when schools focus on the wrong things (from a teacher)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP- My colleagues and I discuss this sometimes. Whenever we start making progress, something changes to knock us back down. We are ESOL teachers and our district was doing well testing students out of ESOL but then last year, they made it more difficult to move levels on the WIDA ACCESS test and all of sudden, teachers must not be doing their jobs since the test out rate was so dismal. You can't win.

Yes! And then they use a terrible formula to determine allocations so we actually lost allocation while our number of ESOL students increased. When I first started there was a 1:41 ratio but now I have 60 students on my caseload. There isn’t a way to provide meaningful language instruction to that many students in the limited time we have access to them. But I think that’s how they want it as they slowly seem to be phasing out the role of the ESOL teacher. Pretty soon it will be just another thing on the classroom teacher’s plate.

-another ESOL teacher (MCPS)

If the classroom teacher as a result has 5 less students, would it be worth it? How much can an ESOL teacher do with 60 students a week?

Only if they are all 1's or all 2's, etc. But throwing 1's-3's or even 4's into the same classroom of 26-30 with only 1 teacher (dual certified or not) is a recipe for disaster. You think test scores are low now, just wait until you see the result with that!

Plus the fact that those classes shouldn’t be sheltered English classes. ELLs need to have exposure to native English speakers in order for their own language skills to improve. It’s not considered a best practice. I get that it’s a way to reduce class sizes, but where is there space in buildings for all of these additional classrooms? I think it will roll out and central office will spin it to make it sound like a win win situation (smaller class sizes yay!), but there are very real logistical issues with the idea.

Where will these extra classrooms be located? How will the teacher have time to double dip the language objectives, which is currently the ESOL teacher’s responsibility? How to balance the needs of the ELLs with the needs of the native English speakers? Not all students need the intensive language support so would that mean native English speakers would be spending even more time working independently in these classes? The teacher would have to collect additional ESOL grades which the ESOL teachers are currently responsible for. How will the classroom teacher have time to schedule and administer the ACCESS test which is 4 parts and very time consuming? I could go on...

I'm a teacher and I have a mixed classroom of 21 kids (yes, I know I'm lucky to have such a small class), with kids who are new to the country and English, some who are native speakers, but most who are a mix of language levels. I'm in the school where we are all required to be dual certified, so I'm ESL certified. I do my best to incorporate extra oral language practice and the "push in" ESL teacher also co-teaches with me for an hour a day. Yes, we have to collect additional language data, fill out a separate ESL report card required by the state and I administer the ACCESS test in 4 parts each year while my non ESL kids are taken up to the library with another teacher at that time. We make it work, but it isn't easy.
I do differentiate during guided reading. I have 6 reading groups, and another teacher sees my high kids, leaving me with 5 groups. I do double dose my lowest kids, who are also seen by the reading specialist daily. In writing, my ESL co teacher helps me out so we can have different kids working on different goals. Math was super differentiated into guided math groups, working on skills kids were weak in based off of bi-weekly tests, last year. This year we have a new curriculum that has to be administered whole group and there is no time for math workshop/guided math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP- My colleagues and I discuss this sometimes. Whenever we start making progress, something changes to knock us back down. We are ESOL teachers and our district was doing well testing students out of ESOL but then last year, they made it more difficult to move levels on the WIDA ACCESS test and all of sudden, teachers must not be doing their jobs since the test out rate was so dismal. You can't win.

Yes! And then they use a terrible formula to determine allocations so we actually lost allocation while our number of ESOL students increased. When I first started there was a 1:41 ratio but now I have 60 students on my caseload. There isn’t a way to provide meaningful language instruction to that many students in the limited time we have access to them. But I think that’s how they want it as they slowly seem to be phasing out the role of the ESOL teacher. Pretty soon it will be just another thing on the classroom teacher’s plate.

-another ESOL teacher (MCPS)

If the classroom teacher as a result has 5 less students, would it be worth it? How much can an ESOL teacher do with 60 students a week?

Only if they are all 1's or all 2's, etc. But throwing 1's-3's or even 4's into the same classroom of 26-30 with only 1 teacher (dual certified or not) is a recipe for disaster. You think test scores are low now, just wait until you see the result with that!

