A leap into administration?

I don’t want to be an administrator. Of course, there was a time I didn’t want to be a teacher either. I once held a Teacher on Assignment position for two years where I only taught three classes and spent the rest of the time advising a student group on campus. When I went to my then principal to resign I explained that part of the reason I was quitting that position was that I didn’t see myself as an administrator, and that I wanted to spend more of my time in the classroom. He accepted my resignation, but shared that he didn’t see me the same way I did, and that, like it or not, administration would be in my future sometime.

The last time I wrote about administration I really stepped in it. Part of the reason I don’t want to make the leap into administration has to do with what I wrote before:

…I also believe that the minute you lose daily contact with students, you lose your effectiveness as an educator. I believe that one must have the best intentions and desire to improve schools if they take on an administrative position, but that motivation often gets set aside by the requirements of security, discipline issues, parent contacts, and now, test scores.

But if I were to become an administrator, what would my “best intentions” be?

First, I would make sure that the life-long success of the students was the primary focus of the campus. Seems obvious, but sometimes I wonder if that is really the goal of education today. By that I mean that the current educational environment measures student achievement in test scores. How well do they perform on the standardized test? While testing is an important measurement for student progress, in my opinion, standardized tests do not reflect a student’s ability to survive in the world we send them into after graduation. I don’t know about you, but once I graduated college, the only tests I took were to become a teacher. If a person doesn’t plan on teaching, or medicine, or law, then what is the value of making them professional test takers? I think we are doing the students a huge disservice by focusing so much attention on test scores. I don’t know what difference I could make from a campus administrative position to this nation-wide current in education, but I would do my best to make sure that my students left my campus with more practical skills than just test taking.

The second thing I would do was to make the teachers the educational leaders of the campus, and not the administration. I believe that administrators are there to support the teachers, and not the other way around. Frustrating when not all teachers are willing to take on leadership roles with their colleagues. But it’s the teachers, and not the administrators, that have the daily, hourly contact with students. Teachers should be given all of the support they require to do the best job possible for the students. Support in the form of funding, time to prepare, and appropriate staff development. I would schedule time to not only visit every classroom at least once a week (if physically possible), but also sit down and talk with my teaching staff about whatever they wanted to talk about. Our conversations could be school related, or not. The important reason to talk to the teachers would be to make connections and build relationships with the staff, just like we should be doing with our students. Teachers, like students, will work harder for individuals they know, and who they feel know and appreciate them. Once I knew my teachers better, I would encourage them to exercise their areas of strength by sharing and collaborating with their fellow teachers within and outside of their subject areas.

Third, I would strive to include more parents in the educational process. After all, its their kids were teaching. Not all parents feel like they have a place at their children’s schools. That feeling needs to be changed to one of invitation and inclusion. Kids do better when they see their parents actively involved and caring about their education. Parents volunteering in the classroom (yes even in middle and high school) and office, parents involved with activities, parents as not only guest speakers, but also guest instructors. The teacher credentialing process makes becoming a certificated teacher very challenging, and excludes some very qualified candidates. However, that does not mean that experienced parents cannot contribute to the education of students in the classroom with credentialed teacher supervision. Of course parents work and have commitments that keep them occupied while they send their kids to public school, but with a little creativity, and maybe through the use of technology, parents can become even more involved. The school belongs to the community; the education of students should be a community effort.

Finally I would require my administrative colleagues to work directly with students for some portion of their day. Not in the role of disciplinarian, but as a teacher. Whether it is teaching a single class during the day, or working with student government, or coaching a sport, or sponsoring a club, this type of connection with kids is vital to staying focused on the most important thing schools do, teach students. In exchange for time not spent administrating, I would encourage teachers to share in part of the administrative burden. Instead of teachers always sending their problem student out to administrators, relying on admin to handle parent contacts, I would leave that up to the teachers to handle on their own. In this way it would require teachers to improve their classroom discipline, relationships with students and parents, and gain a real appreciation for what administrators face everyday.

I’m not an administrator and that’s probably a good thing. It’s likely that after reading this few teachers would want to work for me anyway. A current administrator reading this might remark that I had no idea what I was writing about. There is a whole world of administration I don’t know anything about, for example: working with the district office, maintaining buildings and grounds, the expulsion process, attendance issues, operating a security force, holding cabinet meetings, dealing with legal issues, and of course making sure that every student performs adequately on the standardized tests. Maybe if campus administrators didn’t have to deal with any of these issues they could spend more time on the four areas I listed above. I suspect that if I did join the administrators it wouldn’t be long before my idealism was weighed down by the realities of marinating a public school. And maybe not. Sure my ideas may be wishful thinking, but change and reform does not happen until somebody dreams up a crazy idea and then takes a leap of faith.

