Get Schooled

By Jeff

February 2, 2007 08:24 AM | Link to this

Simple answer: NO

Beginning to look at AZ though, I’m starting to see some things:

a) You have quite a few systems out there that ARE year round.

b) From my cursory glances so far, out there you have FAR LESS Educational bueracracy than here in GA. (No state common salary scale, ech system does their own recruiting, etc. No TeachGeorgia type organization.)

c) At the same time, standards for teachers appear to be higher. Even to go from a reciprocal certificate (which is one year non renewable), you have to pass tests in Professional Knowledge, Subject Area Knowledge, AZ Constitution, and US Constitution. (And that is AFTER you’ve proven you passed PRAXIS!!!)

d) Of course, their teacher shortage appears to be even more severe than GA’s….

By catlady

February 2, 2007 08:40 AM | Link to this

Seems like to me our school calendar is messed up in at least one important way: we give those required tests at insane times! Next week, I give the EXIT TEST FOR ESOL. That’s right, in early February, almost 4 months before the end of school. We are barely over half finished with the year, and I will be evaluating their readiness for next year’s class! And the CRCT? Given 2 months before school is over, I believe. Let me tell you, once we do the “high stakes testing”, it is hard to convince the children that there is anything else important to do! If these tests are summnative tests, let’s put them near the summit! A huge challenge for me (and I think I am good at it) is to keep the motivation and learning going for the rest of the year, because the kids are convinced that there is no need to work hard and learn more stuff because the test is over. With the emphasis on the tests, the importance of learning after the test, to the children, is diminished. We are just “marking time” till the end of the year.

By decaturparent

February 2, 2007 08:53 AM | Link to this

The thing that bugs me most about the calendar wars is the parents that get ticked off when you shorten the school year or even the day a bit. They consider public school to be free daycare. It’s not free daycare.

These are the same parents that send in sick and licey kids and get everyone else in the class sick.

School is there to educate your children, not raise them. The biggest problem with public education today is that parents expect schools to be everything to everyone. Parents find it too easy to abdicate their responsibilites to even teach morals to their chidren because they think that the school will do it for them.

The school is also responsible to feeding their kids, instilling self esteem, and diagnosing and treating mental and physical ilness. This is why schools can’t even suspend kids anymore. Parents don’t want to take the time off of work to deal with their kids so they threaten to sue the school.

10 days wouldn’t matter at all if schools were only expected to educate. However, since they now must parent…. the kids probably need to go 24/7/365.

By TeacherMom

February 2, 2007 09:04 AM | Link to this

Our students should be in school enough days to be top in the nation, not bottom. That means firing teachers who don’t know what they’re doing, paying more to the best teachers, and hiring those with those potential. It means lengthening the day, and it the year. It means paying teachers more money. It means investing in the future of our state, country, and world. Will Georgia do it? NO!!! And that answer is why so many parents are turning to home-schooling.

By KA

February 2, 2007 09:05 AM | Link to this

Eliminate standardized testing days, teacher workdays, early release PT conference days and fall and spring breaks, and oila you can start after Labor Day and finish before Memorial Day.

By jim d

February 2, 2007 09:16 AM | Link to this

Wow,

All kind of stuff to talk about here. I think since most of the regulars here already know my strong advocacy and support for multi-track YRS, that I’ll just skip over that concept.

Jeff,—AZ has gone largely to Charter schools, which I suspect has a lot to do with the differences you’ve mentioned. Arizona is the most progressive in the Charter School movement. Charter Schools in Arizona were created about a decade ago. They operate both on a for-profit, and non-profit status.

But you must note Drop out rates among Charter High Schools in AZ. are the highest in the nation when compared to public schools, despite the amount of money spent on each student. Student’s in Arizona Charter Schools have a higher failure rate on the state required AIMS test when compared to those students in public schools. Also that while Ga. has moved up to 41st in education AZ. Has slid to the bottom, being ranked 50th in 2006-2007 ratings. http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank06.htm#METHODOLOGY

On the teacher shortage issue? Actually a very good report here. http://www.asu.edu/copp/morrison/TSfinal.pdf That debunks the claim.

Cat—the early testing dates allow some of the better teachers an opportunity to add real enhancement after the test dates. I really don’t think a lot of teachers mind that. They actually are able to have a lot of fun teaching once the damn old tests are complete. Most of the ones I know aren’t just “marking time. They are taking full advantage of it to enlighten students in ways they can’t prior to the tests.

KA—-I’m with you on your calendar assumptions!

