State of the Blog - The Last 100 Posts (1,100 and Counting)

Hello, LYS Nation.  This is the 1,100^th post to the column, so as has become a tradition, we will review our progress. 

First, the review:

The 1^st post was on Monday, February 16, 2009.

The 100^th post was on April 14, 2009.

The 200^th post was on June 10, 2009

The 300^th post was on September 2, 2009

The 400^th post was on December 16, 2009

The 500^th post was on April 7, 2010

The 600^th post was on August 2, 2010

The 700^th post was on December 17, 2010

The 800^th post was on May 17, 2011

The 900^th post was on October 5, 2011

The 1,000^th post was on March 7, 2012

The 1,100^th post is today, August 24, 2012

The 1,100 posts represent more than 1,230 pages of single spaced text.  This is the equivalent of about a 4,800-page book.

The top 10 posts, in terms of distribution, have been:

1.     A New Principal Asks... Student Apathy (3/29/2012)

2.     A Reader Asks... Administrator Dress Code (8/15/2012)

3.     A Reader Asks... Modeling Examples (8/25/11)

4.     Top Ten LYS Tweets From the Week of June 10, 2012 (6/18/2012)

5.     A LYS Principal Submits... The Updated Lesson Cycle (11/15/11)

6.     Make the Last Month Count (5/1/2012)

7.     Crunch Time Common Assessments (2/11/2011)

8.     Top LYS Tweets From the Week of April 8, 2012 (4/16/2012)

9.     A Principal Shares... The Fundamental 5 and Struggling Students (8/21/2012)

10.  The Big Easy Shares... Second Grade Math Exit Ticket (4/19/2012)

There have been over 163,980 page hits.

There are 1,221 e-mail subscribers. Thank you!

There are now international readers and e-mail subscribers, with the following 25 countries represented: Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Cayman Islands, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Iran, Ireland, Latvia, Macedonia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russian Federation, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, and U.S. Virgin Islands

All of this is incredibly exciting; especially when you consider that not too long ago ago, every number was 0.

A Little Blatant Self Promotion:

First, if you like the blog and you haven’t signed up for the e-mail subscription, please do so.  I find that it’s easier to write to people than it is to write to web hits.

Second, if you like the blog and find it useful, tell three other people.  This blog is a much more powerful resource for school improvement when it is a dialogue.

Third, if you have not sent in a comment yet, please do so.  Education research points out that the act of critical writing actually makes the learner smarter.  Let the blog assist you in sharpening your saw.

Finally,

Thank you so much for reading and responding.  This network, which started out as a way for just a handful of principals to stay connected has turned into a small nation of board members, central office administrators, campus leaders, and teachers who are focused on redefining what students are capable of.  Who knows what we will discuss in the next 100 posts.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool)
• Upcoming Presentations: Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote), Advancing Improvement in Education Conference (Multiple Presentations), TASSP Assistant Principals’ Workshop (Featured Speaker), American Association of School Administrators Conference (Multiple Presentations), National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations)
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation

The Superintendent's Corner: The Anti-testing Resolution - Part 1

In response to the 8/7/2012 post, “The Superintendent’s Corner: The Anti-testing Resolution” another LYS Nation Superintendent sent in the following.

SC,

I am usually in support of your thoughts and frequently send them to our staff. In fact, our campuses have embraced the Fundamental 5 as part of our practice and measure it with classroom walkthroughs.  I usually don't write a response, but I am passionate about the work and words of the resolution.  

The resolution is not about a Superintendent signing a document to protest standardized testing; it is about a Board supporting the points of the resolution.  The resolution is not against testing; it is against the way test scores are used, the amount of preparation schools spend for a day of testing to ensure that ratings meet the community’s or a realtor’s expectations, it is about engaging students in creative and innovative learning environments, and it is about embracing the tenets of Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas. It supports the beliefs that you wrote in your response for those who are in the middle.  We may have to agree to disagree on this issue, but that is OK.  We are after the same thing - student learning and preparing students for their future.

Howell Wright

SC Response

I don't disagree with you. Those who want to dismantle public education, not improve it, have hijacked our existing school accountability system.  I struggle with balancing the fight against a bad measurement system versus the understanding that holding ourselves accountable is the best thing we can do for our underserved student populations.  My protest is focused on campaigning and voting against our elected officials who by word and deed have demonstrated that funding and supporting public education is less important than getting elected. 

