In Case You Missed It

Want to know what's been happening at ASCD? Here's a quick summary:

• ASCD Express examines the issue of keeping students literate in the digital age.
• Walter McKenzie makes the case for a Whole Child approach to education and the importance of connecting school and community. 
• Successful partnerships between students' families and schools are all around us, and the benefits for learners are tremendous.
• It’s important to show educators the resources available on Twitter first, rather than how it works in order to get newbies interested in it, says Steven Anderson. 
• In part 4 of the seven-part series, Craig Mertler says we should not just “think” outside the box, we should “live” it too. 
• How are educators learning from one another? Find out in the October Educational Leadership on coaching. 
• Learn teaching tips from Robyn Jackson in her series of archived webinars.
• Central Michigan University is adding ASCD content to a new teacher leadership program. 
• Steven Anderson asks people what they wish they had known before they started with Twitter – for example, how finding out about the use of #hashtags changed people’s perspective on the service.  

Add your own highlights in the comments, and check this spot for our regular weekly digest of ASCDactivities.

Learning with Disabilities

Schools have made great strides in mainstreaming and accommodating students with a variety of learning disabilities, but is it enough? Schools are referring more children to special education, but it's unclear whether that's because of an increase of children with real issues; schools getting better at diagnosing them; or, in some cases, educators and parents making mistaken assessments.

ASCD Express is looking for short, 600 to 1,000-word essays on the theme "Learning with Disabilities." We're looking for stories about how schools are successfully working with students who have disabilities, whether they involve autism spectrum disorders, dyslexia, dyscalculia, or deficits in social and emotional areas. We hope to feature programs and schools that have succeeded in putting the needs of the child first, which includes successfully integrating students into the life of the school and meeting such students' needs as learners.

Guidelines for submissions are here. Please send us your submissions by October 12, 2011.

Virtual Coaching – Benefits and Basics

Have you ever found yourself challenged in the classroom -- wishing you could turn to someone immediately for a guiding hand or an encouraging word? As a practicing teacher, I did. In part, that's why I worked collaboratively to research and develop virtual coaching.

In our October EL article, The Power of Virtual Coaching, we describe the approach, as well as the research supporting it. With what we call "bug-in-ear technology," an instructional leader located remotely observes a teacher's lesson and then offers discreet feedback heard only by the teacher.

Here, briefly, is how it works:

Beforehand, the teacher and coach install the recommended off-the-shelf technology components. Next, the teacher shares the instructional plan. Then, the two decide on a time and date. To begin the session, the coach establishes contact with the teacher through the computer. After exchanging warm greetings, the lesson starts. While the teacher teaches, the coach provides running commentary, using four different types of feedback: encouraging, instructing, questioning, and correcting. Throughout, the coach adjusts the amount, flow, and timing of feedback, according not only to the teacher's instruction, but also the  students' responsiveness. When the lesson concludes, the two engage in an abbreviated debriefing and jointly establish a few guiding goals. A longer debriefing is scheduled later only if necessary. After the session, the coach arranges the next online session. It's really that simple.

Intuitively, side-by-side coaching seems easier, so why bother?

First, virtual coaching provides job-embedded support in real time when teachers need it most. Second, it promotes authentic opportunities for shared leadership, joint decision-making, and collaborative problem solving. I have learned as much or more than the teachers I coach. Third, not only is virtual coaching less intrusive, but also it may be more effective than traditional support. Why? Immediate feedback trumps delayed feedback. Fourth, virtual coaching eliminates the barriers of time and distance. One obvious benefit is reduced travel cost. Less apparent, however, may be opportunities for bridging the research-to-practice gap and improving student achievement. Finally, virtual coaching motivates educators -- inspiring excellence and promoting accountability, while decreasing isolation.

These are my thoughts. Now I would like to hear yours. What are your questions about virtual coaching?

Post submitted by Marcia Rock, associate professor in the Department of Specialized Education Services, University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Thoughts on the NCLB Waivers

Last Friday morning, representatives of the U.S. Department of Education met with members of ASCD's Legislative Committee and offered a preview of the administration's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) waiver plan, which President Obama announced later in the day.

