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

[Anonymous]

So sorry to hear that. I went to school in the 80s and 90s abroad. We literally only had desks, pens, paper, chalk, blackboard and a teacher in the classroom. I call it "Little House on the Prairie" style school, just not in the church.
There were hard times when we didn't even have paper. We took a test on a see-through cooking paper and the teachers puppy chewed the noisy paper up. We were all laughing so hard as she handed the chewed up paper back to us.
Most teachers were the top students in their class. There were only ca 20 spots a year to study English or German, so one had to be good to get in. My English teacher spoke 8 languages and was also a historian and a linguist.
My history teacher was also a historian.
The quality of teachers was amazing, and they still teach today. They were trusted to do their job even when they didn't have textbooks. Many showed up with their own notes only and we had to take notes as they spoke. Only once in 12 years did we have a person from outside sit in the class and see how were doing in English.
Our teachers were not burdened with any of the things you describe, OP. They had all the time in the world to prepare for classes. The exams didn't start til 8th and 9th grade - end of elementary school for us.
Things have changed ofcourse since I was in school. Teachers do get training, but nobody dares to waste their time. They are the ones in the classroom running the show. They ask for help when they need it.
So how does the education stack up against the world? We just beat Finland. Not an easy thing because they are rich and we are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Is your school failing or do you not collaborate? If you collaborate well already most of this isn't needed. If the collaborating is ineffective, there is data on this somewhere. This method is mostly about collaboration, not data. It's also mostly for principals to implement on things like attendance.

A lot of times these meetings are ineffective because people discuss important things but unless a running list of items discussed and resolved is generated, teachers and administrators are often just repeating the same thing over and over from meeting to meeting.

Doesn't matter if "most of this isn't needed". Central Office decided all the schools in our district will use the Data Wise Process. Yes we all collaborate. We are full of collaboration. We collaborate up down and sideways. We collaborate to identify our priority question and to do our data walks and to gather our data into data stories. We share our date stories collaboratively, and then do gallery walks sharing how our data answers the priority question, and then we collaborate to identify "next steps" in instruction.

The data raise method is mostly for us to improve test scores whether the schools are failing or not.

You have correctly identified one problem which is that we are repeating the same things, not just from meeting to meeting, but from year to year. However you have failed to identify that the problems are always the same problems, just come with different buzz words.

The problems in elementary school are that (a) some kids can't decode. (b) some kids don't know their basic math skills.

[Anonymous]

12:14 I'm not at your meetings. Internal issue. Sorry.
I'm sure for some kids some of this stuff is very hard due to disabilities etc., but my kids started kindergarten already knowing how to decode all words and how to add and subtract. These skills weren't hard to teach. Took one year. I taught them these skills myself using products sometimes from 1950 and didn't expect the school to. Good thing I guess. I really have no idea why teachers and school districts make things so complex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My best advice? Learn the jargon of the month. Parrot it back. Look like a good soldier. See if there’s anything helpful or usable— sometimes there is. Meanwhile, during stupid meetings, always have a notebook in hand that you appear to be using to take notes, but are actually using to organize your to-dos, jot down things you noticed about your kids that day, plan out next week.

Take the stuff you were already doing (as long as it was working well for your kids) and repackage it as needed when the winds shift. Multiple intelligences used to be the big thing, and now it’s differentiated instruction and “multiple pathways to learning?” A few tweaks to my Google docs and I’m on board.

It sucks. But when it comes down to it, I close my classroom door and I’m the one calling the shots, for better or worse. So far, the kids make it worth my while.

I love you. You should start a blog for teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:8:27. There is no way they are doing things intentionally to make it harder for teachers. I don't know how hard it is to find the information but you said it was available so likely they think you are just complaining about something that you can already find. Also you said you complained individually verses as a group. Did you provide a mockup and go step by step what they would have to do? Is your whole school on board? It is hard to request data be consolidated in specific charts when it's available. That again is another problem that is inherent to all businesses. A lot of people in business think admin is there to support them but they see themselves as having their own independent jobs. They also don't understand how long tasks take until many complain because you are basically saying that their mandate isn't working. It takes time and many people and angles to convince them otherwise. Still not buying that the teaching profession is completely different from any other industry. Governmental programs have more bureaucracy than private, but they are still run by people.

