Posts
In response to the posts relating to, “Urban School Myth,” an old school LYS Principal writes:
“It is always good when Brezina likes a post.
Of course, I know there are scores of problems that make the job of education exceedingly difficult. I also believe that many of those problems are self inflicted. In rural schools, we talk about not having the resources needed to compete with those big city schools. In the big schools, both urban and suburban, we look around and ask ourselves, "What resources are they talking about?"
The urban school myth is but one of a collection of excuses I have noted that educators use to explain away the lack of student success. While working in a large urban district, I made the mistake of discussing my thoughts concerning this particular myth with an assistant superintendent who hid behind the urban school mantra. After presenting the case and laying out the facts, you would not believe her response. She looked at me and said, "Well, you do understand we are not a true urban school. We are an inner city school."
What? That’s the best you can come up with? If you can't logic your wait out of a corner, just restate the excuse using synonyms? At that point, I realized that my skill set in this particular non-LYS district was a waste of their money and my time."
SC Response
Let me start with your “self-inflicted” observations. During my career as “school-district-state plumber,” the sad truth was in most cases the problem is easy to pinpoint, all you had to do was hold up a mirror. That’s both bad news and good news. The bad news being that we are at fault, but the good news is that we can do something about it. If we work, at full speed, on the things that we can control, the uncontrollable (myth) problems solve themselves.
Up until the mid-2000’s, the resource issue was a valid excuse. The rural schools had no infrastructure support. Not because they didn’t want it, but because it didn’t exist. Now you can buy infrastructure (scope and sequence, data processing, etc), and it becomes more affordable every year. If you are in Texas, you need to thank two people for making this possible, Dr. Shirley Neely (Commissioner of Education) and Dr. Nadine Kujawa (Aldine ISD Superintendent). Nadine and Aldine ISD stepped up and gave a cohort of struggling rural school, their scope and sequence, for essentially free. Or as the Aldine leadership team told me, “Let them know, as far as we’re concerned, they are Aldine now.”
Shirley used Aldine and the subsequent success of rural school cohort as the lever to force the ESC’s to step up and better fulfill their purpose. Jump to 2010 and now you have C-Scope and C-Cap, two excellent and evolving curriculum sources that weren’t worth the paper that were then printed on, just six years ago.
Now that tools are readily available, at every campus in every setting, the critical variables are the adults and the quality of leadership (or lack thereof). One of the Maxwell’s Fundamental Laws of Leadership states that a subordinate leader will not work for a leader of inferior skills (in the long run). When you can’t attract good leadership candidates from the outside, nor retain good internal candidates, you have to seek out and address the root cause. This brings us back to the mirror.
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
Friday, July 23, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
School Dysfunction, Part 3 - Quick Hitters
Some quick comments on the post, "School Dysfunction – Part 3."
One reader writes,
“SC, You should have submitted and published this post to an education journal. It was the best I have read yet! Thanks for the explanation.”
Brezina writes,
“This is a graduate level leadership course. There are some good leadership training points in this one.”
SC Response
Thanks!
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
One reader writes,
“SC, You should have submitted and published this post to an education journal. It was the best I have read yet! Thanks for the explanation.”
Brezina writes,
“This is a graduate level leadership course. There are some good leadership training points in this one.”
SC Response
Thanks!
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
A Reader Asks... Who are We Letting In?
One of the early LYS bloggers asks:
“So, what qualifies one to be a member of the LYS Nation?
Do you practice of as many of the LYS ideals and tools as you know for systemic growth and learner success?
Or, do you have to attend workshops and carry a card?”
SC Response
First, I was wondering where you have been hiding. The quality of the discussion is diminished when you go on hiatus.
Second, this question keeps popping up more and more. Here is my litmus test:
1. You read the blog on a regular basis.
2. You agree with at least 25% of what we discuss.
3. You disagree with at least 10% of what we discuss.
4. You recognize that as a profession, an organization, a classroom and as an individual, we are no where near meeting our potential (the easy part). Plus, you have a passion to chase that potential down (the hard part).
There is no card carrying requirement, but most of the old school LYS’ers do carry and use their World Famous LYS Coffee Tumblers and Koozies.
