San Diego Unified Holds ‘White Privilege’ Training Sessions For Teachers

 Don't expect American public education to improve. Here is another reason why the majority of American public school students will continue to graduate with little or no reading, writing, math, or critical thinking skills.

On Thursday, an exclusive report on leaked documents revealed that the San Diego Unified School District was holding training sessions where teachers were told of their “white privilege,” that they were racist, and they were part of an oppressive white power structure. Not only are the teachers told that they must acknowledge their “privilege” and embrace “antiracist” ideas, they are instructed to “teach others to see their privilege.”

Christopher Rufo of City Journal reported what he had discovered in the leaked documents. “SCOOP: San Diego Unified School District is forcing teachers to attend ‘white privilege’ training, in which teachers are told ‘you are racist’ and ‘you are upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies.’ The leaked documents from the training session will shock you,” Rufo wrote in a series of posts.

Teachers can't teach if they aren't being trained to teach. Unless things change radically, look for the next generation to be even less skilled than current graduates. Next, students will learn how to humiliate their teachers - instead of learning useful skills.

Read the whole article and weep for what will be coming next.

Teacher tests can right past wrongs - or can they?

According to Emery Patchauer in the Detroit News:

In 2013, the State Board of Education attempted to increase the readiness of new teachers by revising the exams they have to pass in order to earn a license. The results were a disaster. In the first round of testing, pass rates for the history exam fell from 71 percent to 25 percent. Social studies fell from 65 percent to 22 percent. Elementary education fell from 83 percent to 49 percent

Does this mean that teachers are less ready, that the new tests showed that teachers needed more education before they walked into the classroom?

Don't be silly.

First, we must resist the logic that says pass rates drop because teachers today are less prepared compared to years past. This is wrong. A sudden drop in scores like we saw in 2013 happens when exams are hastily adopted or not properly piloted. This sudden drop also happens when the exams are made by a company with little connection to the deep work of teaching.

It's all the new test's fault.

Truthfully, I don't know the difference between the pre and post 2013 tests. I do know that it's way too easy to blame a test for a person's shortcomings. I also know that teachers need a knowledge base before they step into that classroom. They can't teach what they don't know, and staying one day ahead of the students you are teaching is not a sound strategy. Later in the article, Patchauer takes race and gender into account. The stats aren't given, but we're made to understand that there are some testing discrepancies between races and genders. Assuming that each class of prospective teachers is made up of students of various races and genders, one should look at students' previous education to discover why this is. Study habits and reading skills might also be issues here.

It seems to me that Patchauer wants a dumbed down test that anyone can pass.

Students can find sample questions on the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification website. There is also an option to buy practice tests. Other options would include studying harder and longer and even getting together with colleagues to study together.

The issue here is that these future teachers attended public schools that did not prepare them to succeed academically. I've already ranted in previous posts about the lack of phonetic reading instruction crippling students' reading abilities. Those skills not learned as a child, will most likely never be learned, and if these teachers someday do pass the test and do enter a classroom, they will do so without the skills needed (because they were never taught them) to truly teach their students.

And that is not the fault of any test.

Strapped for teachers, Detroit district looks to controversial teacher training programs

Rough times continue for the Detroit School District. The new great hope for the district has come in the form of their new superintendent, Nicolai Vitti. He comes with impressive credentials, but he's taken on quite a task. This is a district that is and has been plagued by poverty, corruption, lack of fathers in the home, corruption, student truancy, corruption, poorly maintained buildings, corruption, lack of supplies, corruption, a teacher shortage, and . . . um . . . one more minor issue . . . oh yeah, corruption. 

If he can turn this district around, I for one, will be in awe of this man. Right now though, all the district seems to have is Mr. Vitti and hope. They've had bouts of hope previously, but that hope has always been dashed.