We are grateful for their time and willingness to listen to our member’s feedback. Myself and the educators who accompanied me to this meeting left somewhat heartened by the administration's plan. Of special interest to ASCD were the waiver plan's top two points, which offer flexibility on the 2013–2014 Timeline for Determining Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and flexibility in the implementation of school improvement requirements.

Additional points of flexibility in the administration's plan focus on providing

• Flexibility in implementation of LEA improvement requirements.
• Flexibility for schoolwide programs.
• Flexibility to support school improvement.
• Flexibility for reward schools.

We at ASCD believe the AYP system is irretrievably broken. We feel strongly that the education accountability mandate needs to be transformed from one that is punitive, federally prescriptive, and overly bureaucratic to a model that rewards achievement, is state-driven and peer reviewed, and promotes supportive learning communities and a culture of continual improvement. The administration's new plan seems to offer some progress on this issue.

Likewise, ASCD has long asked federal policymakers to authorize a growth model accountability system for each child and reconceptualize the goals and interventions for chronically underperforming schools from punitive and unproven sanctions to an improvement system of access to comprehensive support. In addition, we'd like to see a system created that uses rewards and incentives—including flexibility in the use of Title I funds—for states and schools that are consistently high performing, close achievement gaps, or do well in cohort comparisons.

Certainly, we have concerns about the secretary using his waiver authority to extract reform commitments from states in exchange for this flexibility, something that wasn’t envisioned by lawmakers when NCLB was enacted and establishes a precedent that is not the preferred way to institute education policies. However, the thrust of the waivers are responsive to the interests and demands of state and local education leaders. ASCD believes that although the administration's waiver plan is a positive development, we remain firm in our position that U.S. children are best served by congressional action to completely overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Top Students Lose Ground

Is helping low achievers hurting high achievers? A new study by the Fordham Foundation raises this question in response to evidence that many high-performing students lose ground as they transition through school.

Teachers working with students with a mix of abilities may not be able to cover as much material or in as much depth as they might if a majority of students in a class are high-performing, Fordham's Michael Petrilli said at the report's release.

Fordham argues that while NCLB focused on stricter accountability for low-achieving students, federal programming for high achievers fell by the wayside. Notably, this year, Congress eliminated funding for the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Program ($7.5 million).

Proposed, bipartisan legislation, the TALENT Act (To Aid Gifted and High-Ability Learners by Empowering the Nation’s Teachers), would require state assessments capture when students perform above grade level and report learning growth for the most advanced students on state report cards.

Are education policies leaving high achieving students behind?

In Case You Missed It

 Here are the latest updates from ASCD:

• ASCD's Whole Child Programs Director Molly McCloskey describes the often dysfunctional experience that is back-to-school night and explains what the education community can do to make it better. 
• If students treat assignments as bureaucratic exercises, what is the likelihood that they will have an impact on achievement?
• Steven Weber references the ASCD book published more than a decade ago called Toward a Coherent Curriculum, a book he recommends for curriculum developers even today. 
• Mike Fisher interviews a social studies teacher about integrating the literacy standards for writing and reading from the Common Core into his professional practice.
• The webinar archive for "Creating Authentic Assessments with Allison Zmuda" is now available. 
• Eric Sheninger, our 2011 Conference Scholar, discusses DESIRE – Development, Energy, Solutions, Innovation, Resolve, and Environment -- when leading and teaching. 

Add your own highlights in the comments, and check this spot for our regular weekly digest of ASCDactivities.

Sowing Seeds of Promise—To Create Meaningful Contexts for Skills (1978)

"At a time when there is so much emphasis on basic skills for their own sake, teachers may be tempted to focus on exercise of a skill rather than performance in an expressive context." These are the words of John Shaughnessy, an assistant superintendent in St. Louis, Mo., from an article in the December 1978 issue of Educational Leadership, but they sound uncannily relevant today.

Read the article: Sowing Seeds of Promise: To Create Meaningful Contexts for Skills (PDF)

Shaughnessy gives examples of "including component skills in larger contexts of meaning." One novel example is of a language arts teacher who embedded language usage skills in a careers project. Students invited area professionals into the class who explained how different language arts skills were important in their jobs.

Developing basic skills through meaningful lessons certainly isn't a new idea but, as this article reveals, neither is the problem of not putting them properly in context and making them meaningful.

What Makes a Good Leader?

