#sjusd

I understand that television “investigative reports” are intended to be provocative, but I believe the recent NBC Investigates report on the role of police officers on school campuses (http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Thousands-of-Bay-Area-Students-Sent-to-Police-329858661.html) missed the mark when the reporter tried to make the case that having police on school campuses harms students.  In this day of mass shootings and school tragedies, having trained professionals in close proximity is a necessity.

Aside from anticipating the worst case scenarios we pray never happen, police officers on campus provide security, build relationships with administrators, teachers and students, and offer a strong measure of comfort for parents.  Often, large urban school districts have their own police forces.  San Jose Unified School District is fortunate to have an excellent working relationship with our local police force; since 1996, our district has worked with local officers to provide on campus services.  (As an aside, it is notable that during the last several years when many cuts were made to the San Jose Police Department, the designated school liaison unit remained strong and intact - a testament to the importance our police officers place on the safety and support of students.)

At SJUSD, there is at least one full time officer stationed on every middle and high school campus in the district.  Other officers conduct rounds throughout the day to elementary schools and are deployed as needed to a particular elementary campus.  Many of the officers have been working on the same campus for years and have built strong relationships with their school communities.  Officers are summoned by campus administrators when a crime is suspected.  Contrary to the suggestion of the NBC investigative report that campus arrests are rampant, in the 2014-15 school year, 283 referrals to police were made, resulting in a total of 10 student arrests or, about  .009% of our population.  Our campus police officers work with students, their parents and school administrators to evaluate a situation and determine the least consequential action that is appropriate given the particularities of the situation.  If the crime warrants, a police officer may issue a citation that requires the student and his/her parents to meet with a juvenile justice who will determine the appropriate penalty.  

The juvenile justice system has evolved considerably over the past few years, working with partners to better support juvenile offenders and help redirect them back onto productive paths and back into school.  Our district, along with East Side Union High School District, partners with the County Office of Education, Juvenile Justice, and the County Probation Department to better support students and seek productive outcomes.  This partnership work has resulted already in a precipitous drop in the number of students who are cited or arrested and I expect that number to continue to decline.  

Another example of partnership between the school district and the justice system is the monthly meetings held between all SJUSD Assistant Principals for Discipline (APDs), the SJPD school liaison unit, members of the Mayor’s Gang Task Force and others to provide updates on concerning trends on campus, policies in law enforcement and to continue a conversation which favors intervention over suspension.  

This system, while rooted in equity, social justice and the philosophy that juvenile offenders can be successfully redirected to lives of productivity and lawfulness, is not perfect.  We have work to do to better support populations that are disproportionately represented in the number of referrals made to police.  We need even stronger supports for our youngest students who are acting out while we determine the circumstances of their individual situations and make better placements and put educational plans into effect more quickly.  We have student support counselors on our highest need campuses and a crisis team that can quickly be deployed anywhere in the district to help diffuse a situation before police involvement is determined to be necessary and we continue to work to identify and align an even broader array of services that can be called upon to support struggling students.

The national average for high school juniors taking the SAT exam is approximately 42%.  Our State’s average is 40.4%.  Santa Clara County fares slightly above the national average at 50.5%; SJUSD has reflected the state at about 40%. [citation] There are myriad reasons to explain why high school students do not take the SAT exam: they don’t view themselves as college bound, they don’t get organized to sign up, they believe the cost to be prohibitive, or they simply aren’t encouraged to do so.  

SJUSD is looking to significantly raise the number of students taking the SAT exam and, by extension, the number of students who are eligible for four year colleges.   Offering the exam particularly in early March of the junior year presents a number of other opportunities, as well:

Counselors will have time to meet with students before the end of the school year to discuss their scores and encourage them to think more seriously about college or to to study and retake the test in the Fall to earn an even higher score. 

Students who may not have otherwise taken the test now may view themselves as college eligible and redouble efforts to graduate on time and with all A-G courses completed.  