Right now, according to this Chalkbeat article, Mr. Vitti and the district are working on hiring teachers. That is not going to be easy. Conditions for teachers in Detroit are not so great. And they've lost thousands of students. Of course, that means they don't need as many teachers as they would if so many parents had not abandoned Detroit for suburban districts. In fact, it's those Detroit students who have kept at least one suburban district afloat that would have otherwise disappeared. By taking in so many Detroit students who have brought various negative behaviors and pathologies with them, this suburban district regularly loses some of their best students to other districts further on up the road.

From the article:

Faced with a daunting shortage of certified teachers, leaders of Detroit’s main district say they may have no choice but to hire educators with minimal classroom training, including some who have been certified by a for-profit online teachers college.

It’s still early in the summer hiring season, and the district hasn’t begun to announce new hires. But on Tuesday, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti will present a wide-ranging hiring plan to the Detroit school board, sending a message that the district must consider all its options.The plan instructs staff to look high and low for new hires, including from alternate certification programs like Teachers of Tomorrow, an online program that was approved to certify teachers by the state Legislature last year“We prefer to hire teachers who have participated in traditional certification programs,” Vitti said in a prepared statement to Chalkbeat, adding: “However, in the short term, we need certified teachers to fill vacancies and to reduce class size so we will consider hiring teachers from alternative programs. They are certified.”An intractable teacher shortage in Detroit has had dramatic consequences for the city’s students, from classrooms crammed with 40 children to students who go for months without a certified math or English Teacher.

On its website, Teachers of Tomorrow promises prospective teachers that they can help address these issues. Under the tagline “Every student deserves a great teacher!” the company promises “competitive salaries” and the chance to work with a "diverse student population."

On the one hand, Detroit is desperate enough to seek teachers from "non-traditional" programs that may or may not be slightly shady. On the other hand, traditional teacher training programs from the big-time universities don't adequately prepare teachers. 

Explicit phonics being ignored, teachers are not taught effective strategies to teach literacy. Add to this the fact that because so many teachers don't want to work in Detroit, Detroit has to take whom they can get. While Detroit does have some excellent teachers . . . um . . . let's just say . . . there are others. 

Also, I'm not sure that the offer to work with "a diverse student population" is such a great selling point. Diverse? Diverse how? In what way are the students "diverse?"

Personally, I hope Mr. Vitti succeeds. Many before him have failed, but who knows, maybe he is up to this impossible job. My advice though, would be - once you get those new teachers in the door, have them trained in a good solid Orton-based language arts program.

Of course, that's always my advice.

Marzano, Are You Kidding?

The name Robert Marzano showed up a lot in my final teaching years, mostly in the form of articles copied and passed out to all of the teachers in the school or in the district. We were supposed to read them in order to learn how to be better teachers. It seemed that every article we were given to read had Marzano's name on it. That must have been one heavy educational dude I was ignoring.

Because I always wanted to know what manner of bovine waste was being passed down to us from above, I usually attempted to read these articles. I'm almost sorry to say that I never even made it through one of them. I can't even recall what they were about, but they didn't seem to be much help. Much of what is being passed off as school improvement these days involves data, testing, testing data, data from the tests, and cosmetics.

Yes, we're told, posting the learning target for each subject daily will improve students' scores. Oh, did we say posting? We meant posting and reading each learning target to the students. Oops! Forgot! And have the students recite the learning targets back to you. Oh, and one more thing; have them repeat the learning targets in their own words. We'll let you know if there's anything we have to add to that.

Meanwhile, don't forget to update your data wall.

But - oh yeah - Marzano. I should have assumed that some teachers and especially administrators who had either forgotten what the classroom is like or who were never classroom teachers would accept the word of an "expert" with no classroom experience. I discovered years ago, that those who carried the educational day, the ones who advance the farthest, were the ones who can talk a good game, who can exaggerate their classroom success with a straight face.

It seems that I'm better off for not reading Marzano, especially since, whether or not I knew who he was, my teaching career was made more miserable because of him.

There are many reasons Marzano’s tweet touched a lot of raw nerves.