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool)
• Upcoming Presentations: Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote), Advancing Improvement in Education Conference (Multiple Presentations), TASSP Assistant Principals’ Workshop (Featured Speaker), American Association of School Administrators Conference (Multiple Presentations), National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation

The Superintendent's Corner - A Thought Experiment With Vouchers and Charters

Below is a submission from a LYS Superintendent:

For the record I don’t have a problem with the idea of vouchers.  My problem is that I can’t think of a way to do them in an equitable manner that will also be efficient.  Giving a flat $5,000 voucher to each child, which is one plan I have seen, certainly seems equitable in so much as it is certainly equal.  But there are at least two problems with this voucher plan. One, $5,000 is nowhere near enough money to educate a child.  Where would the remainder of the money come from? This is not an issue for the affluent of course, but it is for the non-affluent.  The issue of adequacy would have to be addressed, as the amount of money needed to educate a child is probably closer to $10,000.  But just for the sake of a gedankenexperimentieren let’s pretend the funding is adequate, simply removing that variable.  We will also ignore the fact, for the sake of simplicity, that some children (special needs, English language learners) are more expensive to educate.  With the givens, would our current education funding problems be solved?

Of course this thought experiment must immediately include charter schools as it seems the idea of charters and vouchers come as an entangled pair.  Before you get angry, I don’t have a problem with the idea of charter schools as long as the charters play by the same rules as traditional public schools (they don’t, but that’s another gedankenexperimentieren, and we don’t want to over-complicate the one we have already started).  Once we introduce the idea of charter schools, we virtually eliminate the rural school factor.  The reason is most rural schools don’t serve enough students to support a local charter, which most, by design, are operated for profit.  It may be possible to have regional charter schools in rural areas, but the issue of busing across distances again chews into profits.  Also, the rural market would likely be hard to crack because the local public school in a rural community is the heart and soul of that community.  We have to keep in mind that the majority of districts in the state are either rural or semi-rural.  This brings to us a disturbing question: if charter schools are not likely to be successful in rural areas, and rural areas are the home of most of the school districts, who are charter schools designed to serve and benefit?

The answer is charter schools are most likely to thrive in more densely populated areas, such as larger cities.  With a higher population density there are more students to compete for and distance is much less of a factor.  So now our gedankenexperimentieren has taken us to adequate vouchers ($10,000 range), traditional public schools, and charters in densely populated areas.  This already seems inequitable, because if charters are so great, rural areas, will not receive their benefit.  Nevertheless, let’s explore what happens in the scenario of traditional public schools and charter schools operating in densely populated areas, ignoring the nagging rural issue.

Let’s say I operate a traditional public school with 1,000 children.  The local charter comes to town and takes 200 children away.  My traditional public school still has 800 children to educate and it has 20% less revenue.  That may not seem like such a big deal to you but let’s look deeper.  The traditional public school still has the same amount of property to maintain.  The electric bill and other utility bills will not go down significantly.  Perhaps the school can shed some teachers, but not likely in direct proportion to the number of students who left.  For example, let’s say I started with 100 3rd graders with 4 teachers at a ratio of 25:1.  If enrollment declines by 20% I now have 80, 3rd graders.  If I drop my teachers by 25%, which is very close to the 20% decline in enrollment, I now have 3 teachers for 80 children, almost 27:1, which of course is not likely to work.  I will keep the 4 teachers for the 80 children and will have classes at 20:1.

By shuffling personnel throughout my school I may be able to let some employees go, but almost certainly not 20%.  The charter school that has 200 students does not have this problem.  The charter school has a building that holds 200 students and a faculty adequate for the 200, and once it is full the charter simply stops enrollment, an option the traditional public school does not have.  

So as children begin to shift from traditional public schools to charters, the traditional public school is almost certain to become less efficient as seen from the example above.  The traditional public school can’t be closed as it is serving the majority of the students in the area and almost certainly is serving the hardest to teach students in the area.  Having lost 20% of its students and revenue, and by not being able to shed 20% of its overhead cost, the variable that we held constant, adequacy, begins to destabilize. The state has two options: one, it can ignore the adequacy issue and say tough luck; or two, it can give more money to the traditional public school in order to absorb the overhead.  If the state takes option 1, a lawsuit is sure to follow.  If the state takes option 2, the funding is no longer equitable and court action is sure to follow.  Regardless of the option the state takes, it has violated the Constitution of the State of Texas by creating a school system that is less efficient.   

And so we see that funding schools by vouchers, even adequate vouchers, is likely to be degenerative.  The introduction of the voucher, entangled with for-profit charter schools introduces unconstitutional inefficiencies into the state school system.  This inefficiency attacks the very adequacy we held constant, destabilizing adequacy. If the destabilized adequacy is not addressed, the state is back in court, the same situation it is in now. If the adequacy is addressed, the issue of equity is raised, and the state is back in court. And for its efforts, the state has violated its Constitution and created a system that is less efficient, a choice that is likely to land the state . . . back in court.  Clearly vouchers will not solve the problem of educating children in Texas, but there is political hay to be made with vouchers and charter schools.  Hmmm.....

