Scooby-Doo and Hanna Skandera

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Burque Babble

“Those meddling kids!” — (Hanna Skandera, in bed sheet as “ghost” in episode entitled “Shaggy Breaks Down a Parking Lot Gate”)

As we wind down the prologue to the tragicomedy known as “New Mexico Testing 2015: Waiting For PARCC,” things are crazy and there seem to be no Scooby Snacks anywhere.  I could go on and on, but I understand some of you might be following events on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and don’t need some 2004-era blog to know which way the NM standardized testing wind is blowing.

So I’ll make it short and offer up a Scooby Snack to #NMPED Secretary @HannaSkandera all the way from Maine.  Let’s call it a maple-flavored Scooby Snack.  What is it?  It’s a compromise to extricate yourself, Ms. Skandera, from the house arrest position you’re in both literally and politically by taking such a hard line with what #PARCC means for New…

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PARCC- the hurdle designed for failure

I ran hurdles once in 7th grade PE.  I was short, uncoordinated and scared. And the hurdles were just too high.   School these days is starting to feel just like 7th grade PE.  The bar keeps moving.  Why should you care?  Your student is about to be labeled a “failure” by an industry that is designed to create failure.  Your student hasn’t changed, but the hurdles have changed.

New Mexico (and a dwindling number of other states) have switched to new standardized tests this year in 2015.  Why?  To receive federal funds related to RTTT (Race to the Top), Obama’s rider to the massive educational reform legislation NCLB (No Child Left Behind), states must (a) switch to Common Core standards (CCSS) instead of their own state standards, and (b) use one of their two big tests, Smarter Balanced or PARCC, to test for proficiency of those standards.  Now, not every state chose to receive RTTT funds, but New Mexico did and chose the PARCC test.

No big deal, right?  When I was in school in Texas in the 1980’s, we switched state standardized tests 3 times.  They were all pretty much the same.  However, Common Core and the entire industry behind it are RADICALLY different.  It is designed to make students, teachers and the entire public education system fail.

DIBELS, the new required state test for literacy for K-2nd grade, arbitrarily changed their scores when CCSS was introduced.  “For instance, pre Common Core a 1st grader was expected to read 40-64 words per minute. Under the Common Core, they are now expected to read 69+ words per minute.”  So students in K-2 are taking a test that is HARDER because DIBELS changed their scores.

PARCC, the new required state test for literacy for 3rd grade and up, uses a reading difficulty score system called Lexile that also changed their levels when CCSS was introduced.  The “chief architects” of the Common Core State Standards worked with the company that licenses the Lexile framework to realign the Lexile levels to raise the levels in every grade starting with grade 12 and stair stepping down to the early grades.”

Lexile is hardly the only reading score system out there.  But they are the only one that changed their levels for Common Core.  Russ Walsh, in his Russ on Reading blog, personally analyzed the PARCC practice tests using 5 different reading score systems.  He found that the reading passages were typically 2 years above grade level using the other  major reading systems but “on grade level” using the changed Lexile levels.  So students in 3rd and up are taking a test that is HARDER because PARCC uses Lexile, and Lexile changed their scores.

What has changed? Have students changed?  Have teachers changed?  The only thing that has changed is the materials (tests included) sold to states and districts.  The same corporations that own the tests, the textbooks, the programs, that pay the politicians and influence the education departments at state and national levels will make more money selling additional tests, textbooks, and programs (not to mention privately owned charter schools) to fix the problems that they created.

The first conclusion?  Next month, your NM student will be taking a test that is (a) new and different (which means a statistical drop in scores), (b) computerized for the first time (which means a statistical drop in scores), and (c) up to 2 grade levels above their current grade’s reading level (which will certainly mean a drop in scores!).  STUDENTS FAIL. 

The second conclusion?  Your student’s teacher(s) will be evaluated on your students’ performance on these tests.  50% of their yearly evaluation will be some version of student test scores.  If students fail, then teachers fail.  A current NM bill, if passed this month, will not allow teachers to renew their licenses if they do not get satisfactory scores on their evaluation (specifics vary with their license level).  TEACHERS FAIL. 

The third conclusion?  What happens when students and teachers fail?  The corporations will sell our state additional costly programs, more tests, and more “answers” while the state saves money to pay for these things by hiring part time, less qualified  “adjunct instructors” (also a bill being introduced this legislative session) who will replace your student’s teachers when they quit, retire or are no longer able to renew their license.  The public education system in New Mexico FAILS. 

What can YOU do?