Capable and talented school leadership is needed in many areas for a school to be successful, but how can administrators find potential leaders or continue their own leadership development? What qualities should today's leaders cultivate to effectively support the needs of a learning community? Are there new sources for school leadership that go untapped, such as students, parents, and community leaders? What benefits accrue to a district or school through the consistent development of distributed leadership, and what's the best way of sustaining ongoing leadership development?

ASCD Express is looking for short, 600 to 1,000-word essays on the theme "What Makes a Good Leader?" Guidelines for submissions are here. Please send us your submissions by October 5, 2011.

School Finance 101

Bruce Baker's blog School Finance 101 manages to hit the all-too-rare sweet spot between dense academic analysis and facile punditry. Baker, an associate professor at Rutgers University, brings a forceful, engaging style and matches it with hard numbers that provide just enough information.

To give you a taste of the tone and content of his blog, consider this opening paragraph from a recent post on funding equity:

I've heard it over and over again from reformy pundits. Funding equity? Been there done that. It doesn't make a damn bit of difference. It's all about teacher quality! (which of course has little or nothing to do with funding equity?). The bottom line is that equitable and adequate financing of schools is a NECESSARY UNDERLYING CONDITION FOR EVERYTHING ELSE!

What makes this post so interesting is not his opinion alone, which is by no means unique, but the barrage of data that follows. Baker takes the reader through a series of charts and tables demonstrating funding disparities in several states and how they play out in terms of some specific measures, such as class size.

If you find yourself frustrated by unsubstantiated claims made about school funding, School Finance 101 is a good place to learn and engage in discussion about these critical and controversial issues.

Are High-Poverty Schools the Most Boring?

When funding cuts limit the resources for a well-rounded curriculum, and federal mandates tie incentives and punishments to a narrow range of academic achievement, who gets hit the hardest?

A new article in Salon.com looks at student boredom as an enormous factor in student dropouts, and as influenced by variables like funding cuts, political priorities, and limited school capacity to deliver highly effective instruction. The article posits that poor students feel these effects the most.

" . . . since state education budgets are generally allocated through formulas that prioritize aid to low-income students, districts with the bulk of such students often take the greatest hit. Once again, it seems likely that the poor are suffering from the most boredom."

Larger classes, bare-bones curriculum, and a standardized testing culture (replete with pep rallies) are making school boring for the most vulnerable students--and this article argues that they are responding by dropping out in droves. Do you agree that school is more boring now than when you attended? If so, are the effects worse at high-poverty schools?

From a Toxic Environment to a Positive One

Westover Park Junior High School in Texas had a toxic school environment. Discipline policies were reactive and clinical, and suspension and detention rates were soaring.

Three years later, students, staff, and parents describe Westover Park as a community where members are safe and respected. "Blue Tickets and Big Smiles," an article in this month's Educational Leadership, describes how the school changed for the better by using schoolwide Positive Behavior Support.

Now, during homeroom, students throughout the school practice some element of the community values espoused in the school's "Warrior Code" of behavior. Leaders at Westover Park have found that community buy-in and involvement, data, consistency, and celebrating positive choices (not just disciplining the negative) were all key to their transformation.

Has Positive Behavior Support helped improve the culture at your school?

Smarter Homework

Whether U.S. students have too little or too much homework is the wrong debate, argues author Annie Murphy Paul in last week's most popular ASCD SmartBrief item.

The real question parents and teachers should consider: How effectively does homework advance learning?

Drawing from the new Mind, Brain, and Education discipline, Paul suggests research-based improvements to homework practice. For example, instead of reading a lot about one topic each night, Paul advocates for "spaced repetition," or studying smaller chunks of information over a long period of time. "Exposing ourselves to information repeatedly over time fixes it more permanently in our minds, by strengthening the representation of the information that is embedded in our neural networks," she says.

Another strategy strengthens memory through retrieval—the more we recall something from memory, the more permanent it becomes in our minds. Self-quizzing, or other forms of retrieval practice, helps students remember better and shifts studying from passive input of knowledge to applied outputs.

"Interleaving" makes learning practice more effective because, instead of a block of questions or problems that are similar, questions are mixed and students have to apply a variety of skills and types of knowledge. It's similar to when baseball players practice hitting a variety pitches, not just pitches of the same kind, Paul adds.

