Weekend Shout Outs

It was a busy weekend at EKU and I wanted to give a shout out to a few folks.

First, congratulations to Stephanie Bell on the near-completion and presentation of her Honor's Thesis, Education Reform: Charter Schools in Kentucky? As her thesis adviser, it was great to meet her parents at the Honor's Banquet Friday night along with about 100 other honor's students. Famous Kentucky author and former "merry prankster" Ed McClanahan was on hand to read to the group from his latest, O the Clear Moment. It was a hoot.

I met with Bill Ellis to begin planning a September symposium on the History of Education in Kentucky to coincide with the release of Ellis's book of the same title. The book was slated to be released in the fall, but I hear it has been pushed forward and is already at the printers. We may see it as early as May. EKU's PR guy Marc Whit led the meeting. Also involved are historian Lindsey Apple, KET's Bill Goodman and folks from EKU Media, WEKU radio, and former Cassidy kid Camron Ludwick, now all grown up and working as a marketing assistant for the University Press of Kentucky, Ellis's publisher. Gary and Carol should be very proud of their daughter.

Then on Saturday, I put on my principal hat again and made a couple of anti-bullying presentations to future teachers from colleges and universities across Kentucky. The Kentucky Education Association-Student Program held it's Student Assembly here Friday and Saturday. The students had asked for professional development sessions on bullying and EKU-SP President Dominic McCamish asked me to provide it. Thus, I did two sessions titled, "Teachers Standing Against Bullying." The interactive sessions, using "clickers," reviewed a few recent cases where bullying had tragic consequences, outlined federal and state law and considered local board policy using Fayette County policies on bullying and harassment as a model. It provided tips for teachers and a strong recommendation that anti-bullying needed to be a faculty-wide effort. It is very hard for an individual teacher to be successful in reducing bullying if the overall school culture permits it.

For those students who requested my notes, you can find them here.

Then, there was yard work on Sunday.

Sorry for the light blogging lately. Advising season is just now coming to a close and I expect to catch up on a handful of topics that have been gathering dust for the past month.

I can confirm two more cases pending in Fayette County, but I haven't been able to read the files yet. Patton v Silberman and Jones v Silberman both carry 08 case numbers; 08CI02053 and 08CI03343 respectively. A KSN&C reader says there is also a case pending that names Fayette County Board Chair John Price, but I haven't been able to get to the court house to confirm that yet either.

Stay tuned.

FLUNKED

This form the Paducah Sun:

Few lament the quietus of CATS

Politics makes strange bedfellows, and when politics is intertwined with education reform, you never know who you might wake up beside.

Take CATS, the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System. On one side you’ll find the independent Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and the editorial pages of Kentucky’s two largest newspapers.

On the other side you’ll find the liberal Kentucky Education Association, conservative public policy advocacy groups, every Democrat in the Kentucky Legislature, along with every Republican. Oh, and The Paducah Sun.

Both houses of the general assembly unanimously — unanimously! — backed Sen. Ken Winters’ bill to ditch CATS in Kentucky’s public schools. According to the Associated Press, both chambers erupted into applause after the vote.

The test could be more accurately called CUTS, for Commonwealth Unreliable Testing Sham. The ineffective test does less to measure student progress than give an illusion of progress whether genuine or not. It should have been deep-sixed long ago.

The legislation calls for replacing CATS, which includes open-response questions and writing portfolios, with a national norm-referenced test, still administered at the end of the school year. Scoring open-response and essay questions is necessarily subjective, making it impossible to accurately measure progress or compare Kentucky students’ scores with scores from other states. Replacing CATS is long overdue.

But the (Louisville) Courier-Journal called norm-referenced tests “outmoded, ineffective” in a blistering editorial Friday railing against “conservative, educationally revanchist Republicans,” aided by “lazy” Democrats and a backward Kentucky Education Association opposed to “new ideas.” The editorial lumped the state’s public teachers together, saying they are “grateful for being allowed to escape real accountability.”

Ouch. Sounds like the editorial writers in Louisville are not playing well with others.

