Tag Archives: integrity

Covid Provoked Reforms – Proficiency in Standards-based Learning

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The status quo thrives when there are few challenges to disrupt its normal.  Newton taught us that a body at rest will remain at rest unless it is acted upon by a force.  The lack of compelling forces for change have kept much of public education in a Newtonian normal for decades if not a century.  We should not squander the forces for change that the pandemic presents.  Make plans now for stopping practices that do not work and shaping your new normals.

The grading of student work and students emerges every few years as a consistent problem for educators considering best practices.  Like a groundhog on its annual day, we examine grading looking for something new to know and do as if we want to change.  But, not liking what we see as options, we put our grading practices back into the inertial nest of ongoing poor practices.

Then, comes the pandemic.

How does a teacher apply traditional grading practices for a child whose attendance is disrupted by the pandemic and whose engagement with learning is somewhere around 50-60% of the school year?  How do we assign a value a student’s learning of a grade level or course curriculum when we only taught parts of that annual curriculum?  How do we compare a student’s academic work in 2020-21 or 2021-22 with any other student’s work prior to the pandemic?  How do we grade students who are learning the virtual curriculum of a commercial provider not our school district’s approved curriculum?

We stop the questions because they all point to the same conclusion.  Past grading practices cannot be applied in the pandemic.  We must stop applying past practices that are not valid or professionally defensible for current times.

It is time to replace A, B, C grading that conceptually is an aggregate of academic improvement and achievement, student effort, participation and attendance, and collegiality and collaboration with peers all topped with a smidgeon of extra credit or whatever the teacher adds to make the grade seem to fit the student.  No matter the teacher I have talked with over 50 years of observing grading practices, most teachers follow the Golden Rule of Grading – I grade my students as I was graded when I was a student.  There are modifications, but most practices fall within the shadow of past, personal experiences.  It is time to do better.

Educational standards are not new to educators.  Standards anchor teacher preparation and licensing.  The reauthorization of PI 34 by the Wisconsin legislature says “PI 34 restructured teacher education, educator licenses, and professional development for Wisconsin educators.  The system is based on Wisconsin Educator Standards with demonstrated knowledge, skills, and dispositions for teaching, pupil services and administration.  Initial licensing is based on an educator’s successful performance as measured against these standards.”  Teaching licensing is proficiency-based on the learning and demonstration of specified standards.

https://dpi.wi.gov/licensing/programs/rules-statute

Standards are described in state statute and by state departments of instruction of education.  State standards anchor contemporary curriculum development.  Every subject area taught in Wisconsin is supported by DPI-adopted curricular standards.  “Wisconsin Academic Standards specify what students should know and be able to do in the classroom.” 

https://dpi.wi.gov/standards

These standards provide the scaffold of student learning that creates the basis for standards-based proficiency grading.  It is valid and appropriate to align the evaluation of student learning with these curricular scaffolds.  The scaffolds are laddered by grade level and broadened at each grade and course.

The use of standards-base proficiency grading is not a newly made recommendation.  Teachers have sidled up to this idea in the past, but the pull of the Golden Rule of Grading has consistently overpowered change.  Now that the Golden Rule is broken, standards-based grading makes more and more sense.

To do this, we need to make two types of decisions.

  • What evidence demonstrates secure proficiency of a standard?
  • What aggregate level of proficiency demonstrates secure completion of a grade level or subject course?

While these may be argumentative questions, they are not difficult to answer.  The evidence demonstrating secure proficiency of a standard derives directly from unit and lesson planning.  Using older language of lesson planning, “The learner will …” describes the demonstrated outcomes of interest.  A properly constructed standards-based instruction provides the standards which will be proficiency assessed.  The evidence of completion also is in the unit design; it is in the statement of “extent and degree to which the student will demonstrate the standard”.  Standards-based proficiency grading is using the outcome statement of your standards-based curriculum.   Record keeping of the outcomes for which a student has demonstrated secure proficiency provides a grade book of achievement and growth. 

If your curriculum is not standards-based, you have foundational work to do.

A school’s instructional committee can readily collaborate to determine the extent of the checklist/grade book needed to indicate grade level/course completion.  Collaborative agreement of what demonstrates completion of a grade level or course is essential to balance student work across the curriculum.  Successful completion of one grade level or course should not be disproportionate to another. 

Teachers should thankfully welcome a standards-based proficiency design as it eliminates the problems of measuring effort and adding an extra credit to allow students improve an assigned grade.  This is defensible.  Without expecting an answer, why did we feel compelled to allow extra credit to erase the facts that student did not complete the basics of a grade level or course?  Emotion overcame reality.

