#highschool

  • A UNIQUE WAY TO TEACH READING

    RIVETING RESULTS, LLC...

    Getting High School Students To Read  and Enjoy Complex Texts!

    From Chuck Cascio: In my ongoing search for unique, ground-floor solutions to the rapidly changing teaching and learning environment, I was fortunate recently to learn about Riveting Results, LLC, and its CEO Arthur Unobskey, a longtime teacher, administrator, superintendent, and education reform leader. Riveting Results (https://www.rr.tools) is a program that deserves significant attention from educators, business leaders, and anyone committed to meaningful education reform. I am pleased to present details about Arthur and Riveting Results’ unique approach to learning.


    About Arthur Unobskey: After thirty years as a teacher, principal and superintendent, Arthur Unobskey partnered in Riveting Results. After building systems and structures to support his students’ daily progress, he wanted to provide middle and high school teachers with the specific tools that they needed to teach all of their students to read-and enjoy-grade level text.

    Throughout his ten years as a middle and high school teacher, Arthur strove to engage every one of his students in deep and rigorous study. As an administrator in both urban and suburban schools, he built and supported teacher and administrative teams that analyzed formative data to determine which teaching approaches unlocked students’ potential, particularly for reluctant students. As a superintendent in Wayland, Massachusetts, he guided the district to embrace the needs of underperforming students, integrating best practices from Social Emotional Learning and Culturally Responsive Teaching to improve student engagement and performance.

    About Riveting Results, LLC: From 1994 to the present, Arthur co-founded, co-directed and served as the Board Chair for The Writers’ Express (now SummerInk), a non-profit summer writing camp for middle and high school students. During this time, The Writers’ Express developed an instructional model that helped campers from a wide variety of backgrounds find their voices as writers.

    Arthur notes that at a time when 69% of entering 9th grade students read below grade level, Riveting Results' 9th and 10th grade comprehensive English/Language Arts solution transforms students' classroom experience. It enables teachers to accelerate their skill development so the entire class can read and enjoy the same rigorous, engaging books. Requiring minimal professional development, its software-based curriculum enables a teacher to seamlessly implement four high-leverage literacy activities that provide students with the precise practice and feedback they need for rapid and sustained skill development.

    Arthur’s responses to questions delving into details about Riveting Results, LLC:

    >>>What do you see as the major challenges in education today?

    The hold that divisive local politics has on our public schools limits collaboration between researchers and educators, stymieing innovation. District leaders cannot risk the immediate fallout of giving different services to different children, a necessary feature of the randomized controlled studies that have led, in the medical field, to the rapid spread of effective practices. 

    With no widely accepted “gold standard” for efficacy, impressive results from another district are met with skepticism. Curriculum committees often privilege programs and approaches that they already know even if they are not impactful. Those districts that seek to be innovative often turn to their teachers to do the impossible: create an in-house solution that is adaptable for all teachers and students while each of the teacher-curriculum developers simultaneously tend to the needs of 25 to 150 of their own students. In such a scenario, no one has the brainspace to effectively determine the impact of their work on student achievement.

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    >>>What specific "ground floor" education/learning issues does Riveting Results help address?

    Recently, a groundswell of mainstream media attention has spotlighted how districts across the country are changing their instruction to incorporate a more structured approach, summarized as techniques that align with the rigorously researched “Science of Reading”. This change in reading instruction will result in more students learning how to read elementary textsIt is a very exciting shift. The media, however, has paid far less attention to adolescents and what literacy instruction they need. The structured literacy approaches used in elementary schools, no matter how systematically implemented, will not enable most high school students to read grade-level texts, shutting them out of the classes they want to take and that prepare them for college.

    Text changes significantly between fifth and sixth grades. Students begin to see complex sentences, and by ninth grade, almost all of the text they see is made up of these types of sentences. They are longer, making use of clauses to link multiple ideas. When students see these new types of sentences, they trip over them. The ability to read fluently (smoothly and with expression), which they developed in elementary school with simple sentences, deserts them. Reading becomes laborious and students don’t have the leftover mental energy necessary to process the meaning of these sentences.

    The literacy research of the past twenty-five years is overwhelmingly clear that middle and high school English teachers need to make fluency practice a consistent part of a larger literacy program. Fluency practice provides a bridge to complex text that enables students to read more automatically, become engaged and then dive deeper with subsequent research-based reading activities. But getting adolescents to read out loud is hard. And, how does a teacher with 30 students in a class give feedback so that each student can improve their fluency? How can teachers integrate fluency practice into a highly engaging reading and writing curriculum so that it does not feel remedial?

    Programs that claim to provide fluency practice for adolescents use methods developed for elementary students that adolescents roundly reject. Commonly recommended choral or echo reading doesn’t work in a high school class because adolescents are much less compliant than elementary school students and will often fake participation. Current fluency software solutions that do track individual performance measure words read correctly per minute, marking students down for each mistake. Speed is not a good measure of fluency with complex text because it requires changes in pace and the careful emphasis of certain words. And, adolescents disengage from instruction that focuses attention on their mistakes.

    Riveting Results makes practicing reading out loud joyful. Activities guide students to become comfortable with complex sentences and to notice the impact that their reading has on others. Teachers use the software to assign each of their students individualized fluency practice on the same section of highly engaging, complex text. Not only do students receive feedback on their recordings from remote scorers, but they share their readings with their classmates. The classroom community that emerges from this shared fluency practice enables each student to establish what Gholdy Muhammad calls “literary presence,” (Muhammad, Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy, p.28), the sense of agency that supports adolescents from historically marginalized communities as they dig into understanding complex text.

    After approximately fifteen minutes of fluency practice, students develop an initial understanding of a particular section of complex text. Riveting Results’ software then guides students through three subsequent high-leverage literacy activities in which they work with a partner and their entire class to deepen their understanding of the text. Because they no longer have to provision activities or spend class time explaining directions to students, teachers can focus on eliciting their students’ best work, giving students’ immediate and actionable feedback, and harvesting student ideas for dynamic classroom discussions.


    We are implementing our 9th and 10th grade comprehensive English Language Arts curriculum in schools in New York City, Maine, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Texas and California and are getting extraordinary results.

    >>>Recalling your own life as a student, going back as far as you would like, what personal experiences did you draw upon while creating Riveting Results?

