I have never considered myself a political person. In fact, I have long held the belief that we can close our classroom doors and teach. No longer do I believe this.
I did some consulting with the Colorado Department of Education in the Colorado Reading First (CRF) department in 2005-2006, my one year of “retirement”, simply because I didn’t know what else I was going to do. It sounded interesting and I saw some names I knew from the reading community on the roster. CRF philosophy is based on the model that was interpreted from the National Reading Panel Report of 2000. During my first training session, my first thought was, “What has happened to reading instruction?” I looked over at one colleague I had known for years and she was watching me. The parameters and restrictions, the basic definition and philosophy of reading were very different from beliefs I held and I knew she held.
Out of curiosity, I went ahead and served as an “advocate” who visited three schools in far corners of Colorado to monitor their implementation of the Reading First grant. To get this grant—big money--these small, rural schools had to use a recommended , very prescriptive CORE program in a 90-minute direct instruction, whole group setting, assess and progress monitor, and have staff development training (in how to use the program and the assessment tools). What I did not realize at this time was that while relatively few schools applied for and got the CRF grant money, many schools across the nation adopted the precepts of Reading First on their own.
I loved being in the schools, of course, and found the administrators and staff truly had children’s best interest at heart. They wanted to increase reading achievement. The administrators felt that some ineffective teachers became better using the programs because they were actually teaching something. And I observed t expert teachers who knew a wide range of instructional strategies were actually able to balance the scripted program and differentiate for the kids who were beyond the scripted instruction or not yet ready for it. One teacher had book clubs at lunch and after school and pulled extra groups throughout the day.
After one year, CRF restructured the advocate program and we were all “RIF’d”. At that time, three years into the CRF grant, schools were showing very little growth on CSAP. They were showing growth on DIBELS, the assessment tool, but that growth did not carry over to comprehension measures.
I applied to teach at Metro, and found their definition of reading was very close to mine. But, I was preparing students to teach in many schools that were being required by district or school policies to implement instruction more reflective of CRF. I was reading everything I could on the National Reading Panel Report and Reading First trying to reconcile this new view of reading with the view I had held for so long.
Here is how I currently express the difference: educators who come from a definition of reading as a set of discrete skills that add up to reading believe in starting with what children do not know. I call this the “glass is half-empty” model, the deficit model. This is the definition of reading as stated by the National Reading Panel.
Educators who come from a definition of reading as a complex process believe that readers use all the information available to them in different ways to construct meaning from the text. The skills are tools used to access meaning. In this model, the “glass is half-full” model, teachers begin with what the child knows and builds upon that knowledge to teach what the child does not know. The intervention with the most solid success rate is Reading Recovery, which is based on this model.
I was asked to remain on the CRF “Leadership Team” and have attended meetings for the last few years. Often, I am the only person with a “reading is meaning” philosophy in the room. Over these years, and with my growing base of knowledge, I have begun to speak out. I can no longer not speak out. My favorite moment was once when the group was lamenting that in CRF schools, students were actually reading less. My comment was, "Perhaps we are teaching children to read, but not teaching them to want to read." You could of heard a pin dropped as they all looked at me.
Last Friday, I attended the second-to-last CRF meeting. Federal funding for Reading First was discontinued in 2008 after an independent study found that Reading First money, nationwide, had very little impact on tests of comprehension achievement. RF schools made gains on the assessments they used such as DIBELS, but not on state tests. Six million dollars over 6 years. And no growth. In Colorado, schools have dropped out or been dropped, and the final carryover money is being used for a small number of schools until September when it is all gone.
I sat next to a state senator at this meeting, as congressional representatives are always invited and frequently come. This was her first meeting and when she asked why the funding had been cut, the answer given by the director was that the program had been sabotaged for political reasons by the a national report. I turned and said to the senator, and reiterated, “Six million dollars nationwide and it did not improve scores on a test of reading comprehension.” I stated that if we had one-size-fits-all children than a one-size fits-all program might work, but kids are not cookie cutter versions of a child. They do not need to be taught the same way. The senator asked if there were other ways to teach reading, and I said, oh yes, there are many ways, and the expert teachers are those that know and use all of them depending on the needs and strengths of their students.