The editorial even lamented “the tragic evisceration of (CATS) writing portfolio provisions.” Tragic? Hardly. Tragic describes a fatal car wreck or tornado, not a policy change.

Those writing portfolios, by the way, will be retained as a teaching tool in grades 5-12, as they should be, just not as part of the assessment.

The Lexington Herald-Leader echoed its rival paper Sunday, adding Gov. Beshear and House Speaker Greg Stumbo, both Democrats, to the list of bad actors, accusing them of caving to “the worst impulses of both the teachers union and conservative enemies of public schools.”

That’s called painting with a broad brush.

The self-evident escapes CATS’ defenders on the two editorial boards: For any testing instrument to be useful in tracking progress and comparing performance, it must use objective and measurable criteria. If anything is “outmoded,” it is the trendy educational philosophy behind subjective testing methods, designed to elevate self-esteem above actual achievement.

Ironically, those states that consistently exceed the national averages in norm-referenced tests don’t complain that the tests are ineffective.

We admit we don’t always, or even often, agree with the Kentucky Education Association. But they’re right this time. CATS was a time-consuming exercise in futility, yielding little information useful for tailoring education plans to address individual student deficiencies.

The KEA supports the planned CATS replacement. The legislation calls for a test to allow both the schools and parents to better track student performance. A side benefit is that it will help identify teachers whose classes consistently exceed expectations and those that regularly fall short. Administrators can prescribe remediation for under-performing teachers — peer coaching, additional coursework — just as teachers do for under-performing students.

Only a few will mourn the demise of CATS. The rest of us dinosaurs — teachers, legislators and proponents of public school accountability, whether liberal or conservative — are happy to say “good riddance” to CATS.

Quick Hits

KEA Campaigns To Avoid Cuts In Public Education: As Kentucky legislators prepare to meet on Tuesday, a media campaign is kicking off by the Kentucky Education Association asking lawmakers not to make deep cuts in public education. (KyPost.com)

First Lady rallies U.S. Education Department: First Lady Michelle Obama visited the U.S. Education Department Monday to thank employees for their work and say there is still more work ahead to turn around many of the country's struggling schools. "The Department of Education is going to be at the forefront of many of the things that we have to do in this administration and we're going to need that energy in these times of economic challenge," Obama said. (The Washington Post)

J. Graham Brown Foundation grant to fund parent leadership institute with a STEM focus: A $275,000 grant from the James Graham Brown Foundation to the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence will fund creation and implementation over two years of the Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. (Prichard Committee)

Draud's new job - recovery: Jon Draud was eager to get started as Kentucky's education commissioner when he was hired in November 2007. Having been a school superintendent and state legislator, he felt he brought a unique combination of experience that would help improve public school education. But less than 10 months later, life got in the way....Draud will spend his free time reading and may eventually go back to teaching. He said Thursday that he's considering a run for Kenton County judge-executive. (Enquirer)

Vermont commissioner aims to prepare students for 21st century: Armando Vilaseca, Vermont's new schools commissioner, became interested in education as a high school senior participating in an innovative New Jersey teaching program, and he hopes to create similar opportunities for Vermont's students. "To me what I lived through is exactly what I believe that we as an education community need to be doing ... providing kids with relevancy in their schooling," he said. "America's education system -- including the system in Vermont -- is simply not adapting quickly enough to what has become a knowledge-based economy, nor is it keeping pace with continuing technological advances or the societal shifts of a growing, global economy." (The Times Argus)

Texas parents face fines for children's truancy: The Dallas and Fort Worth school districts together brought more than 1,800 parents to court in 2008 for "contributing to truancy," a misdemeanor that can carry a fine of up to $500 a day, according to district information reported to the Texas education department. "It's critical that the parent is a part of [the process]; otherwise, it makes no impact on the child," said Robyn Winnett, director of Fort Worth's truancy-intervention initiative. "You've got to do more than drop them off at school. Maybe you should walk them into the school." (The Dallas Morning News)

