Author Archives: Stephen Seyfer

Burying a Myth About Rigor – It Is Too Easy If Every Student Gets a Good Grade

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As a younger associate principal in a larger 1970s high school, I commented at a district-wide AP’s meeting that I was concerned that so many students consistently earned D and F grades, and our school would be working to improve student achievement and diminish the number of Ds and Fs. Our director of secondary education halted me with this guidance. “If every student gets good grades, the instruction has lost its rigor.” End of discussion and I fought the urge to throw my pen at him.

Bell-curved thinking consigned some students to low grades on every assessment.

One of the tools taught in my teacher preparation was how to create a normal distribution of student test scores. It was not difficult, just tedious. The result was a plotting of scores on the bell curve to achieve 2.35% of grades as As, 13.5% as Bs, 68% as Cs, 13.5% as Ds, and 2.35% as Fs. This tool was consistent. On every test, I and my students were assured that almost 16% of the class would receive a grade of D or F – every time. Voila! Rigor was ensured.

Further investigation at the time confirmed for me that bell curving was not just standard practice in our school and school district, it was Gospel. Every teacher I worked with did the math and created a normal distribution to curve student grading. Tedious work but it was the expected practice. It did not matter if the assessment or assignment was 100-item multiple choice test, a 10-item true-false quiz, a five-part essay, a speech, or a term paper, the bell curved normal distribution ruled.

Sadly, students and parents accepted this alignment of grades because that is way things were done. If a student studied harder and improved their performance the next time, their grade always was a comparison to all other students not of what they learned and 15% of students received Ds or Fs.

In that high school, I could not convince the principal or my fellow APs that we should buck the system and drop the bell curve.

Autonomy can change practices.

Time passed. As a high school principal, it was much easier to implement changes. Autonomy has its privileges. In the mid-80s I found a group of faculty who were interested in changing their usual practices to achieve different outcomes. Not all faculty were of this mind, but enough to start a new beginning. We attended conferences with Bill Spady on outcome-based education (OBE) and quickly appreciated his dictum that “you get what you settle for.” We were no longer willing to accept that rigorous instruction and learning required some students to fail. Accordingly, we adopted A, B, C, I grading. Grades of Incomplete (I) were assigned instead of Ds or Fs.

This led to a second outcome-based change in our teaching. In a traditional classroom, when a grade of D or F is assigned, learning stops. Teachers and students go on to the next lesson and what was not learned completely or was learned with errors becomes permanent. In contrast, teachers using a grade of Incomplete told themselves and students that both teaching and learning are not complete and will not be until the I becomes an A, B, or C grade. Our cadre of OBE teachers were committed to adjusting their teaching or what would later be labeled as Tier 2 teaching so that all students would achieve an acceptable level of learning.

Change does not happen easily in schools. Traditional faculty in our school held to their traditional grading practices and a cadre of teachers began using OBE concepts of teaching and learning. The cadre studied Grant Wiggins’ and Jay McTighe’s Understanding by Design. Curricular units were reconstructed so that the curricular outcomes teachers wanted students to achieve drove lesson planning and daily teaching.

Cadre members represented most of the school’s curricular departments and grade levels. When the cadre met, they discussed pedagogy not departmental our grade level issues. They discussed student experiences across subject lines not just within a vertical curriculum. The cadre became increasingly student-focused, especially about the challenges that got in the way of student learning. Some of these challenges were institutional and some were student specific.

Things never came to blows but the contrasting practices were noticed by all faculty, students, and parents. An OBE characteristic that became painfully real was that success begets success. Students in cadre-taught were not failing courses. In successive semesters, and student course registrations trended toward cadre-taught courses. Increased student engagement meant fewer disciplinary referrals. Students and parents wanted out of traditional practices.

Rigor redefined.

After several semesters of cadre work, I asked these teachers to define academic rigor in teaching and learning. They quickly responded with these three points.