How do you ensure that homework advances learning? Have you tried any of these strategies?

In Case You Missed It

Check out some recent highlights from ASCD:

• Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey discuss formative assessment action plans.
• Are we done with the recent wave of teacher bashing? 
• Sean Slade points out that there are more successful schools than you think. 
• As we consider our actions and policies to curb, control, or promote student behavior, let’s at least be aware that tougher policies do not equate to better results—neither educationally nor behaviorally. 
• ASCD Executive Director Gene R. Carter says that we need a different national conversation about education.
• ASCD Express looks at different ways to give students relevant work. 
• The September issue of Educational Leadership offers ideas on promoting respectful school environments.
• Allison Zmuda recently launched her blog series on ASCD EDge. Her first post is on the connection between yoga and teaching.
• How do you break the cycle of a culture that values short-term wins, shrinks resources, and doesn't plan for the future?
• A new teacher expresses how difficult it is to do lesson planning and wonders what the key to it is.
• Don't miss an opportunity to delve into the discussions sparked by your favorite ASCD books on ASCD's Meet the Authors page.

Add your own highlights in the comments, and check this spot for our regular weekly digest of ASCD activities.

Better Student Writing Through Better Formative Assessments

From blue collar to white collar, workers cite writing as increasingly key to their job success.

Yet after the primary grades, students average only about 15 minutes a day of writing instruction, and writing is often limited to filling in the blanks and short answers. Rarely does writing rise to the level of analysis and interpretation—skills necessary for today's careers.

A series of reports from the Carnegie Foundation and the Alliance for Excellent Education aim to put writing back on the reform agenda and arm educators with the tools to improve writing instruction (see Writing Next (PDF)and Writing to Read (PDF)).

In the latest report, Informing Writing: The Benefits of Formative Assessment (PDF), researchers asked, Do better formative assessments in writing lead to better writing? Their answer—yes. Specifically, 

• Feedback on writing, including how well you were learning a particular writing strategy, had a large positive effect on improving student writing.
• When teachers monitor students' success on writing and adjust instruction accordingly, student writing gets better.
• When kids assess their own writing, their writing gets better.

So, how can teachers improve formative assessments in writing?

Turning Disrespect into Respect

The angry grandfather compared me to the KGB and accused, "You think you're God Almighty!" He was responding to my report of his grandson's third incident of cheating. But by the end of the meeting, his tone was supportive. Why? I let his accusations slide. They weren't the real issue. I listened. I shared my observations calmly. The principal and I assured him that we were on the same team. Then, we brought the student into the meeting. Surrounded by an alliance who loved him just the way he was, but loved him too much to let him stay that way, he could no longer play us against one another, telling us each a different story, and he admitted what he'd done. As we parted with a handshake, his grandfather said, "Integrity and character—that's what I appreciate about your school."

In Educational Leadership's new column "Tell Me About," educators share their experiences turning disrespect into respect. Here, Scott Hayden, director of curriculum and instruction, International Community School, Bangkok, tells about a time he kept his cool when emotions ran high. Read more examples in the September 2011 issue.

Submit your own stories and strategies for future issues on topics like efficiently using school resources and knowing your students as individuals. Submit stories here.

Free Tool Kit for New Teachers

Were you one of the nearly 17,000 people who read last week's most-clicked ASCD SmartBrief article, "Twenty Tidbits for New Teachers," by Lisa Dabbs? It included tips and examples for first-time communication with parents, using technology, and building your own professional learning network.

You've read the article, now check out Dabbs's free New Teacher Tool Kit Webinar for ASCD. Dabbs explores relationship building, lesson planning, communication (especially social media), and setting up your classroom from the perspective of a new teacher. Take advantage of this free resource!

The Resourceful School

Many schools are experiencing shrinking resources, hiring freezes, and continued accountability pressures and are responding by using time, material resources, and educators' skills in innovative ways. ASCD Express is looking for short, 600- to 1,000-word essays on the theme "The Resourceful School."

We are looking for lessons from schools that have successfully redirected their efforts to improve and excel. What lessons can educators whose schools have struggled to make adequate yearly progress share with colleagues? How are schools not only raising basic proficiency rates, but also providing a rigorous, well-rounded, 21st century education for an increasingly diverse student population? What kinds of efficiencies and enrichment can technology provide?

