→ "Taking the Stress Out of Grading"

Nothing too dramatic here from Joe Feldman via ASCD, but good overview that mostly aligns with my views. The four "outdated" practices mentioned:

  • Using a 0-100 scale
  • Curving grades
  • Including homework performance in grades
  • Grading participation

Even if one would quibble with some of the details (and I do), it's a good starting place for conversations about the point of grades. One point that I've made countless times:

"Even though we preach, 'We love mistakes because you need them to learn!' our grading practices hang a sword above every student's head.

CEOs of Trillion-Dollar Companies to Schools: Give Us More Employees

From The Verge:

More than 500 notable people in business, education, and the nonprofit sector are calling for governors and education leaders to update K-12 curriculums (sic) to allow “every student in every school to have the opportunity to learn computer science,” according to a new letter posted publicly at https://www.ceosforcs.com/. The list of signatories includes many prominent figures in technology, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon founder and executive chair Jeff Bezos, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, and Meta founder, chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Here is an excerpt from the letter (emphasis mine):

The undersigned commit our support by collectively creating employment opportunities for computer science students in every city in the USA, and in every sector, from manufacturing to banking, from agriculture to healthcare. Many of us offer internships to help these students find their career pathway. Many of us have funded efforts in CS education, to support underserved communities. But there is only so much industry can do by ourselves.

On the one hand, of course! Computer science opportunities should be readily available for all students who are interested.

On the other hand (because it's always two things with me), what is stopping these companies from hiring people and then training them on the job? How much of the onus should be on society at large to provide plug-and-play employees for the wealthiest corporations in the world?

Again, from the letter:

The USA has over 700,000 open computing jobs but only 80,000 computer science graduates a year. We must educate American students as a matter of national competitiveness.

What is preventing these companies from hiring people who are not computer science graduates, and then giving them the training they need?

It comes down to money, of course: it is costly in both time and treasure to teach people (see: the entire education system). The more of that training Apple and Microsoft and others can outsource to schools (and colleges and universities), the better that is for their bottom line. Why pay somebody a salary, give them insurance, and all of that when they are still learning and aren't yet a productive employee? Shareholders would not love that!

I'm not saying that schools shouldn't offer robust computer science programs, or that students in high school should not study subjects with an eye toward their future career goals. But these corporations need to do more than say, "Hey, education system, do better!"

One practical challenge: It's challenging for schools to hire a computer science teacher for $40,000, when that person can make $150,000 at Apple. Are these corporations lobbying their congresspeople for more funding for education? Are they lobbying for higher corporate tax rates to make sure that all schools can hire and retain the best teachers? Are they willing to hire somebody without a specific degree, but give them a chance to learn on the job?

We have set up a system in this country where demands like those in this letter are constantly placed upon "education," as if education is an entirely separate entity. In this, like in so many other things, it might help if these corporations saw themselves as intimately connected to each other and to the rest of society, instead of standing apart and expecting us all to bend to the needs of the and their shareholders.

Talking About Grades During a Pandemic

Every day there’s another headline about colleges and universities struggling financially, as students are hesitant to spend $50,000 for a year of online learning. Other schools with multibillion-dollar endowments are being asked what their endowments are for if they are not willing to spend them during this crisis. The problems with the rising costs of higher education and the widening gap between the wealthy colleges and the rest are not new, but the pandemic is highlighting them. If some colleges and universities, particularly smaller campuses–both private and public, close in the next few years, certainly people will point to the pandemic as a cause of the closure, even if the underlying problems existed long before 2019.

I have seen this happen at my own school, where within days of our closure in March, tensions that previously existed mostly below the surface immediately became apparent. One example: grading philosophies.

As with most schools around the country, we shut down right before Spring Break and shifted to online classes for the final two months of the semester. Immediately questions arose from teachers and students: what are grades going to look like this semester? Many colleges and universities began adopting variations of a pass/fail grading system for the semester. Should we do that as well? Or should we continue with the existing grading scale?

The arguments in favor of a pass/fail grading scale usually centered on the difficulties in both teaching and learning in the midst of the crisis. Teachers were doing heroic work, but still had to convert their entire curriculum into something that could be delivered remotely, all while also taking care of themselves and their own families. Likewise students were suddenly shut off from their friends and activities, with many of them now taking care of siblings, living in challenging home situations, and trying to learn online for the first time in their lives. For the teachers who advocated some kind of pass/fail (more specifically, a pass/incomplete) scale, it felt ridiculous to try and pretend that an A vs. an A- held any kind of meaningful distinction in the midst of the crisis, with students having such a variety of outside circumstances they were dealing with.

The argument against changing the grading scale was that without the extrinsic motivation of a letter grade to motivate them, students would do less work, would not participate on the online classes, would fall behind academically, and may find themselves more depressed and anxious without the grades to push them. Yes, these were unprecedented times, and of course teachers should be understanding of that as they assign grades, but getting rid of letter grades would only make the situation worse.

My students and I spent an entire hour of an online class meeting early during the shutdown talking about grades. I was teaching 11th-grade students, and they were all very conscious that they’d always been told that this was the year to make an impression on colleges. The students were pretty evenly split: some of them agreed that a pass/incomplete system made the most sense. Others were horrified at the idea of not being able to earn letter grades. Why? Because then they can’t make themselves stand out against their peers when they’re applying to college. Several of them even mentioned that they knew how petty that sounded, but they were being honest. If everybody gets a “Pass” grade, then how are they going to be able to stand out?

Here’s the thing: both sides were right. It was ridiculous to try and pretend that grades meant the same in May 2020 as they did in December 2019, and students were struggling with all kinds of things in the middle of a pandemic that greatly impacted their learning. On the other hand, many students do use the letter grades as a motivating factor, and, particularly for our high-achieving students, they were very genuinely concerned about grades as a way to distinguish themselves from their peers and what that meant for their future. A grade is only meaningful to some students in the context of it being either higher or lower than the grade of the student next to them.

We ended up with a compromise plan: we kept letter grades, but changed the scale (“widening the goalposts” in the words of a student) and removed +/- grades. Like all good compromises, it upset many on both sides of the argument, and I genuinely understand both perspectives. Regardless of our specific solution, my point is that whenever the conversation pre-pandemic turned to grading philosophies, those two sides of the discussion were rarely stated so clearly.

There are teachers who have long felt that grades hamper genuine learning, making it hard to give authentic feedback that students take to heart. In addition, students are always dealing with things outside of the classroom, not just during a pandemic. What does it mean that one student has a quiet home life and private tutors, and another has a mom who’s sick and three siblings to take care of as soon as the school day ends? Does earning an A mean the same thing for both of them? Some teachers would go so far as to abolish grades if the school would allow it.

Other teachers feel just as strongly and make good-faith arguments about why grades are necessary to get the best possible work from students. Yes, we would love them all to be intrinsically motivated, but they aren’t, and the reality is that they will strive for that A+. That is not to say that teachers who feel this way about grades don’t care about students and what they’re going through at home, but just that it’s a separate issue: the grade is a reflection of how much content the student has mastered, an “objective” accounting.

I have my own opinions on the topic of grades, but that’s for another day. Right now, I am glad that the pandemic has brought these questions to the surface, because it really gives us a chance as a school (and as educators in general) to crystallize exactly what is important for us. Is our school’s mission to help students’ learning and self-actualization? Then perhaps grading scales should reflect those goals. And if grades don’t help the process, then get rid of them. Or is the job of our school to impart content and then measure the extent that students have mastered that content? In that case, the grading scale should accurately reflect those goals. When students themselves say that grades are primarily for them to be judged against their peers, how does that fit our school’s mission and goals? Do we want to acknowledge that reality, or push back against it?

Is grading at my school drastically changing? No, not right now. We’re not abolishing grades, nor making any big moves towards standardizing teacher expectations. But I have had more conversations in the last four months about the purpose of grades, about just how they do and do not impact student performance and learning. So if ten years from now conversations around grading at my school are substanially different, or there are concrete changes to grading policies, one could easily look at the pandemic as a “cause.” Not because the differences in philosophies were directly borne out of the pandemic, but they were highlighted and brought to the surface by the crisis.

→ "California Tells Schools to Start Later, Giving Teenagers More Sleep"

Finally, some big-time recognition of all the data suggesting that students not only need more sleep, but that their bodies are naturally tuned to stay awake later at night and get up later in the morning.

The law, signed on Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, pushes back the start times at most public middle and high schools, making California the first state to order such a shift. Classes for high schools, including those operated as charter schools, will start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. under the law, and classes for middle schools will start no earlier than 8 a.m.

My school starts at 8 a.m., which isn't that egregious compared to some others out there, but I'd still love to push that start time back a bit.

When schools in Seattle recently moved start times back nearly an hour, researchers saw significant gains:

Researchers at the University of Washington studied the high school students both before and after the start-time change. Their findings appear in a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. They found students got 34 minutes more sleep on average with the later school start time. This boosted their total nightly sleep from 6 hours and 50 minutes to 7 hours and 24 minutes.