  • Rigor is setting high quality curricular standards for student learning of content knowledge, academic skills, and dispositions.
  • Rigor is designing teaching that causes all students to succeed in achieving these standards. Time is not a limited variable. Adjustment of initial teaching is expected.
  • Rigor is accepting multiple ways in which a diverse student group can show the learning of the required outcomes.

Today, several decades of working with other cadre groups, rigor in many classrooms and schools is looking more like an OBE definition than my 1970s director of secondary education. However, Madeline Hunter taught us that in every faculty there will be Ernies. An Ernie, not gender-specific, is a teacher who leans back in a chair saying to self and others “this new discussion of rigor (fill in any other change initiative) will come and go. I do not need to change what I do in my classroom, and no one can make me.” She was right. There are Ernies in every faculty, but the cadres of higher quality teaching and learning are gaining on them.

Getting rigor right is a continuous struggle.

I always hope that lessons learned create new practices. But practices made permanent require little change in the teaching faculty. That is never the case. Forty years later and a new generation of teachers we still battle with the definition of rigor. Too many students receive permanent grades of D or F as educators continue to use D and F grades as a method of labeling student learning. Ds and Fs once again are permanent grades, even with RtI practices.

We have work to do.

Good Classroom Management is Not Easy; It is a Learned and Practiced Skill and Art

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Teacher preparation in the United States is in crisis mode. There are not enough new teachers each year to replace teachers who leave the classroom. The cold fact is that four in every ten young teachers leave classroom teaching for other employment in their first five years of teaching. “Multiple reasons rise to the top of the list. Student behavior is a leading complaint Long hears from teachers who contemplate or leave teaching, and one he believes is among the hardest to address. ‘I don’t think anyone has the answer,’ said Long, referring to accounts of extreme student behavior targeting teachers that has resulted in physical or emotional harm.” Zachary Long quit teaching and with his wife co-founded Life After Teaching. He helps teachers who want to quit teaching to quit.

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/behind-the-stats-3-former-teachers-talk-about-why-they-left/2023/04

Student behavior runs teachers out of teaching. It is a fact, but it need not be a continuing fact. When we know teachers quit teaching because of unsuccessful classroom management, we need to aggressively improve how we prepare teachers.

When your boat is taking on water, you can abandon the ship, or you can fix the hole in the hull. We tolerate and accommodate the abandonment of classrooms even though we know a huge “hole” in teacher preparation is classroom management.

A review of teacher preparation curriculum in local colleges of education tells the story. Our local university, for example, provides teacher candidates with 72 credits of college course work toward a major in K-9 education. But there is only one three-credit course that teaches classroom management, and it combines learning theories with student behavior. When we know that an inability to manage children in a classroom setting is one of the leading causes of teacher attrition, is this adequate?

EDUC 340. Supporting Learning and Behavior in the Classroom. 3 Credits.

Course provides pre-service teachers with an understanding of how students learn in educational contexts. Learning theories reviewed, & learning strategies to enhance learning and prevent/manage behaviors are introduced and applied in direct interaction with a learner. Course may be repeated 2 times for a total of 6 credits.
Fall and Spring.

No Longer Is It a Hit Them Hard and Often Response

How to organize and manage groups of students is an age-old problem. The first Normal Schools (state teacher prep schools) endorsed corporal punishment for misbehaving students. Students went to the proverbial woodshed where their teacher administered discipline with a paddle. Teachers taught children to behave by fearing physical punishment. Although some schools began banning corporal punishment as early as 1914 it continued as a disciplinary practice in many states in the late 1990s.

https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/corporal-punishment-schools-still-legal-many-states#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Department%20of%20Education,dropped%20over%20the%20past%20decade.

When a wooden paddle was considered too harsh, teachers used a gym shoe. I saw the well-known design of a Converse gym shoe on the backsides of my male classmates in the 60s.

On the first day of my first teaching assignment my principal gave me a well-worn wooden paddle and told me to use it. When I asked what a teacher should do if a child’s behavior did not improve, he implied I should hit them harder and more often. I put my paddle in a closet.

