I’m certainly not a fan of the MCAS but I can’t say that adopting the Obama’s Common Core Standards will make me any happier about the current state of education for our children.  Massachusetts currently has one of the highest standards in the US so it is surprising that Governor Patrick would acquiesce to the national standards and give up this piece of local prestige.  I’m also disturbed by the willingness of states to give up their rights on such an important issue for the opportunity to compete for an ever smaller piece of funding.  This is just selling out the education of our children for table scraps from Washington!

The political posturing up on Beacon Hill will probably take much of the summer.  My guess is this is a deliberate attempt to take focus off the budget issues that plague our state and let everyone pretend they are doing the best they possibly can for the children.  I especially love this little gem mid way in the article:

Reville sought to tamp down worries that the adoption of national standards would mean an end to MCAS. He said whether the state adopts a new assessment to match the national standards is a “separate” discussion and that Massachusetts is “under no obligation” to do so.

Really?  So we’re planning to adopt the national standards and then make the children still test to the old standards?  We’re under no obligation at all to see that we’re actually teaching to the standards we’ve promised to adhere to?  Then why make the change at all?

While we’re discussing the new Common Core Standards and how Massachusetts fares maybe we should also look at some of the other states.  Perchance we can learn something from California as their standards are “clearer, more thorough and easier to read than the common core.”  Or use Pennsylvania as a cautionary tale of where we could be.

What isn’t discussed in the debate about education is the way our school rating system is structured in Massachusetts and if this will change.  If a charter school fails to meet its charter then the charter is not renewed and the school is closed.  If a public school fails to meet its obligations to students and is failing then we toss more money at the school and allow it to restructure.  The schools which are performing the worst get extra resources and then when the scores improve the resources are taken away.  What exactly is the benefit of success under this model?

RTTT has attempted to push this in the other direction by rewarding those schools with the best plan going forward for achievement and rewarding the schools with the highest achievements.  Unfortunately education doesn’t work this way either.  As long as we are required to educate all of the students in our state regardless of their capacity or desire for such formalized education it is impossible to apply a one size fits all assessment of the success of such a system.  We need to stop treating the education of our children like the herding of cattle!

Just a couple of weeks ago, Dr O’Brien, our Superintendent of Curriculum announced he would be leaving his position in Haverhill.

This past week, Dr Buchanan, our Superintendent, announced he was a finalist for the position of Superintendent in Wenham.  Many of the people I’ve spoken to are surprised and disappointed.  I merely wonder why its taken him this long to ponder moving!

The School Committee is considering whether or not to offer him a contract extension to entice him to stay.  Unfortunately I doubt they can write a contract giving Dr Buchanan the things that would truly make the difference.

Our public meetings are shameful – If this is how grownups act on camera then I cannot imagine the day to day interaction of these people with our Superintendent.

The budget is a mess.  This isn’t any one person’s fault and is totally beyond the purview of anyone in the City of Haverhill but that doesn’t mean the stresses placed on the city and its people aren’t real.  The state needs to change the way schools are funded – or the federal government needs to make sweeping education reform that is productive and helpful before this issue improves.  That being said – I’ve sat through many budget meetings and I know we could handle things better!

Our MCAS results have essentially topped out.  With the severity of the cuts we’re facing there’s no way we’re going to improve much beyond where we are now.  The state has come in for their evaluation – since we’re a level 3 school in a sea of higher performing schools for our geographic area – and asked what, besides money, can the district benefit from.  What else is there besides money?  Sure we can use textbooks but that costs money!  We’d love to give our teachers the professional development they deserve but that costs money.  Many of the schools need repairs but there’s that money issue again.  Class sizes are higher than we’d like but teachers cost money.  It would be fantastic to expand the offerings at HHS, give foreign language classes at the middle schools and have a full marching band but these items cost money.

I have a list of 101 things that Dr Buchanan would provide for our schools if only he could.  None of the items are particularly extravagant.  None of the items are remotely in our grasp either.  Sadly, until society places the value on education that we need to and stop treating the school day as glorified free babysitting we will never have the means to attain those 101 goals.

This post is late due to wordpress not allowing me to use the word s*e*tt*l*e*ment in my post.  I give many thanks to my husband for debugging that mystery since wordpress simply crashed whenever I tried to save a draft containing that word!

