Thanks for the encouraging support everyone - let's hope I can keep up with this. Beware: this next post contains links. If you want to actually read those linked articles, be sure to give yourself a good 15 minutes.

------------------------

I was sitting with a friend at lunch recently discussing my annoyance at policy in the School District of Philadelphia for problems I am currently having related to assessment. During discussions she mentioned an idea in the business world wherein “you get what you measure.”

A simple statement as statements go – but it has ramifications far beyond what anyone might expect. 

This concept relates to the business world during performance reviews when the measurement tool puts the employee to the test. A tool measuring quantities of clients will frown upon an employee who brought in but one over the course of 3 months. However, if the measurement was how much money was brought in and that client happened to be the Gates Foundation – well, you get the idea.

Of course I relate this to education in a direct way – the nation is currently obsessed with the idea of testing. So much so that a recent article argues that testing students over and over again will help them learn better. I would agree with that statement – since the study is essentially testing how well students are performing on a test. A critique on the Huffington Post asserts just that.

Here, again, it depends on what we are measuring.

Test scores are currently improving across the School District of Philadelphia. In the 2009-2010 school year 59% of schools made AYP (adequate yearly progress), a large leap over what happened previously. Of course, the NAEP test shows (National Assessment of Educational Progress) something different. How are we to know which test is better? More accurate? Less weighted by socioeconomic class?

Maybe we should be measuring something different. I don’t deny that tests provide valuable information for teachers to use in their classes. But the emphasis on implementing them so often is harmful. The days I spend implementing Benchmark tests, Predictive tests, and others, could be used for teaching.

Perhaps, instead, we should focus on what kind of colleges our students get into after high school. Or, better yet, how many of them graduate from those colleges; how many get jobs; what salaries are associated with those jobs, etc.

We really need to think about what and how we measure. The more we decide to measure mediocrity, the more it will pervade out schools.

Thanks to Jen Crawford for a great name for a blog! This first post is dedicated to Danielle Morris who, I think, needs a kick in the pants to motivate her to stick with it.

----------------------

Educational research states that 2014 will likely be my last year teaching. Since the majority of teachers leave their posts after five years, most of my colleagues in the 2009 Teacher Induction class of Penn GSE will be out of the system by the time the Imagine 2014 plan is complete. However, I plan on being here for decades to come. Why? Because I still believe in the School District of Philadelphia.

At times I still question that premise. At the end of many Fridays, I am glad to leave the building for a two-day break. I feel frustrated that another week has gone by where so many things have gone wrong. I feel hated by students, who give up because they have missed three days of class in a row and then blame me for their not knowing information. I feel diminished by the lack of communication within my building between teachers and the administration. I feel drained from coming to school an hour early and staying an hour late to help students who should have completed the assigned work three months ago.

Yet despite all that, I still believe in the School District of Philadelphia.

Call me crazy, but I am so excited that I get to talk with high school kids every day about what is happening in their lives. I love it when they tell me about their weekend. I love it when I see the “aha” moment in their eyes, when they understand how to factor a complex quadratic expression (sorry, a little math moment there). I love the high-level pedagogical discourse I have with my colleagues as well as the inane chatter about the kids (yes, we talk about them).

Yes, I still believe, for all these reasons and more:

Because of students who ask the perfect segue question during a math class.

Because of teachers give up their prep and/or lunch periods to participate in programs like “Critical Friends,” wherein we observe each other and provide informative feedback.

Because of students who get up before the sun rises in order to get to school on time.

Because of teachers who struggle to balance the needs of an unrealistic core curriculum with their student bodies.

Because of administrators who teach social studies courses in an effort to push back against the demands of doubled-up Math and English courses because they are tested on the PSSA.

Because of teachers and students who adapt to constant roster changes on a day’s notice.

Because of counselors who deal with caseloads of 400 students on a daily basis.

Because of teachers spending hours working on creative methods of implementing scripted lesson plans, demanded of them even though they lack any basis in research.

Let’s be honest: the School District of Philadelphia is in shambles. There is a looming budget gap of over $225 million dollars; the bloated central offices have a narrow focus on test scores instead of actual learning; the teachers are feeling so much pressure that we are leaving the profession before we are skilled enough to make a large difference!

I try to bring my whole self into the classroom with me when I teach, so I am not shy about explaining how my Jewish background affects my pedagogy. There is a quote in the Talmud (a Jewish book of rabbinic law) that states, “Whosever preserves a single soul…scripture ascribes to him as though he has preserved a complete world” (Sanhedrin, 37a). I believe that education is saving lives every day. If that is true, then while the rest of America may be waiting for Superman, I recognize that every teacher is a Superman or Superwoman every day they work.