1.  Call or email your NM senator and tell them to vote NO to Hanna Skandera’s confirmation.  She is unqualified to be NM Secretary of Education and she is knee deep in corporate educational reform via Chiefs for Change and Foundation for Educational Excellence.   In 2011, “Emails show [FEE’s] Hovanetz advising Skandera to push school grading, teacher evaluation, school recognition, and social promotion policies in the legislature. ”  She is following the corporate-influenced educational reform script and has done every one of the things on that list since 2011.

2.  Call or email your NM representatives and tell them to vote no to these bills:  HB41 (3rd Grade Retention based on PARCC literacy scores), HB181 (creation of Adjunct Instructors),  and SB91 (Teacher Licensure Changes)

3.  OPT OUT your student from DIBELS/PARCC if they are in 8th grade or lower.  Opt out forms for APS are located here.  I don’t recommend opting out 9th-12th because of  graduation requirements.

Your child does not deserve to FAIL due to a system that is designed for that purpose.  Your child deserves to leap those hurdles and succeed.

Education in New Mexico – HOPEless

      Amidst the recent hoopla about Skandara’s surprise confirmation hearing, I have mixed feelings. I know people on both sides of the issue claim to have children’s best interests at heart. I know ‘Hanna Susana’ and company are trying to raise performance and accountability, which is the standard of every employee improvement plan. I know the unions and school supporters are trying to stand up for kids by opposing  many of these reforms.  There are many political and policy issues that I probably don’t understand. What I do understand is teachers.

     Teachers, by and large, are a motivated, can-do bunch of people. Seriously – try to manage 25 third graders for a day or keep up with 150 freshmen in a day and you’ll probably need a nap. You’ll probably get the shivers thinking of a day with 7th graders. Oh, the horror!  Teachers must teach, police, counsel, manage, motivate, and parent – not to mention the rare situations where they spend the night with students in frozen schools or throw themselves in front of a gunman.  And all of this without a lot of compensation. This job requires internal motivation and some serious stamina!

     The teachers I know are tired. They are struggling. They worry about students in the middle of the night. They feel very little support. They don’t have hope. With every new ‘reform’, the teachers I know lose a little light in their eyes. With every new mandate, test, and standard, I hear comments like ‘Oh, I used to do this art project.’, “the kids used to love this activity’, etc. School is not fun anymore. Teaching is not fun anymore.  The idea that 50% of your performance is based on the test scores of students who might come to school tired, hungry, stressed, medicated or not, sick, or unprepared.  For some teachers including myself and Kindergarten teachers among others, 50% of my performance is based on NOT my teaching and NOT my students. What teacher feels motivated after that? What hope do they have that things will get better? 

    I know some amazing teachers. However, some of them don’t want to teach any more. I can’t blame them. What really worries me about all of this New Mexico education reform is the day in the not-too-distant future when these talented teachers say, “Enough!”  When they quit or retire, who in their right mind will take their place? Unlike the Secretary of Education job, you actually have to have a teaching license to be a teacher. I don’t know too many people willing to enter the fray. 

I wonder what would happen if the “powers that be” would spend a year in a classroom and see what the reforms translate into inside a real classroom. Better yet, I wonder what would happen if their child’s teacher quits and no one is willing to replace them. Reform means nothing when there is no one to institute it.  

Book Return

It was “Get out of Jail Free” Day, the first Friday of May. Three weeks ago, Shanna had found a whole jumble of things under Hadley’s bed while cleaning up the room she shared with her 7 year old sister.  Shanna loved her sister, but the girl was quite a pack rat.  Anything that caught Hadley’s fancy was ferreted away in one of Hadley’s many hiding places.  Shanna was forever finding Hadley’s “treasures” in their shared room.  But amidst this particular pile of beads, notes and small plastic toys, Shanna spied a book.  It was that library book that Hadley hadn’t been able to find since March!  Today, Shanna could return the book for free, since she knew they didn’t have much extra money.  Thank goodness Mrs. Taylor, the librarian, had these “free days”.  No way was Shanna going to put Hadley in charge of returning it!  She’d forget it and then they’d owe that fine.  “I’ll return it myself,” thought Shanna as she packed up their backpacks and told Hadley it was time to leave for the bus stop.  Their mom had just left for her shift at the hospital with an absentminded kiss and hug for them both.  Shanna herded Hadley out the front door and locked it behind them. 

Since her dad died in October, Shanna tried to keep track of Hadley.  When Kelley wasn’t working or doing laundry or cooking dinner, Shanna caught her mom staring out the window, like she was waiting for him to come back.   Shanna woke up every morning just fine until she remembered that her dad was gone.  The sadness had settled over them like dust from an explosion, much like the one that killed her father. 