    I believe that a classroom can be magical! The tension during a debate; the laughter at a peer’s wit; the grunts when a task is difficult; and, ultimately, the momentum when everyone is leaning in: a nurturing classroom is both raw and gentle. As an educator, I gravitated toward adolescents because they not only crave such a setting, but also respond to it by discovering that they have the agency to impact everyone around them.

    At the same time, building such a classroom community, particularly a high school classroom whose students have widely divergent reading levels, cannot be done by a teacher acting alone. Teachers need tools to enable all of their students to succeed. Riveting Results seeks to provide teachers with those tools: beautiful, engaging literature and a set of practices, tested and refined for 30 years, embedded in software so that teachers can reach every student.

     

    For more information about Riveting Results, LLC, go to https://www.rr.tools.

    To contact Arthur Unobskey directly, email at arthur@rr.tools.

    To contact Chuck Cascio directly, email at chuckwrites@yahoo.com

    Copyright: Arthur Unobskey and Chuck Cascio, all rights reserved.

     

     

     

  • Choosing the Right College...and a Glimpse of Wagner College

    Choosing the Right College…
    and a Glimpse of Wagner College
    by
    Chuck Cascio

    chuckwrites@yahoo.com

         
         As a former high school and university level teacher, I am sometimes asked for my thoughts about how high school students should conduct their college search. Considerable stress is often evident in the inquiry, as parents and grandparents worry about the increasing emphasis on “name” schools as prestige takes priority over other essential considerations students should be making. 
     
         What are those considerations? Well, based on my own experience in searching for a college and from what I have heard from students over the years, a successful choice largely boils down to three criteria:
         >Comfort
         >Enthusiasm
         >Personal Development Potential
         
         Here is my own story:

     

    Unknown

    Main Hall on the oval as you enter the campus of Wagner College, Staten Island, NY.
         My father drove me to New York to visit Wagner College on Staten Island, a small school I had only read about. I wanted to go to college in or near New York City, where I was born and where I had spent a great deal of my childhood despite having moved to suburban Washington, DC, when I was about five years old. So the trip to New York was a familiar one, a trip that always filled me with energy.      
         
         Wagner College was certainly not a “big name” school. I had discovered it in one of those gigantic books containing details of hundreds of colleges (Those of us of a certain age remember well what it was like to plow through those books!). I requested and received a catalog from Wagner and liked what it featured, especially the 15:1 student-to-teacher ratio. Even at age 17, one thing about which I was certain was this: Although the excitement of a large school environment appealed to me, large class sizes and too many other distractions would scatter my attention, which would undoubtedly negatively impact my academic performance.
         
         The details and pictures of Wagner intrigued me: Located on a scenic section of Staten Island called Grymes Hill, 400 feet above sea level—the highest natural point on the Eastern Seaboard south of Maine—several buildings on and around the campus had once been “vacation” residences of wealthy New Yorkers who used their picturesque Grymes Hill homes to escape the hectic city life. 
         
         When the school invited me for a visit and an interview with an admissions officer, my father and I made the trip together. My dad, a native of Brooklyn, knew all of New York well, including Staten Island, but he had never previously driven the steep road up Grymes Hill. At the top, both of us were mesmerized as we entered the isolated campus via a tree-lined oval with stunning glimpses of New York's waterways, bridges, ships, and the Statue of Liberty visible between lovely trees and buildings. A feeling grew inside me, one I could tell my father shared: This place was different; it vibrated with a quiet energy, a sense of individuality.
         
         During my interview, the attentive admissions representative asked about my interests and what motivated me to learn and why I thought Wagner might be right for me. I responded with insights that surprised me…and I noticed that the interviewer actually listened as I explained my need to feel engaged while in a classroom, my desire to hear from other students as well as from instructors, my description of learning as a participatory process.
         
         When I returned to the car, my father stood outside intently taking in the sweeping views of New York’s other four boroughs in the distance. "So what do you think?" he asked. 
         
         To this day, I remember exactly what I said to him, "If they will have me, Dad, this is where I am going."
         
         Somehow, a few other schools with student populations several times larger than Wagner's 1,500 students accepted me. But the image of Wagner, the small classes, the proximity to the energy of downtown New York, the closeness that I could sense on my tour of the campus, overroad what other schools had to offer. And when the acceptance letter from Wagner finally arrived, I said, "This is it!" 
         
         My parents were happy because I was happy...and I was happy because somehow I could feel what I believe is most important in making a decision about which college to attend: The fit was right. In Wagner, I had found a campus that made me comfortable, surroundings that made me feel that I could engage in academics and perhaps discover new things about myself. I was right...and attending Wagner remains one of the best decisions I have ever made. Classes were small, instructors were dynamic, students had interests similar to mine, and the opportunities on campus and in the city were endless.
         
         Today, Wagner has grown a bit with 1,800 undergraduate and 450 graduate students, but it maintains a 15:1 student-teacher ratio. Following are a few of the numerous accolades Wagner has received from various college evaluation services:
       
         >It is ranked sixth in the nation on the New York Times' list of “value added” colleges.
         >100% of its students work at an internship or practicum.
         >Its “Learning Communities” programs emphasize experiential learning applied to the real world and supported by deep research.
         >Its theater arts program is ranked fifth in the nation by Princeton Review.
         >Salaries of Wagner alumni rank in the top 14% nationally.
         
         Just as when I attended, the school reaches out to the vast resources of New York City to attract teachers and guest lecturers, to provide internships, and to establish partnerships. And the school has maintained its beautiful surroundings and classic buildings while carefully adding new technology and structures. In short, it still says to me, "This is a place to learn...about academia and about yourself."  
         
         Is Wagner College the right choice for every student? Of course not; no one school is right for everyone. But I firmly believe that the key to making the correct individual college choice is not to be overly focused on prestige or size or name recognition. Rather, students should visit schools and, while visiting, sit in on a class or two, get a sense of how they would fit in, and ask themselves, "Will I be comfortable here? Will I be enthusiastic about learning here? Will this school’s environment help me develop my skills, my relationships, and my unknown talents?”
       
         If there are positive answers to those questions, then I tell students this: 
         Make your decision. Go to your college and enjoy the full scope of learning.

