FISA courts, national security, and student testing: What's the connection?

What follows may be a stretch but hang with me. I think there is a connection.

Recently on NPR author Tim Weiner was interviewed about our national security program, the FISA court, and the recently revealed government surveillance program.

While interesting, none of what he said really related to my world until he said the following:

"Our capacity to collect (information) far exceeds our capacity to analyze and act."

Bells and whistles went off in my head. This is part of the problem in American education. Everyone it seems wants to collect information. However, collecting information is not the most important part of what we do. The critical act for us is analyzing information, figuring out what the information is telling us.

In our district we have tried to streamline the information that we collect. We do benchmark assessments with the NWEA twice a year only. Aside from state assessments we try to limit other more formal assessments. The informal classroom based assessments are meant to provide more timely, focused information.

Some of the teachers, and most likely the principals, in my district might argue, some rather passionately, that we test students too much. In the first month of school we give both the NWEA and the MEAP (state required) assessments. We also administer the Fountas and Pinnell assessments. Throughout the year we also administer unit pre/post-tests, end of course or end of semester exams. We administer the MME (state required) assessments to 11th grade students that includes the ACT assessment. We also use the EXPLORE and PLAN assessments with our 9th and 10th grade students.

While that seems like a lot of assessment, the total time for the standardized assessments is less than 2% of student hours over the course of a year. Honestly, we use about the same amount of time lining up students at the end of the day.

I would not disagree that the best use of classroom instructional time is for instruction. However, an important component of effective instruction is understanding what students know and can do. That requires assessment. So at some level assessment needs to be given some time to occur over the course of the year.

The question is, as Mr. Weiner so eloquently put it, do we have the capacity to analyze and act?

I believe we have the capacity. In the case of education, an additional question is do we have the will?

I know that we have teachers and administrators who are willing to and who have the ability to look at data and see what is going on in the life of a child. \

But sometimes it is easier to rely on our hunches or our informal observations or our experience with a child. I would not disagree that those are important and valuable pieces of information. But the information we can gather from more formal assessments is also valuable. It gives us another perspective that can either help us confirm or reject what our more informal data collection has revealed.

Teaching, it has been said, is both art and science. We need to remember that as we try to sort through the data that we collect on our students. We cannot focus on the data to the exclusion of things we see in the classroom. We cannot focus on our classroom experience to the exclusion of what more standardized assessments tell us.

We must be better than those who collect data for national surveillance. They have become quite adept at collecting data. We have traveled a piece of that road. Now it is time to make sure that we are also prepared to analyze and use the data to help students learn.

I am a number, but that doesn't tell the story

I'm a number.

I have an age - 56.

I have a weight - 212.4. That's still high but down from what it was last summer. (It will be down later this summer. Check back for updates.)

I have a waist - 34. At least I tell myself that it's 34. I'd like it to be a 32 but right now it is probably more like a 36.

I have a height - 6'1".

I have a blood pressure - 110/60.

I have a pulse rate - 65 while resting.

I had an ACT test score - 28 - although I am a little unsure how long that is really good for.

I have a shoe size - 11. Although with some shoes I need a half size bigger and with others I need a half size smaller. Don't ask me why - I can't explain it.

There is a number for almost any part of me.

One might argue that I could be defined by my numbers. They, in theory, tell you how healthy I am, how fast I am, how smart I am.

These days there are people who want to use numbers to define our schools. Match a test score with a teacher and whiz-bang you have a number that will tell you if that teacher is doing a good job.

I happen to believe that numbers are a good thing.

But I think numbers are being asked to do things that they cannot do.

Numbers can give you information but they can't give you answers.

People give answers. People figure things out.

So while we have a lot of numbers with schools what we are missing are answers.

Numbers can't define schools anymore than numbers can define me.

Numbers can describe me. They can identify very specific parts of me. But numbers don't tell the whole story.

Numbers can't tell you about why I laugh or smile.

