Tag Archives: NAEP

Learning is the Only Thing that Counts and Time Must Be a Variable Resource

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In our existing classrooms, students are given only so much time to study a new lesson and practice its skills, while striving to learn from their mistakes. Time must be a variable resource available for teacher and students in whatever quantities students require to learn.

The administration of tests and moving students on to new lessons is driven by schedules and calendars embedded in academic standards rather than by the needs of students and teachers. In other settings we test to determine if someone or something is ready. Why not in education?

Across the U.S., today we can estimate that, when it is time for the chapter test, 30 percent or less of students will earn A’s, and B’s, while another thirty five percent, approximately, will earn C’s. The remaining 35 percent of students will post D’s and F’s. All will be moved on to subsequent lessons in each subject area, ready or not.

Only the top thirty percent will move on to new lessons in possession of the prerequisite knowledge and skills success on subsequent lessons will require. These students will learn more as they move from one lesson to the next but what about their classmates?

Somehow, we must embrace the maxim that all kids count or none of them count. Students pushed ahead without prerequisite knowledge and skills will fall behind with each lesson.

Don’t take my word for it. Examine teachers’ gradebooks. It matters little that students in a few schools and classrooms achieve at a high level because they are the exceptions, not the norm. The good fortune of the students in these schools is a function of the high level of academic preparedness and emotional development they bring with them to kindergarten. Students who are not so fortunate exist in a different reality, as do their teachers. These kids need the same opportunity to learn.

Sometimes these less fortunate classrooms are in other schools in the same community, or even other classrooms in the same school. Sadly, the existing education process—the way we structure, organize, task, staff, resource and evaluate teachers, students, and their classroom—rarely allows teachers to adapt what they do to meet the needs of students. The process is focused more on conformance and compliance than it is on success in learning. We set children up for failure, by the millions, not only in school but in life.

Kids who are pushed ahead with Cs, Ds, and Fs and who lack the prerequisite knowledge and skills on which future lessons depend, will learn less and less as they move from semester to semester. When it is time for them to sit for state and NAEP exams, we should not be surprised that their outcomes will resemble if not mirror the scores recorded in their teachers’ gradebooks.  By the time these latter students move on to middle school they will be poorly prepared and, if it has not already begun to happen, they will give up and quit trying.

If you are a middle school teacher, how many new students arrive for their first day of school who do not care about learning and do not try? How successful are you in turning these kids around? How easy does the education process make it to turn these kids around?

Despite the best and even heroic effort of teachers, giving up because of their lack of success is what students have learned during their first six years of school. Don’t you agree, we should be able to do better?

Teachers’ frustrations have been apparent for years, not only with their individual and collective voices, but also with their choices. Far too often their choice is to leave the profession.

This reality exists because the education process at work in our schools and on which we expect teachers and their students to rely has been flawed for decades.

These will be the outcomes we will get until we choose to do something different. I offer my education model as an alternate approach.  The Hawkins Model© is available for free for any school district willing to put it to the test in one of their struggling elementary schools, of which there are thousands throughout the U.S.

Please understand, this is not a problem that will fix itself. If we want better outcomes we must try something new and, for this, education leaders must accept responsibility. This is true of teachers’ unions, also.

It is not until we stop blaming others and accept responsibility for our problems that we begin to acquire the power to solve them.

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students and teachers, learning, classrooms, time to study, academic standards, the needs of students and teachers, move on to new lessons, perquisite knowledge and skills, perquisite knowledge, gradebooks, fall behind with each lesson, academic preparedness, emotional development, kindergarten, existing education process, conformance and compliance, success in learning, We set children up for failure, state and NAEP exams, middle school, Teachers’ frustrations, outcomes, education model, The Hawkins Model©, school district, accept responsibility, education leaders, teachers’ unions, NAEP

The Hawkins Model©: Education Reimagined, One Success at a Time – A Synopsis

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A TWO PAGE EXCERPT:

This is the first excerpt of the Synopsis of my book and i encourage you to click on the link at the bottom of the black banner at the top of this page and read the entire document. I am seeking volunteers to preview the manuscript of my book, prior to beginning the process of querying agents in search of a major publisher. This book and model can benefit from the widest possible audience. I am specifically asking for letters of endorsements from respected educators to provide the credibility that only professionals of your stature can lend. I would be grateful for an acceptance of my invitation to read.