The March SAT will not conflict with the crazy rush of standardized testing that juniors face each spring: SBAC (common core), IB (international baccalaureate), AP (advanced placement) and SAT 2 (subject specific) tests consume a significant amount of time between April and early June.

Students who are already on a college track may take advantage of this opportunity as well, though they may choose earlier or later dates to coincide with their personal plans.  For example, some may choose to take the test this January (2016) to take advantage of the soon to be “old” format (the test is being significantly modified beginning in March 2016) or they may choose to wait until the end of junior year when they have amassed a few more months of academic content and intellectual maturity.  The primary purpose of offering the free SAT is to encourage those students who may otherwise not have taken the exam at all to do so . . .at least once.

It is for the same reason that SJUSD offers free PSAT (practice SAT) exams to all sophomores.  By administering the test in the sophomore year, counselors can use the data to guide students in choosing classes for the all important junior year and encourage them to aim high with AP or honors courses.   Sophomores who score exceptionally well on the sophomore year PSAT are encouraged directly by the College Board to retake that exam in the Fall of their junior years to try to qualify for National Merit scholarships.  Nationwide, .03% of juniors who take the PSAT actually qualify for National Merit so, while that is a lofty goal for those within shouting range of the top scores, it is eminently more practical to have students take the exam during 10th grade when the data can be used to inform their junior and year class selections.

This has been the topic most frequently on my mind as a SJUSD trustee.  Some types of public engagement are mandated, such as outreach and solicitation of feedback from a variety of stakeholders in the district’s creation of its annual Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP).  Other forms of engagement are district driven, such as the Family University program, the Superintendent’s monthly Brown Bag lunches, public committees ranging from School Site to budget advisory to voluntary integration, and community presentations on topics of interest such as Common Core State Standards.  

Despite these avenues of accessibility, many parents and community members still feel that SJUSD is not meaningfully engaging the public.  In order to evaluate effectiveness, we need common language around what engagement should look like and common metrics to assess when engagement is successful.  I didn’t have to look far (thanks, Jen Thomas) to find an excellent model.  An organization called Code for America works at the intersection of civic engagement, government, and technology to promote civic engagement and, significantly, create metrics by which to measure the effectiveness of the attempted engagement. 

Code for America defines five key areas in which governmental or public institutions must achieve proficiency to properly define themselves as truly engaged with the public:

    1    Reach: Defining the constituency you are trying to reach, with an emphasis on identifying those whose voices aren’t already represented.

    2    Information: Providing relevant information that is easy to find and understand, and speaking with an authentic voice.

    3    Channels: Making use of a diversity of spaces, both online and offline, that meet people where they are.

    4    Productive Actions: Identifying clear, concrete and meaningful actions residents can take to reach desired outcomes.

    5    Feedback Loops: Making sure the public understands the productive impact of their participation, and that their actions have value.

Applying these principles to SJUSD, my perception is that we have defined and are executing with a fair measure of success on numbers 1,2 and 3.    The last two are somewhat more complicated as they aren’t within the control of the district: even if we have put out all relevant information, if constituents don’t believe that their feedback and participation at meetings or in conversation is meaningful and will have an impact on future actions of the school district, then people will not feel engaged and will view the district as “other”, resulting in an adversarial model or at least functionally separate entity.  

I found Code for America’s measures of success to be particularly informative and would serve as excellent guidelines for SJUSD to evaluate whether our efforts at public engagement are having their desired effects.  Those metrics are as follows (replacing government with school district):

    •    Measurable increases in the public’s satisfaction and trust in [the school district].

    •    Improvements in stakeholders’ sense of efficacy - when they see a problem, they feel there is a path to fixing it.

    •    Greater number and kinds of people who participate in public conversations.

    •    A stronger consensus of support from the public for [district] policies, processes, services, and plans.

    •    More engagement around public information.

    •    A more collaborative, less antagonistic relationship between the [school district] and the public.

    •    [Trustees and district staff members] who feel they have capacity to engage the public in their work.

