how do your test scores grow?

Wow. The Sunday LA Times article on teacher effectiveness using a value-added analysis (consisting of LAUSD 3rd-5th grade teachers' math and language arts standardized test scores over the last seven years) has caused a gigantic ruckus among education policy folks. My ed policy twitter feed has been in flames over this since Sunday morning. Anything about teacher evaluation is guaranteed to provoke these reactions.

But the most interesting part of the article had nothing to do with test scores, it had to do with the reporters' following observations: Teachers who hold their students' attention and push their students to think critically claim higher results than those who don't.

According to the article, teacher Karen Caruso is loved by her principal, students, and parents. They consider her an outstanding teacher who goes above and beyond. However:

During recent classes observed by a reporter, Caruso set clear expectations for her students but seemed reluctant to challenge them. In reviewing new vocabulary, for instance, Caruso asked her third-graders to find the sentence where the word "route" appeared in a story.

"Copy it just like it's written," she instructed the class, most of whom started the year advanced for their grade.

"Some teachers have kids use new words in their own sentences," Caruso explained. "I think that's too difficult."

She dismissed the weekly vocabulary quizzes that other teachers give as "old school."

Of course everyone loved her: She's an easy teacher!! Not surprisingly, her value-added scores were quite low (she ranked in the bottom 10% in boosting student scores). I cannot imagine a more fruitless exercise than copying a sentence out of a text just because it includes a new vocabulary word. When teaching, I had only four hours of instruction time per day. Certainly not enough time to waste on copying. And of course third graders can use a new word in a sentence. If you really think it's too difficult, you follow the basic pattern of teaching: I do, we do, you do. Scaffolding really does work. As do bonus points on essays for using new vocabulary words when writing, team points for noticing said words in other texts and pointing them out to the teacher, or behavior tickets for getting caught using them in everyday conversation. None of those examples are "old school" methods, yet each one tests understanding without using a quiz.

So why don't we start the teacher evaluation conversation with two simple questions: Can you hold students' attention? Can you push them to think critically? As a classroom teacher, those are fair questions to ask. But I can tell you neither of them was on my yearly evaluation (however being on-time and working well with colleagues was!)

my email to cretul

I just sent this email to Larry Cretul, who has been asking interested parties for House companion to SB6 (kill public education bill) to send their thoughts to him via email or phone:

I oppose this teacher tenure bill for several reasons. As an elementary school teacher for eight years in a high-poverty school (77+% free/reduced lunch), I really wish that I could be the most important person in my students' lives. If I were, I could instill a passion for education and life-long learning. I would have them eat well, brush their teeth, do their homework, watch appropriate TV shows and movies, go to sleep at an appropriate hour, and get regular exercise. I would instill a respect for adults and for things that don't belong to them. But I only have them with me for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. Their families, peers, and communities have more sway in their education than I do.

So why would you punish me for choosing to work with such a population of children? I work very hard to instill the above ideals in them during the short time they are in my room. I push them, encourage them, reward and punish them as if they were my own children. But my impact does not sway the neighborhood belief that education is not important. They can try their best while in my room, but eventually they have to go back home.

I have consistently high FCAT scores in my school -- last year all of my kids scored at 3 or higher in math (considerably higher than their previous year's scores of 1s and 2s for most of them). I am one of those teachers you say would be "rewarded" by this bill, I am sure of it. But if it passes, I will have to quit teaching and find a job that will pay my bills. I cannot afford to live on half my salary until it's known whether my students passed. I already work two jobs because my salary is so low (and I have a Master's, which I'm still paying for, that is now totally worthless).

If I stayed in the classroom, I wouldn't be able to afford to put in the extra time, energy, and money that I do right now. I would be forced to teach to the test to make sure I had a job. I would always be worried that any low child's test scores could make me lose my job. Any parent complaint could oust me as well. Why would I bother to chance my future and my life in that way? Many other wonderful teachers I speak with feel the same way. Those with no other options than teaching wonder how they will keep their houses and feed their families.

This bill will take money out of local schools and send it to private test companies. It will do it on the backs of our most important natural resource: our children. If this passes, I don't know how those in the Florida Legislature will live with themselves knowing they destroyed the chance for poor children to have access to quality education.

