Rethinking Honors and Weighted Grades

A central tenant of the common core state standards is an increase in rigor and expectations for all students.  If college and career readiness are truly synonymous terms; all students must therefore be exposed to the same high quality curriculum that prepares for remediation free coursework experiences at post-secondary institutions.  Where then, does an honors section fit in with this model?

The traditional knock on honors is that students end up doing more 'work' to justify the course designation and the weight often associated with the grade.  Teachers feel the pressure to make the experience rigorous, and sometimes have trouble finding the balance between quality (rigor) of assignments versus quantity (extra because you're in honors and you should be able to handle it).  With the raising of standards and expectations for all students, is Honors at risk for becoming marginalized or obsolete?

Another knock on Honors courses and students is the lack of motivation and solid work ethic for many.  Once in the class, with the knowledge that the weight will be granted no matter what, many students often settle for a certain grade and do not stretch themselves to their full potential.  The lack of an AP exam at the end of the course or other such incentive to work diligently throughout the year often allows students to slip into coast mode.

As the PARCC assessments get closer, what if schools were able to sieze this moment to radically re-think how honors designations are earned by students.  Instead of having the title 'Honors' bestowed upon you at the beginning of the year because you just happened to be in the class, what would happen if you had to work for the designation, and it could only be earned by your performance on the PARCC assessment?

As the flipped classroom, blended learning, and personalized learning pathways become more prevalent in courses, students in collegiate level classes will have opportunities to learn and grow to their highest potential.  So, if in a given week a student demonstrates mastery of a certain concept, that particular student can work on extension activities designed to enrich and extend learning and understanding.  These pathways can be tied to authentic, real world applications of the concepts, which will prepare students to apply the material in meaningful ways.

The question is, how do you sell this as something other than 'more work' or a penalty for being smart? The key is to leverage the PARCC assessments themselves.  Early indications are that the assessments will be much more rigorous than the current Ohio Graduation Tests.  The personalized pathways that students would invest time in could be sold as a means to prepare to excel on the PARCC assessments. The payoff for this extra work/initiative would be an honors GPA add-on for only the highest scorers.

The system would work like this.  Every student who earns a four (the minimum benchmark score to be considered at a remediation free level) would receive a GPA weight add on of .01, and those who score a 5 would receive a weight add on of .02.  Instead of giving the weight away at the front end merely for enrolling in the class, students would have the incentive to prepare diligently throughout the year in order to have a chance to truly EARN the add-on weight.  This would solve the problem of rigor at both the collegiate and the honors level, because the course is now as rigorous as you want it to be, based on your individual strengths and motivations.  It also takes a ton of pressure off of the teacher, because it de-couples the grade earned in the class from the associated credit and the weight.  The student alone controls the outcome, based on performance, as opposed to the games that get played with assignments and grades currently in honors sections where the weight is already pre-supposed.

CCR and the Academic Cliff

A challenge that I find myself constantly facing is where to archive the ever growing trove of rich resources I encounter daily.  To a certain extent, I use my twitter feed as a repository for links to stories I find worthwhile enough to share with others.  More recently, I've been rethinking how shorter blog posts can also serve as both a vehicle for sharing and a place to park these resources.

The story below, from the Akron Beacon Journal, is the most succinct to date that I have seen in describing the effects of the new PARCC assessments on peoples' notion of 'proficiency' in the State of Ohio.  The link that follows will take you to a report from the Ohio Board of Regents (OBR), in which they lay out performance standards, by subject, that will provide evidence of college and career readiness for high school seniors.  In addition, they include ACT and SAT cut scores that will be accepted at all Ohio public universities for placement in credit bearing, non-remedial coursework in the discipline in which the score was earned.

