Yesterday’s tutoring was rough. Davey kept randomly blurting out odd comments during tutoring while I was trying to go over a math quiz.

“Did you know I fell off my bike last week?”
“My cousin got a new gaming system.”
“I don’t like to go to Walmart.”

Told to please be quiet and listen, he kept going with the random monologue until I had to write him up and send him out to in-school suspension. Manny thought Davey was so funny that I almost had to send him off with the obligatory paperwork as well. I was livid with both by that point in class.

A nearly colleague had similar problems.

“Ten minutes for them to turn to page 248,” he said to me. “Ten minutes!” He had not finished something he needed to do by the end of the day. I had not finished at least two things I needed to do. Deliberate attempts to suck up time had succeeded in sucking up enough time so that we both fell behind. I didn’t talk to any other teachers. I think state-visit day may have created enough tension that, by day’s end, many of the troops were a little squirrelly.

Here’s part of yesterday’s problem: My plan required some independent work. I needed time to talk with individual students. I passed back unfinished papers with the word “Finish” on top. But without my direct supervision, tutoring turned into social hour, in no small part because a couple of boys have become frighteningly lost. I then took us back to whole-group instruction to go over a math quiz. The boys still chose to opt-out through passive-aggressive behavior. For one thing, I’m sure they suspected that quiz had gone badly for them.

Tutoring was no fun at all, that’s probably how best to sum this up. I will have to make a couple of phone calls home. But this post is about to take a left turn on the road to teacher-pulling-her-hair-out. I’m unhappy with both boys. They know it. I’m also unhappy that my boys have been set-up for this latest fiasco.

Davey is my Lil Davey of earlier posts and all he wants is to go back to elementary school — or to drop out. He wants out of THIS school desperately. Manny has no idea what he wants, except to play video games. He may well end up dropping out, too. He can’t read — and I mean can’t. The boy reads at an early elementary level. As soon as I embed that math in a story problem, he’s gone.

The previous system protected these boys, to some extent. At the start of the year, I had a fair number of bilingual students come up to me and ask how they could be failing.

“I always got As and Bs,” they said.

I am sure that’s true. But these students were years, sometimes as much as five or six years, behind grade level in various subjects, living in that proverbial fool’s paradise that comes when smiling teachers give you high grades, tell your parents how well you behave and send you off for another summer of play. These students were falling further and further behind, year by year. I have been part of that system and I have told those parents how well their children behaved, even as I gave them undeserved grades for work that contained a fair amount of effort, but not nearly enough understanding.*

My district’s students have hit a reckoning time. The state has taken over. Outside consultants have determined the materials teachers are to use, based on actual academic expectations for grade-level students across the country. From the outside, it’s hard to fault the state or the outside consultants. Zip codes should not be destiny and too many zip codes have been allowed to pass along these nonreaders who can’t add fractions for too long.

The Principal has us going over student standardized-test data with the kids. For the first time, they know how they are performing compared to the average American student. I can’t fault the Principal for her decision to share the data. When a twelve-year-old student cannot read as well as an eight- or seven-year-old average American student, that twelve-year-old and his or her parents/guardians need to know what is happening.

In the trenches, however, I am seeing some disturbing behaviors. What happens when we share this kind of information with students? Here we tread into the murky waters of resilience and shaming. We are shaming these students, no matter how sensitively we approach the material. We can share their progress and triumphs in test score increases. The Principal has been careful to emphasize the need to share any and all progress in an upbeat fashion. We are to be as encouraging as possible.

Still, resilience is a tricky thing. The same data that can make one girl decide to try much harder next year may cause another girl give up entirely. As I look out into my room, I see students who have locked into the battle to improve those scores. They are beginning to ask me questions. When I write “see me” on a homework paper, they come up to find out what went wrong. I also see kids who are tossing those papers without comment, who never ask, and who blurt random comments about bikes and game systems.

Eduhonesty: Saturday morning tutoring is about an hour and fifteen minutes away. I have regulars. I mostly have regulars, in fact. I have occasional drop-ins. I also have the students who have never managed to come once. My attendance list might be a pretty good rough indicator of resilience. Students who think they can succeed are getting up and coming to see me on Saturday mornings. At least some of the others are like Lil Davey, I think, who never comes. They have given up.

*This phenomenon obviously demands another post, perhaps even a book. In my defense, too many fails can lead to loss of a job and, some years, it did not matter whether students failed or did not fail classes. We passed everyone. We even passed a girl in one of my classes who had missed one-third of the year. Her mom had tears in her eyes as she thanked me for this decision that I’d actually had no control over. I assure readers that I have been teaching as hard and fast as I can. I also assure readers that the situation I am describing has been happening all over the country. If Americans want to know how our high schools can graduate so many students who can neither effectively write nor do simple, everyday mathematical calculations, I just answered that question in a nutshell: We kept passing them on.