The study also found an improvement in grades and a reduction in tardiness and absences.

Of course, if it were that simple, this could've been fixed by now. As this article in The Atlantic points out, there are a few challenges, including transportation. But because this is America, athletics are of course key:

A lot of the pushback against moving back school start times, he notes, comes from coaches, players, and parents who worry that the change would eat into precious practice and game time.

Frequently, though, athletics programs adjust just fine, as some school administrators have noted after starting school days later. And in fact, there’s good evidence suggesting that getting more rest helps athletes perform better and be less vulnerable to injuries. Nonetheless, sports-related concerns often dominate when the prospect of later start times is raised.

As that article concludes, there is no perfect solution.

Keep start times early, and teens don’t get the sleep they need. Make start times later, and people involved in sports and other extracurriculars complain, and transportation costs go up. Keep school days the usual length, and working parents are in a jam. Make school days longer, and both students and teachers might dread the added time.

There are critics of the new California law, but it is going to be fascinating to see if it begins a trend of later start times and more attention paid to school schedules.

Teaching in the Age of Controversy

My good friend Jeff once shared this quote on his blog:

A child who is protected from all controversial ideas... is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes—and it will come—may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system. (Source: Jane Smiley, Chicago Tribune)

In today's era of increasing polarization, it seems that anything labeled "political" is also considered "controversial." When so many problems are ultimately caused by ignorance, I worry what this means for the future. This year, I taught ninth-grade Human Geography, a new course for me and our curriculum. Some of the topics that came up: migration, climate change, religious freedom, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, changing definitions of race, and other "political" topics.

I think that I successfully managed to help the students learn about these topics without causing unnecessary angst, but I was certainly wary of potential phone calls from angry parents. But at the same time, it was not an option to not cover these topics. Take migration, for example. A very charged topic right now, but the understanding of migration is crucial not only to Human Geography as a subject but to the mission of my school as a Catholic, Jesuit institution.

I've seen other teachers attacked for simply presenting topics that students or parents felt were "too political." In almost every case, those topics were, I think, vital for students to understand and equally vital to our school's mission. Our Mission Statement says very clearly that our school:

promotes justice and mercy, develops critical minds and nurtures compassionate hearts to serve others

It's impossible to develop critical minds, compassionate hearts, and promote justice if certain topics are considered verboten. It's not about indoctrinating students–though at a mission-based school, it should certainly be expected to express that some points of view fit our mission and others do not. But if we, the teachers, do not helps students to wrestle with challenging topics, to understand their blindspots, biases, and ignorance, then who will?

So when people say, "Teachers should not be political in the classroom," what do they really mean? My fear is that they are trying to remove from discussion any topic that would threaten their own power, whether economic, social, or political. A tweet from the pseudonymous @sisyphus38 put it succinctly:

Who determines what is political and what is educational...(And how are people tricked into thinking there was such a difference?) Who determines what is on the agenda or off the agenda? Power does of course and power serves power.

Being "neutral," as some recommend, is not an option. As a teacher, either I am helping students uncover the truth, particularly when it comes to areas of injustice, or I am actively perpetuating oppression. As Elie Wiesel said when accepting the Nobel Prize:

"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant."

As a teacher, I have to be willing to address topics of injustice, even when I'm worried they may be too "political." That means working hard to craft lessons that challenge the students and to provide a safe space for students to grow into their own understanding of the world. If I don't take up this task, then I am ceding the role of instructor and guide to others–to social media and to that same culture of polarization and tribalism that has gotten us to this place. The students deserve better.

As an administrator, I have to also make sure that the other teachers feel empowered and protected when their own lessons receive pushback from students, parents, or colleagues who feel threatened. How can we make it clear as a community that we have a duty to prepare students to engage with the world thoughtfully, even (especially) when it's uncomfortable? We have to be willing to dialogue with those who disagree, but also stand firm about our role. I feel fortunate to work at a mission-based school, where we can be very upfront that this is a school with a point-of-view. Every member of this community is here as a volunteer.

To help keep me grounded in this mission as an educator, I have a poster hanging in my office with a quote from Paulo Freire:

Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

I cannot think of a better call to action for educators.

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Three Org Charts

The always-wise Michael Lopp, a.k.a. Rands, recently tweeted:

There are three org charts you must understand as a leader: the org chart, the political org chart, and the technical org chart.

Much of my formal training in educational leadership could've been condensed into those 128 characters. Without understanding the team in place, and both the formal and informal structures that shape that team, a leader has no hope of effectively managing significant change.