Civic engagement is clearly a two way street - stakeholders have to meet the public institution, if not halfway, at least somewhere along the line by paying attention to information that is disseminated, taking the time to listen and to be heard, volunteering, and engaging directly on issues of interest or concern rather than remaining only in the social world in which we all (yep, me, too) vent our frustrations, looking for sympathy or validation rather than solutions.    

Emotions ran high last night, though civility reigned, throughout a fascinating conversation between County Board of Education (CBOE) board members (literally on one side of the circle) and superintendents and trustees from local school districts (on the other) regarding some of the challenges and tensions that have arisen in connection with the CBOE in its role as charter authorizer.  The conversation was actually mandated as part of the settlement in the case  Alum Rock v. SCCBOE et al. which included a stipulation that the County Board of Education invite governing boards and superintendents of each school district within the County of Santa Clara to a summit on policy and procedure surrounding approval and operation of charter schools in the County of Santa Clara. 

  The comments by superintendents and district trustees were wide ranging, but the general sense was one of frustration with the CBOE’s pattern of reversing districts’ denials of charter petitions, at times even in contradiction to the recommendations of their own staff, and the urgent need for communication, collaboration and consistency when reviewing charter petitions.  To their credit, the slightly embattled CBOE board members heard the concerns graciously and thanked participants for their frank feedback.   The salient question, however, is: now what?

  School districts seem to be feeling their way independently in building relationships with charter organizations, with varying degrees of success and harmony.  Even within boards, there is often not agreement on an approach to charter petitions or on the urgency of developing coherent strategies to address the growing number of charter schools.  Given the plethora of individual, district wide and county wide educational philosophies and guiding principles, along with perceived subjectivity of the Charter School law, it is no wonder that the outcomes of charter petitions are not entirely predictable.   If ever an area of public education was ripe for collaboration, this is it:  collaboration not only between district schools and charter organizations but between district schools and the CBOE.  Charter authorizers at the local and county level should be working from the same set of expectations, goals and metrics.  We are all responsible for the same children.  Standards should not differ depending on the title of the authorizing entity.  I would like to see the county and local school districts create their own compact that promotes an agreed upon set of parameters by which to 1) evaluate charter petitions, 2) facilitate meaningful communication between the county and districts with regard to the granting of charters and resulting impact on districts, and, together with the charter organizations, 3) come to agreement on a coherent plan of growth for our county that would provide substantive choice across options that are similarly marketed, measured across common metrics, and serving actual, determined need.  

  As with most successful collaborations, a foundation of trust must first be put in place.  Districts must be able to trust that the CBOE will not capriciously overturn their thoughtful work and recommendations.  The CBOE must trust that school districts do not capriciously deny charter petitions because they are “anti-charter”.  Charter organizations must trust that they will be welcomed when they approach districts with a request for collaboration on determination of high need and potential for high impact.  And districts must trust that charter schools share the same goals of high rigor, strong culture and closing the opportunity gap for the most underserved students.  The fact that we still talk about underserved students means that there is room in our system for improvement and anyone working toward that goal should be welcomed to the table.  

  In her excellent article, What Does It Take to Be an Urban Schools Superintendent, Christina Heitz, managing director of The Broad Academy, a program of The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems    (https://medium.com/education-reform/what-does-it-take-to-be-an-urban-schools-superintendent-a-whole-lot-more-than-you-think-1815620d9432),  argues that, as “communities throughout the country are rethinking the traditional public school district model, moving from a system that automatically assigns students to their zoned local schools to a “portfolio”-style system that offers a range of school options — neighborhood, magnet, public charter — empowering each family to choose the best fit for their child”, school district leaders must evolve as well.      Among other skills,  “they need to demonstrate that they can think and act strategically; propel system-wide change; authentically engage employees and communities; and foster and sustain constructive relationships both inside and outside the organization.”  [emphasis mine]  

Nancy Reid welcomes me to her classroom, forcing her voice slightly louder than normal so she can be heard above the hum of the digital printer, which is buzzing back and forth in the process of printing the components of a prosthetic hand.  Ms Reid’s students will assemble and donate the hand, saving an amputee over $20,000, which represents the cost of a standard prosthetic hand.  The Ebay engineer who volunteers in Ms Reid’s class once a week, teaching AP computer science to juniors and seniors, was so impressed with a previous hand the students made that he took it back to Ebay to show his colleagues what they might be doing with their own digital printers.  