By iron maiden

February 2, 2007 09:26 AM | Link to this

After teaching in Alabama and Texas, I was appalled at the length of the school year here in Georgia. At first the school day was a bit shorter, so somewhat of a trade-off existed. But then an even longer school day was implemented. Many states are on a 175-day school year as opposed to Georgis’s required 180 for students. Additionally, I went from 5 inservice days a year to 14 in Cobb County. Teacher training budgets have been severely reduced and cutting these training days would also help to shorten the school year for everyone. When fatigue sets in, mid-winter/after spring break, “more” is not always productive.

By catlady

February 2, 2007 09:26 AM | Link to this

KA, early release days and standardized testing days “count” toward the 180 days, so eliminating them won’t help toward starting after Labor and ending before Memorial Day. You are right about doing that giving us more time to teach.

In our county, our schedule is determined to a large extent by the high school needs, which is on block scheduling. I’ve never bought the argument that “we need to have semester exams before Christmas, because students will forget the material.” If they have LEARNED the material, they won’t forget it in 2 weeks! Decades later, I can tell you all kinds of stuff I committed to my memory, that I have never used or revisited, because I learned it the first time, as opposed to committed it to short term memory for a test. We don’t teach to learning/mastery as much any more. I think that is one reason my own children have complained that they were not ready for college, even though they took the hardest courses and made As. They did not understand that learning means more than just reading and remembering for a short time.

By catlady

February 2, 2007 09:36 AM | Link to this

jim d, you are right about the use of the time. I save most of my fun, interesting “fluff” (administrators’ term for stuff not on the CRCT) for the time after tests. We are still using the skills we practiced for the CRCT. However, it begs the question: if this test shows what the children have learned for the year, why give it 2/3 of the way through the year? And, if we use the results to evaulate teachers, how can we fairly evaluate them if we expect a year’s growth in 6 1/2 months? And it is right to say a kid stays back (not that we keep anyone back in my county) because they haven’t mastered the 3rd grade objectives (sorry as the CRCT is) when we test them well before the end of the year? You know, Jim, as I type this I can see some sort of reasoning—we don’t use the results to make decisions and the test is such a farce anyway—well, nevermind. Let’s just give it in October and then TEACH the rest of the year!

By jim d

February 2, 2007 09:43 AM | Link to this

Cat, is real learning really that desireable?

Here’s a poem that still rattles through my brain nearly 50 years after “leraning it” that I’d love to know how to “unlearn.” Any thoughts on how to do that?

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow Between the crosses row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

By jim d

February 2, 2007 09:47 AM | Link to this

Actually Cat, I’d prefer it be given in August. then you could spend the next 9 months teaching

I’m serious here. Give it at the beginning of the year to qualify the student for the grade they are entering. Think about it

By teach overseas

February 2, 2007 09:53 AM | Link to this

I would be all for shortening or even lengthening the school day and/or school year if there was actual evidence that we were doing it in the best interest of children and learning.

How many of these decisions are being based on the needs of tourism, summer camp officials, some notion of when it’s a good time to take a family vacation, when schools up North take their vacations or people’s personal daycare problems.

Let’s get our priorities straight people!

By catlady

February 2, 2007 09:54 AM | Link to this

And KA, even though it is off topic, I was thinking about the subject of your first post this morning. I was thinking about how fortunate I was growing up in many ways, but one thing that I got that a lot of my students’ parents did not get was the sense that the fallout from my decisions was MINE to handle. I.e, if I chose to have children as an unmarried teenager, it was mine to take care of all the ramifications. Or, if I decided not to forego some pleasures and stay in school, it would me mine to handle what came next. I was thinking about that because so many of the parents I deal with think it is up to the school to make up for what they have not done or put themselves in position to do for their kids. I chose my work carefully with an eye toward what it would mean for family life, deciding to put aside all kinds of fun things to position myself to have the job I do. If all folks had a sense that “it is up to me” rather than “let government pick up the pieces of this mess” our children might also show more responsible behavior.

A couple of years ago, during a faculty meeting, I made a list of all the things that the school in general and teachers in particular are charged with doing. I ran out of paper after 2 sheets. Quite a few of the things were those that the family handled a generation or two ago: teaching morals, health, breakfast, transportation, counseling, etc. Public schools have become a catch-all for any type of problem, but nothing comes off the bottom of the pile of responsibilities. This has a nexus with the blog topic because all these things take time from teaching, which affects the schedule and student achievement.

As far as length of day, I am continually puzzled when I see folks talk about how short the school day is. Where I am, the instructional day is 7 hours long (teacher workday is 8 hours plus meetings), plus long bus rides for most kids. Our kids are frequently gone from home for 10 hours a day counting the bus ride. How much of that, sometimes I wonder, is a sop to working parents to provide day care? How do schools let out so early in the afternoon and still get in the required number of hours?