The alignment of grading with the demonstration of standards-based proficiency overcomes the dilemma presented by interrupted school attendance and engagement due to covid 19.  Demonstration of learning is not clock or learning place-bound.  This design overcomes the issues of remote versus in-person.  Proficiencies are what proficiencies are – a student can or cannot demonstrate secure content knowledge or skills or dispositions about her learning.

Using standards-based proficiency grading creates a new practice that improves upon the older practices that failed the test of the pandemic.  Standards-based proficiency grading creates a best practice for our future.  We can and should create this as a new normal.

We Are Known By What We Prioritize

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Not one.  As a school board member, I have not received one letter asking what can be done regarding depressed student proficiency scores displayed in the fall 2021 assessments.  Not one letter or phone call asking what actions our school will take to teach children the content and skills they missed while in remote education or reteach what children forgot while disconnected from instruction.  Not one person pointing at the increase of students whose assessment results fall into the significantly below proficient category this fall.

Beyond reading, ELA and math, not one communication regarding a child’s loss of learning in art, music, or foreign language.  Not a word about a child’s stagnant growth in business education, marketing, and computer science.  Learning in every school curriculum has been stymied by the pandemic, yet there is scant discussion regarding lost learning experiences.

Not one inquiry about how diminished proficiencies affect our junior and senior students’ preparation for post-secondary education, work, and military endeavors.  Without doubt, a graduate’s transcript and activity resume’ will be different in 2022 than a pre-pandemic resume’.

I grant that many children profited from their instruction in remote education.  They benefited from an optional return to in-person instruction in 2020-21 and a more complete return to in-person instruction in 2021-22.  We owe much to our teachers who labored through virtual and hybrid venues to teach their students.  Yet, every curriculum no matter how it was instructed remains behind its times in the winter of 2021.

Instead, letters, phone calls, texts and parent attendance at school board meetings demonstrating anger about masking protocols.  The demand for parental rights to choose whether a child will wear a mask overwhelms discussion of a child’s educational progress.  Am I dismayed?  No but yes. 

This observation informs us about the evolution of our culture and what we value.  We should not generalize any conclusions to the population of all parents but only to the sub-set of vocal parents.  We should not diminish our educator’s work on closing instructional and learning chasms but understand that this work is done because we, educators, know that it is the most important work before us.  It would be better if parents and school boards and teachers were all on the same page about how to repair student learning at this time of the pandemic, but we are not.

The issue of masks will resolve itself either when all school-age children have had access to the protection of vaccination or when school leaders acquiesce to the loudest voices in their community.  At that time, viral mitigation protocols will not be generalized across school districts, schools, and grade levels but will be responsive to breakouts as we ordinarily treat influenza and measles in schools.  These events will happen, and the response will be very local to those in contact with the outbreak.

The purpose of this writing is not to encourage parents to become enflamed about the status of their child’s educational progress, but to independently review what really matters and consider if their attention aligns with those matters.  For this writer, causing all children to learn with special regard for our most challenged learners is what matters.  Their challenges are not only intellectual but include all concerns that affect their total education and wellbeing.  Children today demonstrate varieties of gaps in their 4K-12 education, gaps we can close if we are able to give this teaching and learning our focused attention. We will be known by what we prioritize and how we meet our priorities.

School Board Work Is A Wonderful Responsibility

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To each person duly elected to the local school board, I say “Welcome.  Today you will begin to see, listen to, and think about school in an entirely new dimension.  Engage with fellow board members in a thoughtful discussion of how your board will meet its responsibilities to educate all children.  Then, get to know your school from the inside out.  We have a lot to learn and talk about.” 

An introduction to the school board was not always like this.

A few years back a newly elected school board member was chastised by the board president for visiting school classrooms and talking with teachers.  He was told, “Follow the chain of command.  Board members speak with the superintendent.  The superintendent speaks with principals and other administrators.  Principals and other administrators speak with teachers and other employees.  Don’t violate this chain for command”.  A conversation with the executive director of the state’s school board association confirmed this absurdity.  “Follow the chain of command”, he advised, “it exists for a purpose.”

And, they also should have said, “Take a firm grip on your rubber stamp, because the limiting funnel of information allowed through such a command structure will require little to no discussion by board members.  One voice.  One interpretation of information.  No discussion necessary.”

How absurd and how wrong! 

A quick review of state statutes describing the duties of a school board member disabused this new board member of what the president and executive director said.  The statutes contain no such limitations on the scope of a board member’s interaction with the district’s schools.    Our statutes tell us that our duties, among others, include these:

120.12 School board duties. The school board of a common or union high school district shall:

(1) MANAGEMENT OF SCHOOL DISTRICT. Subject to the authority vested in the annual meeting and to the authority and possession specifically given to other school district officers, have the possession, care, control and management of the property and affairs of the school district, except for property of the school district used for public library purposes under s. 43.52.