When they got off the bus, Hadley ran over to her group of first grade friends.  Shanna decided to head straight for the library and drop Hadley’s book in the book return just inside the door of the library.  If she was quick enough, no one would see her, feel sorry for her, ask her if she was OK.  It was like being a celebrity – the worst kind.

She walked quickly into the building, head down.  She prayed no one would stop her on the way to the library.  The only person she passed was the janitor, who was busy positioning a trash can under a ceiling leak from last night’s rain. When she reached the library’s double doors, Shanna glanced inside the window to make sure no one was there.  The lights were on, but it looked silent and empty.  Shanna loved the library – so cool and quiet.  She eased the doors open and quietly dropped the book into the book return.  Shanna quickly turned and sped down the hallway back to the outside.  The relief lightened her tense shoulders.  She never noticed Mrs. Taylor watching her from the reference section, watching everything this brave, sad girl had done.

Desert

 Write a 2 minute description of a place.  Then go back and add in what you SEE, HEAR, FEEL, and SMELL.  See how much better it can be!

New Mexico is so different from the pine forest of my childhood.  Everything is wide open and vast, allowing me to see it all – nothing is hidden.  Mornings creep up slowly here.  From my patio, the dark, purple Sandia mountain hovers on one side, the dry, dusty valley spreads out on the other.  Living in the shadow of the mountain, I can sense the sun behind the mountain and I can see its rays on the far west horizon, but there is no sunshine in my little spot.  It is not warm, not cool, but a bit of breeze makes me aware of the air on my skin.  I can watch the morning lighten inch by inch.  Birds begin noisily conversing, ignoring the sleeping people and animals around them.  The sunlight creeps ever closer from the east and from the west until sunrise claims my home.   Households wake and the noises of the day begin.  The sun will reign hot and dry over the land until it slowly slides into the volcano-ridden horizon.  Then I will wait for those few precious minutes when it will light the mountain on fire, the “watermelon” mountain that will turn rose pink.  Quickly, it will disappear and the day will darken into night.   It says something about New Mexico itself – a magic all its own that refuses to be rushed but explodes in small surprises if you are patient enough to wait for them.

Summer Camp

I have recently joined Kate Messner’s “Teachers Write!” Summer Writing Camp!  No, I won’t be sleeping in a tent.  (Whew! You guys know what an outdoors-y girl I am NOT)  It’s a summer writing experience that Kate posted on Twitter, expecting a modest response.  Over 700 teachers and librarians responded from all over the world!  We will be given writing prompts every day, so I plan to record my writing here. 

Monday’s challenge is to devise a writing plan – when and where do campers plan to write? 

1. What you found that you might be able to cut out of your schedule or cut back on to make time to write.
2. When you’ll be writing each day & for how long. Remember to be realistic. 15 minutes is fine to start.
3. Where you’ll usually write.  This can be different places on different days, depending on your schedule.
4. Who you told about your plans. Remember, sharing your writing plans with the people in your life helps to make them real and reminds your family & friends to give you that space for writing.

My response:

As with anything that a working mother of three wants to accomplish, my writing time will have to be done early in the morning!  I will be writing about 15 minutes a day on weekday mornings in my favorite comfy red chair …after devotional time and yoga, that is!  Whoops, my mornings are going to be packed!  This will be a much easier task in the summer when I have summer school only 3 mornings a week, but during the school year it will be challenging!  School year mornings are ridiculously crazy, so I may have to get up 15 minutes early or do some of my morning tasks the evening before.  I already get up at 5:30, so I will have to think about that one!

I am not committing myself to writing on weekends yet, unless the time and inspiration allow.  I try to keep the schedule as fluid as possible on weekends for relaxation and family time, but realistically the weekends are as busier than weekdays.

I will be sharing my writing plans with my just-retired teaching partner, and writing inspiration, Faye.  She is the one who has encouraged me to do this writing project and she is a wonderful author!  She’ll be the one who will keep me accountable as no one else would, since she actually DOES write every day!

By the Hand

Which ‘handedness’ do you have? The majority of us are right-handed, doing all the important things, such as writing or cooking, leading with that hand. Without that hand, we’d be at a disadvantage! Sure, we could function with that hand injured or incapacitated, but could we do it all? Would we feel comfortable trying to do everything with our ‘weaker’ hand?

In Psalms 73, David says

Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand. (Psalm 73:23 NIV)

. God is not only holding our hand through life, He is holding our right hand, our capable hand. In order to hold on to God’s faithfulness and promises, we have to give up our sense of capability and control. Holding us carefully by our right hand, God’s powerful right hand is continually working good on our behalf. There is no safer place to be.