Mike Seabolt

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool)
• Upcoming Presentations: Sunray ISD Staff Kickoff, Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote), Advancing Improvement in Education Conference (Multiple Presentations), TASSP Assistant Principals’ Workshop (Featured Speaker), American Association of School Administrators Conference (Multiple Presentations), National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations)
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation

A Principal Shares... The Fundamental 5 and Struggling Students

A LYS Principal share the following:

SC,

Our superintendent just sent us a link to an instructional video on how to better teach LD students.  While watching it I realized that the video is just a re-worded presentation of the Fundamental 5. There is no doubt your work in bringing those fundamental practices to light is right on!

So after I finished watching the video I sent the following reminder to my fellow principals.

 "The video on working with LD students is right in line with coaching of Lead Your School (LYS) and the Fundamental 5.  Just don’t lose sight of the fact that these practices are great for ALL students.”

Thanks for the help!

SC Response

Thanks for sharing.  I reviewed the video and thought that it was well done.  I like the fact that the following was emphasized; the Fundamental 5 will help your struggling students by:

A. Ensuring students are aware of the purpose and goal of instruction (Frame the Lesson).

B. Using cooperative learning or peer grouping (Frequent Small Group Purposeful Talk).

C. Helping students see their success (Frame the Lesson, Work in the Power Zone, Recognize & Reinforce).

D. Promoting an "I-can-do" attitude (Recognize & Reinforce).

E. Making a strong personal connection with students (Work in the Power Zone, Recognize & Reinforce).

What was made quite clear is that teachers have a choice in the determining the quality of the instruction that they deliver. And by choosing to not do the above, the instruction they deliver will be sub-par.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Canadian ISD Staff Kickoff, Highland Park ISD Staff Kickoff, Sunray ISD Staff Kickoff, Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote), Advancing Improvement in Education Conference (Multiple Presentations), TASSP Assistant Principals’ Workshop (Featured Speaker), American Association of School Administrators Conference (Multiple Presentations)
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation

Top LYS Tweets From the Week of August 12, 2012

Here’s a shocker... students are using bootleg technology to cheat on assignments.  Oh, the horror. Quick, ban the cell phones and throw the bootleggers into ISS. 

I may be making to light of this, but students have been finding ways to cheat since the first test was administered at the first school in human existence.  If a teacher is to counteract this, we must first consider the reasons why students cheat.

A. They do not value the assignment (I don’t care)

B. They know that they do not have the requisite skills to complete the task at an adequate level (I can’t do it).

C. The fear of not succeeding is greater than the fear of getting caught (I’m desperate).

D. It’s exciting or challenging (I got over on the man).

Second, we must consider how teachers can prevent cheating.

A. Create interesting assignments.

B.  Provide supports for students with deficits in skill and understanding.

C.  Provide grading rubrics and scaffold competency targets.

D. Be more alert in the classroom.

Notice that not one of our considerations is actually compounded by use of bootleg technology in the classroom.  In fact, upon further examination, the reasoned and appropriate use of bootleg technology may actually be a factor in the reduction of student cheating.

The point being, if I don’t want to do something I can point to an endless list of reasons why I shouldn’t, most of which won’t stand up to leadership due diligence and objective scrutiny.  

A number of you in the LYS Nation are now using your own bootleg technology devices to follow Twitter.  If you haven’t done so yet, we want you to join us.  To let you see what you are missing, here are the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of August 12, 2012.

1. Repeat after me: If we are not teaching the right thing, how we teach does not matter.

2. You have to read the book, Fundamental 5, it will make total sense. It's making great teaching... and learning... a habit... (By @jenniferzsch)

3. It seems unreasonable to expect teachers to teach bell to bell when their administrators are consistently late to meetings.

4. I’m tired of listening to people who've never run a school district, or even been in a public school, tell public school how to run. (By @DrJerryRBurkett)

5. Fundamental Five + O.C. Taylor = Another fantastic year! (By @principalkinney)

6. Cain out at Comal ISD yesterday. Really challenged by your presentation. Thanks for coming out. (By MES_Principal)

7. Most opposition I hear about C-Scope is actually opposition to teaching state standards. Show me a better comprehensive product, and I'll be quiet. (By @tlonganecker)

8. So many talented organizations are thwarted by talentless leadership. (By @tlonganecker)

9. Sadly, when you wear socks with sandals, you have failed the basic aptitude test.

10. Right now, The Fundamental 5 (Cain and Laird), is the #4 best selling education theory book on Kindle! Thank you, LYS Nation!

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool)
• Upcoming Presentations: Canadian ISD Staff Kickoff, Highland Park ISD Staff Kickoff, Sunray ISD Staff Kickoff, Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote), Advancing Improvement in Education Conference (Multiple Presentations), TASSP Assistant Principals’ Workshop (Featured Speaker), American Association of School Administrators Conference (Multiple Presentations)
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation