Dear Westwood Gardeners & Community Growers,

Please join us this Sunday, for fun in the sun gardening at Munroe Elementary School, 3440 W. Virginia Ave. 11 am – 4 pm Sunday (or until work is complete). Come for all or part of the time.

Call Rachel Cleaves at (720) 217-5468 if you have a pick-up truck and are willing to drive in the neighborhood to shuttle some mulch.

Work to be done: – Till the soil – Build vertical structures – Construct garden beds – Plant flowers and vegetables – Eat lunch – meet your neighbors
Start Time: 11:00
Date: 2010-03-21

She recently wrote a book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, which is stirring up lots of dust in the education world, because she has done a complete 180 on her previous positions.

Read more about the book at Amazon, and watch the short video about why she decided to write the book and change her stance.

Of course, I am walking out the door right now to go get this book…

In short, the bill would direct the Colorado State Board of Education to set a visual or performing arts requirement for high school for each student in the state, beginning with next year’s 9th graders.  The bill points to the arts as an important tool in keeping students engaged and in avoiding drop-outs.  All this is great, but I like this bill for reasons beyond all these.

In 2004, the American Psychological Society released a paper by E. Glenn Schellenberg, a researcher who studied the effects of music education on a control group of 132 six-year old children that were given either keyboard, voice or drama lessons…or nothing at all.  All kids improved in their IQ measurements, partly due to the natural consequence of being in school.  However, after a year of lessons, the children in the music lessons groups showed an average increase in IQ of 7.0 points.

An IQ boost of an average of 7 points?  I’ll take it!

• Click here for the research paper.
• Click here for a podcast and transcript overview of the research.

I was a classically-trained vocalist in my previous life and have some good performances under my belt.  Here is a sound clip of me from 2000 singing one of my absolute favorite Brahms songs, Die Mainacht.  Text in English follows.

Click here for the recording.  Enjoy.

When the silvery moon beams through the shrubs
And over the lawn scatters its slumbering light,
And the nightingale sings,
I walk sadly through the woods.

I guess you're happy, fluting nightingale,
For your wife lives in one nest with you,
Giving her singing spouse
A thousand faithful kisses.

Shrouded by foliage, a pair of doves
Coo their delight to me;
But I turn away seeking darker shadows,
And a lonely tear flows.

When, o smiling image that like dawn
Shines through my soul, shall I find you on earth?
And the lonely tear flows trembling,
Burning, down my cheek.

--Ludwig Heinrich Christoph Hölty (1748-1776)

Nobody likes a bad teacher, not even teachers.

One of the biggest challenges any public school district has is how to level the educational playing field for socioeconomically-disadvantaged kids.  It’s an extremely vexing problem that can break down the most well-intentioned education policy wonk.  How do you offset the societal pressures that less affluent kids bring to the classroom? How do you get poor kids to succeed?

I think this problem is at the core of Superintendent Tom Boasberg’s recent announcement that DPS would no longer directly-place teachers in Title I (poorer) schools.  Now, mind you, the Superintendent has no authority to independently make this decision, since it’s a policy decision that has broad implications for the 70 percent of all DPS students that are classified as Title I.  Nevertheless, to think you’re going to solve these drastic achievement issues by making a gesture like this is, in my mind, the same as sticking one’s finger in a dike.

“Direct placement” is what happens when there is a teaching vacancy at a school, and that vacancy can exist for several reasons.  A common one is a shift in student population that creates a larger group of students that need an extra teacher.  Another is a shrinking student body that causes funding to be reduced…thereby making it necessary to cut a teaching position.  These situations cause some teachers to be placed back into a pool, and at some point, the district assigns these teachers to open slots elsewhere, sometimes without input from the principal.  The district does its best to match teacher skill sets with open positions.

However, I have objected to the insinuation that these teachers are in the pool for placement because of some deficiency on their part.  It’s true that there are some teachers that really shouldn’t be teaching, but none of last year’s teachers in a direct-placement situation were there because of some deficiency.  They were there simply because of shifts in student population.  There is some concern around teachers that seem to be chronically in this situation, but I wonder what these teachers actually teach…it could be physical education or arts of some type.

If 70 percent of all DPS classify as students that need Title I funding, then the likelihood that a directly-placed teacher will show up in their classroom is actually really high.

I’m listening very carefully to objections about directly-placing teachers in Title I schools, and they seem to center around the misguided belief that somehow bad teachers are being forced into poorer schools, against the wishes of the principals and to the detriment of the students.  Unfortunately, there just isn’t any proof of this in DPS.  However, there seems to be a general discomfort about the fact that there really are some “bad” teachers.  Now, some people’s “bad” teachers are other people’s diamonds in the rough.  In any case, the way to make sure that “bad” teachers aren’t disproportionately being forced into Title I schools is to make sure that only good teachers are in our teaching cadre in the first place.

It’s for this reason that I’m going to propose a resolution at our next meeting entitled, “Ensuring Only the Best Teachers Serve DPS Students.”  This resolution will instruct the Superintendent to immediately forge ahead with a sensible teacher evaluation system to combat this issue surrounding “bad” teachers by producing a plan within 90 days.  If the issue with Title I schools is teacher quality, and since most of our kids are in Title I schools, then let’s just make sure we properly evaluate and retain the right teachers.  It’s really that simple.  Let’s do it right, and let’s do it NOW.

Click here to read my resolution, and please call my colleagues on the Board to ask them to support it.

Update: the President of the Board, Nate Easley, thinks it’s not cricket for me to list phone numbers, so I’m changing to email addresses.

