Google Education Summit - March 2014

Attending Google "Technology in Education" Summit @ Grand Canyon University. GCU President Brian Mueller said it well in pointing out that the key to the Arizona economy or economic growth is a skilled workforce not tax incentives.  The development of STEM (science, technology, engineering & mathematics) skilled workers will be the difference for many of our students' future success as a skilled workforce will be in demand for the present and in the future to come.  The middle is disappearing with the true job world being separated by skilled workers and unskilled workers that will be seen in levels of training, education and use of technology.  Current students are in reality preparing for jobs that have not been created yet but will emerge as new technologies evolve.

Common Core State Standards - Communicate with Your Community

Though at first overwhelmed at the initial implementation of the CCSS, I am finding through ongoing professional efforts a number of organizations and individuals have created great resources for educators.  The CCSS implementation will not rely upon random, single professional development "events" rather continuous school district, building, small groups (content/grade level teams) and individuals focused on restructuring our learning systems to meet the needs of ALL students.

In my new role as a Asst. Supt. for  Curriculum & Instruction, it is encouraging to see the many open source resources being found without time consuming searches.  Any school system can create CCSS modules with a focused study group of individuals.  The key is recognizing that we cannot and will not change the learning environment for students until we change the learning environment for teachers.

However, the bigger challenge may be in educating our greater school community, that includes not only the key target group - parents, but community leaders and the general public.  With local funding initiatives (bonds, levies, overrides) becoming the key to maintaining school programs and staffing, educating our public on CCSS must become a key strategy for school leaders.   When CCSS is fully implemented in 2014-15 initial student results will likely suffer.  The recent, sustained pummeling of our public education system only serves to make this more difficult, but further highlights the need to communicate all stakeholder groups on the dramatic changes now occuring to our national learning system.

The Common Core provides an opportunity to create a system built on fidelity and alignment for   school systems throughout our national public school system.  Let's remember that this change will need to be shared with our customers - the public. 





      

Public Education 3.0

What is the 3.0 learning system?  It is a continuous learning system for all learners as a fixture in flexible and multiple school learning environments.  Emerging digital technologies will continue to create an “abundance” of improvements for accessing knowledge, for obtaining skills, for improving instruction and for improving self.  The 3.0 education environment will feature the following in our schoolhouses in the near future:

·       A flexible 24/7 blended learning system for all students available through mobile technology devices, online coursework, digital textbooks, digital curriculum resources, software/apps, social networking and a flexible brick and mortar classroom

·       Individual education plans for all students with access to “instant” student achievement data for guiding and intervening with student achievement needs

·       A “move on when ready” system that seeks to promote and move students to higher achievement levels when academically and emotionally prepared

·       A K-12 college/career ready curriculum with rigor reinforced throughout with instructional best practices that include constant checks for understanding, extensive writing, student engagement practices and student self-accountability practices

·       A K-12 system that regularly assesses students for college/career achievement and skill benchmarks  

·       A community that implements a birth-age 4 program accessing and supporting all infants toward school readiness development resources.

·       A 24/7 professional development program for educators to access and participate working within a continuous, collaborative professional learning environment

·       A consistent system of student support, during and after the school year,  recognizing that for all learners “ learning is constant, time is the variable”

·       A system that recognizes and empowers staff and students to practice the power and energy of “high expectations” for “deeper learning.”

 If 3.0 is not now, it will be soon for school systems will either restructure or fail from the continuous expansion of charter schools, online schools and private school vouchers.  It is not a question of “if” rather the realization that the public school iceberg structure, embedded for over a century, is melting and will collapse with the advancement of new learning platforms, of new digital technologies and of our new digital learners found in our 21^st Century Information Age.

Education Now 2.0 - Part II "A Work in Progress"

After 100+ years the public school system has now come to a point in time when the following characteristics are becoming a reality in practice.