Plus the fact that those classes shouldn’t be sheltered English classes. ELLs need to have exposure to native English speakers in order for their own language skills to improve. It’s not considered a best practice. I get that it’s a way to reduce class sizes, but where is there space in buildings for all of these additional classrooms? I think it will roll out and central office will spin it to make it sound like a win win situation (smaller class sizes yay!), but there are very real logistical issues with the idea.

Where will these extra classrooms be located? How will the teacher have time to double dip the language objectives, which is currently the ESOL teacher’s responsibility? How to balance the needs of the ELLs with the needs of the native English speakers? Not all students need the intensive language support so would that mean native English speakers would be spending even more time working independently in these classes? The teacher would have to collect additional ESOL grades which the ESOL teachers are currently responsible for. How will the classroom teacher have time to schedule and administer the ACCESS test which is 4 parts and very time consuming? I could go on...

I'm a teacher and I have a mixed classroom of 21 kids (yes, I know I'm lucky to have such a small class), with kids who are new to the country and English, some who are native speakers, but most who are a mix of language levels. I'm in the school where we are all required to be dual certified, so I'm ESL certified. I do my best to incorporate extra oral language practice and the "push in" ESL teacher also co-teaches with me for an hour a day. Yes, we have to collect additional language data, fill out a separate ESL report card required by the state and I administer the ACCESS test in 4 parts each year while my non ESL kids are taken up to the library with another teacher at that time. We make it work, but it isn't easy.
I do differentiate during guided reading. I have 6 reading groups, and another teacher sees my high kids, leaving me with 5 groups. I do double dose my lowest kids, who are also seen by the reading specialist daily. In writing, my ESL co teacher helps me out so we can have different kids working on different goals. Math was super differentiated into guided math groups, working on skills kids were weak in based off of bi-weekly tests, last year. This year we have a new curriculum that has to be administered whole group and there is no time for math workshop/guided math.

Oh, so there’s still ESL teachers at the school to provide extra support? How do you think it would work if there weren’t any ESL teachers? That’s what MCPS is piloting. I’m very curious to know how this would work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So you are basically saying that you cannot teach kids in a public school setting and that differentiation doesn't work. I'm not a proponent btw of the current teaching methods, but it is the teachers who promote them.

If it doesn't work, speak up.

We teachers aren't idiots. There is only so much we can do with the students we have and the time we have with them.

But we know that "we need more instructional time, fewer students, more after school tutoring for students, more summer school for students, and more teachers" is not the feedback anyone in the Central Office is interested in hearing from us.

They would love to hear how we collaboratively plan and use data feedback to differentiate, and use technology to infuse our language rich classroom with higher order thinking skills so students can have their academic needs magically met, and bring them all up to grade level and make the "college and career ready".

So you are all in on the lie

[Anonymous]

While we all pay taxes for your salaries for who knows what to be taught ineffectively

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm a second year principal. I taught K-2nd for 20 years, I was a reading specialist for 5 years.

I'm curious, the poster who said that testing doesn't measure decoding....do you use F&P in 2-5th?


I meant, high stakes (state) testing. Kids who are in grade 5 who score a 2 or a 3 on the PARCC. The feedback we get on PARCC will never say "They scored low because they were unable to read the text". It will say: "Your child may struggle to point out which key facts the author uses to support an idea." or "Your child may have difficulty finding similarities and differences between two texts on the same topic." Which may be true, but the underlying reason isn't that the child doesn't know how key facts support an idea. Just ask the child to read the text out loud and you will see the child has great difficulty reading many of the words.

This. No test can hold a candle to watching a student actually attack a task. The test can give you a number, but watching the student perform tells you how and why that number is what it is. Without the how and why, you have a severely limited diagnostic and no real way to strategize. Sitting around talking about standardized test numbers is futile. Giving the teacher time to work with individual students and prepare appropriate lessons is the common sense and humane solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While we all pay taxes for your salaries for who knows what to be taught ineffectively

Teachers pay taces, too. STFU. Oh and please do try to survive even a half day in my classroom, plan, grade, prep materials, etc

[Anonymous]

While we all pay taxes for your salaries for who knows what to be taught ineffectively

Thank you for your support. We know we are being paid too much and it would help us a lot if you would pay less in order to get some better teachers. We are obviously just bad at our jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a second year principal. I taught K-2nd for 20 years, I was a reading specialist for 5 years.

