoughts? What are the effects of NCLB on reading, and how has it affected reading instruction in your school? Does NCLB contribute to the four factors I mentioned? Or do you believe that the accountability driven by NCLB has led to meaningful reform in the field of reading?

Kelly Gallagher teaches English at Magnolia High School in Anaheim, Calif., and is the author of Readicide (Stenhouse, 2009).

Free Technology for Teachers

When the advice is good and the price is right, what's not to like? In his award-winning blog Free Technology for Teachers, high school social studies teacher Richard Byrne reviews a wide variety of free online tools and offers different ways to incorporate them into the classroom.

With a focus on integrating technology into everyday teaching, posts cover everything from free math tutorials to "back-channel" chatting—the practice of allowing students to have online conversations alongside live teaching. Other informative resources include strategies for finding fellow teachers on Twitter and Byrne's "How-to Series," which walks educators through the process of using various Web 2.0 technologies.

You Can Take It with You

Post submitted by ASCD Scholars facilitator Tom Hoerr.

We hope you've all recovered from the conference. With hundreds of presentations, it seems we're constantly hustling from one speaker to the other. It always takes a couple of days to sort through what you heard and how it might apply. So let's sort!

Please prioritize: What is one thing you learned—a piece of information, an understanding, or a skill—that you have taken back home? Why does it speak to you and your situation? How are you going to apply it? If focusing on just one drives you crazy, feel free to do two!

Draft K-12 Math & ELA Standards Released

Last week's big education news was the release of the common core math and English/language arts standards for K–12. The Washington Post reports that school boards, particularly in the southern states, are moving quickly to adopt these standards over the next few months. States in the western part of the United States are reportedly a little more cautious about adopting common core standards.

Some criticisms of the common core include one-size-fits-all curriculum, skills taught over content-area knowledge, and that implementation will be expensive and unwieldy.

The draft standards are open for comment until April 2, 2010, at http://www.corestandards.org. EdWeek reports that drafters particularly want feedback from teachers: Are the standards teachable in their current form? Does their progression make sense?

Would you support your state's adoption of these common standards? Why or why not?

Creativity: Don't Stop It in Its Tracks

Post submitted by Educational Leadership editor, Amy Azzam.

In his special feature titled "Creative Leadership: Skills that Drive Change," Gerard Puccio showed the audience a sketch of a wheelbarrow that looked a little off. (Think of it as a "new idea.") For one thing, it had the wheel in the back instead of in the front. Many attendees eyed it suspiciously—I admit it, I did too. And a common first reaction? All the reasons why the thing won't work.

And so it goes with our receptiveness to groundbreaking ideas everywhere. According to Puccio, we get stuck in habitual ways of thinking; we fall victim to our own self-imposed constraints: The "old" wheelbarrow must assuredly be better than this odd-looking "new" one.

But Puccio suggested some ways around these ornery habits. For one thing, we can learn to promote new thinking, both in ourselves and in others. In the classroom, this might involve giving students more positive feedback on novel ideas.

Let's say you give students choice in selecting a project to complete. Puccio suggests the following when you evaluate their ideas:

1) Start with the plusses, with what’s good ("I like the idea of pushing down on the handle of the wheelbarrow rather than having to lift it up!");

2) Discuss potentials ("This may be easier to move than the traditional model!");

3) Bring up concerns, but pose them as a question ("How might you make it easier to unload?"); and

4) Overcome concerns ("If you move the wheel a little forward, it might balance the load better").

Who's to say the leaps we might make in education if we became facilitators—rather than obstructors—of creative thinking?

How to Make Group Work Productive

Post submitted by SmartBrief Education Editor Amy Dominello

If you want to make group work productive for your students, don’t be Julie from The Love Boat, education professor and ASCD author Douglas Fisher advised his audience at a Monday morning Annual Conference session.

Teachers shouldn’t be cruise directors, Fisher said. They need to ensure students understand material through questions, prompts, and cues.

Fisher outlined some guidelines teachers should use in implementing group work in the classroom.

First, teachers should focus the lesson and offer guided instruction. If there has been good teacher instruction and a child is armed with background knowledge, students can work together collaboratively and, later, independently.

Group work that does not have those elements will not be effective, Fisher said.

Goodbye, School Reform

If we can do powerful networking as instructional leaders, why can't we powerfully network students for learning?

That was the question Tom Welch posed in his Sunday Annual Conference session, "Goodbye, School Reform: Hello, New Worldwide Communities for Learning." Welch said school reform has failed because it works within the same 13-year, 6-hour-day framework of traditional schooling. "David didn’t beat Goliath by meeting him on Goliath’s terms," said Welch, citing Malcolm Gladwell.

"I have no interest in 'better' schools," Welch asserted. "Parents don't want better schools; they want their children learning at higher and higher levels. It used to be that school was the way to do that." Welch says we need to look at schooling as an iPhone loaded with a wide variety of apps for learning. "We don't need school as we've defined it to be the only opportunity for kids to learn."

His Virtual Learning Magnet project is one of those apps. The VLM is an online learning experience through which kids determine pace and content and assessments are performance-based. The pilot was structured on eight big ideas in physics and space-related curriculum, with students as "prosumers," a term coined by Don Tapscott to refer to producers and consumers of content.

21st Century Bullying

Post submitted by SmartBrief Education Editor Amy Dominello

Cyber bullying is a problem that schools and courts have only begun to grapple with. But how do school administrators deal with nasty messages posted from students' home computers or cell phones while they are off school grounds?

One guiding standard for how to handle the problem is already beginning to emerge from the bench, one expert said during a Sunday Annual Conference session on the topic.

Schools and districts must consider whether or not cyber bullying is causing a "substantial disruption" that is affecting the school when disciplining students, said William DeMeo, a Cincinnati school psychologist. Courts are relying on that tenet in their decision making.

But that doesn't mean that schools can't be proactive in preventing cyber bullying, too, he said.

DeMeo said administrators should formally assess the extent of cyber bullying in their schools and specify that any bullying—including bullying done through electronic media—is wrong and that the school has clear rules forbidding it. He also suggested using older students as peer mentors and educating staff, parents, and students about what cyber bullying is. Administrators should also consult with school attorneys prior to any incidents to determine ways to best handle cyber bullying.

E-mail DeMeo to follow up and get a copy of his presentation.