Teach And Learn

Data-driven To Distraction

This recent EdWeek editorial ("Data-driven to Distraction") by Andy Hargreaves has some great insights. Data-driven decision making remains essential to schools and school leadership. As a concept, however, it's quickly become incredibly misused and misunderstood. Hargreaves points that out nicely--I particularly like the like his quote that "teachers are no longer the drivers of reform, but the driven." Sadly, data has become an excuse not to think.

I see evidence of this all the time. There's the push to "analyze the data" just to find the areas that need improvement--often done using tests without discerning power between items or that measure multiple domains on items, and done in ways that involve looking a  charts and graphs without asking questions about what schools should do about them. Thanks for this dose of reality.

Rethinking Teacher Retention

I recently attended a conference in Chicago at the Young Women's Leaderhsip Charter School. Teachers from Coalition schools and other small schools in Chicago convened for 2 days to discuss issues of sustainability and school leadership in the context of school culture.  While I'm often concerned that current reform efforts focus too heavily on school culture, theme, civics, etc. without addressing teaching and learning and subject-specific content, an even larger debate emerged. 

We know that teacher retention continues to be problematic in large urban school districts -- and the trend has little to do with teacher supply.  Anecdotally, it seems that small schools are struggling even more to retain teachers.  (Anyone have research on this?)    Alternative certification programs provide access to just about anyone interested in schools.  Not sure if there's a causation or correlation effect, but more teachers are entering the field to "test the waters" than in previous decades.  It seems that it's time to accept a change in the nature of the profession, i.e., few people enter teaching as a career.  Should school leaders start thinking more thoughtfully to address this?  The money debate aside, how do we rethink teacher retention efforts and incentivize the profession? Is that something that's worth investing in, or should we just design schools with the understanding that most teachers will be there only a handful of years?   
   

Why Study Math In High School?

The Association of Computing Machinery has a great 12-point plan about why you should study math in high school. Helpful advice to all...

The Role Of Departments In High School Change

In this link from the Project Kalidoscope website about learning and teaching undergraduate physics the authors make the case that "the department is the critical unit for change in undergraduate education." In US high schools, I'd agree with that sentiment.

While changes can try to reform or rethink high schools, these places are by their very nature multidisciplinary. Principals need to lead the school as a whole, but need access to the subject-specific ways-of-thinking that only a strong department can bring if they are to realize meaningful change.

We've focused on building strong departments as a core part of CMSI over the year. It's been really slow going for all sorts of reasons, but it remains the right thing to do. Nice to see our collegiate friends thinking along the same lines.