Study examines correlation between SAT scores and lead levels: The rise and fall in average SAT scores from 1953 to 2003 may be tied to the levels of lead found in the blood of U.S. children, according to a study to be published this winter. Some 45% of the variation in the average verbal scores and 65% of the variation in math scores may be due to lead, said researcher Rick Nevin, an economist. Drops in lead levels were also tied to declines in intellectual disabilities, Nevin found. (USA Today)

Teachers engage students by building relationships: More Michigan school districts are placing emphasis on establishing personal connections with students, believing that if students know their teacher cares about them, they will work harder to avoid disappointing their teacher. Educators have been trained in the "Capturing Kids' Hearts" program, which includes signing a social contract, sharing happy news before each class and high-fiving or sharing inspirational messages as students exit the classroom. (The Grand Rapids Press)

Teacher uses water balloons, pizza to prepare students for algebra: A California teacher is showing his students that algebra can be fun by having them use math to compete in water balloon fights, sing songs and divide pizza into triangles. Steve Norton's students say his visual, hands-on methods -- known as a "constructionist" approach -- are helping them learn. (North County Times)

Georgia bill would extend vouchers to all public school students: Georgia parents could get about $5,000 each for private-school tuition under a bill introduced Monday in the state Senate that was decried by some lawmakers. Supporters say the bill would force public schools to improve; critics say vouchers would exacerbate the state's inadequate funding of its public schools. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Perspectives/All Teachers Can Learn: "If teachers aren't raising test scores sufficiently, reformers say they should be weeded out," says ASCD book author Robyn Jackson. "The same people believe that 'All students can learn.' Why don't they start believing that 'all teachers can learn'?" Jackson examines the many ways that educators can improve their practice and refresh their mind-set, starting with the idea of embracing professional learning communities. (Educational Leadership)

Proposed grants would allow Duncan to reward ambitious states: U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan's plans to improve schools may include a discretionary $15 billion incentive-grant fund that would be used, in part, for states and districts that set high educational standards. "This is absolutely a historic opportunity to reward excellence," Duncan said. "We want to reward rigor and challenge the status quo." (Education Week - subscription)

Former teacher introduces bill to protect students' rights: A judge's ruling last month that permitted school administrators to discipline a student for a non-threatening blog post has inspired a former teacher turned lawmaker to introduce a bill he says would protect students' right to free speech. "This is like saying you can't write on a piece of paper and distribute that piece of paper outside the school," said Connecticut state Sen. Gary LeBeau, who used to teach civics. "I'm really disappointed in the courts." (The Hartford Courant)

Study: Students must learn scientific-reasoning skills: College freshmen in China know more about science than their U.S. counterparts, but neither group is particularly good at scientific reasoning, according to a new study of more than 6,000 students at seven universities, published in the journal Science. "Even when students are rigorously taught the facts, they don't necessarily develop the reasoning skills they need to succeed," said lead author Lei Bao, an Ohio State University associate physics professor. "Because students need both knowledge and reasoning, we need to explore teaching methods that target both." (ScienceDaily)

Indiana bill could avert frivolous lawsuits questioning teachers' decisions: Special educator Angela Williams' students increasingly threaten to sue when she attempts to control disruptive students. That's sort of issue has prompted some Indiana lawmakers to introduce a bill that would give teachers qualified immunity as long as they act reasonably to keep order in their classrooms. (Chicago Tribune)

Duncan: Education aid could revitalize country's work force: Some $141 billion for schools and colleges presents "an extraordinary opportunity" to dramatically improve U.S. schools by more fully funding Title I and the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, said new U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "This is righting a historical injustice, a historical wrong," he said. "These have been desperately underfunded, in some cases for decades." (USA Today)

Technology alters students' learning: Computers, video games and multitasking may have helped improve people's visual skills, but they also appear to have contributed to an erosion in critical-thinking and analysis skills, according to new research published in the journal Science. Reading, however, develops the imagination as well as deductive, reflection and critical-thinking stills, said researcher and UCLA psychology professor Patricia Greenfield, who also directs the Children's Digital Media Center of Los Angeles. "No one medium is good for everything," she said. "If we want to develop a variety of skills, we need a balanced media diet." (ScienceDaily)