You are also asked to help spread this word by Retweeting and/or share the link to this blog post https://bit.ly/3MGMTks

Synopsis Excerpt #1

Frustration with and Blaming Public Education

The frustration with the disappointing academic achievement of students has been building, over the last several decades, and the evidence of the academic struggles of millions of American children is pervasive and compelling. The assumption of many is that the problem exists in public schools but data from each of the states and from the National Assessment of Educational Progress[1] (NAEP) suggest publicly funded charter schools struggle just as much if not more. Even faith-based schools that typically outperform their public-school counterparts, still have far too many children who fall short of expectations.

The temptation is for educators to blame Covid but although the pandemic contributed to a significant drop in test scores, student performance was already unacceptably low, as NAEP data from 2019 will illustrate, below. What Covid has done is blessed us with an opportunity to abandon the obsession of policy makers with keeping students moving at the same pace, from one lesson to the next. Test scores have, effectively, been scattered by the wind and to return to that objective will be futile.

Since the first version of my model was introduced in 2013, I have been encouraging educators to shift the focus to steady progress by individual students, from one success to the next, wherever we find them on the academic success or preparedness continuums. Covid has provided the perfect opportunity to implement The Hawkins Model© nation-wide.

We believe the standard against which students should be measured is “proficient” which was introduced by the NAEP as one of the “achievement levels” in which students fall. They are “Basic.” “Proficient,” and Advanced. Proficient is defined as:

“Having a demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter, including subject matter knowledge, application of such knowledge to real world situations, and analytical skills appropriate to subject matter.” [2]

Please note, the highlighting is mine. You will see, throughout this work, we will use “subject matter mastery” and “proficiency” interchangeably.

We believe helping students achieve and be able to demonstrate proficiency is the appropriate goal of education. Many states have adopted modified versions of the NAEP’s achievement levels. Some have added “approaching proficient”  or “approaching grade level” to the list of achievement levels. Unfortunately, many students who assess as approaching proficient from one year to the next, never seem to reach a point where they can demonstrate proficiency. This suggests such test results are false positives.

Blame game

Let us post our biases so everyone can see. Teachers are not the problem with education in America; just the opposite is true. All the positive outcomes of students for the last half century or more are because of the help of teachers, despite the inefficacy of the education process. Teachers are an essential variable in the education equation and the glue that holds it all together. My model and yet-to-be-published book will be dedicated to schoolteachers everywhere.

The response of leaders of business and industry, government officials, and education policy makers has been to point fingers and to assign blame, rather than initiate a problem-solving methodology to understand why the outcomes of so many students are not meeting expectations. One of the many fundamental assertions and assumptions on which this work is based is, “it is only when we stop blaming others and accept responsibility for our problems that we begin to acquire the power to fix them.” Blaming serves only to distract us from addressing the challenges facing education in the U.S.

            Our challenge in the development of The Hawkins Model© has come down to the application of the principles of systems thinking[3], organizational design and development, and the principles of positive leadership that I introduced in my book, The Difference Is You, Power Through Positive Leadership[4], published in 2013. Given the axiom that every organization is structured to produce the outcomes it gets, if we want something better, we must determine what it is we genuinely want and then design and structure a process to produce those outcomes. This is the challenge we have undertaken in this work. We offer this model as gift to our nation’s teachers and to their students.

[1] The Nation’s Report Card | NAEP (ed.gov), National Assessment of Educational Progress is part of the National Center for Education Statistics, of the Institute of Education Sciences

[2] https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/tdw/analysis/describing_achiev.aspx

[3] Senge, Peter, The Fifth Discipline . . . . .