    THE END

    Copyright: Chuck Cascio. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint or quote all or segments, write to chuckwrites@yahoo.com.
  • Life In the Time of Corona (Third in an unlimited series)

     
    Life In the Time of Corona (Third in an unlimited series)
    by Chuck Cascio
    chuckwrites@yahoo.com 

    As a former high school and college educator over the course of 27 years, I was curious to know how students today feel about most academic institutions being closed for the remainder of the school year. So I asked my niece, Caroline, and five of my grandchildren (Maddie, Jack, Ryan, Zoey, and Wyatt) to write a few sentences about how the coronavirus and school closings are affecting them. Here, in their own words, are their comments (from youngest to oldest):

    Wyatt (age 10; fifth grader)--The  coronavirus pandemic is a little bit scary to me because I have no school for the rest of the year. Coronavirus is a weird thing to handle for me because I cannot walk to any friends' houses or speak to any friends in person. I have no idea what to do now. I can't be near anyone or make any contact with anyone. I do go outside a lot and am bored when I can't go outside.

    Zoey (age 13; eighth grader)--The corona quarantine and the virus in general will never be forgotten and will be a future history lesson. The quarantine has left a lot of different feelings to a lot of different people. To some, it might be an extended summer. To others, it is a serious pandemic. I believe that this is a serious time which should not be treated as a time to hang out with friends all day and go out to the mall or play games of any sort. Even though school was closed for the rest of the year, it is important to spend some of the day studying what you already learned during the year. Overall, I believe that this time should not be taken lightly because the virus is killing and infecting millions a day all over the world. 

     

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    School grounds midday and midweek in the time of coronaphoto by chuck cascio

    Ryan (age 14; high school freshman)— My time during the coronavirus has been a mixture of feelings. At first, this time off was the best thing ever--school was out, I could hang with my friends all day and nothing was better than this! Then my feelings started to change--my parents started saying no to hangouts, and I couldn’t hang with my friends as much. All in all, this “coronacation” has been a mixture of having fun with my friends, boredom, and overall getting more sleep!

    Jack (age14; high school freshman)—This coronavirus quarantine has left me extremely bored and often wondering what I should do with my time. i have been able to practice sports in my backyard and lift weights in my garage. I wish this could all be over and everything would go back to normal. 

    Maddie (age16; high school junior)—While I will admit I was one hoping for a few days off of school to make up for the missed snow days, this was not what I expected. I miss not having things to go to and do. I miss spring sports and school friends, and I miss a normal routine. Lately, at home, I have been spending a lot of time trying to do things outdoors. I refuse to sit inside all day and not do anything...it was making me go crazy! I am hoping to make the best of this and hope this all comes to an end soon so we can all get back to normalcy. 

    Caroline (age 19; college freshman)--Although being quarantined in our houses is not fun, I think that it is the right thing to do to flatten the curve. I have taken all of this extra time to start a 400-hour violin practice challenge where I post videos of me playing each day. In addition to focusing on violin, I have also been cooking and baking a lot more, which I was unable to do during my time on campus each week. Finally, I think this has been a great time for everyone to reflect on their lifestyles and daily choices. Fewer people are going places, which isn’t fun, but it’s making the planet greener and reducing carbon emissions; people are eating healthier because they are forced to cook more or learn to cook; more people are contacting each other because they aren’t caught up in their own lives and activities; and people are forgiving themselves for not being busy and giving them “me time” where they learn or practice a skill that they’ve always wanted to do. Even though a lot of people’s new year resolutions might be messed up by this virus, we will be able to take this time to start new goals and find fun workouts to do at home by yourself or with your family! 

    Have a comment or a story to add to the "Life in the Times of Corona" series? Write to me at chuckwrites@yahoo.com.

    copyright chuck cascio; all rights reserved.

     
  • POSITIVE COMMUNITY INTERACTION!!!

    THERE CAN BE POSITIVE COMMUNITY INTERACTION!

    By

    Chuck Cascio

           It was a lovely Thursday October evening, so Faye and I decided to go to an informal event at a park in the Reston Town Center. I had long been advocating (some might say "whining") for more outdoor activities at the inviting open spaces in the Town Center, and we had recently heard that on Thursday evenings in September and October outdoor jazz performances were being featured there. Adding to the appeal was the fact that viewers of the performances could participate in what was featured as "Sip and Stroll," a nice way of saying that if you purchased an alcoholic beverage from one of the predetermined restaurant bars, you were allowed to take your cup to the event, walk about, watch and chat. Further adding to the appeal of this was the fact that the events (though not the drinks) were FREE!!! 

         So...beautiful evening, a chance to sip and stroll, listen to some jazz for no charge...why not wander out and see for ourselves?

         We each purchased a Sip and Stroll beverage at Passion Fish, walked to the park nearby, and sat on the informal artificial turf. The group performing was a quartet, the Shawn Purcell Group, that played with incredible creativity--the kind of jazz that is both inspiring and entertaining. 

         The kind of jazz that makes you say, "How do they come up with that?" 

         The kind of jazz that made little kids dance informally and adults shake their heads both to the rhythm and to their amazement at what they were hearing.

        But the most important takeaway from the evening was the feeling of community. Everywhere we looked, we saw hundreds of people of every age group and ethnicity smiling, chatting, interacting in ways that reflected the music, the evening, and the sense that they all belonged to something together. No political causes from either side infringed on this event. The people in attendance clearly understood that this was something more than the buzzing hostility that hovers over, and too often enters, our daily lives.

         Two days later, on a chilly October Saturday, we took our youngest grandchild, five-year-old Catherine, to another event at the Reston Town Center. This one was filled with multiple options, many of them free, mainly for kids. From open-air train rides around the Town Center to informal line-dancing instruction for all ages to face painting and more. 

         One spot in particular, besides the face painting, captured the attention of Catherine and many other kids (as well as adults)--the hula hoop experience. Yes, you read that correctly--an energetic woman dressed as a morphing of clown and trainer encouraged anyone of any age who wandered up to try the good old fashioned hula hoop...and this captured attention beyond anyone's imagination.

     

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         Little kids, including Catherine, were determined to learn how to twirl the hoop. The energy they displayed as well as their persistence  were a far cry from the stereotype we have of kids today--that they are wedded to their phones and their virtual world. 

