What Schools Could Be

During this past school year, I had a bet going with one of our 7th grade English Language Arts (ELA) teachers concerning the growth of her students.  Going into the year, each of the 6th and 7th grade ELA teachers were willing to make a shift in their class from a teacher driven class book choice model to a version of the more student focused Reader/Writer’s workshop model.  I say “version” because each of the grade levels were given the latitude for their own unique approach to the workshop model while meeting the basic premise of providing more student choice as central to their approach. The rationale for the change was to better meet the needs of young people by providing more opportunities for choice in both their reading and writing while at the same time set aside more time in class for that reading/writing..  In short, the workshop model is not a free for all, but instead utilizes mini-lessons and conferences to provide and check-in on student progress respectively. We, the teachers and administrators, believe this is a better approach to promote reading for the young people in our schools.

Even though the teachers were all in on shifting to this model and were given support from our district  ELA coach, who has a deep knowledge of the Reader/Writer Workshop, they still had an underlying concern about the “test scores.”  Although the 7th grade ELA teacher knew this was the right thing for kids, she wanted assurance that the administration would support her when the test scores went down.  I gave her a puzzled look, because as the curriculum director I was pushing for this change, and stated, “Your test scores won’t go down.” She disagreed and the bet was set.

I should be clear that the “test scores” for each of these grade levels were not an issue and the teachers worked hard to help their students be successful.  Despite that success, the teachers did not feel the students were developing a love of reading and, to their credit, knew a change was needed. As the year progressed, teachers reported the young people in their class “devouring” books and were amazed by the conversations about books taking place in their classrooms.  Even the previous reluctant readers were getting into double digits of books read for the year and could articulate their preferred genre as well as provide recommendations to classmates. By the end of the year, the teacher I made that bet with stated that she didn’t care if the test scores went down because this was the best year she has ever had in terms of the reading culture in her class and growth of the young people as readers.  As a matter of fact, she said she refused to “waste” time on test prep this year and just continued on with what they were doing up to the state tests. (She did expose the students to testing as a “genre” throughout the year, but did not “teach to the test.”)

Well, the state test scores came out this month and by every measure they were higher than in previous years in both 6th and 7th grade ELA courses.  As an example, the 7th grade ELA cohort increased their proficiency as compared to when they were in 6th grade from 85% to 90%. The same cohort had approximately 61% score “advanced or accelerated” as 6th graders which rose to  72% as 7th graders. The previous 7th graders were 89% proficient with 38% scoring advanced. This year’s 7th grade Reader/Writer cohort were 90% proficient with 41% scoring advanced. Just to be clear, it is not about the test scores for us.  The growth that we saw as measured by the conversations, writing, and smiles the young people displayed when discussing books both in and out of the classroom were enough to convince us we were making the right decision, but as expected strong test scores were a natural byproduct of the good work being done in the classroom.  We really did see the growth in our young people similar to those expressed by the kids in this short video from Penny Kittle concerning the power of authentic reading through a Reader/Writer workshop model.  This truly is a best practice that I would highly recommend. We are going to continue to support this in 6th and 7th ELA and partially push into 8th and 10th ELA this upcoming year.  It gave us a window into what schools could be when it comes to nurturing young people’s love of reading.

Speaking of “What Schools Could Be”, I just finished Ted Dintersmith’s book by the same title.  The book is a culmination of a year on the road visiting “out of the box” schools across the country.  Dintersmith kept his eye out for “PEAK” schools.  These are schools that provide environments which support development of student

Purpose- where students attack challenges they know to be important, that make the world better.

Essentials- students acquire the skill sets and mind-sets needed in an increasingly innovative world.

Agency- Students own their learning, become self-directed, intrinsically motivated.

Knowledge-  What students learn is deep and retained, enabling them to create, to make, to teach

(Dintersmith, 2018, p.xvi).

Dintersmith also spoke of a focus on “test scores” and “rankings” as a sort of “fool’s gold” in contrast to  finding “real gold- places that engage kids and prepares them for their future” (Dintersmith, 2018, p. 19). I have stolen the phrase, “Schools are climbing ladders of success leaned against the wrong walls” from a colleague to reference the same thought about too much of a focus on scores and rankings.  Interestingly, there was only one school in Ohio which Dintersmith addressed in his book.

Hawken Upper (High) School , outside of Cleveland,  is shifting away from a traditional school transcript and is banning with a large number of other private schools across the world to form a coalition called Mastery Transcript Consortium which emphasizes performance more and grades less.  The goal is to change the relationship between the preparation for college and college admissions for the betterment of students .  I have had a few conversations with the folks from Hawken. This group is gaining traction and will soon be looking to expand to public schools.  

“What Schools Could Be” is a great idea generator as it starts to get your mind going as you read about what other school districts are already doing across the United States. It is part of the reason why I thought to share our preliminary success with the Readers/Writers workshop at our middle school.  Again, “success” meaning growth of our young people's love of reading NOT only the test scores. (That was just a natural byproduct of learning taking place.) In my mind, we need to continue to share our successes with each other because the shifts needed in public education must start in the classroom and not the boardroom.  Teachers have the expertise and understanding of what the young people in their class need in order to nurture their ability to learn. We all need to support each other in order to best focus on how to provide an environment to meet those needs in order to reach the potential of what schools could be.

References

Dintersmith, Ted (2018).  What Schools Could Be. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University  Press.