We welcome articles from innovative schools that are doing more with less—or doing better through ingenuity.

Guidelines for submissions are here. Please send us your submissions by September 23, 2011.

Avoiding a "Pedagogy of Silence": Teaching 9/11

"On 9/11, I was in high school. As the day went on, we learned more and more about it. Our whole day at school was spent talking about it, and the next day we did the same. We came together as a school too and had a talk. This was the same thing that we did every April 20th to remember our friends at Columbine." (Anna, Colorado)

Students who were in middle and high school during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States are now themselves teachers in their own classrooms. How did their experience as students shape how they teach today?

Dr. Barbara Veltri gathered quick-write reflections from more than 400 teacher candidates on their experiences as school children on 9/11 and notes research (Epstein, 2009) that even veteran educators tend to refer back to the standard curriculum or adopt "a pedagogy of silence" in lieu of substantive classroom discussion with complex, highly charged events and issues.

"On 9/11 I was in the 8th grade. The teachers were advised to not talk about it. I remember everyone being scared and unfocused all day." (Carey, Phoenix, Ariz.)

Veltri's teacher candidates teach students about 9/11 through Mordecai Gerstein's Caldecott Medal-winning book The Man Who Walked Between Two Towers (appropriate for grades K–8) and by analyzing lyrics to Seal's “Prayer for the Dying” (for grades 4–12) to prompt discussion and journal quick-writes. New York Times's The Learning Network blog also includes several resources for and by teachers on how you might address 9/11 in your classroom.

Teachers who experienced 9/11 as students work to ensure that 9/11 is not commodified or presented to students through simplistic displays of patriotism, such as "wear red, white, and blue" days, says Veltri. "They must teach with sensitivity and openness to a range of perspectives; provide developmentally appropriate content knowledge; and integrate art, music, literacy, and community service into school-based interventions," she says.

How has 9/11 shaped your teaching, especially on current events? How do you avoid a pedagogy of silence?

Post contributed by Dr. Barbara Torre Veltri, assistant professor Social Studies & Elementary Education, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Ariz.

How Preschool Helps Kids Grow

A generation ago, formal early childhood education basically meant kindergarten—and not every child necessarily enrolled. More recently, there have been calls for making prekindergarten universal in U.S. public schools, as it is in many European nations.

But what are the benefits and drawbacks to formalized early childhood schooling? In the modern context of two parents working or single parenthood, and especially for poor children in urban areas, how does preschool provide significant advantages that can set up a child for successful adulthood? In the debate over playtime versus school time, what should developmentally appropriate early childhood learning look like, and does the reality of current preschools match that vision?

ASCD Express is looking for short, 600- to 1,000-word essays on the theme "How Preschool Helps Kids Grow." We're looking for articles from urban, suburban, and rural settings that can demonstrate best practices in early childhood teaching and learning, emphasizing the social, physical, intellectual, creative, and emotional aspects of the child.

Guidelines for submissions are here. Please send us your submissions by September 19, 2011.

Response to This Evening's Presidential Address on Jobs and the Economy

ASCD welcomes efforts to strengthen the economy and reduce unemployment through investments in teacher jobs and school modernization. And so we applaud the education proposals in President Obama’s “American Jobs Act.”  We only hope the proposal to provide $25 billion to help modernize 35,000 schools nationwide and the additional funding to avoid up to 280,000 teacher layoffs are not too little and too late for the education community.
 
The fact is that the 2011-12 school year is already under way and many teachers have already been laid off. Moreover, last year's EduJobs funds were, in some cases, used not to keep teachers employed but diverted by states to backfill their budget deficits or to replenish rainy-day funds. We expect the White House and the U.S. Department of Education to be more vigilant in ensuring that these proposed funds are used for their intended purpose: saving the jobs of the hundreds of thousands of teachers preparing today's students for lifelong success.
 
Nevertheless, we concur with the president’s larger rationale that investments in education can have an immediate and long-lasting effect on restoring vitality to the U.S. economy and making its workforce globally competitive.
 
As the president has observed in the past, teachers in other countries are known as “nation builders.” We look forward to working with the Obama administration and Congress to help enact an employment plan that prioritizes teacher jobs and rebuilds the nation’s education infrastructure.