I'm curious, the poster who said that testing doesn't measure decoding....do you use F&P in 2-5th? If not, if you have any influence over curriculum decisions, I strongly recommend it. F&P measures decoding, fluency, and comprehension. You can see very clearly the type of errors a child makes and why, ie, are they missing their sight words, are they having trouble with vowels, are they making visual/meaning/syntax errors, what kinds of comprehension questions they are struggling with (ie, strict recall, inferences, etc). Once a teacher knows what the issue is, she can remediate it pretty easily as long as there is no underlying cognitive issue. If it is a decoding issue, that is a fairly easy fix and any teacher should be able to do this. [b]In my school upper grade teachers who run into either decoding, fluency or comprehension issues all work on and remediate these issues.

What I see in our population is comprehension issues due to poverty, second language issues and lack of education among parents.....but it is interesting to hear some places are having decoding issues in upper grades. I've quite literally never heard of this in 25 years in the field. I suspect your students come from high poverty schools where the lower grade teachers are overwhelmed with behavior issues and other needs and cannot properly teach reading because of it. And likely, reading specialists are few and far between. So then they get to upper grades and they are behind. I'm fortunate to be in a lower income school with highly trained teachers, small class sizes and a really tight knit professional community, which all helps to ensure strong reading instruction. I know not everyone has that.

And as for the useless meetings? You think teachers have a lot of these? Absolutely. Admins have more. It is part of my mission to cut down on useless meetings at my school so we do a lot through emails and google docs.

Wow. How can you have been a reading specialist? It really isn't an easy fix to remediate a student who can't effortlessly and accurately decode. It is tragic that so many upper elementary students can't decode. Those students don't get help because most schools aren't teaching these students to decode. They are advanced to junior high and high school where they continue to struggle. A classroom teacher with 25 other students in 4th and 5th grade aren't stopping to teach basic reading skills to the students who can't decode. It is painful to hear these students read. I am a school counselor and so many of these kids have emotional and/or behavioral problems because they feel awful that school is so hard for them. One of the first things I do is listen to them read. I used to be a teacher and realize decoding is not being effectively taught in many schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While we all pay taxes for your salaries for who knows what to be taught ineffectively[/quote

Well, I'm a teacher with 20 years' experience in three different school districts, and I assure you that I teach effectively -- but I do it despite the school district, not with their help. Their meetings (OPs point) don't help at all, and only hinder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a second year principal. I taught K-2nd for 20 years, I was a reading specialist for 5 years.

I'm curious, the poster who said that testing doesn't measure decoding....do you use F&P in 2-5th? If not, if you have any influence over curriculum decisions, I strongly recommend it. F&P measures decoding, fluency, and comprehension. You can see very clearly the type of errors a child makes and why, ie, are they missing their sight words, are they having trouble with vowels, are they making visual/meaning/syntax errors, what kinds of comprehension questions they are struggling with (ie, strict recall, inferences, etc). Once a teacher knows what the issue is, she can remediate it pretty easily as long as there is no underlying cognitive issue. If it is a decoding issue, that is a fairly easy fix and any teacher should be able to do this. [b]In my school upper grade teachers who run into either decoding, fluency or comprehension issues all work on and remediate these issues.

What I see in our population is comprehension issues due to poverty, second language issues and lack of education among parents.....but it is interesting to hear some places are having decoding issues in upper grades. I've quite literally never heard of this in 25 years in the field. I suspect your students come from high poverty schools where the lower grade teachers are overwhelmed with behavior issues and other needs and cannot properly teach reading because of it. And likely, reading specialists are few and far between. So then they get to upper grades and they are behind. I'm fortunate to be in a lower income school with highly trained teachers, small class sizes and a really tight knit professional community, which all helps to ensure strong reading instruction. I know not everyone has that.

And as for the useless meetings? You think teachers have a lot of these? Absolutely. Admins have more. It is part of my mission to cut down on useless meetings at my school so we do a lot through emails and google docs.