(2) GENERAL SUPERVISION. Visit and examine the schools of the school district, advise the school teachers and administrative staff regarding the instruction, government and progress of the pupils and exercise general supervision over such schools.

https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/120.pdf

Any board policies or regulations restricting a board member’s interactions are not founded in statute and are propagated only to protect an antiquated concept of the status quo.  The only valid admonition is a board member must refrain from discussion that might compromise the board member’s future role should the board meet in a judicial hearing.  For example, don’t engage in discussion of a specific employee’s work performance or a specific student’s discipline record.  A Board may fulfill its statutory role in hearing a case related to employee termination or student expulsion and the prior discussions of these by a board member may compromise the board member’s capacity to be objectively neutral. 

Better rules to follow are – “Treat everyone, adult and child, with integrity and respect.  Be informed.  Be a voice for the future of all children.  You are a legislator not an administrator.”

  • Integrity and respect are gold standards for boardsmanship.  Each person you speak with requires these two qualities from you.  No matter the person’s role in school – parent, student, teacher, custodian, administrator, community taxpayer – that person has a legitimate claim to your attention.  You are that person’s representative on the school board.  The integrity and respect you demonstrate sets the role model standard for the school district.  If integrity and respect are not present at the school board, how can you expect them be present anywhere else in the school?
  • Integrity and respect are demonstrated by listening rather than talking.  You want to understand their perspective not overlay your own.  You can do that at the board table.  Integrity is demonstrated by sharing the multiple perspectives you have heard.  Integrity is making fact-based decisions and holding to a decision as long as the facts support a decision.  And, when the facts do not support a decision, adjusting the decision to reflect new facts. 
  • Board members need first-hand information.  The old chain of command assured that most information was second- and third-hand.  Create your information base by proactively visiting classrooms to observe instruction, the use of curricular materials, and student and teacher interaction.  I call this “perching”.  You are not in a classroom to interact or participate, but to see and listen and feel.  However, if the teacher invites your participation, do not hesitate.  Enjoy the moment.

Engage in hearty discussions about employment policies, responsibilities and expectations, and practices.  Gain firsthand information about the school environment from an employee and student perspective.  See teachers, aides, district and school office staff, kitchen and food service, custodians and maintenance staff, bus drivers, and coaches, directors and advisors doing their work. 

Then, with respect and integrity, share your information appropriately at the board table. 

https://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=13914
  • Your real constituency is the children of the school.  You may be elected from a precinct or supported in your election by voters who favor certain programs or want specific changes and improvements in the school district.  However, your focus should always be on the quality education of all children, emphasis on all.  When the board is called upon to vote on a matter, your vote is powerful.  Of all the voices speaking to the matter, when the votes are tallied, only board voices/votes are counted.  Make your vote stand for the highest quality of programming your schools can provide to all children.
  • You are a legislator not an administrator.  Board members work with policies stemming from the mission and goals of the school district.  Affirm policies that are creating desired school district outcomes and amend or delete policies that are not.  When in the school, watch, listen and feel – don’t direct.  You have no authority to tell anyone what to do.  That is a role of school administration and supervision. 

School Board Work Is A Wonderful Responsibility

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To each person duly elected to the local school board, I say “Welcome.  Today you will begin to see, listen to, and think about school in an entirely new dimension.  Engage with fellow board members in a thoughtful discussion of how your board will meet its responsibilities to educate all children.  Then, get to know your school from the inside out.  We have a lot to learn and talk about.” 

An introduction to the school board was not always like this.

A few years back a newly elected school board member was chastised by the board president for visiting school classrooms and talking with teachers.  He was told, “Follow the chain of command.  Board members speak with the superintendent.  The superintendent speaks with principals and other administrators.  Principals and other administrators speak with teachers and other employees.  Don’t violate this chain for command”.  A conversation with the executive director of the state’s school board association confirmed this absurdity.  “Follow the chain of command”, he advised, “it exists for a purpose.”

And, they also should have said, “Take a firm grip on your rubber stamp, because the limiting funnel of information allowed through such a command structure will require little to no discussion by board members.  One voice.  One interpretation of information.  No discussion necessary.”

How absurd and how wrong! 