There is a growing body of research and writing that responds to the mandates. Elaine Garan (2002) says, “The NRP is not just some pesky little mosquito buzzing in our ears. It is Godzilla and it has its foot on our heads. Like it or not, we must deal with the findings of the National Reading Panel.” (Resisting Reading Mandates: How to Triumph with the Truth, Heinemann, p. 5.) She goes on to say that this is no longer a “pendulum” that reflects different philosophies. She has reluctantly “come to the realization that the true motives behind the current state and federal mandates for education are blatantly political and shamelessly financial.” (p. 87).
Can I do anything? Perhaps not, but I must try. I remain an optimist and believe that reason will out at some point. I want to do everything I can to make a difference. I have started a follow-up letter to the senator letting her know that there is a very active group reading community in this state and invite her to our conference. I am going to restate the need for looking at a wide body of research on what works in reading instruction. I am going to offer to sit down with her at any time and bring some of the leaders in the field. I plan on using the information in this letter as I write other congressman. I have gotten a spot on the CCIRA Legislative Committee. I have joined a group of district literacy leaders and college educators. For the children and their teachers, I have found my inner political side.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Death by NCLB
DEATH BY NCLB
I witnessed a death last week. The heart of an expert teacher was damaged beyond repair by No Child Left Behind. Sweeping over the literacy classroom, NCLB and the resulting mandates have been called a tsunami that has left in its wake a “one-size-fits all, children all learn the same way ideology, THE one best teaching method, and the belief that if all teachers would simply follow a script perceived to be scientific, all children would learn” devastation.
This is not a burnt-out, just-limping-to-retirement teacher. This teacher is considered an expert in literacy and science instruction, and has spent years honing her teaching craft, adding to her strategies, pursuing knowledge from many perspectives. She understands that children are not cookie cutter replicas of some idealized child. Each is a complex human being with unique experiences, lives, strengths and interests. She knows that nothing works for every child, but that something works for every child. She seeks to have many “somethings” in her classroom in order to meet the needs of increasingly diverse students.
Over a glass of wine and with tears in her eyes, this teacher remembered and mourned teaching that made a difference. She recalled her rainforest unit that converted a classroom into a rainforest so realistic it inspired deep, higher level thinking and understanding. She recalled the student from that year who went on to become a scientist in the Amazon rainforest. In her district now, instruction is so closely scripted that at a certain time on any given day, the teacher must be saying what is written, using the recommended overhead, and staying vigilant for surprise visits from district personnel to monitor the “fidelity” of the implementation. Pressure to make adequate yearly progress has moved many districts to seek the quick-fix, at any cost.
Now, children who are less experienced in reading receive more intervention instead of more authentic reading experiences. There is no time for science. More skills. More drill, often from a different person using a different program outside of the classroom. In the name of intervention, the most fragmented children are given more fragmentation. Tests and texts are mandated, enforcement has created an atmosphere of fear and coercion, no one dares deviate from the materials or raise questions, and staff development is more rehearsal on how to use the program.
How did this nightmarish state of imbalance become common? Based on a very small percentage of the total educational research done in the last century (some estimates say 5%), the National Reading Panel in 1998 made the decision not to consider the nature of the reading process or the complexities of teaching children to read. Instead, the make-up of the panel was designed to exclude a wide range of literacy authorities and organized to establish explicit, systematic phonics as scientific. While the panel’s data review showed phonics only to influence performance on tests where children pronounced words on a list, not on tests of reading comprehension, through interpretation and implementation, systematic and explicit phonics instruction have become the only approved model of instruction for all learners. No one can debate that phonics instruction is necessary for learning to read. But it has been taken to an extreme of diminishing other aspects of reading as a meaning-getting process.