If anyone wants to suggest additional requirements, send them in. Like all great organizations the LYS Nation has to have agreed upon standards.
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn
“So, what qualifies one to be a member of the LYS Nation?
Do you practice of as many of the LYS ideals and tools as you know for systemic growth and learner success?
Or, do you have to attend workshops and carry a card?”
SC Response
First, I was wondering where you have been hiding. The quality of the discussion is diminished when you go on hiatus.
Second, this question keeps popping up more and more. Here is my litmus test:
1. You read the blog on a regular basis.
2. You agree with at least 25% of what we discuss.
3. You disagree with at least 10% of what we discuss.
4. You recognize that as a profession, an organization, a classroom and as an individual, we are no where near meeting our potential (the easy part). Plus, you have a passion to chase that potential down (the hard part).
There is no card carrying requirement, but most of the old school LYS’ers do carry and use their World Famous LYS Coffee Tumblers and Koozies.
If anyone wants to suggest additional requirements, send them in. Like all great organizations the LYS Nation has to have agreed upon standards.
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Adolescent Literacy: An Action Plan for the Upcoming Year
I was on a campus recently and I was asked for some ideas on strengthening their literacy instruction across the content areas. This reminded me that I had created a crib sheet concerning adolescent literacy when I was working for the State of Texas. It's a summary crafted from 3 or 4 source documents. I don't recall the documents, so any plagiarism is completely inadvertent. Let me know if you find this useful.
Adolescent Literacy: Action SummaryIntroduction
Why do adolescent readers struggle? The problem is generally not illiteracy, but comprehension. The student can read but he does not understand what he has read. As such, adolescent literacy remediation does not involve re-teaching elementary school level materials. Instead it must be grounded in teaching problem solving processes.
Elementary Literacy = Recall
Adolescent Literacy = Comprehension
Secondary education must continue to focus on literacy, because the skill set needed to succeed academically continues to get more advanced as the student progresses through the grades.
Effective Practices
These practices work best in combinations. Do not rely on just one strategy. Keep data so you can make effective and productive changes. Remember, effective adolescent literacy interventions must address comprehension. Keys:
· With instruction: Be overt. Explicitly explain to students how and when to use certain strategies. Have the students employ these strategies in multiple contexts with multiple texts.
· Provide appropriate and on-going professional development.
· Assess reading instruction on a regular, on-going basis. Make literacy a cornerstone of every course.
1. Direct, Explicit Comprehension Instruction
a. Includes teaching strategies to help students understand what they read, how they understood it, summarizing, activating prior knowledge, looking for information, self-monitoring, etc.
b. Includes teacher modeling, where the teacher reads the text aloud, making her own use of strategies and practices apparent to the student.
c. Includes scaffolding, where the teacher gives high support for students practicing new skills and then decreases support as the student becomes more confident.
d. Includes apprentice models, where students support other students in content centered learning relationships.
e. Includes comprehension monitoring, where the reader decides if she is understanding the text. If not, she uses “fix-up” strategies like re-stating, looking back and looking ahead in the text for context clues.
f. Teaching story structure to aid in comprehension: Setting, initiating events, internal reactions, goals, attempts and outcomes.
g. Teaching question answering: Where the student are taught that questions can be answered using both the text and prior knowledge.
h. Teaching question generating: Where student are taught to create their own questions about a text.
2. Effective Instructional Principles Embedded In Content
a. Includes instruction and practice in reading and writing skills specific to the subject area.
b. The content teacher must emphasize the reading and writing practices specific to the subject. Teach students to read and write like historians, scientists, mathematicians, etc.
c. Use tools to help struggling readers with comprehension. Examples include: graphic organizers, prompted outlines, structured reviews, guided instruction, etc.
3. Motivation And Self-Directed Learning
a. Includes support for independent learning.
b. Help promote relevancy in what the student reads and learns. Relevancy can be as easy as letting the student see how current learning will impact learning latter in the course (connectedness) or letting a student re-teach the material to another student.
c. Provide motivation and incentives for independent reading.