I have an out; I can find a new job. The underprivileged students in my class (and thousands of others) will be stuck with more drills, more tests, and much less real education. Please don't let this bill pass.

Want to share your thoughts? Here's his info:

Tallahassee office: 850 488 1450 District office 352 873 6564 Email: larry.cretul@myfloridahouse.gov

Please pass this to anyone you know who cares about public education in the state of Florida. This bill has been fast-tracked and could even be voted on tomorrow (Friday).

woo hoo!

Because a teacher at my school is leaving, I got a Smartboard! It's big and bulky, and I have no idea where I am going to put it. But it's mine and I am so excited to finally be able to have interactive web access in my class. I don't know if I'll use it as much for lessons to begin with. But there are SO many websites I've wanted to show my class. I emailed my intern who was just as excited. Neither of us have a lot of experience using one, but lessons are made in a program very similar to Power Point so it can't be too difficult.


*sigh* Now for the sad news. This is my (unfinished) classroom with tile. Yuck. It is white with a blue trim. It has lots of bubbles in the sealer and many unclean-able scratches already. Tim helped me felt the feet of the tables and other major furniture, so I hope the scratches don't get worse and the furniture stops sticking to the floor. We'll see...

june, july, & august

Those are the reason teachers teach, right? Well, here's a sampling of how I spent June, all at home since my classroom floor is being tiled:


These are the binders I've reorganized so I can find math and reading ideas and assignments by topic. When I taught third grade, I just had them grouped by how we taught them. After moving grades again (now I've done 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th) I decided to group them by topic so regardless of what grade I'm teaching (or how many times they adopt new textbooks) I have what I need in a simple to find format. It seems straightforward, but I also had to go through page by page and determine whether the idea/assignment was useful or crappy. I recycled an entire box of papers and this is what I was left with. Of course, every page in these binders is in a protective plastic sleeve with topics divided by cardstock.


Then I created a master list to go inside the front cover of each binder that shows how they are grouped for easy retrieval (not to mention when I need to add to them.) Not bad for two days' work. I completed my spelling, writing, and poetry binders at school before packing up. They will get master lists once I finish unpacking my room next week. My science and Florida units are the BIG job waiting to be dealt with. I am dreading the weeks those will take. Thankfully one of my teammates is joining me in this challenge.


Next up was typing up, printing, cutting, gluing, and laminating all the words for my Word Wall. I love the Nifty Thrifty Fifty words from the 4-Blocks Literacy Model, which I used extensively when I taught primary grades. They focus on root words and affixes, which my kids need a lot of practice with for automaticity. Normally these words come printed in poster form for me to laminate and cut out easily, but I couldn't find them anywhere online. Last year I used markers to write the words on sentence strips, but the markers quickly faded thanks to the bright Florida sunshine. So this is my solution. Fifty words are not enough to get us through the year, so I also added frequently misspelled/misused homophones to the mix for a total of about 80 words. On the back of each I hand wrote the root word, any affix and its meaning, each word's part of speech and the tense or category it falls under (hello, grammar practice!)


I finished hand writing all of my Daily Geography questions onto index cards (96!) for Morning Work and am halfway through Daily Science's 90 cards. These cards get laminated and then placed on different tables once a week for students to answer on small slips of paper. We go over them as a class when we have 5 minutes or so. I teach science for several weeks and then switch back to social studies, so whichever subject I'm currently teaching we use the other subject's daily questions. It's a nice way to keep both social studies and science part of the daily routine. I used to just photocopy the questions, but I am trying to focus on less paper use -- laminated cards last for years and can be reused! My 2nd and 3rd grade sets kept up well, so I figured I ought to bite the bullet and get them done.