Teachers are now asked to forget what they have learned about how children learn and develop, about reading as a transaction between text and reader, about the metacognitive process, about the reciprocal relationship between reading and writing, about the critical importance of classroom environment and social interactions, about learning as authentic problem solving, and about motivation and engagement. Instead, teachers are asked to implement a curriculum sliced and diced into five simple areas with a medical precision that can be diagnosed and remediated. Teach these five “pillars” and children will learn to read. We are also asked to ignore the large body of research that points to the teacher, not the program, as the key to student success. Teachers are encouraged not to make decisions, but to trust the “experts” who have no knowledge of their students and their needs, but with incomprehensible omnipotence feel qualified to say what is best for all children.
Based on a flawed report, even by its own “scientifically-based” standards, the NRP Report launched the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. NCLB requires Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), and if any subgroup fails, the whole district fails. Failure to meet AYP results in punishment and penalty. The resulting Reading First interpretations and initiatives have been adopted without review or question, resulting in implications for instruction that were never endorsed by the original NRP report. Many instructional designs are not based on research at all, but are touted as “scientifically-based reading”. Scripted core programs delivered through whole-class instruction are the norm. All children are required to be in grade level materials, even though for some these would be frustratingly difficult and some immensely boring. Children are tested on piecemeal skills and for the first time can be labeled “failing” in the first week of kindergarten. Children no longer are allowed to “drop everything and read” and there is no time during the day for the teacher to read aloud books that bring to life the common humanity, the joy, the purpose and reason to read. There is no color in these classrooms, only black and white. Only drill, meaningless exercises, and constant testing.
Ironically, on May 1, 2008, the report of an independent governmental agency, the Institute of Educational Science, was published. The effectiveness of the Reading First program mandates—use of explicit, systematic phonics-based approved core program, progress monitoring and intervention, staff development and increased time spent on reading program--showed in fact there was no benefit when compared to a control group on a test of reading comprehension. One billion dollars spent each year for six years. A major scandal that revealed flagrant conflicts of interest, including RF grants only approved when programs adopted materials of which reviewers had financial interests. And none of it made any difference.
Still, the mandates of Reading First stay with us. On January 20, 2010, President Obama asked Congress to begin a review and reauthorization of NCLB. Secretary of Education Duncan called for a replacement of Adequate Yearly Progress with a growth model. Reading First has received no new funding, but a final decision has not been made. Bureaucracy is slow to change, and we must consider the human cost.
Highly effective teachers have the skill, but are losing the will to continue to teach in ways they believe hurt their students. The lucky ones are close enough to retire early, but their years of expertise are devalued and lost. Who will replace these teachers? Who will fight the good fight?
Young teachers who know nothing else. They want to teach, they need a job. They have the will if not the skill. They have been drawn to teaching and will do the best they can to implement the programs asked of them. Fifty percent of the teachers in the district this teacher works in are in their first or second year. Burn out rate in the first few years of teaching is high anyway. How long can these teacher last before they become disillusioned by boredom and pressure, lack of challenge, student resistance, the lack of joy? In an age of “highly-qualified teachers”, can we say the trade off of expertise for compliance is justified?
Ultimately, what of the children? They are only in kindergarten, or second grade or fifth grade once. What are the long term effects of this pressure cooker? How long will we wonder why they may have the skill to read, but no desire to do so?
This teacher, my friend and colleague, implemented the mandated literacy curriculum, using every ounce of her expertise to buffer her students for as long as possible from the negative impacts by infusing balance whenever possible into the daily routines and activities. But she has found in the last weeks that she can no longer do that. She is walking away from teaching, not in celebration of a career filled with success, but with the down-trodden conviction that she can no longer teach without hurting children. And she will not hurt children. Her teaching heart aches, and she has lost the will to go on.
I witnessed a death last week. The heart of an expert teacher was damaged beyond repair by No Child Left Behind. Sweeping over the literacy classroom, NCLB and the resulting mandates have been called a tsunami that has left in its wake a “one-size-fits all, children all learn the same way ideology, THE one best teaching method, and the belief that if all teachers would simply follow a script perceived to be scientific, all children would learn” devastation.