I’ve been following the Whittier Vocational Technical discussions over the last few weeks and I have a few observations:

The lack of communication between the two school committees is striking.  Neither side made an effort to create a working relationship with the other.  I can’t even fathom why the members of the Whittier School Committee would want advice from the members of the Haverhill School Committee considering the chaos that usually surrounds the Haverhill School Committee but if the gentleman who spoke at the April 8th meeting really wanted to be in touch he could have reached out and even attended a couple of previous Haverhill meetings.

The agreement with the principal of Whittier is now water under the bridge.  Lots of people made mistakes here.  Going forward I hope the Whittier contingent gets a new lawyer since the advice given was so poor in this situation.  Perhaps a better lawyer could have provided an agreement that did not involve a principal getting almost a year of pay due to – as best as I can understand – their failure to inform her in a timely enough manner that they were not renewing her contract.

Whittier Vocational Technical is a school operating in its own district. Their budget is above net school spending – a concept no public school district is currently working with considering the economy and the ever growing list of mandates.  More money per student spent means better MCAS results.  This isn’t a surprise to anyone!  If schools have the supplies needed for learning – the students will learn.

Whittier Vocational Technical is a school where the vocational classes reinforce the academic classes.  Students get real world applications for their skills.  Of course this enhances learning and retention!  There’s a huge difference between “Learn this because we say so.” and “Learn this because you need it to be successful doing the tasks in your chosen career.”

I disagree that every Haverhill student who says they want to go to the Vocational School should be able to. If you fail all of your classes and never attend school and say “I want to go to Whittier” and they say no – I can’t feel badly for you. I feel badly for HHS for being the school which has to take you in.

On the flip side I’m not sure the statements made at the April 8th meeting are true about what a child needs to do to gain entry to Whittier Vocational Technical. I’m interested to see more numbers on enrollment considering the recent articles in the newspaper.

Also I think its disingenuous to compare vocational schools of today with the vocational schools of past generations.  As a society we don’t pay enough respect to the people who opt to take on a trade.  Students aren’t opting for trade school because they can’t tackle college prep work.  More often, students are opting for a trade because they want a future that isn’t bogged down in a decade of classwork and are unwilling to mortgage their future to the student loan department.  These kids are bright and hard working and see a path to success that isn’t defined by pushing paperwork around.

Instead of blaming Whittier for all of our problems – or attempting to recreate the Whittier experience at HHS – why don’t we focus on what we do well at HHS and do more of that!  Lets expand the Classical Academy offerings and find ways to foster enrichment for the students who seek it.  Lets cheer the students in our Athletic Department on to victory and applaud the performances of our Drama and Music students.  Lets peruse the galleries of art generated by our very talented Art students.

To the students who don’t make it into Whittier:  Please don’t take your frustration and turn it into a personal crusade against HHS.  Instead, channel your frustration forward and use it to carve your own successes wherever you go to school.  There are many paths to success but they all involve hard work and dedication by you!

I’ve said time and again that when Zero Tolerance is used Zero Thought is applied.  NCLB is the Education version of Zero Tolerance.  Neither of these policies make sense on their own merits and when combined as they are within our schools the results are disastrous.

For example: I understand and support the HHS policy banning cell phone usage in school.  There is far too much distraction and opportunity for cheating to allow phones to be used.  I also hope that should an incident arise where a child walks out of the school bathroom sobbing hysterically with a cellphone in hand because she’s just received news that someone in her family is in some kind of peril – that day the phone usage by that student would be forgotten in the wave of support she would receive in dealing with her crisis.

What I can’t understand or support is any policy which negates the ability of those in charge of enforcement to make a judgment call regarding the situation before them nor can I abide by those who hide behind the policy when making poor decisions.  Was it truly necessary to have a 12 year old girl taken from school in handcuffs because she wrote on a desk?  What happened to the days of detention and having the offender wash all the desks?