• District 1 – Bruce Hoyt: Bruce_Hoyt@dpsk12.org
• District 3 – Jeanne Kaplan: Jeannie_Kaplan@dpsk12.org
• District 4 – Nate Easley: NATE_EASLEYJR@dpsk12.org
• District 5 – Arturo Jimenez: Arturo_Jimenez@dpsk12.org
• At-Large – Mary Seawell: MARY_SEAWELL@dpsk12.org
• At-Large – Theresa Pena: Theresa_Pena@dpsk12.org

For additional insight, I recommend that you read the article by DCTA’s former President, Kim Ursetta.  This sheds even more light on the situation.

Feel free to leave a comment!

There are some charter programs that I actually like (I know, I know, the “other side” spins me as The Evil Charter Hater). 

One-size-fits-all for poor/minority kids?

I have three nephews that previously attended a Catholic school but who now have gone through a few years at Highline Academy in Southeast Denver and who are thriving.  There are also beautiful programs like Odyssey in Northeast Denver, an experiential program that guides kids along the path of building kids’ skills in critical thinking and finding answers.  I actually like the concept of DSST, which a young cousin-in-law attends.  She seems to be succeeding and fitting in quite well.  I am also a supporter of P.S. 1 in central Denver because they are able to take kids who aren’t properly supported in our comprehensive schools and arm them with some sense of control over their own lives…which is crucial in getting kids back on track.  I also feel pretty good about the new leadership at Southwest Early College.

However, not all charters are the same, and I think many people confuse a high-stakes testing environment with some of these great programs that I’ve delineated above.  I also think that some of the crafty marketing that’s out there, reflected in the Denver Post article, might lead some to believe that “high performance” is the same as “kids with critical thinking skills,” which is not always the case.  Some charters are specifically geared toward getting kids to test well, and I am generally not in support of those types of programs.

I have a real issue with No Child Left Behind (NCLB).  It was legislation that, at its core, operates from the fundamental premise that testing reveals everything you need to know about a kid’s development in school.  It created a situation in which we really did “teach to the test” and in which schools and districts had to become increasingly ruthless in forcing curriculum to cough up results on standardized tests like our CSAP…or lose funding.

NCLB looked at kids from underprivileged backgrounds and said, “we have to force these kids to achieve.”  That, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad philosophy, but it fails to look at the reasons why socioeconomically-disadvantaged kids trip up in the first place.  I think it has lots to do with the difficulties in their lives.  For example, you will hear me state over and over how one of the zip codes in our district, 80219, has the NUMBER ONE rate of foreclosure in all of the state.  At one time it was in the top 10 nationally.  If a kid at Doull Elementary, say, knows they are losing their home, do you think it will have an effect on achievement?

Consider the work, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children, by Betty Hart and Todd Risley.  In a nutshell, the work shows us that kids from underprivileged backgrounds start off significantly behind more affluent kids even in just exposure to vocabulary and syntax (grammar).  This is precisely why early childhood education and strong kindergarten programs are so absolutely crucial.  They do a lot to level the playing field and help pre-literate kids start out strong.

If you’re not dealing with root causes and employ corrections, results don’t just shift for no reason.  It’s illogical.

I have been very resistant to approving the placement of certain charters that do not operate from a whole-child philosophy but that instead have a high-stakes, rote- and drill-based style, much like West Denver Prep (WDP).  Physical education or the arts are virtually excluded from the program because, as WDP’s head of school puts it, “there just isn’t enough time.”  Now, there is no doubt that WDP kids score very high on the CSAP and consequently, the schools do well on our School Performance Framework.  But is a high-stakes environment really a good one for all kids?  Apparently not, because of the first class of 6th graders that were selected in 2007 at the South Federal campus, only about half or so made it out the other side in 8th grade. After “washing out,” these kids end up at Kepner or Henry (but the per-pupil funding stays with WDP).  In fairness, I have heard that they have done much better recently with regard to retaining kids, but time will tell.

Further, more affluent or more discriminating parents do not seem to want that type of a program for their own kids.  WDP seems to market exclusively to Spanish-dominant or socioeconomically-deprived families.  In fact, according to the 2009 School Performance Framework, around 94% of all WDP students are “minorities (read: Latino).”  I was canvassing this weekend for a candidate running for state house in the Lake Middle School feeder pattern, and in speaking with a non-Latino, affluent voter, I was told that their Brown Elementary child would be going “out of the district” for middle school and though they had hoped to send him to Lake, it was no longer the school they wanted for their child.

Is WDP to be commended for helping poor/minority kids succeed?  I suppose that if all you care about is a CSAP score, then yes.  In all honesty, they are exceeding expectations over what the district contracted them to do: offer a high-stakes environment for poor/minority kids to test well.  There really is no window dressing we can apply here.  It is what it is.

I wish I could join the bandwagon on these types of programs, but I can’t…not in good conscience.  I believe that every child has the right to a whole-child program and the right supports to keep them at grade-level aptitudes.  I believe that the arts and music and physical education aren’t just nice-to-have “specials,” but rather are integral parts of cognitive development.  As a musician, I know that even with one year of musical instrument instruction, a child’s IQ can go up by as much as 10 points.  When we’re dealing with kids who start out behind in the first place (and we most decidedly are), you would think that this kind of cognitive boost would be the best tool in our toolbox.  I don’t know…maybe I’m just naive.

More to come…

Please join Kepner Middle School , LiveWell Westwood, and Revision Int’l, for a community meeting to plan the 2010 Kepner vegetable garden and community event space. Your input is so valuable!

Where: Kepner Middle School , 911 S. Hazel Street
When: Thursday, January 21st, 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Why: to share your ideas and hear your neighbors’ ideas about the garden, garden classes, community empowerment, events, and food distribution.

Light dinner and day care will be provided, as will a Spanish translator.

Please RSVP by Tuesday, January 19th to rachel.cleaves@ucdenver.edu.
Start Time: 5:30 p.m.
Date: 2010-01-21