ELLEN
BERG
Diary #28
We're Coming to Understand the Dynamics of Change,
Even If Our School Board Member Does Not
Last Friday the staff received a copy of a personal note written to our principal from one member of the school board . This handwritten, unedited message detailed all the ways we were failing. We were chastised, criticized, and ridiculed. My principal is beside herself.
Discussions of the memo rippled among staff members. Initially, the focus was on the unprofessional handwritten note and lack of editing from a Ph.D. As the day progressed, talk turned to this board member's failure to understand the long process of reform, her absence from our building, and her focus only on the negative. As a staff we were insulted, and rather than feeling chastised, we are ready to gather our ammunition to fight and rally around our principal.Working on the work
Turner Middle certainly is not perfect. We have high-need areas, staff members who need to either get with the program or go, and some lack of understanding about what is necessary for real reform. To pretend we do not have room for improvement would be a blatant lie. However, to completely ignore the progress we have made is to see only a portion of the picture.
I told my editor last week that I wanted to write about Co-nect, our reform model, in this week's diary. Since I had anguished over staying or leaving Turner last year and remained only because of Co-nect and its focus on data-driven decision-making, I thought I should update my readers on our progress. Our board member's sudden interest in tearing us down provides a welcome backdrop and forum for rebuttal. In our first year, perhaps the most positive and useful activity our Co-nect facilitator has conducted is looking at and organizing data. We have spent many hours looking at trends across the curriculum and working in teams to create strategies that address those areas. Our conversations during team and faculty meetings are centered around best practices to address our weak areas. Perhaps we are not at the level I would like us to be, but before the conversation can be of high quality, it has to begin. This year our conversation has begun.One of the areas of criticism from the board member was that we had lost ground on last year's MAP test in communication arts and that our scores in math and science were unacceptable. No one at our school can or will deny this. However, we have learned that when evaluating test data with different groups of kids, looking only at scores from one year to the next is not useful or valid. What matters is the long-term trend (unless you are comparing the same students' scores from one year to the next year, which is not what our board member is doing).
While analyzing the data with Co-nect, we were able to see in table, chart, and graph form that our state test scores are slowly improving over time. We are moving in the right direction, something that validates many of us on staff. We have been working hard, and to see the fruits of our efforts is energizing.
And that is just the information for our state test (MAP), a test that students do not take every year. For example, students only take the Communication Arts MAP test in third, seventh, and eleventh grades. Our Co-nect facilitator also graphed a group of students' Terra Nova test data over the three years they were with us. While there were some problem areas, the trend, again, is upwards, especially with the sixth grade team. In the test that reflects what students have learned from sixth grade, scores rise 15-25 percentage points.More connections
What other effects has Co-nect had on our school? It seems that Co-nect has helped narrow our focus. For example, in years past every new education buzzword was mandated for immediate use in the classroom. We would have a workshop or two on the topic and be expected to implement the innovation immediately. It was an impossible task at best. This year, however, our focus has been on using performance tasks and scoring guides consistently with students. Administrators check to see if tasks are being used and posted, and individual teachers are being given help to develop the skills necessary to be successful. It is a far cry from the "Do this because I said so" mentality that seemed to prevail in the past.
Absent is the mindset that new strategies can be mastered instantaneously and perfectly. In a recent faculty meeting, my principal asked who was having kids evaluate their own and sample work with rubrics; in essence, who was not only giving kids rubrics but really teaching and modeling how to use them. A few of us raised our hands, and one of our less knowledgeable teachers confessed that while she was using them, she wasn't teaching kids how to use them. My principal commended her for being honest then told the staff that anyone who felt like they needed help in that area could ask her for time to observe one of us who already did this with our students. Not knowing was okay, but being content to stay in that same state was not. This was unprecedented in our school. I can see us slowly developing a collaborative environment where we can learn from one another, and that is exciting. The very fact that this staff member felt comfortable enough to share her weakness demonstrates the change in attitude and outlook at Turner.We are changing
I read in that elusive "somewhere" that it takes three years for a any reform model to show significant improvement. Having been at Turner for seven years, I can see the positive and significant changes we have made, though it would have been difficult for me to articulate them from year to year. With our commitment to Co-nect as a staff, it is easier to see our improvements and where we are heading in the future.
I wish our board member could see and appreciate all of this. Perhaps if she were in our school more often and spent some time talking to teachers and students, her opinion would change. Maybe not. For now I take solace in the fact that other schools at the end of the alphabet have been receiving these little "love notes" as well. Maybe she thinks she is helping; maybe she is just concerned since the slate of candidates I wrote about earlier this year have been elected and now comprise a majority. I do not know, but I wish she could see what I see.