Learning for ALL

J or Nike Curve (Continuous student achievement growth

Focus on Results (Customization for Individual Learners)

Equity and Quality (System able to overcome social challenges)

Data Driven

Research Based

Continuous System Renewal

Learner-Centered

Principle-Centered

Instructional Alignment to National Common Core "Anchor" Standards

Assessment for Learning (grading to enhance learning)

Move on When Ready” (seat time no longer entrenched)

The Fountain Hills Unified School District has mirrored some of these needed changes with the following initiatives and implementations:

FHUSD Building Effective School Plans reflect Common Core Standards (CCS) Initiative

New mathematics curriculum for 2011-12 CCS aligned

ATI Galileo Benchmarks three times annually

Building Data Walls in place

Principals reporting quarterly to School Board on "leading indicator" student achievement data

All campuses wireless allowing for mobile devices and personal technology access

Software support in place and practice grades K-8

Redesigned building specific walkthrough templates developed

Building level teams and administrators receiving PD360 training with access to CCS module

Marketing now available for print, for social network, for website and new mobile website

Flexible technology devices becoming more available in addition to "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD)

Online course development for regular credit as well as credit retrieval in-house and with outside vendor

Despite these evolving changes "the work" continues as 2.0 will not meet the needs of a changing educational, worldwide culture of competition. Foundationally, our classroom teachers must continue to focus on effective classroom lessons anchored by authentic college prep/career ready reading and writing. Non-fiction text must dramatically increase both in quality, quantity and complexity. "Checks for understanding" must increase in regularity and for all students. Finally, our curriculum in the classroom, must truly represent the Common Core stressing the standards "anchors" or "power" standards. As negative and painful the recent journey of public education has been for many educators, the current journey offers opportunity to meet the needs of all learners - this is our mission. Let us take control of the conversation and the continuing, necessary systemic changes.

 

 

 

Our Public Education System - Part I

Recently, I attended three education-related events/workshops reinforcing my firm belief that our quest for a quality 21st century education for "all students" will be a journey of possibility littered with misconceptions, assumptions, data comparisons, and myriad of reform strategies. The three events and their dates were the Arizona School Board Association/Arizona School Administrator Annual Conference (12/15-16), Lexile Reading Standards and the Common Core Standards (12/12) and the Morrison's Institute "State of the State" Conference (11/30). These events neither fully judged our current public school education system as failing our students, nor honored it as the best in the world. What these events did point out is that as Americans we "own" and created our current system of education; we "control" the future of the system that our students will compete within the global, Information Age; and we can "restructure" the system as needed for all students. Below is the first of three blogs.
System Factor #1 - "System Ownership"

Our system is one of independence, societal lag (failure to adapt/change), activities, and growing choice contradicting itself at every turn. As Americans we still offer and created one of the best environments for an education. This is despite the system originally created and still systemically structured as a student "sorting" system and not a system created for 21st century "success for all." It is a system that has seen its lexile levels for national textbooks drop dramatically from the 1960s and now has a system lacking strong K-12 informational text and strong core, literacy practices. It is a system envied by many, but now seen falling behind to a world community.  A world community changing through technology and communication that now provides a lifestyle opportunity never seen before through education.

We currently have and own the most children in poverty for any industrialized nation in the world and know that our so-called "achievement gap" is created from many of our children spending time in literacy poor homes. Driven by low socio-economic factors, the long school summer break based on a long ago outdated agrarian calendar, further complicates and deprives many from overcoming their lack of core literacy skills. The State of Arizona has 50% of their one million school age children eligible for federal freed and reduced school lunch programs. 25% of all Arizona children live at or under the current federal poverty level. It is a system that has taken over the past 4 years over $1 billion away from its K-20 school systems and will further reduce educational funds by not replacing the previously supplanted state education dollars for federal K-12 EduJobs dollars ($35 million) ending this school year.

On the other hand we own this system with students that create, experiment, innovate and think independently for themselves due to a society that generates education through various school and societal platforms anchored by a national public school system. It is all ours with other nations sending their students here to live in the success of our country's university and college system that builds upon academia with social skills and emotional intelligence that cannot occur through standardized or criterion-referenced international assessments. Its success is measured and is developed through many factors (music, art, athletics, community activities, diversity) that cannot be seen in its entirely through international comparisons.