This probably doesn’t sound like a typical classroom story, but Nancy Reid is not a typical classroom teacher.  She came to education as a third career, following a first career in high tech which included military contract work, and a second as a stay home mom to two sons.  (Interestingly, Reid’s husband also made a mid career change from high tech mobile communication to education and currently teaches math at Willow Glen High School.  But this isn’t his story.)  Reid’s story begins earlier, growing up with four siblings, attending parochial school in East San Jose and then James Lick High School.  Reid’s high school teachers and counselors proved to be great role models and they, along with her parents, instilled in Reid the belief that the goal of all education should be service to others.  

That philosophy lingered in the back of Reid’s mind as she earned her undergraduate and Masters’ degrees and eventually led her to earn a teaching credential from San Jose State University.  And if the story ended here, it would be a good one, the story of someone who wanted to teach and who found a job making a difference in the lives of students every day.  

Though Reid enjoyed teaching math, she was painfully aware that her students did not have the opportunity to learn essential tech skills that they were likely to need in whatever career they chose to pursue after high school.  She had written her Master’s thesis on the necessity of creating a programming pathway for ethnically diverse and low income student populations at urban high schools.  And here she was, teaching ethnically diverse and low income students in an urban high school.  Where no programming pathway existed.  In fact, there is no California curriculum for teaching computer science at all.  Reid lamented to a friend as they watched their children at swim practice: “our Silicon Valley high school does not have a single computer science class”.  The friend suggested that Reid change that circumstance.  

Reid had been teaching for nearly eight years when this conversation took place.  She knew about the inadequate funding of many public school programs and services.  She knew that she was one teacher in one high school with one voice.  But rather than feeling limited by those circumstances, she went to work.  She applied for and received a college board grant which paid for a summer professional development course.  Along with colleague Ryan Alpers, she applied for and received a grant from the Silicon Valley Education Foundation for seed money for the above mentioned digital printer.  With that money and contributions from friends, she purchased the printer.  Reid started teaching new skills to her students, but it still wasn’t enough.  Reid firmly believed that students needed to learn how to write code. Lincoln physics teacher Ryan Clark started a programming club at Lincoln, which attracted 20 members in its first year. Reid supported the club by overseeing student projects and bringing in speakers. The club was another good piece in the effort to build 21st century skills, but it still wasn’t enough.  Aware of her passion for coding, Lincoln Principal Matt Hewitson forwarded to Reid some information from TEALS (Technology Education And Literacy in Schools), Microsoft’s YouthSpark Program which helps public schools kick-start and sustain Computer Science Programs.  

Reid applied for a TEALS grant and a partnership was created to start a coding class.  The school had to commit $5,000 for stipends for volunteers who would help teach the class.  This was ideal for Reid because although she did have coding experience, her knowledge was more than 15 years old - an eternity in high tech.  The school also had to provide the technology, which was an easy piece because Lincoln already had the needed laptops.  Through the TEALS program, 4 volunteers were selected via an interview process to work with the students.  Those volunteers, professionals from Ebay, Apple and Rovi Corporation, all of whom have at least masters’ degrees and some experience teaching graduate students but not teaching credentials, would deliver content to the students.  

The first year of AP Computer Science at Lincoln High School was up and running as of August 2014.  Twenty nine students are taking this class.  25% of them are women, compared to the industry standard of 18%.  55% of the students are Latino, compared to the industry standard of 9%.  Support has been so strong and feedback so positive that next year an Introduction to Computer Science class will be added to the course curriculum along with the AP course and in the following year, a third offering will be added to the CS “department”, AP Computer Science Principles.