[4] Hawkins, Mel, The Difference is You: Power Through Positive Leadership, Amazon CreateSpace, 2013

NAEP and Other Standardized Tests Have Been Weaponized.

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This a break in my series on positive leadership in order to respond to a recent post on our colleague @StevenSinger3’s outstanding  blog. Gadfly on the Wall.

The reaction of public-school educators to the results of standardized tests, whether state-based or national is very much like the reaction to more lessons and tests in their classrooms on the part of struggling students. When one feels victimized by something, having an aversion to it is a natural thing.

The genesis of high-stakes testing is irrelevant when public school educators feel beaten down by such exams and by the blame that is so often attached. In essence, standardized tests have been weaponized and are used to attack the very existence, not to mention credibility, of public-school teachers and administrators, and the public schools in which they teach. It should not be surprising that these educators go on the defensive at the mere mention of high stakes testing.

This is no different than a student who fails lesson after lesson with such repetition that they feel hopeless. By the time they reach middle school, struggling students have given up on learning. Some of them have given up and stopped trying by the time they reach the middle elementary grades three, four, or five. While the  demographics of these children cover the full spectrum of American society, a disproportionate percentage of them are poor, have skins that are varying shades of brown, or live in households where English is not their mother tongue.

It is no different than a person or a dog that has been beaten by a cane. After a while, they begin to react, viscerally, to the very sight of the cane. Objectively speaking, there is nothing wrong with the cane other than it is being utilized in a manner other than its intended purpose. If the child’s parent or grandparent, or a pet’s owner, picks up the cane and uses it to help themselves walk across the room it is serving its true purpose and is inherently good. The child or pet that has been beaten by that same cane will shy away from it, nevertheless.

The problem in public education is not high stakes testing rather it is that they are being utilized as a weapon to attack public education as a whole, and teachers and their schools, more specifically.

Neither is there anything inherently evil about the results of such exams other than the fact that they are being used for reasons other than their purpose. Because they trigger a negative emotional response, educators have discounted the value of what we can learn from them. It is probably more accurate to say that educators have rejected the value of the results, altogether.

This is unfortunate because those results validate what we learn by examining the gradebooks of public-school teachers. The results confirm what our military services are dealing with when a significant percentage of our nation’s young men and women are unable to score well enough on the ASVAB[1] to qualify for enlistment. They correlate with the experiences of employers who want to hire these young men and women but find them unqualified. The results of all these assessments corroborate the reality that the men and women who populate our prisons were, at one time, our struggling students.

Having been one of those employers I can attest to the frustration when so many candidates for vacant positions lack basic math and reading skills essential to the jobs they would be asked to perform; even entry-level production or warehouse positions. For a brief period, before a change in our ownership, we provided basic math and reading skills instruction for these candidates. Even then, the results were disillusioning. Many struggled and some quit. My interpretation, then, was that they felt traumatized by the classroom.

I saw this while subbing, particularly in middle school classrooms, when students appear to be afraid to try. This triggered recollections from my years as a juvenile probation officer when my probationers seemed afraid when encouraged to talk about school experiences.

I challenge public school teachers to imagine how kids feel when, week after week, lesson after lesson, they  perform poorly on practice assignments and fail both quizzes and chapter tests. Imagine how you would feel if the evaluations from your principals were negative, time after time. After a while, being instructed to “work harder” is as demeaning as it is unhelpful.

I know teachers agonize over these kids and I know they do the best they can in the environment in which they are asked to work. I tell myself that these teachers, whom I have come to respect, must know in their hearts that something is not working; that, somehow, the process is flawed.

High stakes testing has become a pivotal issue for educators on both sides of the debate on the future of public education in America. It is worth looking at the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) testing because the results confirm that what is happening in our schools is not confined to a few unfortunate communities or school districts but occurs nation-wide. What is important about NAEP assessments is the way they define the “Proficient” level of performance.