Apparently, the whole district has run out of paper. That’s what the Principal told me when I quietly suggested she put paper in the machines on the day of the state visit.

The mind boggles.

My school has been out of paper for weeks now. Does this mean all the teachers in the district have been buying their own paper since mid-April? I’m afraid this could be true.

The school has been out of paper for weeks, at least paper for teachers. I was out of paper, too. I had lent the last of my personal stash to the guy next door. The copy machines run on empty most of the time now, waiting for their latest gulp of Walmart’s special 20 weight foolscap.

I nonetheless ambled toward the machines to try to make copies of a probability handout. No paper. No obliging colleagues carrying personal paper to share. No chance to barter for homework copies, or depend on the kindness of relative strangers. I trotted back to my classroom. It’s faster and easier to pass out copies, but students receive some benefit from copying material projected from the document camera.

Eduhonesty: I have bought a lot of my own paper this year. My fellow teachers are doing the same. Given that we just got a seven-figure government grant, though, I wonder why I am supporting Walmart. Couldn’t the district buy more paper? Where is our paper?

I am sure the students don’t mind. The paper crisis cuts down on homework, for one thing. I’d like to observe that students complete homework printed on white paper much more often than problems they have written down for themselves. I know this to be true from experience. I suspect that photocopied assignments simply seem more official and therefore less optional.

Maybe we are conserving the Earth’s resources. Like the hotels that no longer wash towels, we no longer replace paper, saving the trees for posterity. If so, I can get behind our grand gesture — especially since I do not seem to have a choice. Let the trees win, I say. Decreased grading is not proving all that hard on me, actually.

If I were trying to pull up the learning and scores of a struggling district, I’d have paper on hand, though. More completed homework does help us with that mission. Just saying.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: (An administrator sometimes referred to as Lord Vader)
Date: Wed, May 6, 2015 at 8:07 AM
Subject: Thank you
To: (A whole bunch of teachers including me)
All,

I wanted to say thank you to everyone for their tremendous work and effort over the past couple weeks with MAP and PARCC testing. I know testing can be draining and everyone has been eager to get back to teaching. I appreciate everyone’s patience and flexibility with the scheduling changes. It hasn’t been easy, but we did it!

As I walked around this time for PARCC, I noticed that students were more focused and the energy of the room was more positive. I know that others who help support the relief efforts made the same comments. This is a true testament to the hard work that everyone has put in to motivate and teach our students.

Today, we will not be doing any make up testing (YAY!!!). I will be working on a schedule to get all our students done testing for PARCC. We will start tomorrow and hopefully finish by mid week next week.

Again, thank you for your hard work. Please be patient as student will be dismissed out of class to finish testing over the next couple days.

(The Sith Lord)

Eduhonesty: If those “couple of weeks” were the only weeks, this missive would not be noteworthy. But we are in our third bout of testing for AIMSWEB and MAP and our second bout of testing for PARCC. This does not include diagnostic tests from the outside consulting firm that are not counted in the grades, but that have been given regularly throughout the year.

Since PARCC finished yesterday, but the make-up schedule had not yet been created, I had a carpe diem moment this morning and seized the Chromebooks so students could take notes as Googledocs. Readers will know that the internet has been off-limits to students during these last few weeks because allowing too many students on the net sucks up our limited bandwidth, creating testing issues. Chromebooks have sat idle while students took the PARCC test, a slow process since that same limited bandwidth made it necessary to test groups grade by grade. On the plus side, YouTube returned a few days back. Not all streaming video is blocked now. I used the return of YouTube to reinforce today’s probability lesson. Sometimes an extra eight minutes of another voice saying what I said, but in a slightly different way, makes all the difference in terms of student understanding. I can reinforce my lesson without seeming repetitive.

I will be glad when PARCC is over-over. I hope to see the end of standardized testing by next Wednesday. Absences that lead to test make-ups lead to even more classroom make-ups, of course, since the absentees have to catch up on what they miss in class while they are taking their make-up tests.

We are supposed to go over our AIMSWEB and MAP benchmark results with our students. This takes time. So students were given the chance to make-up work, retake tests and other independent activities, allowing me to go over their test results with them. I have no problem with this plan. We need to share the data. The kids need to understand where they stand and what their efforts for the year netted them. Almost everyone made gains. Some made appreciable — even multi-year — gains. These wins need to be celebrated.

Still, I effectively lost one day of instruction from what I’d call test spillover. I am clocking that stolen time as I keep track of total testing losses. I can’t teach while I am going over standardized test scores with each individual student.

Eduhonesty: This review was sobering my students. These kids are mostly at least a couple of years behind grade level. Some are four years behind grade level. They don’t benefit from not knowing this, though. The “A” and “B” grades they got in elementary school may have lulled them into a state of comfort with their understanding of math. They can’t be allowed to continue in that comfort — not if they want any realistic chance at college success.