After reading this, I spent some time on a recent flight sketching out what those three charts might look like based on the schools in which I've worked. These are specific to my experiences, of course (but no names!), but general enough that I think others who work in schools may appreciate the exercise. These sketches are glossing over countless complexities and nuances, but the point is that it's a good exercise for any school leader to undertake.

The org chart

The org chart at the private schools with which I have the most experience tends to be very hierarchical.

The org chart at the private schools with which I have the most experience tends to be very hierarchical.

My experience has been primarily at private schools, and the official organizational chart tends to be a pretty simple hierarchy. If a leader is implementing change, they must understand the formal structures within which that change will be happening, and how those structures may be impacted or challenged by the changes. The fact that schools are so hierarchical, with relatively few positions of formal leadership, is a real challenge (more on that below).

The political org chart

The political org chart can vary widely, but the point is: the head of the organizational structure may not actually have the most influence.

The political org chart can vary widely, but the point is: the head of the organizational structure may not actually have the most influence.

Obviously, this varies widely from school to school (or even from month to month within a school). In my experience, the head of the political org chart may be one of the formal administrators–but perhaps (often?) not the one at the top of the structural org. Just below them are the groups of teachers that wield quite a bit of political sway. These tend to be veteran teachers, though "veteran" could mean four years or twenty-four years, depending on the context.

Some of these teachers hold political influence because not only do they have history in the institution, but they are well-liked. They may or not be the best teachers or colleagues (cf. the next chart), but most of the faculty and staff enjoy working with them, and so their opinion carries a lot of weight. If these teachers are onboard with a change, it can make things much easier for everybody else to adopt.

There can also be a group of veteran teachers with similar influence because they (or their influence) is feared. These are the teachers who can end a discussion with a well-timed remark or a conspicuous lack of support. If these teachers aren't onboard with a plan, their gravitational pull can make it that much harder for other teachers to buy in.

The skills org chart

There's a new book written every hour about the skills needed for teaching, but I think most of it falls into mastery of these three categories.

There's a new book written every hour about the skills needed for teaching, but I think most of it falls into mastery of these three categories.

In a school, the "skills" are much more varied than what Rands deals with in his work managing engineers, but they're just as important. There are countless ways to try and make a chart of the various skills that are evident in a school, and even more ways of trying to quantify or label those skills. This overly simple chart is just meant to show the obvious–there exist among teachers different skill levels. Again, if a leader is working to effect change, they will need to understand the skills of the people undertaking the change.

I think it would be a good exercise for any leader to try and sketch out their own versions of these three charts, both in general terms like I've done, but also thinking of the specific individuals in the organization. The real value comes in examining where the various charts align, because that's where conflict can arise, particularly while managing change.

  • Is the person at the top of the org chart also at the top of the political or skills charts? If not, what does that mean for the leader's chances of success?
  • What are the political forces that will need to be onboard for any change to succeed? Understanding the political org chart would be helpful in conducting a force field analysis.
  • Are some of the most-skilled people at the bottom of the org chart or the political org chart? That's a recipe for disgruntled employees and a culture of mediocrity (at best).
  • What's the Venn diagram of overlap between these charts? If somebody is near the top (or bottom) of one, two, or three of these charts what does that mean for that individual and for the institution?
  • Is the leader's view of these charts the same as the individuals in the organization? Are there people who see their role differently than the organization as a whole sees them?
  • What if somebody is a great teacher, a leader within the school, but does not want to leave the classroom to become an administrator? What are the structures in place for talented employees to grow and to benefit the community in broader ways, without them choosing an entirely new field?
  • Who is around the table when the big decisions are being made? Those at the top of the org chart, the political chart, or the skills chart? If somebody is at the top of the political or skills chart but not involved in decision-making, how much support and expertise will there be for implementing those decisions?

On that last point, I recently read a passage from Kim Scott's Radical Candor that illustrates this very clearly (emphasis mine):

In his book A Primer on Decision Making, James March explains why it’s a bad thing when the most “senior” people in a hierarchy are always the deciders. What he calls “garbage can decision-making” occurs when the people who happen to be around the table are the deciders rather than the people with the best information. Unfortunately, most cultures tend to favor either the most senior people or the people with the kinds of personalities that insist on sitting around the table. The bad decisions that result are among the biggest drivers of organizational mediocrity and employee dissatisfaction.

Any leader who doesn't understand these three org charts and how they interact in their institution is likely going to have a bad time.

→ Responsibility vs. Compliance

I've written about homework before, and it's a topic I consider often.