This is not a burnt-out, just-limping-to-retirement teacher. This teacher is considered an expert in literacy and science instruction, and has spent years honing her teaching craft, adding to her strategies, pursuing knowledge from many perspectives. She understands that children are not cookie cutter replicas of some idealized child. Each is a complex human being with unique experiences, lives, strengths and interests. She knows that nothing works for every child, but that something works for every child. She seeks to have many “somethings” in her classroom in order to meet the needs of increasingly diverse students.
Over a glass of wine and with tears in her eyes, this teacher remembered and mourned teaching that made a difference. She recalled her rainforest unit that converted a classroom into a rainforest so realistic it inspired deep, higher level thinking and understanding. She recalled the student from that year who went on to become a scientist in the Amazon rainforest. In her district now, instruction is so closely scripted that at a certain time on any given day, the teacher must be saying what is written, using the recommended overhead, and staying vigilant for surprise visits from district personnel to monitor the “fidelity” of the implementation. Pressure to make adequate yearly progress has moved many districts to seek the quick-fix, at any cost.
Now, children who are less experienced in reading receive more intervention instead of more authentic reading experiences. There is no time for science. More skills. More drill, often from a different person using a different program outside of the classroom. In the name of intervention, the most fragmented children are given more fragmentation. Tests and texts are mandated, enforcement has created an atmosphere of fear and coercion, no one dares deviate from the materials or raise questions, and staff development is more rehearsal on how to use the program.
How did this nightmarish state of imbalance become common? Based on a very small percentage of the total educational research done in the last century (some estimates say 5%), the National Reading Panel in 1998 made the decision not to consider the nature of the reading process or the complexities of teaching children to read. Instead, the make-up of the panel was designed to exclude a wide range of literacy authorities and organized to establish explicit, systematic phonics as scientific. While the panel’s data review showed phonics only to influence performance on tests where children pronounced words on a list, not on tests of reading comprehension, through interpretation and implementation, systematic and explicit phonics instruction have become the only approved model of instruction for all learners. No one can debate that phonics instruction is necessary for learning to read. But it has been taken to an extreme of diminishing other aspects of reading as a meaning-getting process.
Teachers are now asked to forget what they have learned about how children learn and develop, about reading as a transaction between text and reader, about the metacognitive process, about the reciprocal relationship between reading and writing, about the critical importance of classroom environment and social interactions, about learning as authentic problem solving, and about motivation and engagement. Instead, teachers are asked to implement a curriculum sliced and diced into five simple areas with a medical precision that can be diagnosed and remediated. Teach these five “pillars” and children will learn to read. We are also asked to ignore the large body of research that points to the teacher, not the program, as the key to student success. Teachers are encouraged not to make decisions, but to trust the “experts” who have no knowledge of their students and their needs, but with incomprehensible omnipotence feel qualified to say what is best for all children.
Based on a flawed report, even by its own “scientifically-based” standards, the NRP Report launched the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. NCLB requires Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), and if any subgroup fails, the whole district fails. Failure to meet AYP results in punishment and penalty. The resulting Reading First interpretations and initiatives have been adopted without review or question, resulting in implications for instruction that were never endorsed by the original NRP report. Many instructional designs are not based on research at all, but are touted as “scientifically-based reading”. Scripted core programs delivered through whole-class instruction are the norm. All children are required to be in grade level materials, even though for some these would be frustratingly difficult and some immensely boring. Children are tested on piecemeal skills and for the first time can be labeled “failing” in the first week of kindergarten. Children no longer are allowed to “drop everything and read” and there is no time during the day for the teacher to read aloud books that bring to life the common humanity, the joy, the purpose and reason to read. There is no color in these classrooms, only black and white. Only drill, meaningless exercises, and constant testing.