         The hula hoop experiences, as well as the face painting, free ice cream, chance to run in open spaces and more all captured the attention and energy not only of the kids but of their parents...many of whom were hula hooping and getting their faces painted and line dancing and more with their kids! 

         None of this is to imply that we do not live in a very different world (in so many respects) today from the one that those of us of a particular age group can recall. Sure, times change and people change and adapt and generations evolve (as did ours) with their own values and their own views of what life is about. But simple experiences like those presented at the Reston Town Center remind us that there are still common factors that we can all experience and share. 

         Giving us the opportunity to share those factors and to see true community involvement, even for a few days a year, can remind us of the importance of youth, development, and--most of all--community.

         Note: Special thanks to the Reston Town Center Association and its executive director, Robert Goudie; Boston properties and its marketing director, Sapna Yathiraj; and all the folks and organizations who are committed to bringing these engaging community events to the Reston Town Center. For more information, go to: 

    https://restontc.org/live-work-enjoy/enjoy/sip-stroll-rules/darden-friends/

    and 

    https://restontc.org/live-work-enjoy/enjoy/sip-stroll-rules/second-saturdays/

    …and to get a taste of the Shawn Purcell Group's music, go to

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWSCiktGXh0

    Copyright for this blog entry: Chuck Cascio, all rights reserved.

    Thoughts? Write to chuckwrites@yahoo.com

     

     
  • Transforming Education: Eighth in a series


    TRANSFORMING EDUCATION TODAY
    (Eighth in a Series of Interviews with Education Leaders)
    Featuring Marc Cascio

    Note from Chuck Cascio: Given the difficult issues facing educators today in the USA, I have been running a series in which I contact established educators and request their insights, in their own words, on a number of vitally important education issues. Readers who would like to comment on the views expressed may email me at chuckwrites@yahoo.com. My Twitter handle is @ChuckCascio. Not all comments will be responded to by me and/or the individuals interviewed, but all will be read and, if appropriate, forwarded to others engaged in meaningful education reform. I am pleased to present as the eighth interview in this series the views of Marc Cascio, my son whose extensive career in education has included a number of key roles that have provided him with unique insights. Marc's profile follows:

     My son Marc Cascio has worked for Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools, the same system in which he was educated, for nearly 30 years, beginning as an Instructional Assistant in the Prescriptive Learning Program that brought problematic students together with students who weren’t proficient with the English language. His second role in the classroom came the following year when, at 22 years old, he worked as an Instructional Assistant with a teacher whom he describes as "a caring, competent professional." Marc then took a position in the Safety and Security Office of the same school, spending the next five years in that role, a “job that provided a deep understanding of what goes on behind the scenes of a typical American high school." 

    Marc completed his Masters Degree in education at night and then student-taught at the same school where he had been working. Of his student-teaching experience, he says, "I couldn’t have had a better mentor teacher; he was very complimentary to me, while simultaneously helping me straighten out some of the rougher edges of my teaching style." In the middle of the school year, Marc was hired at another school as a full-time faculty member to replace two teachers, one who had died and another who had resigned, beginning his novice instructional career with over five ninth grade English classes. After several years, he moved to a school that he calls "pretty much one of the crown jewels of the county as far as educational achievement and affluence go." He continues to teach there, a school he says he loves. 

    Over the course of his dynamic career, Marc has taught every level of ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade English; AP English Language and Composition; English for Secondary Language Learners; and Speech and Debate in addition to coaching high school boys JV soccer, boys varsity soccer, girls varsity soccer, and JV and varsity wrestling. As Marc says in reflecting upon his career, "While I wouldn’t say I am a leader, I can definitely say that I know the educational landscape of high schools very, very well!"

    Help spread the word: #TransformEducation

     

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    >>>Recalling your own life as a student, going back as far as you would like, what do you remember as the most positive and most negative educational influences for you personally?

     

    I think I had a relatively uncommon experience growing up and going through the school years. Even though I probably never lived more than ten miles away from where I was born, I somehow managed to go to six different schools before graduating from high school. I started my elementary school going to what would be considered a low-income school. Although some of the experiences there only remain in my memory because of the violence (one day a boy in my first grade class physically fought the principal--and he gave him a pretty good battle!), I remain grateful to a teacher there named Mrs. Berger who diagnosed me with an issue that looked and sounded a lot like dyslexia. I recall being pulled out of regular classes and having to go to this thing called SULA (an acronym for “Step Up Language Arts”) and went on to become an English major, an English teacher, and a freelance writer who has sold plenty of articles. 

    That was a LONG time ago (I am 51 now!), but it introduced a constant in the education I received throughout my elementary, middle, and high school years: I wasn’t all that interested in most subjects, as painful as that is to admit, BUT when I had teachers who I really wanted to impress and who I felt really cared about me individually, I would want to please them. The impact of personality had a great deal to do with what kind of effort I put out. So, as a teacher now, I try to be friendly, outgoing, and understanding. That probably means that kids pull the wool over my eyes sometimes, but I would still rather be the way I am than a stodgy “Sage on a Stage.” Life is too short for that, and you don’t get to maintain the relationships with students if you act that way. 

    As a teacher for nearly three decades now, I have to also say that my earliest elementary experience was valuable to me in that it taught me how important school leadership was. I have worked at some very rough schools and some very tame and affluent ones, and kids are kids. If a potentially bad environment is managed by an astute, dedicated, and conscientious administrative team, the teachers are happy and so are the students. The micromanagers and/or the ones who just feel their fingerprints have to be on everything can turn even the most functional schools into a hot mess. 

    >>>Can you identify an educator (or educators) who provided you with uniquely positive insights into subject matter as well as teaching style? If so, please explain what made them unique.

    I could do this with several, but I am going to pick one whom I remember very well and whose class I loved to attend. The teacher’s name was Beryl Bolton, and I had her for a Sociology class that was an elective. Mrs. Bolton was amazing: she was energetic, she laughed constantly, and she was remarkably adept at presenting really complex issues in a manner that made us examine them from all sides. We had quite a mix of personalities in that class including some kids who were problematic for other teachers, but nobody wanted to make Mrs. B. angry. I still have friendships with people I hadn’t previously met until meeting them in that class 35 years ago! 

    >>>Has the remote learning that started as a result of the pandemic become entrenched as a new direction that education will take and, if so, could it have a positive impact?