One teacher.  One vision.  So many opportunities to have said, this is too expensive, this takes too much time, this isn’t my job, my skills are outdated, I haven’t been doing this long enough.  The list of potential barriers goes on.  But barriers don’t stand a chance against an individual who is motivated, resourceful and committed to changing the world, one student at a time.  

The SJ/SV Chamber of Commerce posed the following questions to discrete segments of our community in an effort to better understand how to effectively support education in our valley:

Silicon Valley Business Leaders: What are our educational leaders doing to meet the changing needs of the 21st century workforce? How can you help in creating meaningful partnerships to address these challenges?

Silicon Valley Education Leaders: What do your customers—the employers of our area—need in this changing environment? What can be done to foster partnerships between you?

Silicon Valley Non-Profit Leaders: How can you help bridge the gap, and fully assist, between these two?

These questions were addressed this morning (4/30/15) through a series of panel discussions and keynote speakers.  I was privileged to participate in the first of the 3 panels: K-12 private/public partnerships.  The second panel focused on partnerships between business and institutions of higher education, and the third examined the creation of pathways for Silicon Valley’s youth who are not following a post-secondary education trajectory.   Following are my responses to the questions that were submitted to the first group of panelists.   Please be aware that these responses represent my personal opinions based on my own research, many conversations and personal observation; nothing herein expresses the opinion of SJUSD or its trustees other than myself.  

Q: What is one thing in your daily leadership where you say “I wish the business community would help me with this?” And feel free to elaborate as to why.

1) Greater opportunities for student internships, shadow days and career presentations.  We apply tremendous weight to our commitment to guiding students to develop 21st century skills that will be relevant far beyond the classroom, but “show me” is always a more powerful driver than “tell me”.   We need to SHOW students the relevancy of their learning.  One of the 8 state mandated priorities under Common Core, cleverly listed under “Other Outcomes”, anticipates that students will complete a college/career pathway experience as well as a community service experience before graduating from high school.  In order for school districts to meet this priority, we need partnerships with both businesses and nonprofit organizations.  

2) Fund the arts!  Strong nonprofits are in a position to share their wealth with students and provide enrichment programs at under resourced schools.  

3) Support Adult Literacy: Sponsor “Family Reads” programs that could be held on Saturdays and marketed towards young families.  

4) Help to identify facilities for charter schools; school facilities are being stretched beyond capacity.  

Q: If you could craft a “dream” public-private partnership between your organization and the business community, what would it look like?

An organized internship/apprenticeship / shadow opportunity / mentorship clearing house.  My vision is that the Chamber, SV leadership group or other representative of the business community would fund and staff a position for a professional whose role would be to connect with large and small businesses in the area, as well as community based, nonprofit organizations and identify internship, shadowing, apprenticeship, community service and other mentoring opportunities and then organize that data through a database, dashboard or some other clearing house model whereby students and teachers could research opportunities for engagement by area of interest, location or time commitment.   Such a liaison might begin by connecting with businesses that have CSR (corporate social responsibility) departments whose members would consider including students in company service days. In addition, that liaison might coordinate district or countywide summer internship, community service and/or summer camp information and recruitment fairs.  Finally, I envision that this clearing house would have a special section dedicated to offering PAID summer programs of relevant learning for teachers.  This network between teachers and businesses could be used to offer summer work and/or professional development internships and would serve to demonstrate support for and value of teachers.  As well, it might include paid opportunities for study and travel, sponsored by local and global businesses.

Q: Coordination and sharing of best practices is sometimes overlooked in education. Where are some areas of collaboration that you would love to foster amongst other educational institutions that are not currently existing?

1. Far more direct engagement between educators.  Would love to see individual schools sharing their successes and talents, teachers supporting and modeling for one another, less district driven PD.   2. Data models to increase transparency and parent access to information.  For example, educational institutions should work together to create dashboards to truly compare schools across common metrics, for example the 8 defined state priority areas.  A model with a menu of metrics from which parents can select to compare schools by selecting which metrics are important to them would provide a tremendous service for parents who are trying to optimize decisions about their children’s education. 3. Community or at least district Wide Summer School programs: efficiencies of scale would lead to broader range of offerings and could conceivably reach students who are seeking enrichment opportunities as well as those who are looking for credit recovery. 4. Meaningful collaboration between charter public and traditional public schools.