Please post your comments below.

Grades Matter?

I am concerned about teachers who subjectively assess their students without a clear-cut and firm grading structure. Whether a student receives an “A” or and “F,” a “6” or a “1” in the classroom, that grade should be based on concrete evaluations and transparent to all stakeholders.

Grades need to be based on tangible items that kids can identify and understand. If a student doesn’t understand the grading system, or why they are been assessed, then their grade, no matter what it is, loses meaning. I recently spoke to one of my son’s teachers about a quarter grade. One of her evaluation items was initiative. My son’s grade wasn’t higher because he, in her opinion, did not show enough initiative. It’s hard to quantify initiative. My son did the work he was asked to do, but because he did not complete the work with an attitude that satisfied the teacher, he received a lower grade.

I once shared students with another teacher for one semester. At the end we sat down to record semester grades. I brought my grade book, and she brought hers. We began to compare notes. I quickly realized that we did not assess our shared students the same way. I shared the student’s score for my portion of the class, and then my colleague shared her score. With many students my colleague changed the mark the students had earned based on her own impression of how hard the student worked, or what grade she felt they student deserved. I was shocked. Does this type of subjective assessment have a place in a grading system when standardized test scores are given such a high priority in the overall performance of our schools?

The feedback between teacher and student that is communicated through both classroom and testing marks is key to the educational progress of the student, and the educational effectiveness of the teacher. Grades should be as important to teachers as they are to students. However, grading philosophies and standards are as varied as the teachers who record them. While I fully support teacher independence and individuality, I wonder sometimes if the same independent spirit and individual personality should be applied to something as objective as pupil’s grades, especially those that go on the transcripts and could potentially hurt the students in their future academic endeavors.

Try and see it from the students’ perspective. We’ve all been there. I can remember taking a college course where the instructor refused to tell us how much our projects were worth until she completed our finals. What??? I remember thinking. How could I prioritize when I had no idea what was going to make or break my grade. Unfortunately, grades are not equally important to all students. Many students, especially younger kids, fail to understand the value of succeeding in the courses they take. One of our jobs is to teach the importance of good grades and draw connections to success outside the classroom.

Grades do matter so they should matter to teachers. Take a look at your classes. How many kids do you fail each semester? If the numbers are very high, say greater that 50%, then maybe it’s time to take a look at how you are teaching. Sometimes it’s just a rotten class, or a few bad apples, and sometimes it’s the teacher. I have colleagues who regularly fail a large number of their students and yet stubbornly refuse to make changes to their curriculum, teaching style, or classroom personality. Teachers need to be willing to meet kids wherever they are, and then teach them to be successful in whatever subject matter we are teaching. It’s not easy. Sometimes we have to make changes. But that’s our jobs.

I teach project-based courses, so my grading is designed for that type of course. What I do may not work for all teachers and all subjects. I use rubrics for all of my assignments and I grade on a point system. I design the rubrics myself based on whatever content and standards I am teaching. Each area is given a certain number of points that when added together equate to a total score that corresponds to a letter grade. Most, but not all, of the time I follow the standard 90-100% A, 80-89% B, and so on. Some teachers argue that a 90% is really an A-, but I always count anything that breaks the 90% threshold as an “A.”

Most of the time I give the student the rubric I use for grading before I score their projects, so that they can see exactly upon what it is they will be evaluated. To me its fair disclosure. I always hated when teachers “surprised” me by testing on something I didn’t expect, or adding in points of evaluation after I had submitted my work. I also offer students the opportunity to resubmit for points after my initial evaluation if there are areas of weakness they want to improve upon.

The most important thing to me is that my students “get it,” that they learn the material. If that means the students need to revise, edit, and resubmit then that’s all right with me. (I almost never submit any of these essays without pouring over them a number of times and letting them sit for at least a few days, sometimes longer.) Many teachers would argue that this type of revision should be done before the assignments' due dates. I don’t disagree with that, but I do think that kids need to be taught the process.

While I am still struggling with the concept and implementation of frequent common formative assessment, and I will always support a teachers independence in the classroom, and while I am frustrated by the current level of emphasis placed on standardized test scores, and the ensuing death of the high-school elective I see brewing, I do think that some type of objective, formal, consistent grading method across subject matter and grade levels could be a useful and important reform. If rubrics are the method of the day, then lets all use them on not only assignments, but quarter and semester grades as well. If it’s something else, that’s fine too. We teachers are committed to educating our kids and motivating their personal success so we need to get organized and consistent about the way we assess our students and the grades that we record.