What makes a great school?

Last week I took advantage of my chronic insomnia and used those bonus hours between 3 and 6 am to write a letter to the CEO of my children's school district. Prince George's Public Schools is "one of the nation's 25 largest school districts, having 204 schools, approximately 124,000 students and nearly 18,000 employees." It is enormous. It's unwieldy.

So far, however, I have been pleasantly impressed by the district. Despite the fact that I am one parent among thousands, when my children's kindergarten classes were too big I sent emails and within a week there was an extra aide on staff. When I spoke at the School Board meeting about enrichment programs I was approached by several board members afterwards, and when the CEO (think "superintendent") visited my children's school, he inquired about my comments. They are listening. I am now working on the premise that most of the responsible adults involved are interested in seeking innovative solutions for serving so many children and supporting so many schools in such a diverse system.

So how do we do that?

A high quality education should not be for the lucky and the wealthy, it should be for every last child in our county. This is what the "No Child Left Behind Act" purported to do, to set the expectation that all children could achieve at the same level, irregardless of income, race, native language or learning disability. It is a noble goal. I am skeptical about the ability of each child to reach the same level of achievement (just look at the diversity of learning styles and outcomes in your own family to realize the great variation that exists within the human race), but I do think it is reasonable to demand that each child receive the same quality of education. The basic recipe for a high quality school is not complicated:

1) Intelligent, well-trained, hard working teachers and support staff
2) Small class sizes
3) Safe school buildings with access to open spaces, books and current technology
4) Research based curricula that holds students and teachers to high standards
5) Enrichment opportunities (project based learning, arts, foreign language instruction)

On top of this you can add nuts and chocolate, go vegan or low-fat, whatever suits your community.

Yes, assessment plays a part, and we should know what kids know and track how are schools are doing by monitoring their scores. However, we should also be looking closely at the school experience of each child. Do children have access to similar benefits, whether they are in a charter or a traditional public school, whether they go to school in DC or Prince George's County?

No one can dispute that the answer is a resounding NO. Schools are vastly dissimilar, from state to state, across counties, even within towns. Everyone can think of an example of a great school and a mediocre or bad school "just down the road."

In the PG County school district we have magnet schools. As their name suggests they are designed to attract better students, so slots on their rosters are highly coveted. Some are language immersion programs and produce students with the highest test scores in the county. Others have speciality programs, like the Montessori school which only accepts children into kindergarten and then limits class size after that. Most are TAG schools (Talented And Gifted) which were formed on the premise that TAG students (meaning those students who come from a literate, English-speaking household and do not have learning disabilities) need and deserve access to rigorous classes, foreign language instruction, and more enrichment opportunities. The schools are better than most of the neighborhood schools. I despise them for this.

My late-night letter to the CEO argues that the decision to invest so many resources in these magnet schools is both unjust and unwise. If our school district is going to be great, the place to invest is in the neighborhood schools. Strong neighborhood schools will both attract better students and make better students.

The letter is in his mailbox now, and in the mailboxes of school board members, and my county council member, waiting to be opened after a vacation of reflection and resolutions. I ask for small class sizes, an art teacher and a Spanish teacher. A modest and manageable request, I think. My vision is much grander, it is a county of nothing but great schools, but this is a start. And if I receive no response? Maybe it's time to start looking at charter schools.

Why Teachers Might Not Write (or at least Why I Don’t): An Apology

It is Monday, December 23^rd and technically the first day of vacation. It is the first opportunity I have had to sit down and string together sentences since October. I resolved five months ago to write “regularly,” with the noble fantasy of waking up an hour early or devoting the last thirty minutes of each day to reflection and cataloguing and trying to make sense of what is going on in the messy petri dish of my classroom. To be fair, each morning I wake up and go to bed THINKING about thinking about my classroom. But I don’t take the time to write. There is plenty to write. There is no time.

I often wonder (certainly daily, sometimes hourly) if there is something wrong with me. I see other teachers coasting into their orderly classrooms a few minutes before 8 am each morning, and scooting out the door just after 4. I read facebook posts about their tv shows and hobbies and weekends away. I observe colleagues volunteering to run committees, delivering home baked cookies to the teacher’s lounge, hanging out in the office having casual conversations about the news and their daily lives. From my perspective just about everyone else has figured out how to make teaching a sustainable career capable of achieving equilibrium. I have not. My days go like this:

After waking up my kids, making lunches, getting everyone dressed and in the car and dropped off at school, I drive through traffic and park so I can jog to school where I squeak in the door at 8:00, 7:45 if I am lucky, and then I print up my schedule, copy any worksheets for the day, check for any last minute email changes, after which I take the stairs two at a time to my classroom, unstack the chairs, write the Morning Message on the white board, pick up and sharpen pencils and wipe down tables, try to bring order to my desk which is usually covered with a collection of completed work, notes from parents, confiscated items and randomly acquired markers, just in time for the students to arrive at 8:15 whom ideally I meet at the door where I check in on behavior goals for the day, ask if they have gotten enough sleep and eaten breakfast, try to make a positive touch point before a long day of disciplining, remind them to turn in homework and sharpen two pencils, until finally it is 8:30 and we all gather for Morning Meeting on the rug where I collect their first math problems of the day, take attendance, lead them in a greeting, a share, a game, a time to set our intentions for the day, until 9 am when it is time to transition to Literacy and I read a short piece of text and model my thinking on chart paper, and dismiss them to a “menu” of independent activities, making sure the list is not too long to be overwhelming and not too short to leave them any time to fool around, making sure each child has reading material that is both accessible and challenging, so I can pull small groups, sometimes one or two at a time working on decoding (sounding out) multi-syllable words, sometimes in groups as large as six who are reading novels like A Wrinkle in Time and working on determining character motivation, trying to stay focused on the needs of each group and relying on my assistant teacher to manage the kids who want to chat, who refuse to read, who are taking scissors and systematically removing all of the erasers off of all of the pencils, but still there is the inevitable student who needs to talk to  me, to ask about an assignment, a concern, a question that only I can answer, so I remind them that I am not to be interrupted, and remind the assistant to address their concerns, until it is time for snack, at which point we must feed all of the children lest they start arguing and crying before lunch time, and remember that Nate needs his rest to mitigate his physical disability, and remember that Jane needs all materials loaded onto her iPad to mitigate her visual impairment, and remember that Darcy and William need their sensory break to mitigate their inattention, and Cory and Tom need a movement break to mitigate their hyperactivity, after which there are demands of water, requests for the rest room, messes to be dealt with, before it is time for them to line up and leave the room for the blessed “Special,” music, art, drama, PE, Spanish, when once a day they leave and I am awarded 45 minutes to get something done, which is the point when I must start running again, to the copier, to the meeting, to make the chart for the lesson, to check-out the computers for math practice, to set up the materials for the demonstration, before it is time for them to return and start math, when they break into groups according to what they know and what they need to learn, rotating between independent work which is catered to their individual needs, and fact practice on the computers which has been selected for the skill, and instruction with me or another teacher on the rug or at the back table where we pose problems, share solutions, walk through strategies, trying to ensure that each child feels both challenged and successful, before it is time for lunch which must be distributed, monitored, mediated, after which there are crumbs to be swept, spills to be absorbed, trash to be removed, before spelling when there are 500 pieces of paper with spelling words sorted onto desks and pasted into books, or writing which is the best time of day, because there is silence and because they are pouring their souls into their journals, and the worst time because so many hate to think about their own lives, followed by recess when I must check-in the homework from last night and hand out the homework for tonight and prepare for the last lesson of the day, until finally Expedition with its small groups and deep questions and problem based learning when the children are the least focused and most tired and more likely to drag their feet, refuse to work, become distracted, engage in conflicts, but we implore them to give us one last hour until it is finally, thankfully 3:00, when homework must be written down and tucked into folders, when chairs must be stacked and pencils picked up and stray markers put into supply bins (or tossed onto my desk), when parents must be greeted and small details discussed, like who misbehaved, or who didn’t have a lunch, or who needs to review X or Y or Z before the quiz next Monday, until finally, thankfully they leave, one by one, and there is quiet, and I can use the bathroom, and there is a moment to sit and sip my tea which has been waiting in its thermos before I turn to the work to be graded, the lessons to be planned, the emails to be written about the meeting that needs to be held about the child who is not progressing as we would expect given the circumstances or the field study that we would like to hold next month or the pencils that need to be ordered, all before it is time to race out the door at 5 pm, not to an exercise class but to pick up my children and shepherd them home for dinner and homework and books and songs and a kiss and bed, when I might take a moment to ask my husband about his day before turning once again to the tests to be graded, the essays to be read, the emails to be sent, until I can’t keep my eyes open and I let myself fall asleep, because in a few hours I will wake up and begin again.

So I don’t write.

There is a rhythm and reason to this apparent cacophony. The days have a level of predictability. After ten years in the classroom I have systems that run themselves, and many responsibilities are assumed by my assistant, without whom I could not survive.  But this is the first year that I have begun to feel that “I am too old for this.”   I need to find a way to lubricate the weeks so that I move through them without so much friction. So that there is energy left at the end of the day for myself and my family.

So I can write.