Saturday, December 16, 2017

One Year Turnaround, Part Five

Continuing with his solution equation, Young turns his attention to his Big Four: professional development, curriculum development, assessment, and remediation.

(This series is a review of The One-Year School Turnaround, by James Young, a former DCPS (FL) principal who now consults with school systems on how to raise a school grade within a year and avoid draconian state sanctions.)

1. Professional Development: Young emphasizes the importance of ongoing teacher learning and development in turnaround schools because they usually have inexperienced staff: new hires, TFA supply, and the like.

He notes the problems with PD for teachers: incompetent or poorly prepared trainers, a lack of preparation via PD for programs school leaders demand teachers implement, overload--so much is provided that there is no time to begin any of it. Further, many teachers attend PD sessions to get their required recertification points. The lessons they learn are not brought back to the school, sometimes because the teacher only went to be excused from teaching duties for a few days (his words, not mine.) He complains that much of the time PD is not aligned with the school improvement plan.

To that list, I can add that PD is unfocused; there is a lack of continuity from one session to the next. There is no follow-up with support for implementation in the classroom. Most PD that takes place during Early Release time consists of district-mandated meetings that waste teachers' time.

Yes, Early Release is a huge waste of time. It produces little actual teacher learning. The time would be better spent with teachers in their classrooms with a full 90 minutes to deliver lessons.

Young insists that the key to PD is an academic coach. He calls for one content-area coach per tested area. He wants PD to be focused on the needs of the school as revealed by student data.

"The principal should ensure most of the coach's time is spent providing training and job-embedded professional development."

In my experience and other coaches that I have known, that rarely happens. It is the rare principal who understands the coach's job and supports them in those responsibilities.

Some principals view their coach as the substitute of first resort: anytime a sub assignment is not filled, the coach is assigned to run the class. Others use their coaches as junior administrators. If they have a math coach, then they think the math department does not need a designated administrator. But coaches support; they do not evaluate. Weak teachers ignore the coach's recommendations because they know that the coach cannot do anything about it. Without administrative support, coaches waste their time. Finally, many principals assign their coaches to take over a struggling teachers classroom--ignoring the fact that all teachers need a coach's presence and support if the position is to produce the across-the-board improvement that is the justification for the position.

Frankly, the school system would be better off returning the coaches to classrooms. I believe the former superintendent was moving in this direction when he began sending assistant principals to coaching seminars.

2. Curriculum Programs: Young has several criticisms of curriculum adoption by districts. It is optimum for each teacher to select their own criteria, but not practical. Nevertheless, he is correct to question why districts continue with ineffective curriculums.

However, his most important point is that the curriculum does not control the teacher, the teacher must control the curriculum, adapting the materials and supplementing as needed to achieve the learning goals.

It is the basic responsibility and authority argument: if anyone is responsible for producing results, they must be given the needed authority to make the decisions.

In actuality, we have moved beyond the times he describes in his book. These days, district staff understand that the guide is just that--a guide.

3. Assessment: Another area of focus. He actually doesn't give much information in this part of his book. He does think that assessments must have the format of state assessments. "This approach ensured students would be familiar with the type of questions on the assessment ...."

Sorry, Mr. Young, but kids aren't that dumb. They are familiar with the formats and how to operate a computer. If not, they get a mandatory practice test before they can take the real thing. It is much more important to focus on what they are learning regardless of format. Often, the only way I can know why a child is not arriving at the correct solution is to give an assessment with problems that a child must solve. Only then can I review the work to determine who doesn't understand the concept, who knows the concept but can't solve a simple algebraic equation, and who gets the answers wrong because they can't add numbers correctly. A test that mimics FSA will not give me that information.

Beyond that, a mimic test puts students into test-taking mode. They focus on how to trick out the right answer rather than working to demonstrate mathematical understanding.

4. Enrichment/remediation: Young concludes this chapter by reviewing the reasons why interventions are rarely effective: someone paid for it so we have to do it, the best teachers are not assigned to do it, volunteer groups are accepted without a vetting to see if they have the needed expertise, extended day programs are mere babysitting, placement is haphazard rather than based on student need (why Saturday School never produces results), the extra instruction does not match what took place during the school day.


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