Over at The Teacher and the Admin, the two authors have written several posts lately on the this very topic. In one post, Gary Armida decries what he sees as the false notion that homework is necessary for students to learn responsibility.

We now give more work to kids than ever before. That “more” isn’t developing responsibility. That “more” is developing compliance.

I think the distinction between "responsibility" and "compliance" is a key one in schools today, and applies to more topics than just homework. How often do we teachers reward compliance over genuine learning?

Drowning in Information

Twenty years ago, noted biologist and author E.O. Wilson wrote:

We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely. (Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge)

I think this has only become more true over time. That's why all this debate about STEM vs. the humanities has been so exhausting to me. If we don't give students the opportunity to learn both, we end up with billionaires building rockets... to shoot their sports car into space.

Then there are studies like this one, that indicate STEM majors are less politically active:

An analysis that we conducted shows that college students studying STEM disciplines — that is, science, technology, engineering and mathematics — were among the least likely to vote. STEM students appear less interested in other forms of political and civic engagement, too. One study found that students who took more science and engineering courses were less likely to participate in politics by donating money to a campaign or attending a political meeting. Another found that engineering majors were less committed to social activism than their non-STEM peers.

As Fareed Zakaria wrote a couple years ago (emphasis mine):

This dismissal of broad-based learning, however, comes from a fundamental misreading of the facts — and puts America on a dangerously narrow path for the future. The United States has led the world in economic dynamism, innovation and entrepreneurship thanks to exactly the kind of teaching we are now told to defenestrate. A broad general education helps foster critical thinking and creativity. Exposure to a variety of fields produces synergy and cross fertilization. Yes, science and technology are crucial components of this education, but so are English and philosophy.

Instead of such a singular focus on a relatively narrow field of topics, we should be spending our energy on how to integrate all the subjects that have been kept in such distinct silos for too long.

→ "Ten Ways to Leverage Student Choice in Your Classroom"

The longer I teacher, the more I look for ways to empower my students to make choices the direct the class. I enjoyed this list of simple strategies for giving students more choice in the classroom, while still respecting the role of the teacer:

When we incorporate choice, students own the learning process. We honor their agency and empower them to become the life-long learners we want them to be. At some point, they will leave the classroom and they won’t have a guide right there by their side. They will have to take charge and make decisions about their own learning. This is why student choice is so critical.

The Heroic Work of School Counselors

Recently, I was asked to put into writing the role our counselors have in our school, as the school leaders are discussing staffing. As I am wont to do, I probably wrote more than they intended to read and they regret asking my opinion. Since this week is also National School Counselors Week, I’m going to share that email below.

Cura personalis. That phrase is uttered often by administrators here, stamped on the admissions brochures, and posted throughout the school. It is at the core of everything we do here. One thing I have learned is that the work of cura personalis doesn’t really scale. If we add ten more students to the community, the daily workload of the Registrar or the Asst. Principal does not change significantly. But if a counselor has ten more students, they don’t suddenly have more time in the day to meet with those students. They can only be present for one student at a time.

The work of cura personalis is messy. It is slow work, getting a student to go from failing her classes, to passing them, to getting As and Bs. To help a student grieve for a lost friendship or a lost parent is a process full of stops and starts. The timeframe is not measured in 60 minute meetings, but often in semesters or years of the students’ time here. That work is simply not possible without our counselors. Period, full stop.

The needs of our students are not declining. In fact, there is much evidence that the mental health of adolescents nationwide is as precarious now as at any time in our nation’s history. Depression, anxiety, social isolation, addictions, perfectionism—our students have very real struggles. We are fortunate that many of our students come from homes with very supportive parents, but that is far from an inoculation against these challenges. In addition, the school is actively looking to bring in a more diverse population, to be a school for all students who want to be a part of our mission. Many of these students have even more external pressures, and our counselors are a vital source of support for them.

What would additional staffing in the counseling department mean for our community? It would mean making a commitment to live out the mottos that are so frequently bandied about. It would mean making a commitment to our students that we care about their well-being, not just their grades. I could go on for pages about the students in crisis who are still here only because of the tireless work of our counselors. One need only to attend a single retreat to hear of the times our counselors have literally saved the life of a student. However, just as important are the names I don’t know, the students who passed through here or transferred out without having made a connection.

Our counselors are not the only ones responsible for our students’ wellbeing, of course, but their role cannot be understated. I'm fortunate to work at a school with a focus on the students' whole person, and that mission is embodied in the work of every adult here. But if you are a teacher or administrator, give your school counselors an extra "thank you" this week for all their tireless work.