Kids

I love being a teacher. I love seeing my kids out in public and the look of surprise when they see a ‘teacher out of school’. I love the unexpected hugs. I love when they are so excited to tell me something important to them. I love to watch their faces when I read to them (even those who aren’t listening…what are they thinking about instead?). I even love their faces when I have to get onto them …. Surprise, respect, defiance….they are all so adorable. I realize that all the things I love about students are the things I love about my kids. Because I guess, in a way, they are all my kids. At least for a very short time.

Becoming a Teacher Again

Once upon a time, there was a teacher. A terrible teacher. A teacher who had loved school as a student and thought she would love school as a teacher. But this teacher felt barely five minutes older than her high school students, and certainly unable to control them. The teacher spent every waking moment of every day of her first year of teaching, grading, writing lesson plans, doing paperwork, and then starting it all over again the next morning. The teacher was overwhelmed, undersupported, and out of her element. So the teacher became a teacher-no-longer, and made her way to the corporate world, where she became a corporate trainer. She was also a tutor. One day, she decided to work with the little ones (because now she had a few little ones of her own). She directed a preschool, then became a children’s minister. Slowly, she realized that she was still a teacher. For what makes a teacher, except that she has students? So the teacher wants to be a school teacher again, and she hopes it goes better this time around. Her domain will be the elementary school library, where she will teach children the power of a story. As human beings, we learn from stories, we relate to stories. The teacher knows that your life is your story: you are the author, teller, and star of your own story. The teacher wants to help her students play the leading role in their own story. “As Neo in the Matrix said, ‘I just wish I knew what I am supposed to do.’ If life is a story, what is the plot? What is your role to play? It would be good to know that, wouldn’t it? What is this all about?” (Eldredge, 169) Her story will be how well she is able to prepare her students to star in their own life’s story and make their way in the world successfully.

Epic Fail

Failure haunts me. There are those days when I feel like I am not doing a good job at anything – being a mom, being a wife, being a friend, being productive, just being. I couldn’t protect my child from other kids’ comments. I said what I shouldn’t have said. I forgot to turn in the field trip form. I said I’d call someone and ran out of time. Then there are things other people say and do in their own quest to do well that somehow derail mine. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will seep into my brain and stick there. So the things I do and the things I take in spin around inside me and spit out with centrifugal force that feeling of having failed. That what I meant to do and what I ended up doing were not one and the same. That if I count up at the end of the day the “good” things I have done and the time I put into helping other people, they don’t make a very big pile.

I read 2 Samuel 7 and was tearfully grateful to read that King David, called “a man after God’s own heart”, felt the same way. Even he felt small and unworthy. He tried to do his best and be obedient to what God had asked him to do, but he had screwed up a few times. So he made a plan to make it right. He would fix this! David had not treated God well, by failing to take the best care of the ark of the covenant, where God lived. So he had come to God apologizing and offering his own man-made plan to fix the injustice he had done by creating a new temple for the ark. God told David that his plan was appreciated, however God had a bigger plan, a better plan. He laid out a spectacular blessing for David and his family.

I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. ⁹ I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. ¹⁰ And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning ¹¹ and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders^[a] over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies. “‘The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: ¹² When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom.

David had offered to create a new temple for the ark – in essence, a house for God. And God blew him away by saying, “Thanks for offering me a house but I am going to create a house for YOU, the house (or line) of David. And the salvation of the world and the glory to my name will come from this house (by the birth of Jesus, a direct descendant of David’s). You will be known throughout history and your family will always be blessed.” WOW!

I love David’s response. He humbly realized that God was blessing him, not in response to David’s success or failure, but because of WHO God is and HOW MUCH God loved him.

King David went in, took his place before God, and prayed: “Who am I, my Master God, and what is my family, that you have brought me to this place in life? But that’s nothing compared to what’s coming, for you’ve also spoken of my family far into the future, given me a glimpse into tomorrow, my Master God! What can I possibly say in the face of all this? You know me, Master God, just as I am. You’ve done all this not because of who I am but because of who you are—out of your very heart!—but you’ve let me in on it.

Not because of who I am, but because of who You are. I can and will fail. I hate that fact, but it’s true. And there are some days that “who I am” is a big fat failure. But thankfully “who You are” is never changing. If I have stayed close to God and looked hard for his path, God will love me regardless of my success or failure. He will bless me to show others His love, even though I’m not perfect or even good. And that is not failing at all.