But, as you can tell, I'm not done yet! I still have an idioms game to make and vocabulary and language games to glue onto cardstock, laminate, and cut out for reading centers. In an upcoming post I'll share some of the great online resources I've been scouring this summer as well. I do love June, July, and August. Hopefully, if I organize and prepare decently this summer, I'll be able to spread some of that relaxation through the rest of the year.

for shame

It's supposed to be a cold next several days, so I thought I'd spend some time curled up under blankets catching up on my reading. I've had the same book on my nightstand for over 2 years -- The Shame of the Nation by Jonathan Kozol. I read it until find myself getting very, very angry (I made it through Chapter 6 today!), then I put it down and try again several months later once I've calmed down. It's an important book that I need to get through since it's all about the topic I plan to do my PhD work on -- the resegregation of America's schools and the dumbing down of education for our poorest students.

I read about the magnitude of the problem and the "solutions" (which I also see with my own eyes every day) that inevitably make things so much worse for resegregated schools: scripted teaching manuals, non-licensed and under-prepared teachers (my school likes to hire people without teaching degrees to teach the neediest ESE students!), funding cuts for the poorest of schools, parents unsure of their rights regarding their child's education, falling apart buildings, and -- of course -- the latest cure-all, standardized testing. The weight of each of these issues is formidable. Combined, it seems as though there is no way out of the mess state and federal bureaucrats have created for the neediest of our children -- seemingly on purpose!

Kozol's Savage Inequalities got me into teaching. I was so moved by the horror stories outlined in that book that I volunteered immediately in a low-income local public school and have been working there for nine years now. I am frustrated by many things I see every day that I can do nothing about. I know I make a difference in my small corner of the world to the best of my abilities, but I'm ready to do something more. Maybe once I can make it through this book I'll be ready.

hot for teacher

And students.

We have no air conditioning. Late September doesn't seem like a bad time for that, but we live in Florida where cold doesn't come home to roost until late November at the earliest. Making it worse is the fact that we have a very cold classroom normally so we all come dressed pretty warm (I had on long sleeves and a sweater.) Have you ever tried to teach a group of 20 sweaty children with already low attention spans? It's like herding cats (an expression I never fully understood until now.) And the air will be out "for the foreseeable future." Tomorrow we will be the school nomads, traveling across campus in search of cool spaces. Wish us luck in our journey.

Did I mention that I have the beginning of a sinus infection and therefore have a fever and chills intermittently? On the bright side, I get to wear shorts to work tomorrow.

they're there?

When I got home from Clearwater last night I found a package waiting for me by my back door. One of my friends left me this:

I have no idea how he knew my kids have been studying these words on our word wall or how he knew they had struggled so much I kept them up for an unprecedented second week. Of course I wore it to school today.

I love when the world comes together in a quick burst of synchronicity. Thanks tw.

rock on

These are the remains of our final rock experiment. The gumdrops were part of our sedimentary rock experiment from yesterday (complete with SweetTart fossils.) The chocolate chips in the corner are left over from the melted-chocolate igneous rock experiment earlier today. Obviously, this is the metamorphic rock experiment, which combines both igneous and sedimentary rocks (chocolate chips and gumdrops) with heat and pressure (melted marshmallows and puffed rice.) The kids were pumped. And sugared up. Thank goodness science class is at the end of the day.

More from the fourth-grade front:

The new computers showed up two weeks into the school year. I decided to keep all five, putting my computer in the office. The new giant screens are awesome for showing off all sorts of graphics for the kids, most recently helping us track Hurricane Ike (who conveniently made his way through the Gulf just as we started the hurricane section of our weather unit.) Unfortunately, the computers are still lacking all of the necessary programs that would make them actually useful in the classroom, but I suppose you can't have everything. At least my network is finally not dropping offline three times a day anymore.

Yes, this is a new rug. My kids finally told me the rug I purchased just for our classroom and thought was so cute was also prone to shedding. Red fibers. All over their clothing. *ugh* I went groveling to the custodial staff, who found a dirty, stained rug with the binding coming apart hiding in storage. I claimed it sight unseen, and it made its way into our room that very day. The new rug has completely transformed the focus problem in my room. My kids now believe I can do anything. I am Superteacher.

my new home

I've decided that moving classrooms before school starts is like moving into a new house and having to host a fancy party two weeks later. Only in my case it was moving into a house that was still full of someone else's stuff (it took me two days, 8 garbage bags, and a freebie day for other teachers just to clear it out!) You can't just toss boxes out of sight to unpack later because the contents has to be available for kids to use. The decor has to be finished and things need to be cleaned. Not to mention I can't plan until I'm organized!