Student Discipline as Pedagogy

As often as we talked about paddling back in the day, we clearly understood most of our teachers would never raise a hand to a student. They created patterns of good student behavior through good teaching. It was not a matter of experience, however. We knew veteran teachers whose classrooms were unruly and undisciplined and novice teachers whose students focused on learning not misbehaving. Even before I began my teacher preparation, it was clear that good teaching and good student discipline are linked.

Our task in teacher preparation today is to create highly qualified teachers of both curriculum and student discipline. A teacher who will stay in the profession needs to learn both.

Toolbox Preparation for every Teacher

Classroom management is as important as teaching methods. If a teacher cannot focus children’s attention on the curriculum, how can a teacher teach the curriculum? It is a what to do first dilemma – teach teachers how to teach or teach teachers how to manage children as learners. Both are equally important, and each needs equally strong emphasis.

Field experience tells us that fitting a student management philosophy to a teacher is like fitting shoes. One will feel better, wear better, and be more satisfying than all others. Therefore, teacher prep programs must teach teachers a variety of philosophies and strategies so that a teacher can find a personal plan that refines student behavior and enhances student learning.

The CESA 7 (WI) Teacher Development Center treats Instructional Methods and Classroom Management as toolbox courses that every teacher candidate, regardless of the license sought, must master. In Classroom Management, candidates study several behavioral management philosophies and strategies that allow the candidate to develop a personal and philosophical “fit” to their classroom management plans.

Candidates study and are assessed for their knowledge and understanding of five philosophies and strategies. They know the basis and background of each, their authors, and field studies of their applications. Candidates must know the following:

  • Choice/Logical Consequences
  • Discipline with Dignity
  • Assertive Discipline
  • Social Justice
  • PBIS

As an “apprentice” teacher development program, teacher candidates are employed by a school district and enrolled in the TDC. From day one they are classroom teachers under the supervision of school principals, mentors, and CESA 7 supervisors. CESA 7 enrolls candidates from districts throughout Wisconsin; districts that know CESA 7’s reputation for quality instruction and personal support given to of its apprentice teachers. The TDC licensing program requires four semesters of teacher prep coursework, daily teaching, and synthesis of TDC instruction into classroom applications.

Classroom Management and Instructional Methods are the first courses candidates must complete in their licensing program. The CESA 7 candidate supervisor emphasizes and guides apprentices to engage their students in the teacher’s learned classroom management design. This “guided” implementation sets up the relationship between learning and behavior and expectations for both the teacher’s and all students’ commitment to both.

Support of Novice Teachers is Critical

A second most common reason for teachers to leave teaching is their perceived lack of professional support. It starts with a principal and administrative structure that is hard pressed to meet daily crisis demands and leaves new teacher support as a low priority.

The Learning Policy Institute says, “New teachers who do not receive mentoring and other supports leave at more than two times the rate of those who do.”

https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/Teacher_Exodus_Infographic.pdf

The CESA 7 TDC answers this dilemma with constant support from its classroom-visiting supervisors, a 24-7 online project specialist, and a curriculum and instruction consultant. TDC experience shows that its staff often understands and responds to candidate classroom problems before the school principal is aware of a problem.

Unlike IHEs that supervise student teachers during a clinical semester only, the TDC conducts supervisory observations and counseling throughout the candidate’s enrollment. Through this process, principals and TDC supervisors see, critique, and guide the development of each candidate’s classroom management practices. TDC teachers do not guess at student behavioral management. Candidates apply the methods they studied, use informed supervision, and refine strategies that work. And, they have ongoing professional feedback on the effectiveness of their classroom management.

The Big Duh!

We know that good teaching and good classroom management go together. We know that positive professional and administrative support is essential for novice teachers. We know that too many teachers leave their chosen profession too early because of problems with student discipline and a perceived lack of professional support. We know that novice teachers who learn and implement good teaching and good student discipline programs are more likely to continue their careers as classroom teachers.

When we know these things as true, teacher preparation programs must fix the hole in our teacher development programs that lead to teacher resignations. We can fix these problems and children can have the prepared teachers they deserve.