    The pandemic break was awesome for me because it gave me the chance to learn technology that I never would have learned had it not occurred. I hate to admit it, but I was content with the way I was doing things because I had always done them “that way” and my perception was that it would take a Herculean effort to teach this old dog new tricks. Man, was I wrong! Educational technology is probably the one aspect of education that I can say has evolved appropriately with the times. Real time surveys, instantly observable answers from myriad students, and the utter joy of self-grading tests have made lessons so much more engaging and has taken some of the strain off of teachers as far as grading goes. 

    I think every teacher I know would say that creating lessons is more fun than it ever has been and when you are having fun, it doesn’t seem like work. I love watching students really engage in lessons, and technology is an inexorable part of that. Plus, we all HAD to learn it just to survive, and it turned out to be a hell of a lot easier than I thought it was going to be! 

    >>>Do you think the holistic method of student evaluation that seems to be taking hold is as effective as the more traditional, categorical evaluation that used to be the norm? Please explain why or why not.

    Yes! I hope someday grades are just gone and we teach kids using benchmarks or something similar. As it is, the grading scale in my county has become all but useless. The scale is now 50-100. There are so many problems with that that I can’t even begin to detail them because they all dovetail into each other. 

    I would love to see students learn through action! Let’s say we give students a murder mystery: You could include physics in by looking at blood spatter (gross, I know), you could teach biology through DNA evidence, you could get English in by creating faux press releases, etc. 

    Three in five kids are obese in America and seventy percent are considered sedentary based on data supplied by students themselves, but what do we do with them at school? We plunk them into chairs in the same manner kids were treated in the 1800s. Is there any wonder we see so many ADD and ADHD issues? There are better ways to learn, better ways to create productive students, and better ways to assess students than what we have. Just take a look at how creative companies like Pixar run their businesses—if you do, you will wonder why we are so archaic in our teaching and assessing methodologies. 

    >>>Are standardized testing and traditional roles to teaching and evaluating in need of transformation and, if so, what should they look like?

    Yep. They should be bailed on, and we should start anew. The first thing that should happen is that we should invest money in ways that benefit all students. People hate it when I say this, and even my own dad (LOL) somewhat disagrees with me, but I feel we should get rid of high school sports (and remember, I was a coach!) for several reasons: 

    1.With the surging importance of club sports, many high school sports have ceased being an avenue to collegiate athletics. Many high level athletes view high school sports as being “just for fun” which further emphasizes how unfair it is that they are funded by the entire tax base.

    2.High school sports are funded by all taxpayers, but only those whose children make teams enjoy the benefits of them. 

    3.They also use funds that could be applied elsewhere. 

    Instead, I believe with the funds saved by eliminating high school sports, every school could be given top-notch exercise equipment with enough variety to meet the needs of every student. In that manner, the taxpayers’ money would benefit all students and the undeniable link between physical activity and academic achievement would be addressed much more efficiently. For example, the athletic fields could be changed into agricultural fields, and kids could learn nutrition, math, biology, horticulture, botany etc., while creating farm-to-table food situations for the schools. 

    There are so many ways to do things better—all we need to do is to admit that what we are doing is antediluvian and look for realistic ways to change things for the better. 

    >>>What can be done to encourage people to go into teaching or other areas of education?

     

    As much as I have enjoyed my career I am reluctant to recommend it to anyone. I have three children, and the financial strain of affording a family on a teacher’s salary can be taxing on every aspect of life. In my nearly thirty years as a teacher, I have never worked just one job. I have always had to supplement my income, and even then my family and I have never been on a vacation for just the five of us. By the time we pay for everything we need to pay for, there just isn’t enough money left to take a vacation.  The only way to entice people into this profession is to pay them more. 

    People SAY they value teachers, but recently in my county a restaurant tax was proposed and the revenue was supposed to bolster teachers’ salaries. The tax was voted down. It seems that saving a few dollars while going out to eat was more important to the majority than keeping quality people in education. What does that tell you? 

    >>>Looking first at K-12 and then at higher education, name at least three things that you hope will occur within the next two years to help strengthen them.

    Get rid of standardized tests, update assessment methods, and begin having REAL conversations about how to make U.S. education better. 

    Copyright: Chuck Cascio and Marc Cascio; all rights reserved.

    Comments? Please write to chuckwrites@yahoo.com

     
  • Transforming Education: Fifth in a series

    TRANSFORMING EDUCATION TODAY
    (Fifth in a series of interviews with education leaders)
    Featuring Paul Thomas
     

    Note from Chuck Cascio: Given the difficult issues facing educators today in the USA, I have been running a series in which I contact established educators and request their insights, in their own words, on a number of vitally important education issues. Readers who would like to comment on the views expressed may email me at chuckwrites@yahoo.com. My Twitter handle is @ChuckCascio. Not all comments will be responded to by me and/or the individuals interviewed, but all will be read and, if appropriate, forwarded to others engaged in meaningful education reform. I am pleased to present as the fifth interview in this series of the views of education entrepreneur Paul Thomas (www.docentlearning.com  Email: docentlearning@gmail.com), whose profile follows: 

    Paul Thomas is the Chief Learner for Docent Learning. Paul started out as a high school math and computer science teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in Northern Virginia. Since then, he has spent the past 26 years developing research-driven curricula for small startups, public corporations, and nonprofits. His work includes dozens of courses for virtual, blended, and traditional classroom contexts as well as a dozen textbooks. Paul attended Hunters Woods Elementary (VA), Herndon Intermediate (VA), and South Lakes High School (VA) before attending MIT and George Mason University.

    Help spread the word with: #Transform Education

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    >>>Recalling your own life as a student, going back as far as you would like, what do you remember as the most positive and most negative educational influences for you personally?

         I had one great teacher in middle school and a long list of great teachers in high school who were positive influences on me as a person and as an educator. Kathy Leis taught me French in 7th and 8th grade. She knew her stuff and was great at teaching it, but her love for her subject and the connections she made with her students were what created a lasting impression on all of us. Madame Leis still inspires me to connect with students and help each student know that I see them, value them, and believe in them. 