4. Text-Based Collaborative Learning
a. Small groups of students discussing and using information from a variety of texts. One example is to have students read different texts on the same topic, and then let them teach the group what they learned.
5. Strategic Tutoring
a. Teach the specific skills of decoding, comprehension, fluency and writing.
b. Teach learning strategies that will allow the student to complete independent tasks in the future.
6. Diverse Texts
a. High interest material that will help transition students to more rigorous material.
b. Have a variety of levels across a variety of topics.
7. Intensive Writing
a. Writing is thinking. All courses must have an intensive writing component.
b. Direct instruction should be connected to the kinds of writing tasks students will have to perform in specific subject areas.
c. As students progress through the grades, the quantity and quality of writing assignments must be increased.
d. Writing skills that directly support literacy: Grammar and spelling.
8. A Technology Component
a. Provides opportunities for reinforcement and guided practice.
9. On-Going Formative Assessment Of Students
a. Often informal, daily assessments on how students are progressing under current instructional practices.
10. Extended Time For Literacy
a. Double-dose English/Language Arts.
b. Provide a course in reading strategies and comprehension.
c. Students behind in skills need 2 to 4 hours a day in reading related activities to catch up. This does not have to be in one specific class. In fact, there must be reading and writing activities in every course.
11. Professional Development
a. Have training with an emphasis on reading techniques appropriate to content based courses.
b. Have reading coaches who are able to model support strategies for content based teachers and provide some in-class support.
c. Training must be long-term and on-going.
d. Include information on adult learning and classroom conditions needed to effect sustained change.
12. On-Going Summative Assessment Of Students And Programs
a. Formal data for evaluation and accountability.
13. Teacher Teams
a. Interdisciplinary teams that meet regularly to discuss students and align instruction
b. Create reading instruction teams. Have them read and research on effective practices, share them with the campus and model for teachers.
14. Leadership
a. Must make literacy a foundation of the school. Inspect and enforce expectations.
b. Must attend the same professional development as the instructional staff.
15. A Comprehensive And Coordinated Literacy Program
a. Includes cross-curricular and in and out of school activities.
Specific Problems
For students who are struggling with word identification, use:
· Systematic, explicit and direct instruction.
· High-frequency sound-spelling relationships and words should be the focus of instruction.
· Opportunities to practice identification of words in context should be frequent.
· Connections among word analysis, word recognition and semantic access should be emphasized.
For student who are struggling with fluency (the ability to read quickly, accurately and with appropriate expression), use:
· Repeated reading
· Guided reading practice
· Guided oral reading instruction
There is a close relationship between fluency and comprehension.
Vocabulary. Vocabulary is strongly related to general reading achievement. Why, is still unanswered. However, to teach vocabulary:
· Repetition and support are essential. Teach vocabulary from context and in an organized fashion. Do not teach vocabulary in isolation. Learning vocabulary should be an active process.
· Teach the words that fall between the words they already know and the words no one ever uses. Teaching vocabulary in context in content courses is appropriate and useful.
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
Adolescent Literacy: Action SummaryIntroduction
Why do adolescent readers struggle? The problem is generally not illiteracy, but comprehension. The student can read but he does not understand what he has read. As such, adolescent literacy remediation does not involve re-teaching elementary school level materials. Instead it must be grounded in teaching problem solving processes.
Elementary Literacy = Recall
Adolescent Literacy = Comprehension
Secondary education must continue to focus on literacy, because the skill set needed to succeed academically continues to get more advanced as the student progresses through the grades.
Effective Practices
These practices work best in combinations. Do not rely on just one strategy. Keep data so you can make effective and productive changes. Remember, effective adolescent literacy interventions must address comprehension. Keys:
· With instruction: Be overt. Explicitly explain to students how and when to use certain strategies. Have the students employ these strategies in multiple contexts with multiple texts.
· Provide appropriate and on-going professional development.
· Assess reading instruction on a regular, on-going basis. Make literacy a cornerstone of every course.