I am not blaming teachers. Their clients (ie parents and government) are demanding. What I'm trying to say is that this is an internal issue that can only be resolved internally or at least with a teacher lead. Parents and the PTO or the school board can support, but they can't be the lead. If it comes from the outside it will be a mandate and rejected by a teacher because it doesn't come from the teachers. You can't want more autonomy and also demand that others do so much for you without your own input.

Good luck. Advocacy advice is best summed up by that video which I already posted.

DUCK! Because the point just went whooshing by over your head. Besides the issue of "main idea" I also think you have some significant lapses in reading comprehension or finding the meaning. But thank you for sharing because, you know, sharing is caring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:12:14 I'm not at your meetings. Internal issue. Sorry.
I'm sure for some kids some of this stuff is very hard due to disabilities etc., but my kids started kindergarten already knowing how to decode all words and how to add and subtract. These skills weren't hard to teach. Took one year. I taught them these skills myself using products sometimes from 1950 and didn't expect the school to. Good thing I guess. I really have no idea why teachers and school districts make things so complex.

Do you realize that many, many, many kids come to school not knowing the difference between letters and numbers? Do you realize that some kids have NEVER held a book? Some have never been read to. Some are sharing a bedroom with their entire family of 8. I have families who are refugees, who speak 3 different languages, who came from countries without electricity, etc, etc. Imo, decoding is one of the smallest issues in education. In my experience, the biggest issues are that kids don't have the background experiences that middle income kids have. They don't have the vocabulary....in fact sometimes they only have about a tenth of the vocab of a typical kid. They don't have any kind of parenting at home and sit in front of the TV the entire time they are not in school. They don't go out and play, they don't go to camp or music lessons, they don't go to museums, in fact most have never left a 3 mile radius of their home. Background experiences and vocabulary affects comprehension. Anyone without a disability can decode, but comprehension is a separate issue.

Schools are not making reading instruction complex.

[Anonymous]

I have tried and tried and tried to work on the "useless meetings" issue. I've gone to union meetings, I've met with my principal, hell, I've even gone straight to the superintendent. Just as soon as teachers speak up enough about one set of useless directives and meetings, another set pops up. It isn't worth fighting. I've got 8 more years til I can retire and then I'm out. Education is a disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:12:14 I'm not at your meetings. Internal issue. Sorry.
I'm sure for some kids some of this stuff is very hard due to disabilities etc., but my kids started kindergarten already knowing how to decode all words and how to add and subtract. These skills weren't hard to teach. Took one year. I taught them these skills myself using products sometimes from 1950 and didn't expect the school to. Good thing I guess. I really have no idea why teachers and school districts make things so complex.

Your kids will do fine in our school's data stories. They aren't the test scores... I mean kids... our district is worried about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have tried and tried and tried to work on the "useless meetings" issue. I've gone to union meetings, I've met with my principal, hell, I've even gone straight to the superintendent. Just as soon as teachers speak up enough about one set of useless directives and meetings, another set pops up. It isn't worth fighting. I've got 8 more years til I can retire and then I'm out. Education is a disaster.

But... did you collaborate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Do you realize that many, many, many kids come to school not knowing the difference between letters and numbers? Do you realize that some kids have NEVER held a book? Some have never been read to. Some are sharing a bedroom with their entire family of 8. I have families who are refugees, who speak 3 different languages, who came from countries without electricity, etc, etc. Imo, decoding is one of the smallest issues in education. In my experience, the biggest issues are that kids don't have the background experiences that middle income kids have. They don't have the vocabulary....in fact sometimes they only have about a tenth of the vocab of a typical kid. They don't have any kind of parenting at home and sit in front of the TV the entire time they are not in school. They don't go out and play, they don't go to camp or music lessons, they don't go to museums, in fact most have never left a 3 mile radius of their home. Background experiences and vocabulary affects comprehension. Anyone without a disability can decode, but comprehension is a separate issue.