Improve How We Treat Our Rookies to Resolve Teacher Attrition

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The first year a teacher is in a classroom is monumental. During that year, one of three things happens. A teacher is successful and starts a career growing every year in her teaching abilities. A teacher is unhappy, decides teaching is not a good career choice, and begins to drift toward a career change. Or a teacher does the minimal needed from a first-year teacher, enough to earn a continuing contract, and begins a career repeating novice teaching skills. The first is great but the second and third are not.

How many promising teachers leave the profession too early. Too many teachers. How many years do we allow a teacher to be a first-year teacher? Too many years. These two truths are connected. The first years of teaching are critical for those who stay and for those who leave. We need to improve how we work with rookie educators.

First year once or first year forever.

Every teacher experiences a first year as a classroom teacher. It is a birthing process. Most teachers grow through their accumulated professional experiences and the quality of their teaching matures and improves over time. It is common to hear a veteran teacher speak of her beginnings. “In my first year I tried to do too much and did not do very much very well. It took experience to know what was essential to cause children to learn.”  Or “I stayed up past midnight every night working on lesson plans. I thought, ‘If I have a perfect lesson plan, I will have a perfect day of teaching.’ I learned that good teaching is what I do once the plan is in motion.” Equally we hear from principals about how a teacher matures over time and her teaching gets better and better.

But this is not true of every teacher; some teach like a first-year teacher repeatedly. They do not advance their pedagogy or ability to connect with children beyond what they did as a first-year teacher. They are not reflective in considering how a lesson might be improved, and they file every lesson for teaching again next year. They consider student achievement data a reflection of the children they teach not the teaching the children receive. They talk at children rather than listening and engaging with them. There are many descriptors for how a teacher is an habitual first-year teacher.

Consider teachers as flowers. The beautiful perennials keep getting better and better as they cross-pollinate and bloom more colorfully year after year. The annuals bloom in their season and then wilt. Annuals are the same year after year. When I think of high-quality teaching and its impact on the lives of children, I know the teachers I want my grandchildren and their friends to have. Perennials, please; no annuals. So, what do we do to cultivate perennials and cull annuals? Begin with the concept of “first year.”

And, like flower seeds, some teachers do not grow into flowering plants or do grow but never blossom. They quit the garden all too early.

There are two kinds of “first.”

There are two events that define a first-year teacher. One is “this is my first year as a professional teacher” and the second is “this is my first-year teaching in this school.” Each is a valid “first” with a uniqueness that makes these events important in a teaching career. Each of these firsts is wrapped in facts and emotions of “never doing this/never been here before.” It is inarguable that the first day of a teacher’s first year is a huge “first.” By the same definition of first, a teacher who has moved to a different school several times experiences many of the feelings and treatments of a first-day educator. These two “firsts” are essential in teacher development, because they make or break a teacher’s persistence. Whether the first time in a classroom or the first time in a school, what happens then affects a teacher’s career.

First year ever teachers have two learning curves – classroom and institutional. While their pedagogical skills are getting their first, independent, away-from-college testing, their institutional learning curve is almost vertical. They teach by transferring their sheltered student teaching experience to their “you are on your own now” classroom. What seemed like confident teaching in student teaching becomes less confident as an employed teacher. Being singularly responsible for children and their learning is a huge undertaking and weighs heavily on a novice teacher.

For a first year ever teacher, onboarding of institutional procedures is a blur. Bell schedules, attendance taking, grading, office referrals, contact with parents, and calendars of in-school meetings are a piling on of information. It feels like boot camp. A novice does not want to run afoul of institutional procedures, but every novice does mess up on one or two. They get lost and can feel lost. It is the ability to rebound that carries them forward.

“First year in a new school” teachers face similar problems with institutional procedures. Not only do they need to learn new procedures, but they also need to forget the procedures of their former school. Even classroom teaching needs to be recalibrated to the curriculum and priorities of their new school. For example, elementary math is not always the same elementary math. Elementary math is the curricular series the school has adopted and when a teacher is handed a new curricular series her teaching of elementary math must be adapted to that series.