Tomorrow, we will spend more time discussing goal setting for the future.

P.S. Speaking of dribbles, let’s throw in Monday’s 45 minute math meeting, entirely dedicated to getting standardized test data ready to present to the kids.

I will not include Tuesdays meeting. On Tuesday, we spent 40 minutes writing a quiz for Friday on probability. Aside from the fact I test, test, test, this seemed a reasonable use of a math meeting. My problem will be presenting all that probability with enough time for reinforcement, especially given that I sacrificed one of my four weekdays to discussing data rather than teaching, a requirement for all teachers with homerooms in the school. I should note that I managed the data-discussion task in one class period but some teachers have homerooms twice the size of mine. Did they lose two days?

The question was about the range of a set of temperature numbers, the difference between the high value and low value. To get this number, a student needs to subtract the low value from the high value. This would seem straightforward. Nevertheless, I stepped right into a trap I’ve hit before.

Student: How do I get the answer to this problem?
Me: It’s the range. What’s the difference between the high value and the low value?
Student: The high value is hot. The low value is cold.

Eduhonesty: Sigh. True enough. I agreed that 101 degrees was hot and 45 was pretty cold. Then I started to teach the math I have taught — how many times? — in the last few weeks. Fortunately, I have learned to be persistence personified. I do not give up.

Does my student have the idea of mathematical range now? If not, we’ll do it again.

The following text is taken from email related to an unscheduled visit today by an outside consultant.

10:44 AM

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: (a likable outside consultant who turns up in my room every so often)

Date: Mon, May 4, 2015 at 9:15 AM
Subject: Walkthrough 2478
To: (Me)

Page 1

Walkthrough Name Template
Walkthrough 2478 ATLAS 2.0
Board Name School Name
(My district) (My school)
Observer Subject
(The likable outside consultant) (I am the subject, sigh.)
Start Date End Date
Mon May 04 2015 10:06 AM
Book Classroom Setting
Other ELL
Notes:
Happy Monday Ms. (Me)!
Thank you for allowing me to visit today.

Kudos:
*Allowing students to retake their quizzes.
*Allowing students to show their work and having the students to explain how they were simplifying fractions.

Suggestions:
*I imagine that this was review, however, did you consider presenting the problems in word problem format so that students can review problem solving as well?

See below for the SMPs I observed.

Mathematically Yours,
(The consultant’s first name)

CCSS Standards for Mathematical Practice: The Students…
(CCSS stands for Common Core State Standards)
1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
Identify the problem ☐
Explain the meaning of the problem ☐
Analyze information ☐
Line up a plan ☒
Use multiple strategies/representations to solve ☐
Evaluate and reevaluate progress throughout problem solving situations ☐
Ask “Does this make sense?” ☐
Ask “Is this accurate?” ☐
Ask “Is this reasonable?” ☐
Justify reasoning with others ☐

2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
Connect plan created to mathematics performed ☒
Use context clues to solve using symbols (operation word wall) ☐
Determine reasonableness of solution within context of problem ☐
Justify math strategy used as most efficient method ☐

3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
Formulate arguments to provide evidence surrounding answers ☐
Exchange thoughts with others to defend answers ☐
Classify correct from flawed logic ☐

4. Model with mathematics.
Describe relationship of facts in a problem ☐
Represent real world situation mathematically ☐
Apply facts to find solution to a problem ☐
Reevaluate and redesign plan as needed when solving ☐

5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
Demonstrate ability to choose proper tool(s) ☐
Use tool(s) appropriately (ex. ruler) ☐
Identify limitations of tool(s) ☐
Estimate for reasonableness ☐
Use tool to guide their discovery of the concept ☐

6. Attend to precision.
Communicate reasoning with others ☐
Use correct mathematical language ☐
Apply calculations correctly ☐
Appropriately apply correct symbol use and labeling ☐

7. Look for and make use of structure.
Identify a pattern to develop strategies for problem solving ☐
Construct estimate based on patterns or structure ☐
Deconstruct problem into easier parts to solve ☐
Revisit problem identified to revise plan as needed ☐

8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
Reference prior knowledge in learning ☒
Identify similarities and patterns to simplify the problem ☐
Develop rule/formula based on similarities and patterns ☐
Apply similarities and patterns to deepen understanding ☐
Evaluate steps of problem solving strategy throughout process ☐

Methodologies: The Students use…
1. (The Consultant’s Company)
Cooperative Pairs ☐
Engaging Activities ☐
Essential Questions ☐
Fact Masters ☐
Graphic Organizers ☐
Guided Discovery ☐
Manipulatives ☐
Pictorial ☐
Review ☐
Scaffolding ☐
SOLVE ☐
Solve One – Create One ☐
Word Wall ☐

Coaching:
1. Lesson: Other Resource

2. Coaching Role(s):
Modeling Lesson ☐
Co-Taught Lesson ☐
Planning ☐
Provided Feedback ☒
Assisted Students ☐
Other ☐

•
•
• 1 Attachment
• Walkthrough_2478

The Adobe formatting did not survive this transfer to a blog post perfectly, but I captured the content.

