This writing will start on the firing line at a local gun club and finish on the teaching line in every Wisconsin classroom.
I have watched my friend Buzz when he shoots trap and skeet at the local gun club. Buzz is good, very good. He consistently hits 24 of 25 clays and, when he lets his rhythm and knowledge of wind and clay flight work together, he strings multiple 25s together. One of the things I enjoy about Buzz’s shooting is his preparation. Wing-type shooting is never done on a “wing and a prayer.” Buzz takes excellent care of his equipment and always is prepared to approach the shooting line. When there, he checks wind and light conditions and who else may be shooting. I watch as he sets his feet, works the kinks out of his neck, moves his eyes along the anticipated flight lines, relaxes his shoulders and, after a deep breath, quietly says “pull.” He has just the right amount of tension to cause him to react to the clay, raise his shotgun and make his shot.
His physical set up is similar for both trap and skeet. His mental set up adjusts depending upon his anticipation of trap or skeet. Trap presents a single clay flying away from the shooter. Skeet presents two clays, one coming from the shooter’s right and the other from his left, at the same time. When Buzz is ready and when he is prepared to site his targets, he is a masterful shooter.
Once in a while, Buzz finds that he is able to track the two clays on the skeet line and hit them both with one shot. This occurs with his perfect knowledge of their two flight lines and his experience in predicting that single second when each clay will be in perfect alignment with his shooting position. His joy after this expert shot would be enough to say “that’s it, it doesn’t get any better” if it weren’t for his optimism that he could do it again and again.
Buzz also is the technology director for the local schools. He assures that everyone in the school – students, faculty and staff, and administrators – are prepared with the technological tools to assist their work. That takes me from clay targets to educational targets.
Educational targeting this September presents a much different targeting dilemma for teachers than Buzz faces on the trap or skeet lines. Whereas, Buzz can always assume a “ready, aim, fire” scenario with the knowledge that a small, orange disk will be his target, teachers can only prepare for a scenario of “ready, aim, fire at which target?” Here is the problem – multiple, highly prioritized targets at the same time.
Target One – the last WKCE.
This is the last year of Wisconsin’s statewide WKCE assessment. The first target of interest is preparing children for this fall test. If this is the last year for the WKCE, why is it an important target? The 2013-14 School Report Card and School District Report Card will be based upon these WKCE data. It would be easy to slip past this last WKCE in favor of the second or third targets. However, federal and state accountability structures will use the 2013-14 student achievement data to draw conclusions about teacher and principal effectiveness and instructional competence. Also, this year’s School and School District Report Cards will be based upon this last test and local, public accountability will closely scrutinize the relationship between tax dollars and school results.
Hence, the WKCE must be a target for the first three months of the school year. After he tests are completed in November, targeting the WKCE standards and assessment is history.
Target Two – State Common Core Standards and preparation for Smarter-Balanced Assessments.
The phase out of the WKCE phases in the era of Core standards and new state assessments developed to test child proficiency on the Core standards. Whereas, there are advantages to having a revised and more focused state curriculum of standards and new assessments aligned with these standards, the Core and its assessments are much more complex and cognitively elevated compared to the WKCE standard and tests.
New targets do not mean easier targets to hit. In fact, by design there is a national acknowledgement that student achievement levels on the first of the new assessments will be significantly below student achievement levels on past, older assessments. This reality makes Target Two a very important instructional priority for teachers and school leaders this fall. This reality will cause damage control; how can educators lessen the decline in student performance levels from large differences to smaller differences. Almost no one is anticipating an equal or improved student performance level on the new assessments.
Target Three – closing achievement gaps.
The School and District Report Cards place a very high value on “equity and equality” of education for all children. Much of the data displays the achievements of special groupings of children – special education, English Language Learners, economically disadvantaged, gender – compared with the achievements of regular education children, typically white, English-speaking, middle class and more affluent.
When taken as a whole, most schools and school districts in Wisconsin demonstrate very favorable student achievement. The higher achievement of the high numbers of children in regular education overshadows the lower achievement of the smaller numbers of children in the special categories. New Report Card does not average all the data, but highlights any disparities in these data. In almost all schools and school districts in Wisconsin there are achievement gaps, often large dissimilarity, between children in regular education and those in the special categories even though they all attend the same classes and receive the same general education.
Target Three demands that teachers take special aim at children in disaggregated categories and provide “whatever” instruction is required to cause all children to achieve similar, high results on future state assessments. “Whatever” instruction is any and all teaching that can cause similar, high achievement results for all children.
Target Three is immediately important but will take years to accomplish. It is driven by political/economic accountability measures that are very significant to schools and school districts and these make Target Three very important this fall.
Targets One, Two and Three each are important for teacher attention this fall. Each target will present public results in the spring 2014 and the spring 2015 School and School District Report Cards. Target confusion, anyone?
I think that my friend Buzz would step back from the firing line if he was confronted with a similar problem – trap and skeet at the same time. Clays will be flying in three different directions on two different planes simultaneously. Sometimes, even for the technologically gifted, things must be scratched out in the dirt. I foresee Buzz drawing possible trajectories in the ground with a stick looking for a solution for hitting all three clay with two shots and limited time when he steps to the line. How much time and concentration must he devote to each target so that all targets can be hit? I also foresee many superintendents, principals and teachers scratching out their possible trajectories for meeting the demands of education’s Target One, Target Two, and Target Three this year and in the future with their limitations of instructional time and human effort.
If Buzz misses the three clays and Maggie’s Drawers are raised, a traditional sign of failed shooting, he can come back to the club next week to try again. The clays don’t know he missed and the public is unaware. Buzz is an avocational shooter. However, if educators raise Maggie’s Drawers after failing to hit Target One, Target Two and Target Three, children will know and the public will take note.
Ready. Aim. Fire at all targets. Good luck!