That being said, the classroom is finally finished and ready for kiddos. It started out in Miami Vice colors: the walls were teal and orange in a nod to the 'Phins with a wall of magenta thrown in for that South Florida flair. At least that's what I'm guessing:











But thanks to Tim's bright color selection and our 10 hours of painting in a non-air conditioned classroom a couple of weekends ago, I now call this home:



These are views from my front door. This place is so much bigger than my old room.



This is my teacher area. The star bulletin board will eventually hold kid work.



This is my office. Yes, my very own office. I would have painted it too, but I share it with my next-door neighbor (and I'm only showing you MY half -- it's huge!) It will be used mainly for storing teaching materials and other crap from the district. I have so much storage space in there that I had to label cabinets because I kept forgetting where everything was. I prefer to plan out in my classroom because I'm inspired by my kids and their work. But it will be a great place for one of my many college volunteers to tutor kids in a quieter space.



This is the reading center and Word Wall area. I'm going to lower the table for more comfortable seating. The books are all from my personal collection (except for the library books on the table.) Can you tell I love reading?


I now have an actual space for my computers. I'll be getting another one in the the next month so I'll have four for the kids to use! Our school also just added wireless so I'll be able to use my Mac at work for lesson planning and such. I don't have a Smartboard like some other classes, but maybe soon...


Here is our Math Meeting Board (not quite together yet), our recycling center (lovingly schlepped home weekly by yours truly since the school only recycles office paper), and the geography center. The cabinets house art and cleaning supplies.


This is my Accelerated Reader book area. The labeled cabinets all hold kid materials for math, language arts, games, and art projects. I prefer to have them out on open shelving so the kids can see what is available, but it will help keep the dust and dirt at bay. Also check out the flowers on the window sill outside. I hope they survive!


And this may look like just a door, but it's a door to the most amazing thing in the world to me: more storage. You had to have seen my old classroom where I stacked plastic tubs three high on top of the built-in cabinetry (and used a precarious ladder of chairs, tables, and stools to get them down) to really appreciate how much I love this closet. I will post a picture of its interior sometime this afternoon. Oh, and that cabinet on the right is holding more tubs of primary teaching stuff. It was supposed to be a coat closet. In Florida. How silly!

Thank you for visiting Miss Lynn's 4th grade class. I'm sure I'll post more about what we're doing as the year progresses. Right now, I'm just glad to have it done!

scaredy cat

This was as close as Madeleine would get to Mouse (and she was interested in getting to know Mad!) A dog afraid of a cat -- isn't that sad?

Sorry for being a non-posting person. I decided to take a break to deal with real life for a while. Honestly, the last month and a half have been filled with so many changes. It started with a change in grade level for me. I'm going from teaching primary to intermediate. I am quite upset, frazzled, you name it. I love teaching little ones -- this is such a scary move! I was in the middle of changing classrooms (think moving houses) when my principal "retired" due to low test scores. Getting a new boss -- especially when you've only had one in your professional career -- is nerve wracking. So far I like my new principal, but it's only been two weeks. School starts Monday, and I've been working 10+ hour days for the last two weeks trying to get ready.

In mid-July I decided to put my house on the market and move to St. Pete. I interviewed for jobs, got offers, but can't sell my house -- so I'm stuck in Gainesville for at least a few more months. Going back to the classroom also means going back to teacher's union work. I love fighting for teacher's rights, but let's face it: being a teacher in Florida right now is down-right depressing. Even the superintendent has teamed up with the union to fight against several state constitutional amendments slated to go on November's ballot. Pay close attention to 5, 7, & 9. They're going to destroy public education in this state.

Anyway, I'm back to blogging. Look for an update on what I've been up to for the last two weeks coming soon (ie. classroom pictures!)

decisions decided

There it is then. I'm going back to the classroom this fall. Memories of exhaustion and frustration nervously collide with the thrill of kids "getting it" and my love of the challenge of on-the-spot teaching. Overall, I'm excited to go back to what will be my life's work. Wish me luck.