Of course those who make the policy on a national level do so as a knee jerk reaction to widely publicized incidents instead of actual data! “The truth is that there is no comprehensive, mandatory federal school crime reporting and tracking of actual school crime incidents for K-12 schools. Federal school crime and violence data consists primarily of a hodgepodge collection of over a half-dozen academic surveys and research studies. This data is often mistakenly perceived by policymakers, the media, and others as a reflection of the number of actual crime and violence incidents, and as credible trend indicators of school crime and violence occurring in our schools.” So why should we expect our local policy makers to act differently?  This is mirrored by the recent actions of the local School Committee in making immediate changes in their transportation policy in response to one incident which made the local TV news despite the repeated success of their previous policy on a daily basis.

Then I read this article about the relationship between the Zero Tolerance legislation and the NCLB legislation and the combined effects on our students.  You’re going to want some time before you open that link as the pdf is 56 pages.  The pdf report made, much more eloquently than I ever would, many of the points I’ve tried to discuss since I’ve been learning about our education system.  Here is one such point: “Rather than viewing schools as places where young people should be nurtured, supported and developed to their full potential, zero tolerance treats students as adversaries or threats to be suppressed or even discarded in the quest for good schools.  High-stakes testing regards our youth as products to be tested, measured and made more uniform.  Each of these policies has too often been inappropriately substituted for meaningful education reform.”

As a society, we have allowed our fear to overwhelm us.  Our schools are slowly turning into miniature prison like environments complete with security cameras and metal detectors and we are expecting our children to respond positively to this!  Then we add more rigorous and more frequent standardized testing with ever higher penalties for failure for both the student and the school and we expect our children to respond positively to this as well!

Again from the pdf report: “The impact of high-stakes testing on the classroom has been well-documented.  Test-driven reforms have had a significant narrowing effect on school curricula, leading to untested subjects like science, social studies, art and physical education being excluded or de-emphasized.  Because so much is riding on the outcome of standardized tests, meaningful instruction that supports the development of higher order skills like critical thinking is suffocated and often replaced by “drill and kill” techniques, rote memorization exercises and teaching to the test.” We’ve seen this locally with the budget discussions where the “encore” programs (Gym, Art and Music) are reduced and Social Studies textbooks are pushed to the bottom of the priority list every year because “Social Studies is not yet on the test.”

When you thrust groups of students into an environment which gets more confining and allows less interaction and expression and then bore them with curriculum which has taken the discovery enthusiasm out of learning you are setting students up for failure.  Look at private sector employment – think of the “water cooler” moments where adults are allowed to get up and stretch and socialize.  Consider how much of one’s day involves taking a minute for a personal email or checking out a favorite blog or shopping site or facebook.  Now look at a student’s day and think about how cooped up and stir crazy our children must feel with less opportunity for those “water cooler” moments like recess or art or gym in addition to the immense pressure of grades and testing.  Imagine if at the end of every week your boss administered a two hour exam to determine if you were going to get the paycheck you worked all week for!

And how has all of this impacted graduation rates?  Have we achieved increased proficiency?  Are we really doing right by our students?  No.  Graduation rates are falling and more people are choosing to obtain a GED instead of a High School Diploma.  Again from the pdf report with additional links:  “recently-released data show that the nation’s graduation rate in 2006 – 69% - was the lowest it has been since before NCLB was passed.  Of particular concern is that the rates for Black and Latino students – 51% and 55%, respectively – dropped significantly from 2005 to 2006.  Additionally, in 2008, the number of persons taking the GED test was at its highest level since before NCLB.” Can we please stop legislating our children’s education into the abyss and enact some education reform that is perhaps actual reform and includes actual education?

Only one of the non incumbent candidates attended the meeting Thursday.  I know Ms Hetel feels I need to respect other’s opinions on this subject but in actuality I do not.  My opinion on this issue is just as valid as the other candidate’s opinions and I am allowed to shout my opinion from the rooftops – or write about it here – should I so desire.

Mr Magliochetti, the lone candidate in attendance, breezed in late and left early.  He also picked Shaun Toohey as his panel member du jour.  He pulled Mr Toohey into the hallway “to ask him a question.”  Thankfully he did not hold up a vote this week (although he did last week) keeping committee members in the hallway!  I am left to wonder if he had a question or if he had a suggestion for Mr Toohey.  Shortly after their meeting in the hallway Mr Toohey gave his MCAS feedback and then winked at Mr Magliochetti.

