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Brandt Robinson
Palm Harbor, FL
High School Teacher
Trainer of New Teachers
Love Gardening
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Brandt signed the petition | -
Brandt commented on the article |Talk about a huge can of worms!...The idea of nationalized standards is as questionable as the concept of a nation itself. Not only does it pose the challenge of agreeing on the standards themselves, but most importantly, how can unified assessment be achieved?
Several years ago the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) did a survey of the state standards of all fifty states. There findings didn't surprise most educators: most states had too many standards and far too many of the standards were poorly written, vague and made true assessment difficult.
My county - Pinellas County, Florida - began an admirable and ambitious project six years ago to revise our "Sunshine State Standards" and condense them into "Essential Learnings". For example, what does a student in an American History class really need to know and be able to do when they leave high school?
County curriculum supervisors of secondary education selected teachers to write these over the summer. Our Social Studies team met for two weeks and broke into smaller teams, with my colleague and I writing the Essential Learnings for American History (that's 16 high schools). In essence, the vision was that these standards would be a work in progress, that each year we would receive feedback from teachers and a few years later this would culminate in "common end of course exams" for each course.
While the writing of our American History standards went well enough (we are still very proud of the outcome and how easy they are to follow; I'd be happy to send them as an attachment!), the process itself reflected how difficult a national discussion might be; the World History folks got to a heated argument over whether students needed to differentiate between the Italian, French, and German Renaissance...we laughed and thought we'd be happy if our students came into American History with a grasp of the concept of Renaissance! :-)
After two weeks, the Essential Learnings were finished and sent to all teachers in the county at the start of the next year. The following summer the teams met once again for revision, excited about the feedback we would get from our colleagues in American history. Our supervisor came in the first morning with his envelope. He pulled out one piece of paper...a single email from a single teacher!
This long story illustrates that the best efforts - and these are at the local/district level - can and will be compromised by:
a lack of oversight by the district; a lack of assessment of teachers to ensure they can effectively cover the standards; the need for administrators to be qualified enough to assess teachers; the need to account for remediation when kids come in without prior knowledge, skills, or even much reading comprehension; as well as the training necessary to support teachers in effective instruction/assessment.
Talk of nationalized standards is helpful, but only to the extent to which it leads to a general discussion and examination about teaching and learnings. Without that dialogue, we can write as many "standards," "benchmarks," "essential learnings," "strands," or "outcome" we like. We'll be no closer to real implementation or students' learning really improving.
Brandt Robinson -
Brandt commented on the article |Transparency is certainly welcome, especially if it can be effectively modeled by the federal government. Indeed, it's easy to say we should "put away childish things", but real efforts to model transparency - in any arena of the federal government - will bode well for local districts, where that line is too often blurred or ignored.
Our district spends millions on programs and intiatives that have little to no accountability. Here is a case study that is probably all to familiar in many districts across the country: Kaplan and Read 180. Our district is in a dogfight over union contract violations in the name of a budget crisis. Yet, when times were economically "good" (before the bubble burst), our school board continued to appropriate funds to programs whose implementation was from the beginning questioned by the very teachers charged with implementing them and whose effectiveness has never been substantiated with data.
Only now is there even talk about continuing to fund some of these programs, yet binding contracts with the companies in question make that unlikely.
"Transparency in government " is such an obvious request it reads like an oxymoron. Sadly, times of hardship reveal how much that transparency could have saved us, financially of course, but most importantly in the all too forgotten bottom line of student success and achievement.
Brandt Robinson -
Brandt commented on the article |Thanks for posting this Clay. Things are a real mess in Florida; one of the "ground zeros" for the housing collapse, coupled with the insurance "crisis"/pullout that began after the hurricanes of '04; and declining enrollment in several districts, including mine.
I teach in Pinellas County, just down U.S. 19 from Hernando County, the subject of your post. The teacher's union (er, organization...we are a "right to work state") is in a dogfight with our county administration after the district ignored/violated the contract last summer by implementing a 6/7 schedule for middle schools (from the 5/6 schedule in line with contract language). In late November an arbitrater ruled in favor of the union but our district is ignoring the ruling, which was countered by a law suit being filed three days ago.
I bring this up becuase it is nice to see the gesture up in Hernando County. The St. Petersburg Times two weeks ago published an article about our district's top administrative salaries being disproportionately higher than other Florida counties.
Just keeping you abreast of one small corner of the education world. Thanks again for representing it.