A quick review of state statutes describing the duties of a school board member disabused this new board member of what the president and executive director said.  The statutes contain no such limitations on the scope of a board member’s interaction with the district’s schools.    Our statutes tell us that our duties, among others, include these:

120.12 School board duties. The school board of a common or union high school district shall:

(1) MANAGEMENT OF SCHOOL DISTRICT. Subject to the authority vested in the annual meeting and to the authority and possession specifically given to other school district officers, have the possession, care, control and management of the property and affairs of the school district, except for property of the school district used for public library purposes under s. 43.52.

(2) GENERAL SUPERVISION. Visit and examine the schools of the school district, advise the school teachers and administrative staff regarding the instruction, government and progress of the pupils and exercise general supervision over such schools.

https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/120.pdf

Any board policies or regulations restricting a board member’s interactions are not founded in statute and are propagated only to protect an antiquated concept of the status quo.  The only valid admonition is a board member must refrain from discussion that might compromise the board member’s future role should the board meet in a judicial hearing.  For example, don’t engage in discussion of a specific employee’s work performance or a specific student’s discipline record.  A Board may fulfill its statutory role in hearing a case related to employee termination or student expulsion and the prior discussions of these by a board member may compromise the board member’s capacity to be objectively neutral. 

Better rules to follow are – “Treat everyone, adult and child, with integrity and respect.  Be informed.  Be a voice for the future of all children.  You are a legislator not an administrator.”

  • Integrity and respect are gold standards for boardsmanship.  Each person you speak with requires these two qualities from you.  No matter the person’s role in school – parent, student, teacher, custodian, administrator, community taxpayer – that person has a legitimate claim to your attention.  You are that person’s representative on the school board.  The integrity and respect you demonstrate sets the role model standard for the school district.  If integrity and respect are not present at the school board, how can you expect them be present anywhere else in the school?
  • Integrity and respect are demonstrated by listening rather than talking.  You want to understand their perspective not overlay your own.  You can do that at the board table.  Integrity is demonstrated by sharing the multiple perspectives you have heard.  Integrity is making fact-based decisions and holding to a decision as long as the facts support a decision.  And, when the facts do not support a decision, adjusting the decision to reflect new facts. 
  • Board members need first-hand information.  The old chain of command assured that most information was second- and third-hand.  Create your information base by proactively visiting classrooms to observe instruction, the use of curricular materials, and student and teacher interaction.  I call this “perching”.  You are not in a classroom to interact or participate, but to see and listen and feel.  However, if the teacher invites your participation, do not hesitate.  Enjoy the moment.
  • Engage in hearty discussions about employment policies, responsibilities and expectations, and practices.  Gain firsthand information about the school environment from an employee and student perspective.  See teachers, aides, district and school office staff, kitchen and food service, custodians and maintenance staff, bus drivers, and coaches, directors and advisors doing their work. 
  • Then, with respect and integrity, share your information appropriately at the board table. 

https://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=13914

  • Your real constituency is the children of the school.  You may be elected from a precinct or supported in your election by voters who favor certain programs or want specific changes and improvements in the school district.  However, your focus should always be on the quality education of all children, emphasis on all.  When the board is called upon to vote on a matter, your vote is powerful.  Of all the voices speaking to the matter, when the votes are tallied, only board voices/votes are counted.  Make your vote stand for the highest quality of programming your schools can provide to all children.
  • You are a legislator not an administrator.  Board members work with policies stemming from the mission and goals of the school district.  Affirm policies that are creating desired school district outcomes and amend or delete policies that are not.  When in the school, watch, listen and feel – don’t direct.  You have no authority to tell anyone what to do.  That is a role of school administration and supervision. 
  • Always remember that you are not evaluating any employee’s work.  That is a supervisor’s role.  You are being informed by the work you observe.  This is one of the greatest cliffs from which board members fall.  And, the landing is never good.  Do not engage in an evaluative discussion with school employees of any rank regarding their work performance or the performance of another employee.  The board does this when it annually considers each employee’s contract renewal.  Wait until then.

“Welcome” to the work of the school board.  As you take your seat, consider your role as an elected educational leader.  Commit your tenure to integrity and respect, being informed by the work of every school employee, speak for the education of all children, focus on the connections between school mission and goals and school board policies, and always remember that you are one of the few, a member for the School Board.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct93/vol51/num02/Rethinking-the-School-Board’s-Role.aspx

When Not If I Have Your Back

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There was a shift in school leadership conversation during the last decade.  I missed it.  This must have been one of my Rip Van Winkle events.  After an apparent doze, I found conversations with school leaders loaded with references to “…having my back”.  The phrase is used most often retroactively and unconditionally, though now and again it precedes the statement of a new idea, as in “I will … if you…”.   I heard flat statements by Board members to each other, “We need to have our administrator’s backs”. And, flat statements by administrators, “They have my back” and “We have each other’s back”.  “Having your back” became a something and I had missed its meaning.