Q: How important is the non-profit sector in the work you are doing to provide a top-notch education to your students?

1. Vital.  Enrichment, academic, safety net services.  Students are only in schools 6-8 hours a day.   Non profits play a critical role after school and during the summer to avoid the “summer learning loss” as well as to provide comprehensive general wellness care for students (and their families).  

Q: What is not working or missing in these partnerships that you would like to see enhanced?

1. Communication needs to be better facilitated to help students re-enter school system from the juvenile justice system.  Along the same lines, more support & training is needed for teachers who work with more challenging students; there is still work to do to overcome the presumption that certain kids are going to fail no matter what intervention a teacher offers.  

2. More enrichment and support resources are needed for kids with special needs.

3. Wider access to summer programs is also important - either neighborhood based or with transportation provided.

Q:  If you could tell government officials one thing about a need you have that they may not currently be hearing, what would you say?  

To City/Local Govt:

1. We need city-wide WiFi: many students do not have internet access in their homes, making it difficult to do homework.  If every business owner paid for wifi that extended beyond their structures and if the city committed to free wifi accessibility in all public spaces, that would be a tremendous advantage to students.  Infrastructure, information highway, data storage, cloud capacity. 2. After school programs: help fund longer hours for homework centers at schools. but note that later hours would also entail funding transportation needs. 3. Promote adult literacy: illiterate adults don’t read to their kids and if parents aren’t reading to, with and in in their children’s presence, children are much less likely to learn to read, to associate it with positive emotions or to incorporate it as an important part of their learning and leisure experiences. 4. Please help to identify and make available facilities for charter schools. 5. Support the Arts and early childhood education 6. In general, whatever you do to strengthen our economy, support working families, ensure living wages will ultimately benefit students: strong economy = more self sufficient families = kids less stressed, better prepared to learn.  At the end of the day, what people want to know is are there fewer kids in poverty? Do we have more prosperous communities? Assessment at the school level is important, but what we really care about is are we building a better community; a stronger community will foster healthier children.

To County Govt:

1. Stronger partnership and communication with probation department would be helpful to support students who are re-entering the school system.  Continued strong connections with school linked services to schools ensure that districts are better prepared to meet non-academic student needs.

To State Govt:

1. Please limit new mandates, regulations.  Unless you are reforming Prop 13.  Not a great seller in business community, but numbers are real: since passage of prop 13, state funding per pupil has plunged from 1st to 49th.   Teacher salaries are too low.  Great things are expected from the public schools, yet those with expectations don’t demand adequate funding to do this job right. Public schools need more funding for, among other things, smaller schools, smaller child-teacher ratios, more qualified candidates, more emphasis on school leadership development, and more sustained sources of money for technology and its associated training and professional development.

Q: What is the biggest challenge facing K-12 education in the next ten years, and how can the business community and non-profit sector help to meet it?

1. The country is looking at a massive deficit between the number of tech jobs that will exist in the coming years and the number of prepared candidates for those jobs. Businesses and non-profits should be leading this push. If companies like Google and Apple want to continue to innovate they'll need prepared candidates. Bridging the Digital Divide is probably the most crucial challenge* and schools will need sustained sources of hardware & software, updated regularly, ongoing professional development for teachers and hands on career experiences for students.  

2. The personalization of education.  Very soon we are going to stop talking about teaching classes in favor of teaching individuals.  The landscape of higher education is already moving in this direction with online learning and k-12 is just beginning to test the waters with blended learning.  Talented educators will not become obsolete, but the idea of teaching the same lesson to a diverse group of students will begin to seem arcane.  Learning will become personalized and group experiences should shift focus from content to skills: citizenship, empathy, service, problem solving, group dynamics, etc.  Companies can help by working WITH educators to produce quality content deliverables and to design curricula that allow students to shape their own learning through inquiry, exploration and research with teachers as facilitators rather than content deliverers.  