All “firsts” need our improved attention if we are to cultivate annually improving teachers.

First year survivors and leavers.

First-year teaching is a survival of the fittest contest. National statistics are not changing and 40% of classroom teachers leave teaching in their first five years in the profession. Stop and consider that fact for a moment. A teacher pays $80,000 or more for a baccalaureate degree and teaching license. Their move to a new town and investment in renting or buying a home is a huge emotional as well as financial commitment. Then they walk away from that effort and expense. The reasons must be ginormous.

Drilling into why this happens exposes a list of usual suspect reasons that have not changed much over time.

  • Inadequate Preparation -Beginning teachers with little or no preparation are 21⁄2 times more likely to leave the classroom after one year compared to their well-prepared peers.
  • Lack Of Support For New Teachers – New teachers who do not receive mentoring and other supports leave at more than two times the rate of those who do.
  • Challenging Working Conditions – Teachers often cite working conditions, such as the support of their principals and the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues, as the top reason for leaving.
  • Dissatisfaction With Compensation – Beginning teachers earn about 20% less than individuals with college degrees in other fields, a wage gap that can widen to 30% for mid-career educators.
  • Better Career Opportunities – More than 1 in 4 teachers who leave say they do so to pursue other career opportunities.
  • Personal Reasons – More than 1 in 3 teachers who leave cite personal reasons, including pregnancy and childcare, as extremely or very important in their decision.

https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/Teacher_Exodus_Infographic.pdf

Concentrate on the first four reasons.

  1. Hiring teachers is not a game of horseshoes. When there is a shortage of qualified applicants, close to being a qualified applicant is not good enough. However, in too many schools close is good enough. It is wrong to infer that all schools hire unqualified persons as teachers. Yet the reality is that too many schools face too few applicants and our chances to hire a highly qualified teacher every time are becoming scarce.

The choices to not hiring a “good enough” teacher are not teaching the course(s) of that assignment, creating larger class sizes by eliminating a classroom without a teacher, or becoming creative with hybrid instruction that reduces the need for constant face-to-face teaching. Each of these can cause parental and faculty uproar that no principal wants to face. Hence, hiring a “good enough” teacher is too often good enough.

The problem is worsened by some legislation that tries to address teacher shortage by declaring teachers do not need a baccalaureate degree, or unlicensed substitute teachers can be hired as regular teachers, or any military veteran can be hired as a classroom teacher. When these reasonings are apllied, “good enough” really is good enough. Except when we consider child learning. And then unprepared still is unprepared and children suffer when their teacher is not prepared to teach them. Unprepared is never good and far from good enough.

The fix = do not hire “good enough” unprepared teachers. For student learning, unprepared teachers cause more problems than dropped courses and larger class sizes.

Another fix = assign highly qualified teachers to initial and tier 2 instruction only and lesser to unprepared teaches to classroom supervision. Assure that all children get their initial and adjusted instruction from the best teacher available.

  • Hiring is too often a one and done task. The problem with hiring a “close to good enough” teacher is that school principalship is a constant addressing of immediate problems. One hired the problem of a teacher placement is yesterday’s problem. Once the “close to good enough” teacher is hired, principals by necessity turn to the next immediate problem and do not give required attention to their problematic new hire(s).

Most school principals are “fire fighters” – every day is a matter of taking care of immediate and urgently hot problems of student discipline, student attendance, student transportation, building security and maintenance, finding sub teachers, supervising student activities, and resolving parent-school issues. Principals keep problems, like fires, from getting out of control. Professional development is not a September through December issue. It is further back on the fire line.  And observing teachers for professional evaluations waits until late winter and spring. Consequently, new teachers and “good enough” teachers do not see their principal unless the teacher is involved in a hot problem and then it seldom is a positive relationship.

As a generalization, first ever and first year in the school teachers get little personal and professional attention from their principal.

Fix = make principal engagement with each “first” teacher a weekly priority. Even checking in activities count when the “firsts” know the principal is personally interested in their daily teaching. Listening to a “first” is a proactive support.