By catlady

February 2, 2007 10:06 AM | Link to this

jim, you can’t give the test at the beginning of the year! They have FORGOTTEN all that they have “learned”! Plus, the lucrative summer school and retesting lobby would not get its pound of flesh! I believe you’ll agree with me on that. And I agree with you about the test at the beginning of the year, but it would never ever happen. Too many vested interests (see above, and others). Think of the embarrassment!

I, also, memorized In Flander’s Fields, although I think I did it for my dad and not for school. I also know the Preamble and Oh Captain! My Captain! and The Children’s Hour and The One Hoss Shay. I actually recited part of Flander’s Fields to my younger daughter at Christmas to illustrate some point, so you never know when you can use it!

I now use the Spanish I learned (yes, learned) 38 years ago. I cannot conjugate verbs well in anything but present tense (I obviously did not incorporate into my being the other tenses) but in some ways I speak it better than I did then—I am more relaxed. You never know when the need will arise, but if it does, I am ready.

By jim d

February 2, 2007 10:13 AM | Link to this

Admission exams.

Now there’s a concept whose time has come.

A child coming from a home school environment must take an admission exam for placement in the proper grade.

Why not all students? Why not do it at the beginning of the year and scrap all the other garbage saddled on teachers, schools and students through out the year?

By mmm

February 2, 2007 10:14 AM | Link to this

No.

Why don’t we just admit that many families would rather let the state raise their children and make a bunch of Kipp Academies. The principle from one of those school testified at the hearing on SB39 on Wed. He pointed out that to raise these middle schoolers from 30th percentile to 70th percentile on the IOWA between 5th and 8th grade (their results) they required no excuses for not putting in effort at 60% more time at school as compared to the traditional programs. Yes some don’t know what they are signing up for and they leave——but consider all the kids for whom that 40 percentile difference means that their life will have a future.

By SET

February 2, 2007 10:14 AM | Link to this

180 days a year is enough to educate the proletariat.

The problem is that the urban public schools no longer have a mission statement to prepare the schoolchildren for work, military service, or higher education. The schools main priority is to indoctrinate state dogma into proletariat wage-slaves. The schools actually expect the (wage slave) parents to handle to “morals”, discipline, and homework.

Like that’s going to happen. In CA thanks to government changes made along with the 1960’s Great Society programs, the norm for proletariat family groups are a single mother and her children with occasional boyfriends and stepfathers. In black families you don’t even get the stepfathers that often. The minority of family groupings that are traditional nuclear families have both parents working and commuting an hour each way to work often in opposite directions.

I’m not blaming the schools for divorce on demand (with the resulting loss of security for mothers of children) and all the other legislative acts of distruction of childhood years - but face, it, these schools have to either raise these kids to become skilled workers or the public school kids aren’t going to become skilled workers.

The rich (right side of the bell curve?) have always been able to take care of themselves. Public schools need to be legislatively rededicated to preparing it’s students to support themselves at age 18.

And yes, that will have to include jack-booted discipline. Standardized testing should be limited to 3 or 4 days a year. Maybe we should copy the British National A level exams…

By jim d

February 2, 2007 10:19 AM | Link to this

Cat,

There is truly one and only one thing that must be learned. That one thing will take one as high and far as they wish to go. Fortunately for me, I learned it at an early age.

“The only thing I need to know is where or to whom to go to get the answers.”

By HB

February 2, 2007 10:22 AM | Link to this

Shortening the school year makes mo since to me. First, it implies that summer breaks have gotten shorter in recent years because the school has gotten longer — wrong! It’s been 180 days at least since I was in elementary school back in the 80s. Summer has gotten shorter because local districts decided they wanted more to add a couple of breaks during the year, shortening the summer by only a couple of weeks. A few districts have gone to more of a year-round schedule, but still have 7 weeks or more off in summer. It’s my understanding that the majority of parents, students, and teachers in those places are happy with their new schedules, which is why the very vocal Georgians Need Summers had to go to the state level — they were out-numbered in their home districts and had to drag in support from a couple of coastal reps 300 miles away.

As for the tourism argument, I am from the GA coast and still have family members there who depend on tourism to make their living. They feel like the new schedules have HELPED tourism! Most school systems have not shortened summer vacations by more than a week or two; they’ve just shifted them by a few weeks so that now summer break is early May to late July, instead of late May to mid-August. Businesses on the coast have always relied on college students for summer labor and struggled with the tourist season beginning two weeks after college students arrived and ending two weeks after they went back to school. Now the season lines up pretty well with college schedules. May also tends to be more crowded now than August ever was because of its better weather. Beaches in GA are miserably hot by late summer — who wants to go then?