Confused About AZ Education Accountability? So Are the Schools

With Senate Bill 1286, the Arizona State Legislature established a new accountability system for Arizona public schools.  Modeled after "parts" of well-funded school initiatives in Florida and Colorado, it will maintain the current school labels (Excelling, Highly Performing, Performing Plus, Under Performing, Failing) and add school grades (A, B, C, D, and F).  Using current Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) data, both the labels and new grades will be generated from this single, student assessment score.

The confusion in the new system comes with how AIMS data is used by each of these school accountability measures.  The labels measure the percentage of students meeting or exceeding the grade level state standards in addition to graduation, dropout rates and other value related data.  The new school grades will place a major emphasis on weighted measures including student growth with the lowest performing students weighted twice.  An "expected growth" calculation will also occur as well as a "cut-off" point system that will make about 30% of all schools in Arizona "D" schools compared to 10% for the labels "underperforming" schools.  These school grades have twice been delayed due to the outcry from the obvious disconnect between the two systems.  "Excelling" schools in the labels format are being seen as "C" schools in the grade format as the grade system utilizes fewer, meaningful school success measures into account.

It is unfortunate the Arizona Department of Education continues to take a single snapshot of data in time and not fully design an accountability system with many data points of student achievement.  School labels and school grades are just one piece of the education system that should recognize that "learning is a constant, but time is the variable."  Many indicators of school success exist that would meet the accountability need as well as truly and fairly assessing our students' social, emotional and learning levels.

A more proactive and well thought out variety of researched success measures would better serve our shared goal of school improvement rather than a simplistic letter grade created at a single point in time during each school year.  All of us should be concerned about systemic school improvement not creating shortsighted, internal system obstacles.

"Hey, This is Hard Work"

Fountain Hills USD continues to seek learning for all students. Working with education author/consultant ("Focus" and "Results: How Can We Achieve Unprecedented Improvements in Teaching and Learning"), Mike Schmoker, our Four Peaks ES and Fountain Hills MS administrators and teachers will meet throughout the 2011-12 school year. Their goal is one that every school district and building in the U.S. must answer during this major national era of school restructuring. How do we create a learning system that meets the new Common Core Standards, that meets the increased high stakes assessment needs of our students and that systemically meets our educational mission of "learning for all students?"

Despite the ongoing loss of state Arizona public school funding ($1.4+ billion) and some 6700 teachers lost statewide (U.S. Census Bureau), FHUSD will continue to build on our "school system's capacity" to meet this challenge:

1. Identification of the Common Core Language and Mathematics "Power or Anchor" Standards are key.

Current state standards across our nation would take more than a 300+-day school year and over a 12-year school career would take up to 23 years to complete (Marzano). We are aggressively working to deconstruct the CCS to identify coverage with depth without creating learning gaps.

2. Implementation of student enrichment and intervention programs that create "multiple opportunities" for student learning success. These include technology tools (iTouches web tools, and iPads), enrichment software (SuccessMaker and Waterford), Response to Intervention (RTI), co-teaching models and school site intervention courses.

3. Professional development for faculty that includes the use of the PD360 online resource that will allow for individual, group, building and district wide improvement resources. Professional Learning Communities have also been formed.

4. A continuation of the current classroom walkthrough system with an emphasis on a few specific teaching behaviors and checks for understanding that will provide building data and staff reflection on classroom instructional practices.

5. Finally, a renewed effort on the part of building principals to take "leading indicator" data to have regular and ongoing discussions on needed "second order" teaching behaviors. This will require a continuous discussion on building data walls both at the elementary grade level and secondary department level.

This is the real work of education and it is hard work with little time provided in the current educational system that suffers from "institutional lag." and time constraints. Our ability to create capacity to consistently and to continuously "do the work" will ultimately determine our learning systems success and the success of our students.