         Thanks to the all-star cast of teachers who were assembled to open South Lakes I had amazing teachers for math (Jerry Berry, Katherine Rowe, and Celeste Penkunas), English (Tim Isaacs three times), History (Dave Rousch twice), and Science (Lisa Wu (nee Lyle), Carolyn Lavallee, Leon Hawkins, and Faye Cascio). Each had a passion for their field that was absolutely infectious, and they cared about us students so much. I’ve spent every day of my professional life trying to be as kind as Jerry, as passionate as Carolyn, and as good at conveying big ideas as Faye.

         The lone negative influence I can think of is my 7th grade math teacher. I won’t name the teacher or go into details except to say that they were not happy to be teaching math. They cared only about answers (and not at all about how anyone thought). The most enduring thing I carry with me from that teacher is having seen the form on which, when asked if I should take Algebra in 8th grade, was the reply, “NO!!!!” I counted the exclamation points.

    >>>Can you identify an educator (or educators) who provided you with uniquely positive insights into subject matter as well as teaching style? If so, please explain what made them unique.

         Faye Cascio was (and is) remarkable. She did such an amazing job of conveying the big ideas of biology that I still remember a stunning amount of what she taught me. The way she wove stories with the content to make everything such a beautiful, coherent whole has stayed with me to this day. Literally. I still have my AP Biology notebook on a shelf. I’ve thrown away every other notebook from SLHS and MIT and GMU, but I have kept that one.The others worth noting are Jerry Berry and Katherine Rowe. Jerry was as kind and affable as Katherine was tough and strict. No two teachers could have been more different, but both were amazing. When I taught Algebra II/Trig at Thomas Jefferson, I leaned heavily on the methods Katherine showed me. When I taught Computer Science at TJ, I did it as a team with Jerry. Each influenced me profoundly.

    >>>What inspired your career as a leader in education?

         My mother was a teacher who became an administrator, and it was through her that I realized that there were other ways to make a difference in students’ learning besides teaching them directly. I was also lucky to work on summer projects with an authoring team led by Saul Garfunkel, who had a real passion for re-thinking what we teach and how. 

    >>>What do you see as the major challenges in education today?

         One major challenge is the perceived battle between equity and out-dated ideas of “merit.” So many people are stuck on the idea that standardized test scores are the be-all and end-all of merit. I disagree with the implicit assumption that the point of our public education system is to make the absolute best and brightest achieve as much as they can. Rather, I believe that our public schools have to help every student acquire what my friend and mentor Bror Saxberg would call “the academic keys to the kingdom.” 

         As a culture, we focus so much on the students who aspire to attend MIT, Stanford, and the Ivies, but I think we should spend more time on everyone else. Those at moderately and less selective public schools, those at community colleges, and those who get sucked into the relentless maw of for-profit universities. Our education system has driven more students into higher ed, but we haven’t improved 5-year graduation rates, and this has saddled poorly served students with crippling debt. We need to do better by the middle 80%.

    >>>Has the remote learning that started as a result of the pandemic become entrenched as a new direction that education will take and, if so, could it have a positive impact?

          The pandemic has disrupted K-12 education. I think one upside is that it has helped teachers and students explore new ways to work. Students need to master more than the specific content standards for their courses. They also need to learn how to communicate and collaborate. They need to learn critical thinking and how to be creative. Ultimately, students need to be able to do all these things in digital contexts, so I think that adding digital tools to teachers’ and students’ toolboxes is a good thing.

    >>>Are standardized testing and traditional roles to teaching and evaluating in need of transformation and, if so, what should they look like?

         Our assessment methods need to be transformed, but I think that transformation is underway. More and more colleges and universities are moving to test-blind and test-optional admissions. Still, the battles continue. 

         A few thoughts: First, people who want to keep old admission tests aren't defending some true idea of merit, but rather “a particular idea of merit.” People with the time/gumption to prepare their kids for standardized tests think that eliminating them is an attack on some grand idea of merit. What if MIT, Stanford, Stuyvesant, TJ, and other super-selective schools set minimum GPAs and generalizable measures of high academic rigor, and then selected randomly from the resulting pools? No preference for race. No preference for test-prep. Universities could set aside some slots for recruited athletes. GPA and rigor are FAR better predictors of future success than standardized tests.

         One last thing: Subjective measures of student success are very susceptible to teachers’ explicit and unconscious biases (e.g., “NO!!!!”), so as a fan of equity, I tend to lean toward objective measures of student goals and learning. That said, I don’t think standardized assessments should be used to fire or pay teachers. They can still provide valuable information and set standard benchmarks.

    >>>What do you consider to be the appropriate line between politics and education--including the role of Federal, state,and local governments as well as school boards--in establishing standards, content, and policy, particularly in K-12 public education?

         I believe that state boards of education have reasonable roles defining standards and corresponding assessments. The federal government should support education research, and then assemble and disseminate guidance on what works. When it comes to specific content and policy, that should be driven primarily by local school boards. 

    >>>Who should have the final say in what is taught in schools?

         Educators.

    >>>What can be done to encourage people to go into teaching or other areas of education?

         No teacher goes into the profession expecting to get rich, but most know that job security and a pension often help compensate for the low salary that goes with their calling. Should they get paid enough to live reasonably close to their school? Yes. Not every school district meets this low bar, but even this low bar is not sufficient.

         We need to respect the professionalism of educators. Everything we do to diminish their professionalism pushes them away from teaching.

         When we ask them to make unreasonable exceptions for our kid, we push them away. When we ask to review every lesson plan and resource they will use for a year, we push them away. When we put their health and safety at the bottom of our priorities, we push them away. When we say that we will judge them based on how affluent and educated their students’ families are, we push them away. When we give them insufficient resources to do their jobs, we push them away.

         We need to stop pushing educators away. We need to show that we appreciate and respect them as people and professionals.

    >>>What makes you optimistic about education when you look ahead for the next 3-5 years and what concerns you the most over that time period?

         I see some organizations identifying problems and trying solutions. Colleges are dropping the SAT. Selective high schools are dropping test requirements. High schools are creating ways to prepare students for careers – not just college. More blended instruction/learning.

         I also see young teachers coming into the profession with great energy, ideas, and passion. They are going to do great things and create amazing relationships with students. 

    >>>What would you consider to be the single most important key to positive transformation of education in the US?

         Funding. Having school funding driven by state laws, and ultimately by local taxes creates massive inequities in educational outcomes.