Brandt -
Brandt commented on the article |My apologies. I guess I was just having a bad day, which is rare for me. What you are doing is far more important than the occasioanal tone or opinion that might rankle someone. I am generally a very positive and optimisitc person. I also appreciate the dissemination of information, especially those who take the time to do it, which is modeling we all could use from time to time.
I come at this from the point of view of teaching and learning and am passionate about sharing things professional educators are doing every day, in spite of critical hardships.
However, I know that the spectrum of education is vast and all "shades" of that spectrum are contextually just as important.
Again, my apologies and thanks for taking the time to respond.
Brandt Robinson -
Brandt commented on the article |
I was excited by the announcement of an educational blog associated with change.org that could not only capture the possibility of professional educators discussing solutions but also modeling the kind of inclusion that will be transformative. Unfortunately, this blog is degenerating into an ideological and absolutist diatribe.
Is this "Clay's opinions.edu" or truly a site that works to foster and generate discussions about solutions? A wise person once told me to watch for those who often say "yes, but". Like, "I agree with you, but". This wise person told me that almost always to ignore eveything that follows the "but". When I read your exchanges, like "most conservatives worth the title are as aghast at what has happened...", all I see is judgment. Who deemed you the arbiter of who is worthy of being a conservative?
I would like to see more discussions that follow a pattern of collaboration. That starts with a spirit of collaboration that has to be modeled. -
Brandt commented on the article |Yes! A great link Clay. My wife and I saw Dr. Willingham a couple of years ago at the Quest conference. He also publishes an article in the American Educator ("Ask the Cognitive Scientist"). As he spoke, several times there was a collective gasp as his research seemed to validate what most teachers have been witnessing and experiencing in their classrooms.
Willingham clearly demonstrates how reading comprehension is not a skill, but rather the accumulation of background knowledge a reader brings to a new text. Sadly there is a point when students readers' comprehension will actually regress. Think of a piece of swiss cheese with too many holes, with each hole representing a gap in prior knowledge. Unfortunately, most reading programs we have in our high schools - some millions of dollars in districts budgets - can not truly address these gaps that are years in the making.
Even though his research is sobering, it also has the power to liberate. -
Brandt commented on the article |I think that there is a tendency to separate these kinds of "experiential activites" from the kind of daily engagement we should be striving for. There is a fundamental difference between engagement and being on-task, something every teacher says they know. In fact, we all struggle to try and tap into the cognitive, emotional and physical techniques/strategies/activities that are at the heart of true engagement.
There is a point in all teachers' carreers where they have a big enough toolbox to be able to at least conceptually design lessons that incorporate engagement every day.
But increasingly, this is more and more difficult to cultivate - certainly in my American History/World Religions classes - due to a basic lack of background knowledge.
Many of my students are so deficient in some of the simplest concepts and basic background knowledge that it takes more time, and certainly more patience to build in that engagement for curriculum design.
For example, when I teach my "regular" (a term I hate) American History students about the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, I want them to walk away with a basic idea of the concept of Reconstruction (which will be built on throughout the year). The concept or reconstruction is as important as the facts of that era. So they create (hence: construct) a foldable, part of which involves creating a plan for rebuilding the American public high school, in light of Bill Gates charge that "the American high school is not broken, it is obsolete". That involves lots of engaging activities and discussion and results in their own "five point plan for rebuilding the American public high school". In addition, we view parts of the documentary When the Levees Broke, to engage them in an examination of destruction/reconstruction from the period they are living through now, that can help them better appreciate the challenges of rebuilding the nation following the Civil War.
All of this looks fabulous on paper. But it can not even begin to capture the struggle of dealing with the majority of my students who lack so much of the things we might think they need to know to start the process of engagement.
Early in my career I used to search the Internet for captivating lesson plans that other teachers did to create engagement. It took me almost ten years to realize that daily engagement and 100% of our kids doing 100% of our "stuff correctly" is far more important. It also takes a commitment to helping each other with the latest in research-based teaching and learning so that teachers have the tools to create it.
That is a discussion I feel we should be having; one about a commitment to world class professional development where all kids are held to our standards. -
Brandt signed the petition | -
Brandt commented on the article |Shane,
Well said and well done; I enjoyed the way you laid out your role. Very engaging and provocative. I especially appreciate your comments about media coverage and the often slanted frame which too often leads to self-fulfilling prophecies. I am excited about this blog and look forward to spending the rest of the day watching the video attachments.
Thanks again,
Brandt Robinson
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