3.  Stopping the mass exodus from teaching (average career now about five years) and addressing the pending additional shortage of even inexperienced replacements due to under enrollment of education programs.  The business community has the power and pulpit to reshape teaching a desirable, respected and well compensated profession. Of course doing so would require surmounting myriad other challenges but, if the business and non-profit communities truly want to help, they might start by ceasing to blame teachers for the systematic problems they can't control and to simply start asking them what they need to do their jobs better. (this comment courtesy of David Michael Slater, author and educator - www.davidmichaelslater.com)

2.   Finally, I conducted a very non-scientific personal survey on my FB and twitter accounts to solicit feedback to this question.   Responses ranged from too much testing to pleas to save the arts, increase time for physical activity and support more unstructured outdoor play.  Others argued that a lack of emphasis on social emotional learning is the greatest challenge and still others lamented the general “breakdown” of the public education system as a whole. Check out my FB post for more individual comments re: greatest challenges to public education ( https://www.facebook.com/NewsAndViewsArea2).

*toughest challenges to closing digital divide: 1) technology not sufficiently valued as instructional tool, 2) teachers do not receive sufficient tech professional development, 3) too many students have limited access to tech outside of school and 4) funding is insufficient.

“How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!”

This lament of Hamlet’s, despairing over Denmark’s lack of mourning for his father, the king’s, death, and his mother’s quick marriage to his late father’s brother, strongly resounded with the twenty or so high school seniors reading the classic play aloud in their English lit class at SJUSD’s Middle College.  They could relate to a teenager’s anger with his mother’s perceived “disloyalty” and the quickness with which he was expected to embrace a new parent, let alone confront a country’s quick acceptance of a new (and in Hamlet’s eyes, clearly inferior) king.  They understood the famous teenager’s depression and sympathized with his plight.  They connected with the importance of Hamlet’s friends rallying around him in support.  

After listening raptly to the enthusiastic class conversation, I had the opportunity to ask the students what it was that made their class so special.  I had already noted some obvious features: there were only twenty or so students in the class, every one of whom was engaged, either reading a role or following along in her copy of the book.  The teacher did not once have to refocus the class’s attention on the task at hand.  Participation in the conversation was broad and thoughtful.  But it was the students themselves who shared the real secrets: “everyone in this class CHOSE to be here”.  “We are all self-motivated.”  “We want to go to college and can focus on that goal more seriously here than at [name the comprehensive high school]”.  

I heard very similar comments when I next visited with the Middle College juniors during their U.S. History class.  Again, every student was engaged with the material, a challenging conversation about the ethics of the U.S. having used atomic bombs to end World War II.  The teacher encouraged participation and was supportive of all comments and questions.  Students in this class emphasized to me repeatedly that they are a community.  “We are together for two classes every day.”  “We all support each other.”  “We are here to learn.”  Again, they talked about the importance of choice: every one of them had consciously opted to participate in the Middle College program, wherein they take 2 high school level classes (English and History) as a group and 2 college level classes of their own choosing at San Jose Community College.  Some of them participate on sports teams or in clubs at their “home” high schools, but Middle College is their “family”.  In fact, the juniors took advantage of having the ear of a board trustee and told me that they would like to have their own graduation together and not go off on their own to walk the stages at their “home” high schools.  

More than 99% of middle college students graduate from high school and go on to college.  Many enter college as sophomores, saving money on tuition and moving faster toward careers.  Both the English and History teachers described their passion for teaching their students.  The workload is substantial, the curriculum is rigorous and the expectations of responsibility, motivation and accountability are all high.  Is this sounding familiar?

In the middle and high school charter classes I have observed, there were never more than 24 students in a class.  Every student was engaged with the lesson.  The teacher spoke positively about his experience teaching the group.  Expectations and rigor were high.  Appropriate behavior was expected and reinforced.  And every student in the class had chosen to be there. 