Numbers can't tell you what I care passionately about or what I love to read.

Numbers can't tell you why I love baseball or why I am so bad at golf.

But numbers are easy to find.

So sometimes we invest numbers with magical powers that they do not have.

Numbers give information but people give answers.

So in my school district we are forced to use numbers to evaluate teachers. And we will.

But we will also ask teachers what they know about the numbers. What do the numbers say?

I am not looking for numbers to give me an answer.

I am looking for a teacher, a principal, a person to give me an answer.

The numbers might be able to tell me what a student scored. A teacher will be able to tell me what it means. A principal will be able to help me understand.

Why the world is different and schools must be as well

Boeing, according to the Seattle Times, is now using robots to "wash, apply solvent to remove dirt, rinse and then spray two different paint types. They reach,even into complex spaces inside the open wing root that must be painted for corrosion protection."

It used to take a team of painters 4.5 hours to apply the first coat of paint. The robots do it in 24 minutes.

The inspiration for this change - the automobile industry. 

Jobs that used to be there are no longer there. Those jobs have been going away for a long time. Those of us who live in the industrial Midwest have seen this trend - have lived this trend - with the automobile industry for quite some time. As we continue to move forward the routine jobs, the manual jobs, the jobs that used to pay well will continue to go away. 

They will be replaced by jobs that require students to think more and do less.

Those of us who educate students understand we need to educate students to program the robots instead of educating students to paint. 

The world will always need doers but the present and the future require schools to produce thinkers.

Did I learned anything important in school?

Did I ever learn anything important in school?

Yes.

But, of course, I'm supposed to think that. I'm a Superintendent.

The question is what?

Neil Gaiman has said:

I've been making a list of the things

they don't teach you at school.

They don't teach you how to love somebody.

They don't teach you how to be famous.

They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor.

They don't teach you how to walk away from someone

you don't love any longer.

They don't teach you how to know what's going on

in someone else's mind.

They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying.

They don't teach you anything worth knowing.

Each of us could add to the list that Mr. Gaiman started.

They don't teach you how to laugh.

They don't teach you how to enter a room and feel comfortable.
They don't teach you how to react when you get

a phone call with terrible news.

They don't teach you how to be a friend.

The list could go on and on. School does not teach us everything. 

But is it true that school doesn't teach you anything worth knowing? No!

School doesn't teach us everything. It is not supposed to. School can't teach us everything. There is just too much to know.

That's where parents, grandparents, friends, uncles, aunts, and others come in.

That's why we develop passions and interests and do our own research. 

But that brings us back to the question that we started with - what did I learn in school that is important?

It's not so much that school taught me specific things that I will remember all my life - although it did. I learned about the periodic table and simplifying equations and the APA method of citations for papers. I learned specific tasks to help me complete specific homework assignments. I learned multiplication tables and spelling words. I learned the classics and the not-so classics. 

I followed the tried and true math trail - algebra, geometry, algebra 2, and pre-calculus. I circled the globe learning about countries. I wrote papers. I completed projects in shoe boxes. 

I learned the curriculum that was taught. And that was important.

The things I learned in school prepared me for college. It gave me a foundation that allowed me to continue learning. 

But I also learned the curriculum that was not taught and that schools on occasion don't want to recognize.

I learned that people are not always nice. I learned that some people turn their backs on you and others embrace you. I learned that navigating the social pathway helps you learn a lot about yourself and a lot about other people.

I learned that looks are not everything. I learned that some people think they are.

I learned that some adults are your advocates and some adults are not.

I'm in a school because I believe in schools. Can schools be better? Absolutely.

Do I believe that schools help people learn things that are important? I believe that they do!  

On Teacher Appreciation Day, I would like to say thank you

I've had teachers whom I've loved.