Wow. How can you have been a reading specialist? It really isn't an easy fix to remediate a student who can't effortlessly and accurately decode. It is tragic that so many upper elementary students can't decode. Those students don't get help because most schools aren't teaching these students to decode. They are advanced to junior high and high school where they continue to struggle. A classroom teacher with 25 other students in 4th and 5th grade aren't stopping to teach basic reading skills to the students who can't decode. It is painful to hear these students read. I am a school counselor and so many of these kids have emotional and/or behavioral problems because they feel awful that school is so hard for them. One of the first things I do is listen to them read. I used to be a teacher and realize decoding is not being effectively taught in many schools.

To be fair, PP, in some well functioning schools, it is possible that most kids do get thorough decoding instruction in the early years, and if so, newcomers to the school who need special help can be helped quickly by the reading specialist. It's a matter of having enough time and manpower to conduct the remediation. If the reading specialists are running around doing model lessons on every grade they don't have time to do intervention.

[Anonymous]

We have one reading specialist for more than 700 students. She has 4 pull outs per day and sometimes she pulls out one more group of kindergarteners. The problem is that she is in a meeting at least 2-3 days per week either at our school or at another school (sense a theme here?) I also agree that students cannot decode. I sit down with 2nd and 3rd graders who get to a word they don't know and just sit there. They have no word attack skills at all. It's like they think the word is just going to whisper itself in their ears. It's sad. Who cares about higher order thinking skills when you can't even decode to make sense of the text?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a second year principal. I taught K-2nd for 20 years, I was a reading specialist for 5 years.

I'm curious, the poster who said that testing doesn't measure decoding....do you use F&P in 2-5th? If not, if you have any influence over curriculum decisions, I strongly recommend it. F&P measures decoding, fluency, and comprehension. You can see very clearly the type of errors a child makes and why, ie, are they missing their sight words, are they having trouble with vowels, are they making visual/meaning/syntax errors, what kinds of comprehension questions they are struggling with (ie, strict recall, inferences, etc). Once a teacher knows what the issue is, she can remediate it pretty easily as long as there is no underlying cognitive issue. If it is a decoding issue, that is a fairly easy fix and any teacher should be able to do this. [b]In my school upper grade teachers who run into either decoding, fluency or comprehension issues all work on and remediate these issues.

What I see in our population is comprehension issues due to poverty, second language issues and lack of education among parents.....but it is interesting to hear some places are having decoding issues in upper grades. I've quite literally never heard of this in 25 years in the field. I suspect your students come from high poverty schools where the lower grade teachers are overwhelmed with behavior issues and other needs and cannot properly teach reading because of it. And likely, reading specialists are few and far between. So then they get to upper grades and they are behind. I'm fortunate to be in a lower income school with highly trained teachers, small class sizes and a really tight knit professional community, which all helps to ensure strong reading instruction. I know not everyone has that.

And as for the useless meetings? You think teachers have a lot of these? Absolutely. Admins have more. It is part of my mission to cut down on useless meetings at my school so we do a lot through emails and google docs.

Wow. How can you have been a reading specialist? It really isn't an easy fix to remediate a student who can't effortlessly and accurately decode. It is tragic that so many upper elementary students can't decode. Those students don't get help because most schools aren't teaching these students to decode. They are advanced to junior high and high school where they continue to struggle. A classroom teacher with 25 other students in 4th and 5th grade aren't stopping to teach basic reading skills to the students who can't decode. It is painful to hear these students read. I am a school counselor and so many of these kids have emotional and/or behavioral problems because they feel awful that school is so hard for them. One of the first things I do is listen to them read. I used to be a teacher and realize decoding is not being effectively taught in many schools.

To be fair, PP, in some well functioning schools, it is possible that most kids do get thorough decoding instruction in the early years, and if so, newcomers to the school who need special help can be helped quickly by the reading specialist. It's a matter of having enough time and manpower to conduct the remediation. If the reading specialists are running around doing model lessons on every grade they don't have time to do intervention.

I'm the principal, former reading specialist.