    Copyright: Chuck Cascio and Paul Thomas; all rights reserved.

    Email your thoughts: chuckwrites@yahoo.com and/or docentlearning@gmail.com

     
  • Transforming Education: Fourth in a series

    TRANSFORMING EDUCATION TODAY
    (Fourth in a series of interviews with Education Leaders)
    Featuring Dr. Arthur E. Wise

    Note from Chuck Cascio: Given the difficult issues facing educators today in the USA, I have been running a series in which I contact established educators and request their insights, in their own words, on a number of vitally important education issues. I am pleased to present as the fourth interview in this series of the views of Dr. Arthur E. Wise, whose profile followsReaders who would like to comment on the views expressed may email me at chuckwrites@yahoo.com. My Twitter handle is @ChuckCascio. Not all comments will be responded to by me and/or the individuals interviewed, but all will be read and, if appropriate, forwarded to others engaged in meaningful education reform. Help spread the word with: #TransformEducation

    Dr. Arthur (“Art”) E. Wise is an accomplished education author, consultant, policymaker, executive, and advocate. Throughout his career, Art has used the tools of educational research, policy, and advocacy to advance education for poor and minority students. An author of several influential books, he has had hundreds of articles published, first achieving national prominence in 1968 as the author of Rich Schools, Poor Schools: The Promise of Equal Educational Opportunity, a book that conceived the idea of the school finance reform lawsuit. Since then, a majority of state supreme courts have ordered the equalization of state school finance systems, boosting spending in poor districts and narrowing the disparity with affluent districts. As president of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) from 1990 to 2008, Art introduced performance-based accreditation and led efforts to develop a system of quality assurance for the teaching profession. He has also held positions—among others—at the RAND Corporation's Center for the Study of the Teaching Profession; the National Institute of Education, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, where he helped create the cabinet-level Department of Education; and the University of Chicago as associate dean and associate professor of education.

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    >>>What inspired your career as a leader in education?

         While I am uncomfortable with the designation "leader,” my aspiration to improve the chances of less fortunate children was set at an early age, or so it seems in retrospect.  I grew up in the Roxbury section of Boston as it evolved from an all White working class neighborhood to an all Black neighborhood.  Observing the challenges of this transition and watching on TV the disturbances produced by desegregation efforts in the South, I resolved to dedicate my career to public service. At age 17, I left Roxbury and entered Harvard College thinking that I would become a social worker. As my perspective broadened, I concluded that client-oriented social work would not have enough impact to satisfy my aspirations. In college, my coursework in social sciences, my research assistantships at the Harvard Center for Cognitive Studies, and my observations of education leaders caused me to focus on educational research, policy, and leadership in order to influence the course of education for poor and minority students. 

         As I considered my options I formulated an audacious, even arrogant, plan: I thought, rightly or wrongly, that the traditional path of a program in teacher preparation followed by several years of teaching would actually slow my drive to influence education. Besides, as an ROTC graduate, I faced a two-year military obligation to be served whenever I completed my studies. So I decided to save time by trying to enter a PhD program in what was then called “educational administration.” The University of Chicago took a chance on this "non-traditional" candidate and admitted me to a program designed to prepare professors of education administration. Upon completion of the program, I entered the U.S. Army where I served as assistant director of research at the United States Military Academy, West Point. Upon completion of this service, I was on my way to fulfilling my aspirations, although the precise goals I would pursue and the specific career trajectory I would follow were uncertain. And, as a practical matter, my ideals would have to be pursued in parallel with my need to support my family.  

    >>>Identify a couple of accomplishments that you and/or members of your school and/or organization achieved that you feel have had a lasting impact on education.

         My first, and perhaps most lasting, “accomplishment” happened early—in 1963-64, my first year of graduate school. I was enrolled simultaneously in courses in School Law and School Finance. In the law class, we were studying, among other matters, Brown v. Board of Education and related cases concerned with desegregation and the legal reality that schools and school funding are a state responsibility. Among the topics we were studying in the finance class were the large discrepancies in funding between rich school districts and poor school districts. I began to wonder:  

         While desegregation was important, how educationally appropriate was it for Black students to be desegregated into poorly funded schools? For that matter, why should the state be able to discriminate against poor and minority students in the allocation of state funds? Is the denial of equitable school funding a further denial of the equal educational opportunity promised in Brown?  Is unequal educational funding even legal under state law?

         These questions became the basis of a term paper in the law class. My professor, Donald Erickson, was intrigued by the argument and, as the editor of a journal, published my paper Is Denial of Equal Educational Opportunity Constitutional? in 1965. The paper was the first published suggestion that courts might declare existing school finance laws unconstitutional as a matter of Federal and State Constitutions and Laws. The paper attracted some attention and, when it was time for my doctoral dissertation, I felt compelled to develop the argument more fully.  Studying just enough law, I completed my dissertation: The Constitution and Equality: Wealth, Geography and Educational Opportunity in 1967. 

         With a deep sense of relief that I had completed my studies, I left for the Army that year. However, the dissertation did not sit on the shelf for long.  The University of Chicago Center for Policy Studies held a conference to discuss its implications in 1968 and the University of Chicago Press published it in 1969 as Rich Schools, Poor Schools: The Promise of Equal Educational Opportunity. Even before its publication, word of the book began to spread, lawsuits were filed, and other advocates and scholars joined the fray. Four years later, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its 5-4 decision, upholding the status quo but noting explicitly that there was inequity in public school finance and that the Court’s decision did not preclude state courts from acting on state grounds. Thirteen days later, the New Jersey Supreme Court invalidated that state’s school funding scheme.  

         From that day to the present, nearly every state has had one or more lawsuits with more than half favoring the interests of children in poor school districts. Today, the cases remain controversial, as advocates continue to seek equity for poor and minority students and advocates for wealthy students seek to maintain their privileged position in the public schools of their states. 

         A second major concern of mine took shape in the 1970’s when I noticed a not too subtle shift in the use of standardized testing. Prior to then, standardized tests were used primarily to make judgments about individual students, an assessment external to the classroom, to determine whether a student had learned the material taught and/or was ready to move on to more advanced work. Later, at the national level, the National Assessment for Educational Progress, the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, and others were aggregated to provide a high level picture of national and state trends. Beginning in the 1960’s, however, state policymakers began to engineer systems of “accountability” which used collective results on standardized tests to judge teachers, principals, and schools. In 1979, in Legislated Learning: The Bureaucratization of the Classroom, I warned that this use of test results to manage the schools would ultimately narrow the curriculum, turn teachers into bureaucrats, incentivize corrupt behavior and drive the joy out of teaching and learning.