Mentoring was a school priority du jour a decade ago but has slid back in priorities since. If a mentor is contractually or policy-required, mentor and “first’ relationships are typically on paper not in real time.

Fix = pay mentors, don’t make it volunteer or uncompensated duty.

Fix = require weekly, documented contacts.

Fix = “firsts” need procedural mentoring, and they need curricular mentoring. Do not think mentoring is a one size fits all. By the end of the first year, the curricular needs will outweigh the procedural.

  • Vestiges of seniority benefits are still in play when considering the assignments “firsts” are given. Veteran teachers most often have smaller class sizes, upper-level courses, recently renovated classrooms, even more windows than “firsts.” “Firsts” also are assigned to more supervisory duties than veterans. In my “first ever” year, I was assigned to boys’ restroom supervision during two passing periods every day. Instead of taking care of my needs or arranging for the next class of students, I was expected to stand in and “supervise” boys in their second-floor restroom. The fact that I remember this is testimony to its onerousness.

Fix = reduce the non-instructional assignments usually given to firsts. Not only do firsts not know the routines of these assignments, but it is just another boot camp feature for a first. Children tend to respond better to veteran teachers. Veterans know how to downplay student behavior that needs to be downplayed. Discontinue assigning every lowly duty to “firsts.”

  • Employment is comparative. Even though the average teacher salary in 2024 will be in the mid-$60,000s, “firsts” most often begin much lower. I work in a post-baccalaureate teacher preparation program and see “first year ever” teachers hired in the mid-$30,000s. With households of 2 or more, these “firsts” also qualify for food stamp-assistance in Wisconsin. When they compare their annual salary with other professions requiring a baccalaureate degree, they do not compare well. When they consider their school debts and how long it will take pay off their debt based on teacher pay as compared to other beginning professionals, they do not compare well. Too many novice teachers leave teaching because of inadequate compensation.

Fix = the professional work of a fourth-year teacher qualitatively compares well with a ten-year veteran. By the fourth year, after a “first” satisfies probationary status, pay them the same annual salary as a ten-year veteran. The costs of increasing their annual pay over the 4th thru 9th year is less than the costs for finding new “firsts” who are needed to replace young teachers who leave the profession early.

Cultivate the perennial; weed out the annuals.

The final fix for helping “firsts” who are highly-qualified-teachers-in-the-making is for principals to be more proactive in weeding out “first forever” teachers. One of the hardest smackdowns for “firsts” is their observation that mediocrity is rewarded in public education. An unprepared, “just good enough” teacher gets the same treatment and compensation as a well-prepared, sweating out the details “first.” Adding injury to insult, the “first” who cares is treated the same as the annual who does not care. And when that treatment includes a lack of mentoring, a lack of principal acknowledgement and support, and low levels of beginning and annual increases in pay, it is no wonder that promising “firsts” become “I’m out of here” firsts.

Would I want me to be my teacher?

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Mirrors sometime present both the best and the worst of ourselves. Standing before the glass we see ourselves as we are. Mirrors do not lie. At the same time, we see ourselves as we want others to see us. It is that dual impression that we must address. Are we who we think we are and is that who we present to others?

Let children be your mirror.

Years ago, I knelt beside a second-grade child to check how she was doing with math fact flash cards. Her face scrunched up in thinking as she quietly talked herself through the cards. I counted eight successful automatic responses to eight flash cards. She was nailing her math facts and then she nailed me. When I gave her a thumbs up for her math, she smiled then frowned and said, “Your breath smells like bad coffee.” Immediately I went from happy educator to crestfallen odor-monger. Her impression and my impression of me did not jive and I knew that hers was the only one that counts. That day I quit drinking coffee at school. I also began making a closer inspection of how the children I taught perceived their teacher.

I began by questioning the values I thought I brought to the classroom every day. I listed 15 statements of what I believe about good instruction that causes learning. These are six I held up to my mirror asking, “would I want to be my teacher?”