While I am not suggesting an easy cause and effect relationship between implementing the OBR standards and a reduction in the readiness gap issue, focusing on how you can support the OBR recommendations will be a good first set in reducing the pain of the Academic Cliff that is, without a doubt, coming.

http://www.ohio.com/news/local/nearly-half-million-ohio-kids-likely-to-fall-from-proficient-under-new-standards-and-not-ready-for-college-1.362833

https://www.ohiohighered.org/college-readiness

Finally, if you are interested in changes to classroom practices that could also help teachers and students avoid the academic cliff, this article is for you:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-english/why-so-many-schools-remai_b_2412120.html

Surviving The Change

The underlying narrative for educational professionals in my district, around the state, and I'm sure the nation is how overwhelming all of the change in education feels.

As the person in my District responsible for implementing the change, I find myself often feeling like I am pushing the stone of change up the hill.  A standard line in my stump speech is that the professional development activities the district is implementing are designed to equip teachers to survive the change and end up in a better place when (OTES begins, the Common Core arrives, the PARCC assessments begin, the new report card comes, etc.).

While the professional development I work on is necessary, good, and designed to be helpful, I still can't escape the feeling that teachers feel like it is one more thing (in a long line of things) that is being 'done' to them.

I've come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no way that districts can provide enough professional development to effectively prepare teachers for the shifts in mindset and professional practice that must occur in order to be successful in 2014-2015 and beyond.  The teachers that will not only survive but also thrive are those who take ownership for their own professional learning.

To that end, a project on my part is to re-design professional development in my District and create individualized learner pathways, tied to Mozilla's Open Badge Initiative @openbadges http://openbadges.org/en-US/.  While I would like to have this done yesterday, the reality is that it's going to take a ton of preparation, research, development time, and a change in the mindset for how professional development occurs in my district.  In order to truly be effective, professional development must meet teachers at the intersection of readiness/capacity to learn and willingness.  Personalized learning pathways that account for where individual teachers are as learners, as well as give credit for knowledge they have already acquired, will not only be more meaningful, but will also reinforce the types of learning experiences we want our teachers to create for students.

In the interim, while this idea builds itself out, I am making a full court press to get teachers to create Personal Learning Networks and to get engaged with Twitter.  These two actions are guaranteed to help teachers take control and ownership of their own professional growth and learning.

To get to where they need to go, there is no other way.

For example, today every teacher in my District worked through an SLO approval calibration activity.  While I think it was worthwhile, it was still a whole group sit and get activity that only furthered their understanding of the whole process incrementally.  Worst of all, it once again reinforced the notion of the District as the sole provider of professional development experiences.

It could be so much better......if only all teachers would own the fact that they have to invest, outside of contracted professional development time, in the learning that will help them survive the change.

This change in mindset is empowering, if teachers will only take the leap of faith to make personal professional development a DAILY PRIORITY.

There is just too much to learn about using data, personalizing instruction, close reading, common core implementation, CCR standards for remediation free learning, changing assessments, educational technology........

Those that survive will be those that become professional learners....ones who don't wait for districts to provide PD, or wait for the summer to read a professional development article/book, or put off PD activities until just before a license renewal is due.

Those that survive will be relentless in their pursuit of understanding the changes, and will continue to read up on the very latest in all of the areas that are shifting simultaneously.

Those that survive will act in spite of, will always look at the glass as half full, and will continue to have faith in the goodness of what educators do on a daily basis, despite the narrative of failure that many want to tell about our schools.

Those that survive will own the data on their kids, and will double down on practices that are designed to promote growth for all students.  (@ChristinaHank, who's blog was part of the inspiration for this post, wrote an excellent blog on this point: http://turnonyourbrain.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/when-the-system-strikes-refute/)

Those that survive will refuse to act like victims, and they will shun those who do.

Never in the history of this planet have there been more tools at educators disposal that allow for meaningful, impactful change for student growth and development.

Making the choice to embrace these tools, to collaborate widely, to share and share alike...these are choices that will equip educators to survive the change.

Will you survive?

New Year's Committment

In 2013, I am committing to completely redesign how my District offers professional development.  With all of the changes occurring in education, several things are clear:

1. The need for extensive professional development over a wide variety of topics exists.

2. Simply adding a professional development (day, hour, session, etc.) to teacher contracts will be insufficient to meet the learning challenge.