By catlady

February 2, 2007 10:29 AM | Link to this

jim, (respectfully disagreeing) I think there is something more basic that you learned: you have the power/responsibility to do something for yourself, even if that thing you do is to go somewhere for the answer. The answer does not come to you, is not done for or to you. I think it is called “self-efficacy”. And, what if there is no “answer”?

(Here on this blog we have lots of answers, some of which may even correspond with the question posed! LOL)

By jim d

February 2, 2007 10:32 AM | Link to this

Ahh but Dear Cat,

No answer is an answer, isn’t it?

By Jeff

February 2, 2007 10:32 AM | Link to this

HB:

Couldn’t agree more about the tourism. I was on Jekyll last April for a couple of hours (I had just gone to a couple of interviews in the area), and it was AMAZING. SOOOOOO much better than had I gone in August!

Also, as you pointed out, I always did wonder about teaching summer camps while in college. By the time they started, I had already been out of school for a month!!!

By ECLB

February 2, 2007 10:34 AM | Link to this

I cannot believe that when American education (and in particular, Georgia’s lackluster achievements) is appallingly below the rest of the industrialized nations, we would elect representatives who actually think it is in the child’s best interest to shorten the school year. How absurd!

JimD—I like your idea of admissions tests at the beginning of each grade. I actually visited a school outside of Boston recently where they instituted exit exams instead to move from one grade (they actually called their multi-age grades, divisions) to the next. There would be no holding kids back, as they would be allowed to transition to whatever level they were achieving at. Kids who weren’t ready, would be able to stay at a particular level until they had mastered the skills allowing them to move ahead. Because the system was already set up to accommodate multiple years within a division, there would always be a range of ages, not the lock-step age-grade set up we currently have here in GA. One big bonus—kids could transition in language arts/humanities and then in math/science/technology separately, if they wanted. So, if you have a math/science prodigy, they could move ahead in those subjects and still be working at a different level for the rest of their subjects. But, I digress, this is a topic for a different blog.

Back to the main point, as long as we have things like tourism running our school calendar, and parents who treat the school system like a glorified babysitter, the calendar wars will not cease.

By HS Teacher Too

February 2, 2007 11:02 AM | Link to this

I’m all for later start dates, but not with the current system. Last year I lost TWENTY SCHOOL DAYS for testing. That’s a month of school, folks! And then, the EOCT was a month before the end of school! So, for as much as it mattered, I only had teaching time from October ‘til April anyway. Nevermind all of the mind-boggling things that went on with the administration of the EOCT itself … irregularities and other blatant instances of breaching any meaning of the tests, but which I shall save for another blogging day.

By HS Teacher Too

February 2, 2007 11:11 AM | Link to this

ECLB — can you share the name of that school outside of Boston?

Thanks!

p.s. to my previous post — I am all for starting later, so long as we finish later as well. (Labor Day ‘til late June, for example. Not Labor Day ‘til Memorial Day!)

By ECLB

February 2, 2007 11:19 AM | Link to this

The school outside of Boston that follows that format is the Parker Essential Charter School www.parker.org They have some of the highest SAT scores in the state, are a charter school, and don’t seem to be held back by the amount of testing that Massachusetts also requires. If only more schools followed this philosophy!

By HS Teacher Too

February 2, 2007 11:28 AM | Link to this

Thanks, ECLB. It looks like Parker is a pretty special place. It’s not just a charter school, it’s a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools, and they seem (in my limited readings, I grant) to be above-and-beyond from the get-go.

By Susan

February 2, 2007 11:36 AM | Link to this

This will go right along with dropping the technical programs from high schools all over the state starting next year. When the kids can’t make it in the college prep classes, they’ll drop out which will make the GA scores look sooooo much better - just like Bush did in Texas. The state doesn’t care about kids.

By JustMe

February 2, 2007 11:39 AM | Link to this

Here is a novel idea - let the educators decide: not the politicans, not the students, not the parents.

If we as a society want to make the best decision about how to educate students, shouldn’t we let people decide that are trained in education?

Notice that I said “educators” and not “educrates”. Do not ask administrators anything - they will try to appease everyone and never give a clear answer.

By Susan

February 2, 2007 11:41 AM | Link to this

Early Release and testing days DO count in the 180 days. I’m a teacher in Gwinnett and have been for 25+ years. It’s always been that way. Early Release hours for releasing the kids make it so it’s over 1/2 day and therefore, it counts as a school day.

