A Reader Writes - Pretty Lies and Powerful Truths - Part 6

In response to the 10/31/2012 post, “Pretty Lies and Powerful Truths – Part 3,” a reader writes:

SC,

Friedman designed Chile's universal voucher system for General Pinochet; it's been going on for 30 years now. Results: higher income kids took the vouchers to private schools. Lower income kids stayed in public schools, which got worse as funding decreased. Yes, let's listen to Friedman.

I suggest reading the article “Lessons of Chile’s Voucher Reform Movement,” by Martin Camoy.

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/voucher_report/v_sosintl.shtml

SC Response

A very good article that is worth your time.  It can be summarized with the following quote:

"The primary negative effect of school choice (vouchers) is its natural tendency to increase the educational gap between the privileged and the underprivileged," John Ambler, referring to voucher plans in Britain, France, and the Netherlands, wrote in the "Journal of Policy Analysis and Management" (1994).

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: 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 Reader Writes... Pretty Lies and Powerful Truths - Part 5

In response to the 10/31/2012 post, “Pretty Lies and Powerful Truths – Part 3,” a reader writes:

SC,

In reference to the quote in the post, “The monthly diatribes against school choice, vouchers, and charter schools, however, are the weakest part of the blog.”

I felt the same way and did not bother to write.  I was turned off also but just decided to put up with the insults to get the information I needed to be a better principal. 

SC Response

If you were insulted, I can assure you that was never the intent.  The intent was to stake a position and defend it.  In fact, I saw the posts in question as an invitation to either improve upon and/or refute the argument.  Personally, the issues I have with poor performing charter schools are the same issues that I have with poor performing traditional schools. They waste public resources and under serve children who can least afford to be underserved. I have no issue with performing charter schools, because they are public schools.  I just understand that the charter school and the traditional school don’t play by exactly the same rule (advantages and disadvantages for both sides) so the solutions developed for one aren’t always applicable for the other.

Second, the blog does cover a wide range of topics and perspectives, from classroom issues, to campus issues, to boardroom issues to political issues. For me, I see the common thread as leadership.  I always wanted to know that those above me were thinking and had a plan.  That made it easier for me focus on leading my little part of the world.  I will be honest, when you pull back the curtain in most districts, there is no plan and there is no consideration of the big picture. So my hope is that the exploration of topics across the spectrum validates that there are thinking, purposeful leaders at all levels.  At least it does for me.

Third, we will continue to tackle the issue of vouchers.  They are on the political agenda and they will impact public schools.  To ignore that fact, would be to say that the layperson has a better understanding of what is best for schools than the education professional.  For me, nothing is further from the truth.

Finally, I am glad that at times you find that the blog is useful in your role as a campus leader.  That is why the blog was born.  Eight years ago there was a group of principals tasked with near impossible improvement mandates.  They were spread across the state and they only had each other as a support network. The informal communication web that they shared morphed into the near daily posts that you now receive today. The majority of those principals were successful and have since become Assistant Superintendents and Superintendents, hence the expansion of topics.

Thanks for sticking with us.

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: 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

Common Assessment Notes

As many of you in the LYS Nation already know, Lesa Cain and her staff were some of the early pioneers in the use of Short-term, Common Formative Assessments.  Even now, I cannot find a single campus that has eclipsed their level of implementation and understanding.  So I thought it would be helpful to share some of LC’s notes on the nuts and bolts of common assessment development that she recently sent to a LYS campus.

Just a couple of thoughts about some things that were brought up in our meeting in regards to the 3-week checkpoints.

1.  Once the school year begins, the majority of the job of actually writing the checkpoints falls to the Instructional Specialists (IS) on each campus. There is not enough time in the day to expect teachers to shoulder the work of instruction and assessment development once the kids show up.  If you have teachers that want to continue to be involved by all means yes, but it just can't be the expectation.

2.  Once the Instructional Specialists take on the huge responsibility of checkpoint development, teachers will have opinions about the checkpoints. When this happens, the IS has to ask the teacher to write a question that she thinks is better. Have the teacher submit it with the question that she challenges. That way, input is encouraged and validated and when the summer rolls around and the staff begin the work of revising the checkpoints, there is already a bank of questions to consider.

It took three years of deliberate implementation on my campus with the intention of creating a simple, consistent system.  It will not happen after one round of checkpoints, two rounds or three.  You will discover that hiccups happen every three weeks.  The challenge is to stick with it, stick with it, stick with it. Talk to each other about what you are doing and listen to what others have to say.  Steal the best ideas from each other so that everyone gets the benefit of what is being learned.  It is this process that allows every teacher and every student to eventually win!

You are on the right track, so don’t quit.  Remember, it’s called work for a reason.

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: 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

Top LYS Tweets From the Week of November 18, 2012

And to complete the review of tweets during the Thanksgiving Break, here are the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of November 18, 2012.

1. Public education system is not perfect. That being said, my approach is a laser like focus on solutions, not on complaining. Join me! (By @museblogger)

2. Why is teaching so hard to do well? The "curse of knowledge" leaves us unaware of what our students don't know. (By @anniemurphypaul)

3. A study found there is little connection to homework time and grades. That's because grades measure when you learned it, not if you learned it.

4. Increased rigor does not correlate with increased homework. (By @dsteeber)

5. Homework serves little purpose as it is generally administered. But that is true of lots of what occurs in school.

6. The neuro-power of a pat on the back: praise boosts dopamine; dopamine enhances consolidation of new skills/memory. (By @sweatscience)

7. The less time you have, the greater the chance that external incompetence will come into play.

8. I'm not saying that basing an educator’s evaluation on test scores is right or fair. But we do rate coaches based on their win/loss record.

9. I'm not holding up the coaching model as ideal. Just pointing out that there are ways to evaluate based on added value.

10. Thankful that children can be successfully educated in public schools across the nation. Go LYS Nation! (By @Crysrommuel)

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: 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

Top LYS Tweets From the Week of November 11, 2012

And we’re back...

I hope everyone had a safe and restful Thanksgiving Holiday. Before we roll into the posts we’ll catch up on LYS Tweets, which continued during the break.  If you don’t follow @LYSNation, here are the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of November 11, 2012.

1. If your students repeatedly can't, that is a sign that you should try something different.

2. A Fundamental Law of Performance: If you don't work the plan, the plan won't work.

3. Push back is just another form of feedback. Don't let it frustrate you; use it as a learning tool. (By @DCulberhouse)

4. How much time do elementary school students spend reading informational texts? Only 3.6 minutes a day. (By @anniemurphypaul)

5. Teachers constantly bust their tails to get monosyllable responses from individuals. Instead, embed Frequent Small Group Purposeful Talk to make kids engage in the content.

6. So where is, "The kids have worked hard for the past two days, so this is their catch-up time..." in C-Scope?

7. Training without follow up cueing, monitoring and support is, at best, just a session that presents suggested practices.

8. Increased testing rigor, less funding, and overhauled accountability system, it's hard to argue that public education isn't being set to fail. (By @DrJerryRBurkett)

9. Hey SC! Saw a guy here at the University of North Texas Education Leadership Conference drinking from an LYS tumbler... Love the LYS influence!! (By @drstevenwurtz)

10. To anyone who wants to secede from the U.S. Tell that to a marine or anyone else who bled for this country. (By @TitusNation)

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: 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