3. Traditional whole group 'sit and get' meetings destroy autonomous learning and must be dramatically scaled back.

4. Learning ownership must be transfered from the district/building level to the individual teacher level, thereby driving engagement and responsibility.

The re-design will be based in part on game-theory and tied to a set of District created teacher competencies, as well the teacher self evaluation and goal setting process in the new Ohio Teacher Evaluation System.

If it works out my additional commitment is to share the entire system/process with others.

What is your big professional goal for the new year?

Using Your Email Signature As A Professional Development Tool

With the numerous initiatives that are swirling around education, initiative fatigue is a worry of mine.  The catch-22 is the amount of new information that needs to be in-serviced on, versus the capacity of teachers to absorb additional change.

As I have been thinking about how to capture the attention of the teachers I work with, I began to think about how I use my email signature line.  In the past I've had a quote, but I find myself ignoring these quotes more frequently as they have become common place.

In order to capture teachers' attention, I decided to move in a different direction with my email signature line.  It started off with the top three lines (see below), as a way to promote my professional digital presence in a unique way.

I then added the last line, which is a rotating article that ties into the change initiatives I am currently leading in my District.

Finally, I added the twitter section in the middle.  I firmly believe that wide spread adoption of personal learning networks is a key component in re-inforcing and encoding the shifts that are currently underway in the field.  We can't 'professional development' our way out of the change hole we find ourselves in.  Individual teachers have to be empowered to take ownership for their own professional learning and development.  As the time to teach this change is scarce, I'm using my email signature to promote and teach this as well.

The key, to me, is the unexpected place where the learning opportunity appears.  The uniqueness is what I hope will make it enticing for teachers to spend the extra few minutes to click through and be led to the information I have for them.

The second key is to vary they content of the email signature frequently.  If it becomes static, it will be ignored, just like the quotes I've been turning my head to lately.

Re-thinking Classroom Procedures to Promote Close Reading

With all of the attention paid to close reading and text dependent questioning in the Common Core, I have had a heightened awareness when I visit classrooms to look for practices that promote these shifts.

However, sometimes the best learning comes from seeing the antithesis of the shift that is desired in practice.

As I was sitting in the back of the classroom recently, the teacher proceeded to hand out a well crafted assignment document, one which detailed all of the particulars of an end of semester assignment.

The teacher then spent the next twenty minutes providing an oral summary of the document, as thirty teenagers stared back in various stages of disengagement.

All of the work that went into crafting the assignment sheet......wasted.

Any responsibility on the part of the students to read and comprehend a detailed, multi-step set of instructions.....evaporated.

What I saw was a classic display of the old paradigm of teacher as gatekeeper and rationer of educational experiences.

If, as an education profession, we are serious about a deep infusion of literacy in our classrooms, then we need look no further than the time honored tradition of the teacher orally telling students what to do for a place to start making change.

An easy way to promote close reading is to start with a complete makeover about how we expect students to get information on assignments they are supposed to undertake.

If you go through the trouble of creating a document that explains the task, make your students responsible for accessing the task information from the document.  Simply talking about the assignment and having the assignment sheet as a fallback is a waste of everybody's time.

Will this be uncomfortable at first?   Sure.

Will you have to practice re-directs that force students to return to the text for evidence about the assignment?  Absolutely.

Will your students become more independent, self-directed learners over time?  Without a doubt.

HB 555 - Part II

On Friday afternoon (11/30), BASA issued an email (below) calling for Ohio educators to contact their State Senator regarding changes to the educational accountability system.

The updated Ohio Legislative Service Commission report on HB 555, which contains all of the changes as voted on and approved by the House, as well as the the BASA rebuttal talking points can be found here.

The most significant change is the increase in the percentage of students required to score proficient in order to meet an indicator from 75% to 80%.  This change, coupled with the increase in rigor (via increased cut scores and eventually test construct) could have a huge impact on school districts.

There are also significant changes to the gifted accountability measurements as well as the inclusion of Honors Diploma attainment as an accountability measure.

While there are many indicators that are within the control of districts to influence, there are parts of the accountability system that will be difficult for districts to affect.  For example, National standardized test participation rate and average score could be troublesome.  How can a district be held accountable for the number of students who elect, of their own volition, to take a standardized test on the weekend?  Another example is Advanced Placement (AP) participation rate and test scores.  The mere fact that there is a wide variance in the types of AP offerings around the State should be enough to take this off the table as a graded metric.  Look a little deeper, and there is more trouble to be found with the inverse relationship between increased access and test performance.  By exposing more students to AP, a District is creating exposure in the form of a potential negative test score outcome.  Exposure and increased access should be the goal, but districts will be forced to make tough decisions if a numbers balancing game ends up occurring in order to meet the metric.

Please take an hour of your time, browse the links, and share your thoughts with your State Senator.

A sample letter (that can be customized) can be found here.

BASA MEMBER ALERT

To:          School board members, superintendents, treasurers and other school business officials

From:     Michelle Francis, OSBA — (614) 540-4000

               Tom Ash, BASA — (614) 846-4080

               Barbara Shaner, OASBO — (614) 325-9562

Date:      Nov. 30, 2012

Re:        Immediate Senate Contacts Needed on Report Card Changes!

Yesterday, the Ohio House passed House Bill (HB) 555, the school district report card reform bill. While there are a number of provisions in the legislation that we support, there are several issues that still concern us. We need your help in contacting senators now!

Lawmakers are telling us they are not hearing from school district representatives. So even if you have already made a contact about HB 555, it is crucial that you contact your Senate member immediately. The General Assembly is making changes to school district report cards that will affect you in the current school year.

HB 555 goes to the Senate Education Committee next week for consideration and is expected to move quickly. The full Senate could vote on the bill as early as Dec. 11.

Please use the following talking points when you contact legislators. These are changes we are seeking in the Senate. A rationale for each change can be found in our “Senate Amendment Request List,” which is available below.

1. The transition should not start during the current school year — changing the rules in the middle of the game is unacceptable!

2. Do not use letter grades for certain components on the dashboard that school districts cannot control!

• Advanced Placement participation rate and test scores

• Dual Enrollment Program participation rate

• National standardized test for college admission — participation rate and average score

• Kindergarten through third grade literacy rate

3. Do not dilute the value of the dashboard with a composite score. We oppose a composite score, both during the transition period and in the future.

4. Raising the student “cut score” on state tests through the anticipated PARCC assessments, while at the same time raising the “standard” for the passage rate for districts from 75% to 80% in HB 555 could impact districts dramatically. The simultaneous convergence of these factors (more rigorous curriculum, new and more challenging assessments and higher cut scores) has the potential to devastate students and districts unnecessarily. The movement of the 75% standard to 80% should be removed from the bill. We support raising the “cut score” but not the “standard” benchmark passage rate.

5. We need a “safe harbor” for school districts! Districts currently rated “continuous improvement” and above should not be subject to identification for purposes of EdChoice vouchers and charter school expansion as a result of the major changes anticipated with this bill for at least three years as HB 555 is implemented.

Important Links:

Click here for the rationale for the talking points: Senate Amendment Request List<http://ealerts.osba-ohio.org/files/file/HB555SenateRequests.pdf>.

Click here for legislator contact information: General Assembly Website<http://www.ohiosenate.gov/senate2012/index>.

Click here for the current version of HB 555: HB 555 As Passed by the House<http://ealerts.osba-ohio.org/files/file/129_HB_555_PH_Y.pdf>.

Click here for a summary of HB 555: LSC Summary<http://ealerts.osba-ohio.org/files/file/h0555-rh-129%281%29.pdf>.

We hope you will make contacts with senators before the Senate takes up HB 555. Please let us know if you have questions about the bill.