Yes is Best in 113!

Although I have strong political beliefs, I am usually reluctant to share them. I avoid lawn signs and do not often advertise my support of candidates or causes. However, I have taught in the community for twenty-five years and lived here for almost as long, and the health and well being of our schools and community is very important to me. Recently, the question I receive almost everywhere I go is what do I think about the District 113 referendum.

Here is the very short answer: I support the referendum.

Here is the short reason why: Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools are light years behind all other area schools in both technology and physical education facilities. Our buildings are aging and need significant improvement. Our pools are becoming unsafe and, at times, unusable. And if we do not make these improvements now, we will have to address them later and it will be at a higher cost to both taxpayers and kids. And we can do all this without increasing taxes!

Here is the longer answer:

Deerfield and Highland Park’s athletic facilities are some of the worst in the area. Our track kids are running through the hallways after school. Our soccer, baseball, softball, football, lacrosse, and other teams are often unable to use their fields. We do not have enough gym space for classes or athletic practices. Why would someone purchase a home in our district when our neighbors have far superior facilities (especially if athletics or technology are very important to his/her child)?

Deerfield and Highland Park are far behind in technology. Our wireless system at DHS cannot keep up with the demand. There is not enough access to computer labs and our computer equipment is aging and out of date.

Classrooms at Deerfield are poorly heated and most are not air-conditioned. Classrooms can get into the 90s in the fall and spring. Teachers in various areas of the building are experiencing various forms of work place related illnesses. The building’s infrastructure needs significant improvement.

Although low interest rates are bad for our bank accounts, they are good for loans. The district is trying to take advantage of these rates to make these improvements at the lowest cost. Many of these issues will have to be addressed eventually. Where will that money come from? If the referendum does not pass, then many pressing needs will not be met and our students will have to live with leaky roofs, poor ventilation and out dated technology, not to mention inadequate athletic facilities. And if we are eventually able to address these needs, the costs of labor and materials will be significantly higher. We will leave it to the students to bear the burden if the referendum is not passed.

This referendum will not increase our taxes. The bond from the prior capital improvement is scheduled to expire and this referendum would replace it and taxes would remain the same. In other words, with no additional expense, the kids and communities benefit greatly!

Here is a link that will give you some more information and a video tour of both buildings:

http://dist113.org/community/fac_tech/Pages/default.aspx

Voting for this referendum is in everyone’s best interest. It is good for taxpayers, students, parents, and the community at large. If you are trying to sell your home, it will make it more attractive. If your children are coming to the high school, it will improve their experience. If we do this later, it will cost more. Please vote “yes” for the referendum on April 5th.

Instead of Tests, Tenure or Taxes, Can We Discuss REAL Education Reform?

Legislators and pundits keep talking about educational reform. William Bennett recently wrote on CNN.com that we are now ready for “real” reform. Well, it is about time. School has not changed much in more than a century. Other than the presence of technology and a slightly more student centered teaching focus, our grandparents would find today’s schools very similar to their experiences. It is time to put away the assembly line model of education. The reforms of the past are like saying we are going to redesign the automobile by painting the tires a different color. The educational debates in legislatures across the nation assiduously avoid substantive issues and focus on testing, tenure, and taxes.

What would real educational reform look like? What would we need to do to revolutionize our school systems? We need to go beyond the simplistic test and “data” driven measures of success and redesign the car starting with the engine!

That engine has four components: students, parents, educators and communities. Schools live at the intersection of these four worlds. How these worlds connect, relate, and support (or work against) each other provides the impetus for learning. Parents and community must be integral parts of the school. Classes, if we even still call them that, must take children out of the schoolhouse into the community. Parents must be more than an afterthought in education. Regardless of whether or not there is “homework,” home should be highly connected to school.

One way that parents become more involved in the educational process is to start it far earlier. Instead of waiting until a child is five to begin public education, we need to work with parents before the child is born and, perhaps, before the child is even conceived! Education starts with parent education! From prenatal information and pregnancy guidance, nutrition to discipline, sleep issues and play time, our system should enfold the family from its very beginning.

Our current educational model looks like an assembly line. Kids arrive in age groupings and moved from grade to grade and subject area to subject area just like Chevys. Just as our industrial society has transformed into an information and service based world, our schools must also move beyond the assembly line.

Children don’t all develop the same way at the same time. Just because two children were born in the same year does not mean they have the same needs. Grouping children by age is not the best way to meet individual educational needs. Instead, we need to allow children to learn at a pace that matches their learning temperament. While students will work in groups, those groups should be multi-age. They should form for specific purposes and, when those objectives are met, new groups for new goals should form.

The other half of the assembly line needs to change as well. We have built artificial subject areas and forced them on the students. Reading, writing, problem solving, creating, communicating, exploring, questioning, and thinking are universal. While there may still be some basic “content” that we want students to “know,” it is no longer reasonable or desirable to think of education as simply turning our kids into little encyclopedias. They need to know how to find the information they need and then how to evaluate and use it. We are moving from a content-based education to a skill-based curriculum. The lines between English, math, social studies, science and other academic disciplines have become less useful. In fact, these content labels discourage kids from transferring their skills from one “subject” to another. We build fences between subject areas and then are disappointed when our students can’t leap over them.