Miss Hixenbaugh, 4th grade teacher at Inez elementary School. She had never married, stood over six feet tall, drove a Studebaker, and promised a Hershey candy bar and a dollar bill to any student who had perfect attendance. Plus, she was a wonderful teacher. We wrote stories, we acted out plays, we enjoyed coming to school every day.

I've had teachers whom I've respected.

Coach Braig, 10th and 11th grade Latin teacher at Sandia High School. He looked me in the eyes when he talked to me, challenged me to do better in his class, and always said hello to me when I walked by his classroom.

I've had teachers who challenged me.

Miss Ely, 10th grade English at Sandia High School. She helped me see that I had a voice and that I should share that voice with others. She challenged everyone in our class to try and do things differently, to engage people, to make people hear what you were trying to say.

I've had teachers who let me know that someone besides my Mom and Dad cared for me.

Mrs. Getz, 9th grade Speech teacher at Monroe Junior High School. She spent time helping me learn how to be on the debate team. She made sure that our class won the after-school PTA party. She laughed and cried with us because she cared.

Today, May 7th is officially Teacher Appreciation Day.

For all those teachers who have touched my life, had a hand in making me who I am today, challenged me, cared for me, inspired me, and taught me - I say thank you!

If work is no longer a place, what about school?

School, for most of my life, has been a place.

Inez Elementary School. Monroe Junior High School. Sandia High School. Graceland College. The University of Washington. Texas Tech University. Wayne State University.

Each and everyone of those schools was, and is, a place. I showed up, entered a building, found my classroom, sat in a desk, and waited for the teacher to help me learn. For the most part the teachers directed my learning. They identified the questions that I was to ask. They provided the resources that I needed.

Then I saw this on Twitter today.

Steve Kwikkel ‏@SKwikkel1h

The idea that work is a location is quickly fading. School as a location is a notion that will fade away too. Gr8 catch @B_Wagoner #plaea

It made me think.

I work from home. I work in my car. I work at Biggby's Coffee.

I work during the day. I work at night.

I work during the traditional work week. I also work on the weekends.

It's not that I work all the time, it's that I work not only at work but also when I need to in places and at times that would be considered unconventional.

Work is no longer, for me, defined by a place or a time.

Work is now about getting things done. Sometimes that happens in my office or in my school district.

Other times it happens at night, on the weekends, through Twitter chats, through reading, through listening.

The answers that I seek are not in a book. They are in a thousand books, and articles, and websites, and conversations with colleagues.

If where I work is no longer defined by a place and occurs at times and at places that don't fit in a box, maybe there is another way to look at learning.

I still consider myself a learner and I learn in a whole host of ways. I learn via webinars. I learn by reading. I learn by engaging colleagues through Twitter. I learn by going to conferences and attending sessions. I learn by watching YouTube videos. I learn by listening.

There is value in learning at a place and with other people. There is value in having someone guide me as I learn.

But . . . there is also value in exploring on my own, with colleagues, in ways that would be defined an un-traditional.

As work transforms from a place, I should look to see how school can transform as well.

Letting happiness find me

I've been thinking about happiness lately. Questions abound.

What is it?

How do you find it?

How do you keep it?

Recently, I've thought more about happiness than usual. Finding happiness and keeping happiness seem harder than ever.

I certainly don't have all the answers to what happiness means, how to find it, and how to keep it, but I know I want to be happy.

There are books and books and websites on happiness. I've read some but I've thought more.

Here's what I think I know.

Happiness comes not from accumulating things but from developing relationships.

Happiness comes not from being somebody but from helping someone else up.

Happiness is not an end in itself but a result of being involved in something meaningful beyond yourself.

Happiness does not mean that you don't hurt or grieve or suffer.

Happiness comes because you care about making the world a better place.

School superintendents are supposed to be focused on outcomes and test results and curriculum and budgets. I focus on those. I recognize that those are important.

But, more importantly, I want to focus on serving my family, my school district, my students, my staff, and my community. If I do that  - happiness will find me.