  • The purpose of instruction is learning. Is my instruction explicitly connected to the learning outcomes children need? The mirror says sometimes I enjoy the teaching act too much thinking the spotlight is on me. I need to assure that the spotlight is on learning children. If children are not learning, I am not teaching. Children need to see themselves as the most important people in my classroom.
  • Instruction causes every child to learn. How do I know that every child successfully learns the targeted objectives of each lesson? Truth – The mirror says this is a problem. The calendar and clock are not my friends. There is so much curriculum and so little time. I need to assure that all children learn the lessons taught even if I do not teach every unit or lesson this school year. I need to see evidence of learning before I move to the next lesson. Children need to see themselves as successful learners so often they believe it even though some lessons require more work to be learned successfully. Their frustration is my cue to teach better.
  • The learning environment supports student learning. Am I appropriately adjusting the environment to support different instructional strategies and outcomes? The mirror says I need to change the environment when I move from direct to inquiry- or problem-based instruction. Sometimes children need to face me and sometimes they need to face each other. It takes effort to arrange a classroom purposefully or move the class elsewhere in the school or outdoors. Effort that causes learning is effort well spent. Children need to learn to learn in multiple environments and that is my responsibility.
  • Because children learn at different rates and degree, learning is on their clock not mine. Does the curricular calendar drive me or guide me? The mirror says I call on the first hands to go up and end a lesson when most children are done with the assignment. I need to optimize wait time after asking a question, ask a clarifying question if a response is not clear to me, and individualize tier two instruction when first tier did not cause a child to learn. Learning takes the time it takes, and I will commit the time necessary.
  • Engagement is not optional although all children may not be equally engaged at the same time or in the same ways. How do I flex instruction to connect with all children? How well do I accept non-engagement when non-engagement for that child at that time is okay? How thorough am I in checking for involvement as the lesson unfolds? The mirror I do insist that children be on task and devote time to individualizing time with children who are not. Intellectually I know some children seem to learn innately, and others need to grind through the lesson to learn. I probably quick-time the grinders. I need to confirm that each is engaged in ways that leads to their individualized learning, let the grinders grind, and give the quick completers enrichment and extended learning opportunities
  • If best practice is best, why accept or do anything else. Duh! I don’t need the mirror for this one.

Once I started checking my assumptions, I confirmed some practices but needed to adjust others so that I was constantly moving toward best practices. However, my teaching soul can take only so much introspection before it wants to say “Ouch” and loses its critical focus. On another day I questioned other practices. Doing a professional introspection several times each school year keeps me from becoming stale and just teaching the same lessons repeatedly. At the end of ten years, I want my students to have a teacher who strengthened his teaching over ten years not a first-year teacher who repeated being a first-year teacher ten times.

After several rounds of introspection, I changed the question from “would I want me to be my teacher” to “would I want me to be my daughter’s teacher.” That really ramped up the critical review.

Back to the beginning. I never again knelt next to a certain young lady without a fresh wintergreen lifesaver in my mouth.

Career Prep Pathways Need Prioritizing

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There is a long-standing adage in school campus planning that says, “don’t pave the sidewalks until you see where students are walking – pave where they walk and have killed the grass.” That seems like a practical plan. On the other hand, academic curriculum planners do not inquire as to what children want to learn. They assume the tradition of college preparation. If we planned K-12 curriculum like we plan K-12 sidewalks, the curriculum children learn in school would be different than it is today.

What do we know?

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction boldly claims the mission of preparing children in Wisconsin to be college and career ready. The DPI says, “Public schools are working to graduate every child ready for college and career.” But what does college and career ready mean?

“In addition to having knowledge in academic content areas, the Wisconsin way of college and career readiness values skills and habits. Our graduates must be critical thinkers, able to communicate effectively, collaborate with others, and solve real world problems. Ultimately, we want our kids to be good adults.”

https://dpi.wi.gov/families-students/student-success/ccr

Reads like a good plan. There are two end points in public education: preparation for college and preparation for entering a career. However, reading like a good plan and being a good plan are vastly different.