First, those of us who have been in the arena for a while are predisposed to dislike whatever he has to say. Here’s a guy who barely taught, an academic who’d rather read studies written by other academics than remain in the classroom and teach actual kids, who writes books that are only possible because of the labor of other researchers (who at least visit classrooms), and who then has the audacity to tell teachers everything they’re doing wrong and what they should be doing instead. I’m not giving him the benefit of the doubt and neither are a lot of other teachers.

Second, the tweet reveals what most of us suspect: that he’s out of touch. It’s no surprise that a lot of the comments call Marzano out for not being a teacher. That’s a fair criticism. Don’t tell me how to do my job until you’ve demonstrated that you can do it.

From my experience, Marzano will still be required reading, and school administrators will still believe in him until he is replaced by the next educational guru whose advice and pronouncements will have as much effect on student achievement as Marzano - Zero.

And the circle goes round and round.

Why Teachers Suck

This is only part of it.

4. … because of expectations from a broken society.

Teachers no longer simply teach their subjects.  Our schools are now responsible for raising children.  Not many kids learn basic “life skills” and attitudes at home, so we expect teachers to do what moms and dads won’t (or can’t).  Oh, and they’re also supposed to make sure the kids get fed.

Too many schools now have food / toiletry / clothing pantries for kids whose homes can’t provide basic necessities.  These are run by volunteers … and teachers, of course.

We ask teachers to teach, feed, clothe, and parent our children, but refuse them the resources, support, and time to do the job.  Instead, we shame them for not saving our fractured society.

“Not only are schools and teachers expected to fix all of society’s ills, we are also expected to turn out a fantastic product,” Susan says.  “It would be nice if it could be remembered that we are working with human capital, not with a product whose outcome we can control completely.”

And therein lies the biggest key to understanding why teacher’s suck …

Our teachers end up parenting a lot of kids, and that role comes with a costly emotional and psychological investment.  Teachers are often caring for students who are functioning orphans—and they do it for countless kids.  While they’re teaching their preps, answering emails and phone calls from angry parents, trying to ignore what some yahoo has said about them on social media, and filling out an insane amount of hoop-jumping documentation to help some politician get re-elected, they’re also trying to get the girl who’s been raped into counseling, making sure the kid out of rehab stays clean and on track, and trying to tenderly engage that discipline problem who’s now living on the streets because his parents are both in jail.

There is so much more.

O. Really.

           Why are so many children doing so poorly when learning to read?

            Funny you should ask. But as long as you did, let’s take a quick look at one letter, the letter “o”.

            If we place the “o” after the letter “t” we have the word, “to” (which rhymes with “do” but not with “go”.) Two letters, each making a different sound, create a word. If we add the letter “m” to the end of “to”, we have the word (name), “Tom. The “o” is making a different sound. Add a final silent “e” to create the word, tome, and what do you know? The “o” makes a third sound (the same sound it makes in “go”). What if instead of “m”, we add “ss” for the word “toss”? Yep, a fourth sound. Use the letter “n” instead of “m” and you get the world “ton”, and we’re treated to the schwa sound.  What other words begin with t-o? And what do they sound like? In tow, town, toy, tough, and toil, the “o” is combined with other letters to make various other sounds.

            So what does this all mean?

            First of all, we adults know, there are many more opportunities for the young reading student to become fall into a ball of confusion, especially if they’re expected to figure all of this reading and spelling on their own. This is especially true for children who have been raised in poverty, or in a home where education is ignored or reviled. The child who’s been raised in a literate home has a huge head start in this quest and can sometimes figure this mess out with nominal help.

            For children born into the previously mentioned less than advantageous surroundings, wouldn’t it make more sense to give them a proper phonetic education so that the confusion can be, if not completely eliminated, at least minimized? There are reasons and rules for many (but not all) of the English language’s seeming inconsistencies. Sometimes, as in the case of “ton” it’s due to changing (some would say slovenly) speech patterns. Some are due to specific word origins. A knowledgeable teacher can turn these different sounds and spelling patterns into many “teachable moments” delving into history and literature and increasing student knowledge.