Ironically, on May 1, 2008, the report of an independent governmental agency, the Institute of Educational Science, was published. The effectiveness of the Reading First program mandates—use of explicit, systematic phonics-based approved core program, progress monitoring and intervention, staff development and increased time spent on reading program--showed in fact there was no benefit when compared to a control group on a test of reading comprehension. One billion dollars spent each year for six years. A major scandal that revealed flagrant conflicts of interest, including RF grants only approved when programs adopted materials of which reviewers had financial interests. And none of it made any difference.
Still, the mandates of Reading First stay with us. On January 20, 2010, President Obama asked Congress to begin a review and reauthorization of NCLB. Secretary of Education Duncan called for a replacement of Adequate Yearly Progress with a growth model. Reading First has received no new funding, but a final decision has not been made. Bureaucracy is slow to change, and we must consider the human cost.
Highly effective teachers have the skill, but are losing the will to continue to teach in ways they believe hurt their students. The lucky ones are close enough to retire early, but their years of expertise are devalued and lost. Who will replace these teachers? Who will fight the good fight?
Young teachers who know nothing else. They want to teach, they need a job. They have the will if not the skill. They have been drawn to teaching and will do the best they can to implement the programs asked of them. Fifty percent of the teachers in the district this teacher works in are in their first or second year. Burn out rate in the first few years of teaching is high anyway. How long can these teacher last before they become disillusioned by boredom and pressure, lack of challenge, student resistance, the lack of joy? In an age of “highly-qualified teachers”, can we say the trade off of expertise for compliance is justified?
Ultimately, what of the children? They are only in kindergarten, or second grade or fifth grade once. What are the long term effects of this pressure cooker? How long will we wonder why they may have the skill to read, but no desire to do so?
This teacher, my friend and colleague, implemented the mandated literacy curriculum, using every ounce of her expertise to buffer her students for as long as possible from the negative impacts by infusing balance whenever possible into the daily routines and activities. But she has found in the last weeks that she can no longer do that. She is walking away from teaching, not in celebration of a career filled with success, but with the down-trodden conviction that she can no longer teach without hurting children. And she will not hurt children. Her teaching heart aches, and she has lost the will to go on.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Thoughts on Writing (a BLOG)
I have been struggling in recent days to write a blog about myself as a writer. How do I write? What are my strengths and weaknesses as a writer? What makes the writer in me tick?
I have drafted this in my head for a while, constantly rehearsing "thoughtful articulations." So, there is my first realization. When I am working on a writing project, I play it in my head waiting for the Light Rail train, as I wake in the morning, as I drive. Logically, this reflects the fact that I tend to take a long time processing before I speak. I have always admired people who seem able to quickly figure it out, make the point, express the situation.
I am a slow, laborious kind of writer except when I write poetry or personal journal entries. There, a phrase or an emotion is often spontaneous, simply flowing onto paper.
Most of the writing I do is expository. Throughout my schooling and my professional career I have written to inform, share and explain. Usually, this writing is meant for a specific audience and to address a specific need. Purpose and audience are key here, as they are with all writing. In school, my audience was my teacher, professionally, the audience is usually teachers, parents, colleagues who may need or benefit or learn from the text. Only the occasional poem or journal entry is written for purely personal expression. I am the audience.
But why is blogging so difficult for me? Today as I completed a blog that took me way longer than I thought it should have and then somehow it moved to a draft status and I couldn't unlock it to edit it again. My frustration led me to an exercise break when I realized the problem.
I came to realize today it is because the purpose and the audience do not match in my brain. My purpose is to reflect my thinking in an articulate, doctoral level way. But the audience is vast. OK, probably the only ones who read this are my colleagues, but I struggle with the notion that I am laying my thoughts out there to such a broad and undefined audience. Part of this is because I have never blogged and don't read blogs. I don't Facebook or Twitter or Tweet. and to me blogs seem an informal way to express formal thinking. I view blogs as stream-of-consciousness writing, not focused articulation.
I realize part of this is because I am an immigrant in the land of technology, having been born a few years before 1985. While I am learning the tools (slowly) and understanding the challenges of digital texts begause of the books I'm reading on literacy in the informational age, but I just at my core do not get it.
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