Eduhonesty: She’s a helpful woman, seemingly with the best of intentions. This is a great sample of one piece of the current educational climate that has been driving me nuts: I am never doing enough. She asks why I had not embedded the fractions reduction lesson into story problems so students could solve story problems. The main reason is that I wanted out of reducing fractions as quickly as possible. I am actually teaching probability, but I need my students to be clear that 2/6 is the same as 1/3 before we go further into this math. The lesson was structured so that students could do test retakes to improve their grades as soon as they proved to me that they knew how to reduce fractions. The added story problem would have introduced a level of complexity I neither wanted nor needed, and would have taken time I did not expect to have.

The Common Core boxes in the email also highlight the many Common Core strategies I failed to employ. All I can say about that is — it’s freaking fractions, guys! You find the greatest common factor and divide the numerator and denominator by that factor. How hard do we need to make the act of reducing a fraction? How much critical thinking does this require?

It’s not that I am against critical thinking. I am not against the many techniques this consultant uses to help teach math, although as soon as she walked in, I thought, “Damn! I probably need to be using red and yellow chips or fraction strips or something.” Most likely the consultant’s company and program have come up with a spiffy method using manipulatives that I am supposed to employ to reduce fractions. I was reminded of a reproach by the Assistant Superintendent for the district, who told me I needed to make more use of the materials provided to me. Ummm… that’s two separate texts, one with workbooks, not to mention the multiple software programs available and the a textbook’s worth of online materials from yet another outside consulting company that has given us a fair number of instructional guides and required tests for the year. I have been trying to use the barely-readable book lately. It’s a solidly good book and we need to work on vocabulary.

The materials dilemma resembles the Common Core dilemma. Where can anyone find the time to do all this? But you can certainly get in trouble for failing to do parts of the regime, especially if some administrator favors those parts. So many standards I had not done… So many strategies I had not employed… So many critical thinking questions I had not thought to ask…

In the end, though, I just wanted to make sure my kids could reduce fractions. Some knew how, some needed a refresher. Almost everybody is up and running now, with a couple of exceptions I have identified. But in this, as in so many other lessons, I seem to have done a suboptimal job, another version of the “I like this, but what about that?” that I hear every time a coach ambles unexpectedly into my room. I understand their motivation: They are trying to improve us all.

Just once, though, I’d like to get an email that said something like, “You did a good job. I liked how quickly they were figuring out how to reduce fractions.”

Period. Deed done. End of email.

Government leaders such as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan talk about the need for all of America’s kids to go to college. They are grabbing the horse by wrong end, most likely because they are most familiar with that end.

“No, wrong,” I’d like to tell them. “America’s kids all need to learn to read. If we give them that, they will be able to go to college should they choose to do so.”

College is a pipe dream for any graduate who can’t read, and potentially a useless and disastrously costly dream as well.

Eduhonesty: Whether Arne likes it or not, we have lots of graduates who can’t read and/or who can’t add fractions. I’ve watched these kids try to sound out words. I spent one half-year teaching math to sixteen-year-old kids who couldn’t handle fractions, decimals and exponents before I blessedly got back to middle school.

We shouldn’t have these graduates — but we do. Forget teaching incomprehensibly complex problem-solving skills and the Common Core. Let’s teach reading and mathematics to the illiterate and innumerate instead.

I afraid I am beginning to sound like a broken record when I write this but we keep battling and debating so many issues in education that we lose track of reading. This issue dwarfs them all. We can’t let this issue wait.

Actually, you can answer the survey that fast. One of my students blasted through the PARCC survey at the end of section two of the test, a survey critiquing the test. This bilingual student reads at a mid-elementary level at most. I surmise he did not bother to read the questions. I hope PARCC does not put too much trust in its survey data. The kids are pretty burnt out by the end of testing. By that point, some of them are just randomly clicking on answers; forget about responding seriously to survey questions on the test itself. I did like one answer by a girl in an open response box. She said it was too hard, but that was O.K. “That’s what we do all the time anyway,” she concluded.

P.S. Hooray!! PARCC has ended.

From Recycled Paper Greetings, design by Adrienne Hedger

In the case of my errant, random answer-clicker from the PARCC survey, he’d be standing on his skateboard in the sand with a game system in his little grocery cart, smiling happily as he told me about how he skinned his knee on the way to school.

Love that kid. Love all my kids with their little grocery carts who are taking the road less travelled. They make teaching more fun.