Visions of fighter pilots came to mind.  As planes go into action, a wingman defends the lead plane’s rear, the place the leader is not watching closely in the heat of action.  Having someone’s back is to defend them from attack; it is to protect and safeguard.  I was hearing that school leaders needed similar protection from attack. 

My Van Winkle mind immediately wanted to know “why is this thus and what should I know about this thusness”, a great line from the movie Lincoln.  Why is this thus?

In the 80s and 90s fellow school leaders did not speak of their “back” and the need for that kind of professional protection.  Maybe we did not talk of it because of our naïveté of educational politics or there were underlying assumptions that leaders enjoyed covering protection, but I don’t remember it that way.  My colleagues’ careers rode on the wings of their acts; some flew high and some went down in flames.  Professionalism was collaborative and collegial and defended when in the right.

Public complaining is commonplace.  In 1976 Albert Finch screamed “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more” in the movie Network and gave permission to the dissatisfied to scream and now stream their personal complaints on any and every issue.  Protest, rightful or wrongful, gains attention and attention can cause response.

We should know that our society is more litigious today.  24-hour news shares anguished cries of foul against alleged wrong-doers and equal proclamations of disclaiming.  Any and everything is a potential for “I will see you in court”.  People lawyer up.  Educators and schools have not been immune.  Many suits are filed and even more appear to be threatened with the belief that the threat of going to court will make an undesired decision go away. 

If not a lawsuit, demonstrations can work just as effectively for anyone disagreeing with a school decision.  A group of citizens or parents or students, or all three together, with petitions and banners in hand can make scenes that cause a school leader to flinch.  The flinch becomes more pronounced when television crews show up and cameras roll or reporters call at any time of the day.  And, even more flinch worthy when the School Board is looking on.

School Boards flinch just like school administrators.

We should know that “having a person’s back” meant the person with a protected back literally had a “Kings X”, a truce, or “get out of jail free” card that would free them of personal ownership of the consequences of their decision in question.  Absolution, kind of.

We should know that the idea of institutional protection brought on a circling of wagons, a fortifying of barriers between individuals and complaints.  One can see the circle of wagons at a meeting in the way people arranged the table.  It is apparent in body language and spoken words.  Meetings presumed opposition not agreement or interest in middle grounds.  In fact, “I’m mad as hell…” and circled wagons do not invite middle grounding.

School Boards do more than flinch at the threat of a meeting room full of irate parents, students, and news reporters demanding redress from a school decision.  Instead of moving parties to conciliation, these circling wagons stiffens necks and positions.  It makes the pre-disposition for “having backs” more resolute and “having backs” may make decisions less inclusive in the get-go.  We should know that once circled, it is hard to uncircle the wagons.

What should I know about this thusness?

There is a large difference between protection and support.  Consider protection as an immunity from accountability for the consequences of a decision.  With immunity, no defense of a contested decision is necessary.  The protector of the back insinuates that little in the controversial decision will change and no consequences for poor decisions will be enforced. 

Consider support as not an immunity but as a pre-conditional understanding applied after the fact.  Protection is warranted when protection is warranted.  Support is warranted when support is warranted.  And, no protection or support is warranted when no protection or support is warranted.  This sounds easy and correct, but it falls apart if wagons are allowed to circle.  The key is to circle the facts not the personnel.

Emerging late into the “got your back era”, I found the need to understand these caveats.  Call them the conditions as in “I will have your back when…”.  These are not my caveats, but caveats required for public service.  Support is yours, when

  • You are faithful to the trust that has been given to you as a school leader.
  • You acted with integrity, honesty, and sincerity in making a “best high ground” decision.
  • Your decisions are founded in the school mission and goals.
  • You are child-centered and not self-centered.
  • You are not afraid to make a necessary decision.
  • You are as transparent as the conditions will allow you to be.
  • You are humble when wrong; wrong is a problem that can be fixed if admitted, confronted, and addressed.
  • You balance your wisdom and skills to make good decisions with your wisdom and skills to fix your poor decisions.
  • You support others as you wish to be supported – the Golden Rule of Having Backs.

It is not a long list but it serves to place a leader and her superordinates in the proper relationship.

As caveats, they also play well in creating the proper relationship of the public with School Boards.

Thus, we know that we are not alone.  What we do individually has consequences to others.  We are not perfect and in our imperfections we need to be responsible, accountable, and proactive to be better.  Someone is likely to yell “I’m angry as hell ..” at us sometime.  A quick review that we have been faithful to our caveats sustains us and those who support us. 

And, we also know that some days there are people who are just plain angry as hell and that is their problem.