In sharing these observations with the Middle College students, I asked why traditional high school classes couldn’t look like this.  Their answers came rapid fire: “Classes are too big.”  “Teachers don’t care about every kid.”  “There are kids in the class who are disruptive, who clearly don’t want to be there.”  “Too many distractions.”  One junior shared an especially telling observation: “in traditional schools, if you are on the regular (non-Honors, non-AP) track, teachers assume you are dumb or don’t care.  I’m super motivated and decently smart, but I work much too slowly to keep up in honors and AP classes.  Yet in my regular classes as a freshman and sophomore, it was clear to me that we were viewed as the stupid kids who weren’t going anywhere.  No one really bothered to teach me or figure out that I was smart.”

I am not making blanket generalizations about teacher perceptions or student motivations; I have simply transcribed comments made by a small sample of students (50 in total) representing almost every comprehensive high school in San Jose, all of whom chose to leave those schools.  Some felt they didn’t fit in socially.  Others felt too distracted.  Some wanted to focus more seriously than did their peers.  A few were interested in saving money for college.  Somehow, none were getting what they needed from their large, comprehensive high schools.  

Jennifer Thomas, president of the San Jose Teachers’ Association, spoke eloquently and passionately this afternoon at the Downtown Rotary meeting.  Her belief in the continued strength and viability of traditional public education was both inspiring and frustrating.  The two of us have scheduled a one on one conversation to sort through many of the important issues she raised, but I share my perspective here as well to encourage a broader range of perspectives, opinions and data.  Please join in!

  Inspiring:

Teachers are working very hard.

More students are being served today by public education than in past generations when children in poverty, English language learners, and children with special needs were excluded or ignored.

Teachers’ unions are coming together with school districts to engage in important conversations about longer probationary periods for new teachers, expedited dismissal procedures for ineffective teachers, fairer evaluation models, performance pay and the “last in, first out” seniority system.  

The conversation about Proposition 13 reform to alter the business property tax cap is coming to light.

  Frustrating:

A lot of the talk’s focus was on deficiencies in the system, which I heard as rationales (accurate though they may be) for the continued opportunity gap.

A lot of responsibility (again, well deserved as it may be) was placed on factors beyond the control of the public education system*, thus further solidifying the perception that there is not much the traditional public school system can do to improve student outcomes.   

The position that “everything else needs to change” (and much of it does) does not encourage meaningful partnership but rather finger pointing and accountability denial.  

I didn’t care for the repeated emphasis on the need to hold elected officials accountable; to report to “them” what “we” need suggests that citizens bear no responsibility for our education system.  There should be no “them”; WE are all accountable to one another for creating a productive, prosperous community.   The very best elected officials cannot accomplish the transformation of any system without being part of a similarly motivated and activated citizenry and network.  

  General Comments

Public education is still heralded as the pathway out of poverty but what I heard today suggested that children or families need to lift themselves or be lifted out of poverty before they can fully benefit from the public education system.

  Charter school advocates argue that those external factors enumerated by Ms Thomas are not barriers to success; that students from low socioeconomic, English language learning environments have the same capacity for achievement if properly supported.  They offer disciplined, rigorous curricula and focus intently on metrics of academic success, generally measured by proficiency on scored tests.  

  But charter schools are not the panacea to all of the ills of traditional public education.  Charter school suspensions still exceed the averages in comparable public schools, students opt in and may be encouraged to opt out if they are not performing to expectation and traditional public schools re-absorb the students who were not successful in the charter school environment.  Students with special needs continue to be underrepresented at charter schools, though the numbers are improving.  

  So which model contains more of the elements required for improving student outcome?  To answer this question, charter schools and traditional public schools must first align on the definition of success.  I wrote recently about the division between parents who support standardized testing and view it as a reliable indicator of academic success and those who view it as a harmful narrowing of the educational experience, focusing on standardized proficiency as opposed to transformative experiences in problem solving, critical thinking, social emotional development and clear communication.  The division falls along socio-economic and racial lines, which is not unexpected given the wide range of generalized life, education and career experiences of adults in our community.