         Needless to say, my warning was largely ignored. State governments and then the Federal Government enacted more accountability legislation culminating in the No Child Left Behind Act and took other measures to evaluate teachers and schools by grouping test results. From the 1960’s to the 2010’s, as accountability legislation was implemented, educators and even some policymakers noticed that the managerial use of test results was not improving education and was having the predicable negative consequences. The trend continued until 2015 when the Federal Government enacted the Every Child Succeeds Act, which has begun to roll back some of the dysfunctional managerial use of standardized testing.  

         A third concern of mine also took shape in the late 1970’s.  I had long believed that the quality of a student’s education depended on the quality of the student’s teacher, an observation shared by most educators and parents and confirmed by research. Through my research and the research of others, it also became clear to me that teaching talent is not randomly distributed and, instead, follows predicable socio-economic patterns.  What I think we should do about these two observations will be discussed below.

    >>>What do you see as the major challenges in education today?

          Of the major challenges facing education today, I will mention one that is often overlooked and lies at the core of others. We have forgotten why states established public schools. States established schools primarily as a benefit to the state, a way of promoting the general welfare. State constitutions and laws make it clear that the state establishes schools and requires attendance to protect itself (i.e. the rest of us) from the consequences of those who cannot properly exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, contribute to the economy, or who run the risk of becoming a public charge or criminal.  Secondarily, schools thereby—and incidentally—provide private benefits to the individual. Over time, however, the accepted view has become that schools exist primarily to provide private benefits to individual students so they can compete in our economy. Education has become a consumption commodity with student consumers or their parents buying as much as they can affordThis view flies in the face of the rationale for the common public school, which is to develop all students according to shared American values.  Since the public purpose is now secondary at best, it also leads down the slippery slope to the use of public funds to support vouchers, tax credits, and private non-sectarian and religious schools.   

    >>>What do you consider to be the appropriate line between politics and education--including the role of Federal, state, and local governments as well as school boards--in establishing standards, content, and policy, particularly in K-12 public education? 

         When I think about the governance structure for public education in America, I despair. We have three levels of general government—Federal, State, and Local—each with three branches—legislative, executive and judicial—and each of which can, and does, set directions for the public schools. In addition, we have three levels of education government, each of which has multiple structures to direct public schools—US Department of Education, Secretary of Education; state board of education, chief state school officer, and state department of education; and, finally, local board of education and local superintendent. It is a wonder that it works at all. In our legal structure, schools are creations of the state that the state has authorized to operate locally. Early 20th Century reforms sought to remove education from partisan politics by creating state and local boards of education. How has that separation fared in the 21st Century?  Under the Constitution’s General Welfare Clause, the US Government, in the mid-twentieth Century, began to expand its inherent powers over the schools.  It is a wonder that the schools can operate at all.  I will make no specific recommendation here except to urge that those who choose to influence education be mindful of their place in this complex and uniquely American governance structure.

    >>>What makes you optimistic about education when you look ahead for the next 3-5 years and what concerns you the most over that time period?

         I have always approached education as an optimist, though that optimism is being seriously tested these days. There is one trend in American education that has had, and will continue to have, an upward trajectory. We are all familiar with the term “gross domestic product,” which is the value of goods and services produced by a nation. Imagine now the “gross educational product” which would be the value of all the knowledge and skill acquired by students pre-K to post-graduate. Formally calculating the GEP would be a tremendous and difficult undertaking. A crude approximation would be the number of years of schooling acquired by an ever-growing population. 

         In the beginning education was for the elite.  As democratic norms took hold, more and more students had at least a few years of schooling. As norms shifted, mandatory education was accepted, high school graduation became expected, most graduates entered some form of tertiary education, college graduation became fairly widespread, the number of fields requiring masters degrees increased and professional preparation programs lengthened. At one end of the spectrum pre-school is likely to become universal. At the other end, internships and post-doctoral studies become more widespread. How sanguine we should be about this trend is debatable, but so far there are few signs of a decrease in the growth of education.  In all likelihood this trend, along with population growth, will continue along with the demand for teachers, professors and other educational personnel.  

    >>>What would you consider to be the single most important key to positive transformation of education in the US?

          For me the key to improving the quality of education has been, and remains, the transformation of teaching into a profession. By “profession” I mean that the title “teacher” signify readiness to teach independently. The system of quality assurance for teaching has too many “by-passes” for the public to have confidence that everyone bearing the title “teacher” is ready to teach. Many teachers are graduates of accredited teacher preparation institutions, licensed (in some states) by a rigorous licensing process and have completed a supervised internship or closely mentored first year of teaching. Others begin with little or no preparation. At times of adequate teacher supply, states make teacher licensing more rigorous. At times of inadequate supply, like now, they lower standards to find an adequate supply. We must have a system of quality assurance that signals to the public that all teachers have been determined to be ready to teach independently

         This rigorous licensing system must be balanced with commensurate compensation and conditions of work.  The marketplace for teaching labor must be allowed to operate freely to determine the level of compensation necessary to attract a sufficient supply of qualified teachers. This fundamental economic lesson from business has rarely been introduced to teaching; salaries must be such that the supply of labor matches the demand for labor, without reducing the quality of that labor. In addition, the structure of the profession and the teaching workplace must be made more attractive so teaching can compete for the services of top college graduates. As long as there is a shortage, poor and minority students will be assigned “inferior substitutes.” If the supply of teachers is adequate, then all students, including those in urban and rural schools, will be taught by competent professional teachers. If this happens, poor and minority students, as well as other students, will all be taught by competent professionals. 

         Attracting and retaining qualified teachers has long been a challenge.  However, in today’s political environment, we can expect the challenge to increase.  The need for strong independent professional teachers has never been greater.  We need a strong profession of teaching. 

    Copyright: Chuck Cascio and Arthur Wise; all rights reserved.

    For comments and/or reprint permission, email: chuckwrites@yahoo.com