By JustMe

February 2, 2007 11:52 AM | Link to this

jimd -

Did you steal my idea? LOL! I have always been a fan of having an admissions test for each school (elementary, middle, and high). Since there was a high school “graduation test” I called the others a “middle school graduation test” and an “elementary school graduation test.”

If students cannot pass these, then they simply are NOT allowed to move right along. They would have to remediate in either some special classes or even at some alternative school.

By doing this, those students that do not know the content will not disrupt with possible bad behavior, or slow down the students that have mastered the content.

By jim d

February 2, 2007 12:17 PM | Link to this

Just me,

STEAL?? I prefer to think of it as borrowing and expanding it to every grade level.

:-)

By jim d

February 2, 2007 12:19 PM | Link to this

Just me,

Have you visited this site yet?

http://georgiaspeaks.com/ideas/list.asp?category_id=8

By Janine

February 2, 2007 01:31 PM | Link to this

Good afternoon everyone.
jimd….I really like the idea of testing students at the beginning of each year. However, not with the CRCT. I think I have mentioned here before that most , if not all students who pass the CRCT at the lower end of the scale are actually nowhere near grade level in reading or math. The state knew that when they designed it.

By SarahG

February 2, 2007 01:32 PM | Link to this

I’m from North Carolina, and we fought part of this battle year before last - the state legislature passed a law that school cannot begin earlier than August 26. Until that time, school beginning and ending dates were a local decision.

In most districts, the new law moved the start of at least school 2-3 weeks later. I won’t go into all the difficulties that has caused (high school students, who are on the semester system, taking end of course exams AFTER a two-week Christmas break, for instance).

What really angered me about the change was the true reason behind it - the same as it appears is behind the change in Georgia. In NC, the length of the school year didn’t change - the beginning and ending dates just moved - so the earnest arguments we heard from politicians about bringing back the halcyon days of summer vacation were a crock. Was the concern for what is best for the students? Of course not. It was pushed through the legislature by representatives from the coastal areas - and the tourism industry wanted high school students available to work later in the summer. The true impetus behind the change was not education but economical - and it benefited the tourism lobby, not the students affected.

By jim d

February 2, 2007 01:50 PM | Link to this

janine,

I agree—no CRCT, use the tests they give homschool kids transferring in to determine appropriate grade level.

By Janine

February 2, 2007 02:11 PM | Link to this

As to Bridget’s question, I would answer that the “calendar wars” probably will never end. However, I would also say that 10 days or 2 weeks added or subtracted from the present school calendar will make no difference, academically speaking. One of the posters today mentioned the time spend actually testing/ as well as the hours and days spent doing practice tests and teaching the test. After a reasonable number of days and hours, It’s not the quantity of time, but the quality of the time!

By Concerned Teacher

February 2, 2007 02:29 PM | Link to this

I think starting school about two weeks later will not hurt students. When I was in school we always started the last week in August. In high school I took finals after Christmas break. I think I performed better because I relaxed and not stressed or focusing on what I am going to do over Christmas instead pay attention to the test. I graduated high school in 97 so it was just ten years ago.

By Autoteacherman

February 2, 2007 05:27 PM | Link to this

Out of the box thinking! The drop out rate has not changed much over the past 50 years. I think classes should be open and self responsible. If a student wants to go college then go to those classes. If a student wants to be a carpenter, butcher, baker and candle stick maker then go to those classes and go to work. Adults vote with their feet, going where they want to go. I think High School should be open and free to choose your career path. The good classes worth the time/money would be full. The redundant and of no value in the market palace would be vacant and not funded. Cream would rise and we would not cause the next generation to jump through useless hoops just because. The DTAE operates this way and so does the private sector. If you teach at a DTAE school and don’t do a great job you won’t have many students that get jobs and you won’t be around next year. High schools should be revelant and have business relationships. School boards should decide the color of the busses for the year and adjourn til next year allowing the good teachers to teach the good students what they need to know.

By greene

February 5, 2007 09:07 AM | Link to this

If this passes, don’t be suprised that school systems will start dropping fine arts classes to make up for the lost academic time. Administrators are always looking for reasons to get rid of classes they don’t have any knowledge about, but are given the right to pass judgement on those that teach these classes.

By Joe

February 5, 2007 05:57 PM | Link to this

Lets get real folks. The purpose of the propsed legislation is strictly economic. Vacation time have been shorten due to early school starts and counties in tourist areas have lost revenue as a result. This legislator couldn’t care less if Georgia children stay at the bottom of the country in academic achievement. Kids need classroom time.