Speaking of MCAS, I am enthusiastic about the “Growth Model” method of evaluating school district performance and hope to find this enacted soon.  Our current method of taking 3rd graders who have never taken the test before and comparing them to next year’s 3rd graders who have also never taken the test before and expecting huge gains each year is asinine!  The growth model would follow what are called “cohort groups.”  They essentially take the 3rd graders who test in any individual year and follow them throughout their academic career and measure how their achievements rise during those years culminating, theoretically, with every student in the group scoring proficient or above on the MCAS test.

I would like to mention how competitive the MCAS is.  While we are frustrated by slow to rise scores for our students I would like to look outside our state for just a moment.  Students in Massachusetts scored top in the nation in Reading and fourth in the nation – tied with New Hampshire – in Math.  More information regarding how well Massachusetts students are doing compared to other states can be found on the NAEP website.

Accountability is a large portion of the new assessment criteria.  I like the idea of holding educators responsible for making scores rise but I wonder how feasible this truly is.  There will always be children you just cannot get to test well for a number of reasons.  I look at the classrooms my daughter has attended and there are 20+ children all at different cognitive levels, coming from differing backgrounds with different value placed on education by their parents and different learning styles.  I wonder how they manage to teach as much as they do!  On the flip side I have also seen classrooms where it is painfully obvious the teacher has lost control of the class completely and should no longer be in front of students.  Thankfully the latter is extremely rare.

On an up note 110 students received the Abigail Adams Scholarship – up six from last year – which is a tuition waiver to certain colleges in the state.  Congratulations!

Sadly, tuition is but a small part of the cost of college.  Colleges have skirted the regulations on tuition increases by charging ever skyrocketing fees.  Books are another very costly item for students which they are required to purchase each semester.  While I don’t know what can be done about fees I hope more professors opt for free textbook programs like Flat World or Wikibooks.

Stay tuned for Thursday’s meeting recap part two… tomorrow!

At Thursday’s meeting, Dr O’Brien gave an update about MCAS scores. During the subsequent discussion I heard time and again that attendance matters. Students who attend school regularly learn more and are more successful than students who don’t.

We all know attendance matters. If we don’t attend work then we are fired. If we don’t attend our regularly scheduled doctor and dentist appointments our health suffers. If we don’t attend sports practice sessions then we never gain the skills needed to compete and we lack the ability to work as a team.

Despite the fact that we all know attendance matters I am still disappointed in the non incumbent candidates who feel it does not matter if they attend the school committee meetings. Certainly there are other ways to prepare to serve on the committee. I know for myself that I went out and met with people, made phone calls, read lots of information on Massachusetts Ed Reform and the various types of funding the schools use, I also have my copy of Roberts Rules of Order. But I put these other issues aside on the evenings when the School Committee convenes.

I will not cast my vote for any candidate who has never joined me in the audience at the School Committee Meetings.

This brings me to my next dilemma. There is one candidate who has come to the last two meetings. I didn’t recognize him at the first meeting I saw him at. He arrived late and left early leaving me with no opportunity to introduce myself. He did write a note to Paul Tennet, the reporter for the Eagle Tribune before he left. Maybe he wanted to make sure the paper recognized his attendance in case they ran another story on the dedication of candidates?

At Thursday’s meeting this gentleman again came a few minutes late. He tapped me on my shoulder to say hello and took his seat. This time I knew who he was. This time he stayed to the end. I was hopeful that I had found a candidate I could support in the School Committee Election. My hopes were dashed mid meeting when Mr. Magliocchetti decided to make a mockery of the meeting by dragging members of the panel out into the hallway repeatedly to chat. I am equally disappointed in those who left their posts to join him in the hallway. At one point a motion was held up because of this interference and everyone waited while Ms Dennehey was fetched from the hallway.

Later in the meeting Mr. Bevilaqua decided to air his feelings regarding some of the newspaper coverage of late. This disruption was out of order and disappointed me as I keep hoping for more civility from our Committee Members. One person in the audience was not disappointed. In fact, Mr. Magliocchetti expressed his amusement by laughing behind me during the outbursts.

Attendance matters, respectful behavior while attending matters more. I hope the candidates manage to find the time to attend the debate on the 30th.