            Very few teachers are taught how. Most teachers are not knowledgeable about the workings of English. They flounder, miss opportunities, try to add a bit of “phonemic awareness”, try some useless interventions, and another generation of illiterates passes through their classroom.

            It’s  time to teach teachers to teach reading correctly, that is, phonetically.

Creating Monsters

I wrote this near the end of last school year. It went up on my Tumblr blog, which I'm not going to link to because it isn't about education. Yes, I was frustrated, not at the kids, but at a few of the parents. It is the parents who create the monsters.

Hello parents. How are your children doing in school? Does your child complain that their teacher picks on them? Does your precious flower always seem to get caught by the teacher doing things that other kids get away with - according to your precious flower? Are you convinced that the teacher has it out for your lovely snowflake, because you know - you are absolutely certain - that all of those other students are doing the same things and being ignored? Are you positive that you are the only parents who have to leave work and take time to shlep over to the school because your innocent babe is sitting in the principal’s office? Are you getting tired of the repetitive phone calls and demands to come to the school because it can’t be all and entirely your beloved jewel’s fault? Are you convinced that your tiny sweetness is (almost) never like this at home? Do you consistently let the teacher, the principal, and anyone else who will listen, know that you have no idea where this alleged misbehavior is coming from, and the school had better stop messing with your misunderstood genius?

Well guess what - being an elementary school teacher in an “urban” school district, I am qualified to tell you that you are full of shit. And you are creating a monster. Chances are that the teacher gave your snookums more chances than anyone should have to give an intelligent child to straighten out the idiot behavior. And your poopsie took advantage of the teacher’s not wanting to call you, in order to become a bigger, more disruptive, more self-serving idiot. Kids will do that, you know. They know what they can get away with. They also know if they will be punished and how severe the punishment will be. They are able to judge whether the upcoming (if it’s coming or if it’s just talk) punishment from mom (most likely) or dad (if there’s one around) is worth it compared to the fun they get to have cutting up in class and hampering everyone else’s education. Yes, your little chickadee has you, and the teacher, and the principal, and the entire system figured out. That few minutes of yelling, screaming, and scolding from you is worth it in exchange for a few days or weeks of goofing off, harassing students and teachers, throwing tantrums, and being a general nuisance. It’s small payment for some solid, long-lasting self-entertainment. Go ahead. Throw in a “whooppin’ ”. Who cares? Certainly not your puppy-dog-eyed sweetheart. Or sure, there will be crying and yelling along with some tears, but only for a few minutes. Once it’s over, it’s back to being an asshole. Because young Norbert or Norbertella knows that after one round ends, the next one begins. And that means it’s time for that next round of many more days or weeks of troublemaking fun.

And that’s for the young scholar whose parents pretend to care about education. If you really think that your miniature intellectual’s teacher has the time or the inclination to single out your kid, you are a dumbass. And you are creating a monster, who, because they will, thanks to you, develop no marketable skills, will want to live with you, in your house long into their 20s and 30s. They may even want to have you raise their children while they go out and party with money that they will demand from you. And you, idiot that you are, might not even then be able to figure out what went wrong.

Keep in mind that your child’s teacher wants your child to do well in school, if only for the simple, selfish reason that the more the students learn, and the better they do in school and on the dreaded standardized tests, the better the teacher looks. Then there are the teachers who want your wee beastie and the rest of the class to succeed because that’s why they went into teaching. Either way, success is better than failure, and it benefits everyone, especially your youthful, emotional cripple. And rather than battle teachers in order to protect your fragile, pampered babe from the emotional distress that comes with the continual concerted effort that one needs to build an education, it is in everyone’s best interest for you to side with the teacher. Release your child from their protective hothouse. Let your child grow up to be a productive member of society rather than a parasite on you and on all of us. Stop creating monsters and leeches. Stop increasing the dependent class. We’ve got enough of them. Allow your miniature Tasmanian devil the chance to grow as a human being. Let them develop the tools they need to win their own personal struggle. You owe them that.