Again, from the DPI. “The state graduation requirements under Wis. Stats. 118.33 and 118.33(1m)(a)1, Section 3266R total 15 credits and the successful passing of a civics exam. The 15 credits include the following:

  • English/Language Arts – 4 credits
  • Math – 3 credits
  • Science – 3 credits
  • Social Studies – 3 credits
  • Physical Education – 1.5 credits
  • Health – .5 credit in grades 7-12 (needed but not part of the 15 credits due to grades 7-8)
  • Personal Finance – .5 credit

https://dpi.wi.gov/graduation/requirements

Further, the DPI describes elective credits, in the range of 8.5 credits, that a school board may add to the state’s 15 credits. In examining a variety of school districts, most boards strengthen the college preparatory pathway by adding credits in social studies, science, PE, foreign language, the arts, and computer technology.

Further yet, the small print in district publications describes articulated or dual credits and apprenticeship programs. Articulated or dual credits are awarded for courses at the high school or technical college or college/university that a high school student may take and receive both high school and post-high school credit.

The reality is “A minority of students said their school offer opportunities to learn job-related skills, practice applying or interviewing for jobs, or work on projects related to a career they want to pursue.” “Less than a quarter of high schoolers reported having ‘a lot’ of conversations about non-college pathways such as apprenticeships or internships (23 percent), careers that don’t require a degree (19 percent), or starting a business of their own (13 percent).”

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/do-students-think-what-theyre-learning-matters/2024/08F

Where is the career pathway?

The curriculum we provide, and the curriculum children want.

Let us backward design high school curriculum.

“In October 2023, 61.4 percent of 2023 high school graduates ages 16 to 24 were enrolled in colleges of universities, little changed from the previous year. Among recent graduates, ages 16 to 24, 57.6% of men and 65.3 percent of women were enrolled in college. Among 16- to 24-year-olds, 43.7% of recent high school dropouts were working or looking for work. There were 18.0 million people ages 16 to 24 who were not enrolled in school, 45.6% of this age group.”

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/hsgec.nr0.htm

Using the sidewalk paving model, 60% of high school students need a college prep curriculum and 40% need a career prep curriculum. Therefore, 40% of a high school curriculum should be CTE.

From the DPI –

“Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs provide students with a foundation for a wide range of careers that reflect the contemporary workplace.

Academic & Technical Skills – CTE programs promote life-long learning in a global society.

Work-based Learning – CTE programs strengthen business and education partnerships to provide students with opportunities to reinforce skills and behaviors for the workforce.”

These are the sixteen Career Clusters, and the Pathways described by the DPI.

  • Agriculture Food and Natural Resources
  • Architecture and Construction
  • Arts, Audio/Video Technology and Communication
  • Business Management and Administration
  • Education and Training
  • Finance
  • Government and Public Administration
  • Hospitality and Tourism
  • Human Services
  • Information Technology
  • Law, Public Safety, Corrections and Security
  • Manufacturing
  • Marketing
  • Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
  • Transportation Distribution and Logistics

https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/cte/pdf/career_cluster_handout_v1.pdf

The DPI site describes an Academic and Career Planning process that “…leads naturally to a career pathway. In K-12 education, a career pathway is a series of connected career and technical education and training opportunities that move seamlessly into a a post secondary options for a specific career area. A high school career pathway includes:

  • A sequence of career and technical education courses
  • Opportunities to earn industry-recognized credentials
  • Work-based learning experiences
  • Dual-enrollment opportunities
  • Career and technical student organization related activities

The Big Duh!

I know grads of our local school who own, manage, and run businesses, resorts, construction companies, studios, serve in hospitals and clinics, law enforcement, and are paraprofessionals in schools. They are highly successful in work that does require a baccalaureate degree. As I reflect on their secondary school experience, they completed a college prep curriculum because we said, “it will be good for them” and “they will be prepared for college should they decide to go.”  The reality is our school did not assist them in their career pathway, we got in the way.

School boards do not need to invent career and technical education or its pathways. They exist. School boards need to re-evaluate their priorities, acknowledge the 40% of graduates who do not enroll in a college or university, and start paving a CTE curriculum where students’ footprints already exist.