1. Direct, Explicit Comprehension Instruction
a. Includes teaching strategies to help students understand what they read, how they understood it, summarizing, activating prior knowledge, looking for information, self-monitoring, etc.
b. Includes teacher modeling, where the teacher reads the text aloud, making her own use of strategies and practices apparent to the student.
c. Includes scaffolding, where the teacher gives high support for students practicing new skills and then decreases support as the student becomes more confident.
d. Includes apprentice models, where students support other students in content centered learning relationships.
e. Includes comprehension monitoring, where the reader decides if she is understanding the text. If not, she uses “fix-up” strategies like re-stating, looking back and looking ahead in the text for context clues.
f. Teaching story structure to aid in comprehension: Setting, initiating events, internal reactions, goals, attempts and outcomes.
g. Teaching question answering: Where the student are taught that questions can be answered using both the text and prior knowledge.
h. Teaching question generating: Where student are taught to create their own questions about a text.
2. Effective Instructional Principles Embedded In Content
a. Includes instruction and practice in reading and writing skills specific to the subject area.
b. The content teacher must emphasize the reading and writing practices specific to the subject. Teach students to read and write like historians, scientists, mathematicians, etc.
c. Use tools to help struggling readers with comprehension. Examples include: graphic organizers, prompted outlines, structured reviews, guided instruction, etc.
3. Motivation And Self-Directed Learning
a. Includes support for independent learning.
b. Help promote relevancy in what the student reads and learns. Relevancy can be as easy as letting the student see how current learning will impact learning latter in the course (connectedness) or letting a student re-teach the material to another student.
c. Provide motivation and incentives for independent reading.
4. Text-Based Collaborative Learning
a. Small groups of students discussing and using information from a variety of texts. One example is to have students read different texts on the same topic, and then let them teach the group what they learned.
5. Strategic Tutoring
a. Teach the specific skills of decoding, comprehension, fluency and writing.
b. Teach learning strategies that will allow the student to complete independent tasks in the future.
6. Diverse Texts
a. High interest material that will help transition students to more rigorous material.
b. Have a variety of levels across a variety of topics.
7. Intensive Writing
a. Writing is thinking. All courses must have an intensive writing component.
b. Direct instruction should be connected to the kinds of writing tasks students will have to perform in specific subject areas.
c. As students progress through the grades, the quantity and quality of writing assignments must be increased.
d. Writing skills that directly support literacy: Grammar and spelling.
8. A Technology Component
a. Provides opportunities for reinforcement and guided practice.
9. On-Going Formative Assessment Of Students
a. Often informal, daily assessments on how students are progressing under current instructional practices.
10. Extended Time For Literacy
a. Double-dose English/Language Arts.
b. Provide a course in reading strategies and comprehension.
c. Students behind in skills need 2 to 4 hours a day in reading related activities to catch up. This does not have to be in one specific class. In fact, there must be reading and writing activities in every course.
11. Professional Development
a. Have training with an emphasis on reading techniques appropriate to content based courses.
b. Have reading coaches who are able to model support strategies for content based teachers and provide some in-class support.
c. Training must be long-term and on-going.
d. Include information on adult learning and classroom conditions needed to effect sustained change.
12. On-Going Summative Assessment Of Students And Programs
a. Formal data for evaluation and accountability.
13. Teacher Teams
a. Interdisciplinary teams that meet regularly to discuss students and align instruction
b. Create reading instruction teams. Have them read and research on effective practices, share them with the campus and model for teachers.
14. Leadership
a. Must make literacy a foundation of the school. Inspect and enforce expectations.
b. Must attend the same professional development as the instructional staff.
15. A Comprehensive And Coordinated Literacy Program
a. Includes cross-curricular and in and out of school activities.
Specific Problems
For students who are struggling with word identification, use:
· Systematic, explicit and direct instruction.
· High-frequency sound-spelling relationships and words should be the focus of instruction.
· Opportunities to practice identification of words in context should be frequent.
· Connections among word analysis, word recognition and semantic access should be emphasized.
For student who are struggling with fluency (the ability to read quickly, accurately and with appropriate expression), use:
· Repeated reading
· Guided reading practice
· Guided oral reading instruction
There is a close relationship between fluency and comprehension.