For the 10% to 20% of test scores ... I mean students.... scoring at the very lowest level of our data, the problem in my experience is often due to poor decoding skills. They are sometimes able to kinda sorta read one syllable words but flail miserably when they get to 4th and 5th grade multisyllable words, and because they can't really understand what they are reading, they don't read a lot for pleasure, which means they don't have any opportunity to learn new vocabulary words through reading.

Yes, this lowest 10% to 20% of test scores includes many students who are identified as Special Education students and as having dyslexia, dysgraphia, or other specific learning disorders.

In a high SES School parents will step in and get a lot of these kids tutors and some of these tutors will manage to give the kids the proper remediation they need. In a low SES school they might not and because so many kids are also scoring at this level, if they don't learn to decode multisyllable words by 3rd grade they will be, frankly, sunk. And everyone will say that they lack vocabulary skills, which they surely may, but first and foremost they lack multisyllable decoding skills.

The many interventions I have seen in my 18 years of elementary school teaching have never addressed the decoding issue head on past 3rd grade. We look at data on the 4th grade level, but since the assessments we use do not typically measure decoding, the lack of decoding ability does not become salient. We do notice that these children can't spell. But most high stakes testing doesn't count spelling much, as long as the word is somewhat legible, so the spelling part doesn't usually get addressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So sorry to hear that. I went to school in the 80s and 90s abroad. We literally only had desks, pens, paper, chalk, blackboard and a teacher in the classroom. I call it "Little House on the Prairie" style school, just not in the church.
There were hard times when we didn't even have paper.

We took a test on a see-through cooking paper and the teachers puppy chewed the noisy paper up. We were all laughing so hard as she handed the chewed up paper back to us.

Wait, what?? Why did your teacher chew your test paper??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Do you realize that many, many, many kids come to school not knowing the difference between letters and numbers? Do you realize that some kids have NEVER held a book? Some have never been read to. Some are sharing a bedroom with their entire family of 8. I have families who are refugees, who speak 3 different languages, who came from countries without electricity, etc, etc. Imo, decoding is one of the smallest issues in education. In my experience, the biggest issues are that kids don't have the background experiences that middle income kids have. They don't have the vocabulary....in fact sometimes they only have about a tenth of the vocab of a typical kid. They don't have any kind of parenting at home and sit in front of the TV the entire time they are not in school. They don't go out and play, they don't go to camp or music lessons, they don't go to museums, in fact most have never left a 3 mile radius of their home. Background experiences and vocabulary affects comprehension. Anyone without a disability can decode, but comprehension is a separate issue.

For the 10% to 20% of test scores ... I mean students.... scoring at the very lowest level of our data, the problem in my experience is often due to poor decoding skills. They are sometimes able to kinda sorta read one syllable words but flail miserably when they get to 4th and 5th grade multisyllable words, and because they can't really understand what they are reading, they don't read a lot for pleasure, which means they don't have any opportunity to learn new vocabulary words through reading.

Yes, this lowest 10% to 20% of test scores includes many students who are identified as Special Education students and as having dyslexia, dysgraphia, or other specific learning disorders.

In a high SES School parents will step in and get a lot of these kids tutors and some of these tutors will manage to give the kids the proper remediation they need. In a low SES school they might not and because so many kids are also scoring at this level, if they don't learn to decode multisyllable words by 3rd grade they will be, frankly, sunk. And everyone will say that they lack vocabulary skills, which they surely may, but first and foremost they lack multisyllable decoding skills.

The many interventions I have seen in my 18 years of elementary school teaching have never addressed the decoding issue head on past 3rd grade. We look at data on the 4th grade level, but since the assessments we use do not typically measure decoding, the lack of decoding ability does not become salient. We do notice that these children can't spell. But most high stakes testing doesn't count spelling much, as long as the word is somewhat legible, so the spelling part doesn't usually get addressed.

This is so accurate. -OP

[Anonymous]

One issue that is hardly ever addressed is that many, many kids are farsighted. They should be given thorough eye exams if they are having trouble reading just to rule that out. And no, the quick eye exams that they do for free at the schools don't cut it.

[Anonymous]

I have come to the conclusion that it is intentionally designed to thwart progress by the elites. They don't want these immigrant kids to succeed. That doesn't fit their agenda. They want cheap, manual labor and they get it via an uneducated work force.

[Anonymous]

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.