If we are not grouping by age and we don’t have rigid subject areas, then education is not only going to be more individualized, but students are going to get much more independence and control. The range of activities that constitute “schoolwork” will broaden significantly. Students will work with their parents and other adults in the community. Students will create their own learning experiences and adults will merely facilitate them. Rather than teaching kids, we will help kids teach themselves.

And how will we know if we succeed? Will there be a series of big tests that each child must pass? What would be on these tests? Tests are good at measuring a finite amount of knowledge. Knowledge based learning died in the late Twentieth Century. We need to find a new way to measure and evaluate learning.

In a skill based “school,” students should be evaluated based on the skills they have mastered. Just as a girl scout must prove she is capable to earn a merit badge, we should have sets of skills that our children must master. There will be as many roads to skill mastery as there are children. And those who know and work with these children will help them self-evaluate and, if necessary remediate, their skills.

Of course teachers and schools will be accountable for this kind of evaluation, but parents, community members, mentors, and even lawmakers will also share this accountability. And the largest share will reside with the students themselves!

If you are thinking that this idea is difficult and different and will require remarkable, creative, and brilliant people to make it happen, you are right. Our educators need to be the best of the best. We need to attract and retain people who are gifted in a wide variety of areas. We cannot afford to stick with a narrow definition of “smart” for our children or our teachers. Those who guide and coordinate this process should be highly trained, dedicated, and richly rewarded professionals. As a nation, we should create a system that not only attracts those who are best suited to teaching, but also encourages them to stay in the system!

The final reform that will be critical to the success of our education revolution is the most difficult. Schools are a reflection of their communities. If our children live in poverty and have to fight gangs, drugs, and the myriad of social ills each day, they will not learn. If they have not eaten well and their parents cannot give them adequate attention because they must work long hours, they cannot learn. While an improved educational system may help alleviate some of these problems, these problems will prevent our children from thriving. All children, all families, have a right to live in a safe community free of violence and fear. All families have a right to healthy nutrition, a productive job and a decent wage. These issues must be addressed or we will be forever divided between the haves and have-nots.

It is time to redefine school and I don’t think lawmakers have the guts or ability to do it. Their mistakes and machinations have created the system we are trying to reform. It is time for families, teachers, and community leaders to take the lead. It is time to put our tax dollars where our hearts are: with the children, with our future, and make real change!

Here is an excellent video that explores this topic further:

What Follows the Race to Nowhere?

My first thought after watching the documentary, Race to Nowhere was that none of the criticisms of our stressed out educational system are new. Kids do get too much homework and much of it does not have educational value. Our children are not resilient and find mistakes and failures devastating. Cheating and unhealthy competition and pressure are clear results of an overcharged desire for entry into the most elite colleges. It is easier to have our children’s lives programmed to the nanosecond than allow them unstructured time to find their own ways. As a nation, we see education as merely a stepping-stone to financial gain. It has no real purpose beyond making us wealthy.

And that may be the heart of the problem. One of the unstated themes of Race to Nowhere is our highly simplistic and numerically based desire to measure educational success. We use grades, test scores, college entrance exams, and other statistics as the primary way to determine educational accomplishment. We want proof of our children’s achievements in cold hard statistics. That system isn’t working.

We want an easy answer. We don’t want to deal with the fact that education is complex and messy. We cling to the simplistic success formula: Good grades in high school lead to admission in a “good” college. An education at a “good college” will eventually land a child a “good” job. A “good” job means a “good income” which will bring happiness. How many people do we know who do not fit this formula? Our economic crisis was caused by the college-educated people who recklessly and selfishly pursued financial gain and created a worldwide catastrophe. This formula is more than faulty, it is dangerous.

And it is stealing our kids’ childhoods. The film clearly shows how we are asking our kids to grow up too quickly. How many times has someone noted, when looking at a child’s homework, “I didn’t do that until I got to high school, college, or graduate school”? Our simplistic thinking says that, if we make our children do more and do it earlier, they will be smarter. What idiot came up with that?

The film notes two pieces of governmental action that fueled this fire: the Nation At Risk report in 1983 and more recently the No Child Left Behind Act. Both of these declared that the sky was falling and that the solution was to measure the fall and punish anything that fell. What the film does not point out is that, in the almost three decades since Nation at Risk, we have subjected students to more and more high stakes testing and put more and more “teacher accountability” measures in place. Has it made things better? Has it improved our system? Is all this testing working? Even the aforementioned idiot could answer that question.

Which leads to my primary criticism of the film: it does not spend enough time on solutions. Solutions to this issue cannot be simple numeric testing, additional homework, or tutoring third graders in calculus. We need to truly reimagine our educational system. We need to, as the film states, “invest up front” and put more money, time, skill, and talent into education. This will not only help prevent many of the costly social ills created when students are chewed up and spit out of the system, but may help bring back the joy of learning.

The brief suggestions for students, parents, teachers, medical professionals and administrators are not enough. And where were the suggestions for lawmakers, by the way? This film is calling for an educational revolution: a complete and total restructuring of our current system. It will be a messy and difficult process. The simplistic formulas have failed and at a great price. Race to Nowhere challenges us to get dirty and go beyond the superficial attempts at educational reform of the past.

What does this educational reform revolution look like? The film doesn’t say. Stay tuned.