Vocabulary. Vocabulary is strongly related to general reading achievement. Why, is still unanswered. However, to teach vocabulary:
· Repetition and support are essential. Teach vocabulary from context and in an organized fashion. Do not teach vocabulary in isolation. Learning vocabulary should be an active process.
· Teach the words that fall between the words they already know and the words no one ever uses. Teaching vocabulary in context in content courses is appropriate and useful.
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Advice for the First Year Principal
If you are getting ready for your first principalship, you obviously have lots of questions right now. Am I ready for the job? What am I forgetting? How will the staff respond to me? What do I need to change now, what can wait? Etc., etc.
Know that the first year as principal is the toughest in the field of education. At no other point is the responsibility leap as large, coupled with an equally large learning curve. Leadership in theory and leadership in practice come with dramatically different levels of stress and second guessing. As you go forward this year, consider the following rules of the first year, that your professors, mentors and boss forgot to mention.
1. As mentioned previously, the first year of being a principal is the steepest learning curve you will face in your entire career. This is primarily due to the fact that you are now accountable for everything. This forces you to consider every decision in light of this fact. It slows you down at the time when you are starting a job that moves faster than any position you have ever had before. Just keep grinding and remind yourself that you volunteered for the job. Year 2 will be much easier.
2. The more dysfunctional the campus you have taken over, the more autocratic you must be. This is tough, because this is not who you want to be and not what you signed up for. But your first priority is to lead the campus. Set the vision, set the expectation and enforce both. As the staff builds capacity and understanding, you will be able to become more collaborative.
3. Don’t worry about morale. Don’t even get in this fight. You’re new and you represent change. New and change is the perfect recipe for a dip in morale. Instead focus on student performance, especially short-term measures. As the staff sees student performance improve, their morale will bounce back. Tattoo this to your bicep, "Performance Leads Morale!"
4. You have a honeymoon, use it. As soon as you get on the job, make the changes that need to be made. Don’t wait to assess the situation for a semester, do it now. The staff may not like it, but they all expect something different to happen. And the best time to make a mistake is when your boss expects one or has yet to start keeping count.
5. If you want a friend get a dog. The Principal’s job is to lead. If you do it right, someone is always upset with you. Your job is to ensure that student needs are being met and the school is improving. You can aspire to being respected and admired, but don’t fret over whether or not you are liked.
This ought to get you through your first week.
Think. Work. Acheive.
Your turn...
Know that the first year as principal is the toughest in the field of education. At no other point is the responsibility leap as large, coupled with an equally large learning curve. Leadership in theory and leadership in practice come with dramatically different levels of stress and second guessing. As you go forward this year, consider the following rules of the first year, that your professors, mentors and boss forgot to mention.
1. As mentioned previously, the first year of being a principal is the steepest learning curve you will face in your entire career. This is primarily due to the fact that you are now accountable for everything. This forces you to consider every decision in light of this fact. It slows you down at the time when you are starting a job that moves faster than any position you have ever had before. Just keep grinding and remind yourself that you volunteered for the job. Year 2 will be much easier.
2. The more dysfunctional the campus you have taken over, the more autocratic you must be. This is tough, because this is not who you want to be and not what you signed up for. But your first priority is to lead the campus. Set the vision, set the expectation and enforce both. As the staff builds capacity and understanding, you will be able to become more collaborative.
3. Don’t worry about morale. Don’t even get in this fight. You’re new and you represent change. New and change is the perfect recipe for a dip in morale. Instead focus on student performance, especially short-term measures. As the staff sees student performance improve, their morale will bounce back. Tattoo this to your bicep, "Performance Leads Morale!"
4. You have a honeymoon, use it. As soon as you get on the job, make the changes that need to be made. Don’t wait to assess the situation for a semester, do it now. The staff may not like it, but they all expect something different to happen. And the best time to make a mistake is when your boss expects one or has yet to start keeping count.
5. If you want a friend get a dog. The Principal’s job is to lead. If you do it right, someone is always upset with you. Your job is to ensure that student needs are being met and the school is improving. You can aspire to being respected and admired, but don’t fret over whether or not you are liked.
This ought to get you through your first week.
Think. Work. Acheive.
Your turn...
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