Again, if the lower grades are operating properly, there would only be a handful of kids or newcomers who cannot decode. And if it is only a handful, then the CLASSROOM teachers can remediate. This is what happens in my school. Just as lower elementary teachers have 4-8 reading groups per classroom, intermediate teachers and upper grades do too. Maybe not all in the same room. But between them all, they do. They are masters at collaborating, and they have a small section each day where they exchange kids and provide short, targeted instruction aimed at remediating those issues. 15 minutes per day, 3 days a week. What has happened is the few who need decoding help, fluency help, have grown tremendously. Those who need comprehension and language are also growing, albeit more slowly, because those are deeper issue. Our reading specialist does work with tier 3 kids, but the classroom teachers have to work with tier 2 kids and then they all give a second round of instruction to the tier 3 kids. It works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have one reading specialist for more than 700 students. She has 4 pull outs per day and sometimes she pulls out one more group of kindergarteners. The problem is that she is in a meeting at least 2-3 days per week either at our school or at another school (sense a theme here?) I also agree that students cannot decode. I sit down with 2nd and 3rd graders who get to a word they don't know and just sit there. They have no word attack skills at all. It's like they think the word is just going to whisper itself in their ears. It's sad. Who cares about higher order thinking skills when you can't even decode to make sense of the text?

2nd and 3rd graders need to be taught word attack skills. It isn't like that just ends at the end of first grade. Part of the problem here, imo, is we begin teaching kids to read in kindergarten when they aren't ready. Then we expect them to be done learning to read at the end of first. It is bullshit. Kids need phonetical instruction and decoding strategies all the way through the end of second, if not the end of third. They need comprehension strategies their entire academic lives pretty much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm the principal, former reading specialist.

Again, if the lower grades are operating properly, there would only be a handful of kids or newcomers who cannot decode. And if it is only a handful, then the CLASSROOM teachers can remediate. This is what happens in my school. Just as lower elementary teachers have 4-8 reading groups per classroom, intermediate teachers and upper grades do too. Maybe not all in the same room. But between them all, they do. They are masters at collaborating, and they have a small section each day where they exchange kids and provide short, targeted instruction aimed at remediating those issues. 15 minutes per day, 3 days a week. What has happened is the few who need decoding help, fluency help, have grown tremendously. Those who need comprehension and language are also growing, albeit more slowly, because those are deeper issue. Our reading specialist does work with tier 3 kids, but the classroom teachers have to work with tier 2 kids and then they all give a second round of instruction to the tier 3 kids. It works.

So, this is the kind of discussion I'd be thrilled to have at our professional development meetings. How can we best structure our school day to allow for decent remediation?

In our school, we have 3 fifth grade classes as they don't all teach Language Arts at the same time. 2 have L/A in the morning and 1 in the afternoon. Ditto for 4th and 3rd grade. I'm the ESOL teacher and my students are often in at least 2 sometimes three classrooms per grade level.... as are the SPED kids. No one exchanges students for decoding remediation or any other skills based remediation or instruction past occasionally the 1st grade level. Our upper grade teachers very seldom even pull small reading groups but that's another story.

However, when we get together for professional development, what we are instructed to do is to ask each other questions about data. We are told to stay away from asking questions about instruction, time for instruction, type of instruction, etc. OP, are you being told the same thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have one reading specialist for more than 700 students. She has 4 pull outs per day and sometimes she pulls out one more group of kindergarteners. The problem is that she is in a meeting at least 2-3 days per week either at our school or at another school (sense a theme here?) I also agree that students cannot decode. I sit down with 2nd and 3rd graders who get to a word they don't know and just sit there. They have no word attack skills at all. It's like they think the word is just going to whisper itself in their ears. It's sad. Who cares about higher order thinking skills when you can't even decode to make sense of the text?

2nd and 3rd graders need to be taught word attack skills. It isn't like that just ends at the end of first grade. Part of the problem here, imo, is we begin teaching kids to read in kindergarten when they aren't ready. Then we expect them to be done learning to read at the end of first. It is bullshit. Kids need phonetical instruction and decoding strategies all the way through the end of second, if not the end of third. They need comprehension strategies their entire academic lives pretty much.

This is so true! And then, there are the kids who just learn to sight read really, really well! They can get to a low 3rd grade reading level just by guessing and sight words -- although their spelling may be shit.