The vital component of that definition is that it attempts to measure the ability of these youngsters to utilize what they were expected to learn in real life situations. Ultimately, this is the only measure that counts. I have no illusions that the instruments of assessment are perfect. Yes, they are culturally biased; yes, multiple choice questions are limited in their utility even though we have been using them in our classrooms for generations; but, it seems that the results are the same however we measure them. Even the chapter tests that are given in almost all classrooms, routinely, bring us to the same conclusion.

It does not matter what teachers and other educators think their students have learned; and neither do graduation rates matter. Similarly, the piece of paper with which graduates walk away that says they have completed a portion of their formal education is meaningless if they cannot apply useful skills and knowledge in real life.

Whether young people can apply what they were expected to have learned when they go out into the world and strive to make a life for themselves is the essential question and the basis on which the performance of our education process must be measured. And let us make it perfectly clear that it is the efficacy of the education process that all forms of assessment measure, not the effectiveness of public school teachers, public schools, or public education as a whole.

No matter how hard they work, how qualified they may be, nor how dedicated public-school educators may be, they cannot make an obsolete education process give us outcomes it is poorly designed and structured to produce.

My message to public school teachers is that I am not here to blame you. You are my heroes. I have subbed in classrooms that have shown me the challenges you face, daily. I have experienced what it is like to strive to teach in a classroom where the distractions of student behavior make it seem impossible. I have felt the dread of walking into a classroom every day, after having to gird myself for the challenges I was certain to face. I have at least sampled the frustration of professional men and women who are unable to do what they were trained to do; who are unable to experience the satisfaction of helping kids learn and grow—the very reason why they chose to become a teacher in the first place.

Teachers and principals: you are not to blame. I do not question your commitment or professionalism. I do not dispute how hard you work or how valiantly you strive to give your students what they need to learn. The education process that has been at work in our schools for as long as any of us can remember does not work for a significant percentage of our students, and it does not work for teachers. I would assert, also, that it does an injustice to even the students who appear to be performing well because it inhibits their ability to achieve at their full potential.

Both teachers and their students deserve better.

The challenge is, we cannot create better outcomes until we analyze what contributes to the struggles of our students and are willing to let go of the traditional methods and approaches with which we have grown comfortable. For most of you, it is the only way you have ever known.

Our students are not struggling because of bad teachers and bad schools. Neither are they struggling because they are poor, because of the color of their skin, because of the language of their birth, or because they are genetically incapable of learning.

I want to convince you that poverty is as much a consequence of inequality in education as it is a cause of that inequality.

I want you to understand that we will never get better outcomes for your students—our nation’s most valuable assets—until we go back to the drawing board. We will not get better outcomes until:

  • We assess the level of academic preparedness of each student when they arrive at our door for their first day of school.
  • We tailor what we do to meet the unique needs of each student;
  • We create an environment in which they can form enduring relationships with teachers who will provide the constant emotional, physical, and academic support they require;
  • We ensure that every child has at least one teacher with whom he or she can bond, even the kids who are hardest to love,
  • We discontinue the practice of severing relationships between students and a teacher on whom they have come to rely;
  • We stop treating education as a competition in which some kids win, and others lose;
  • We stop pushing kids ahead to “next lessons’ before they are ready—before they have mastered and understand their previous lesson in each subject area;
  • We stop asking students who “get it” to sit by patiently until their classmates catch up;
  • We stop marching to the tune of arbitrary schedules and time frames;
  • We stop measuring the performance of students against the performance of their classmates;
  • we free teachers from the unnecessary distractions that prevent them from giving each child the time and attention they need to feel safe, to feel special, and to learn at their own unique pace;
  • We give teachers the freedom to utilize whatever approaches, methodologies, media, or technology that will help a given student learn;
  • We recognize that our students are not all preparing for the same destinations and aspirations and that no one destination is more important than others;
  • We allow our students to discover the best versions of themselves and chart out their own goals and ambitions;
  • We ensure that every child learns that success is a process of learning from our outcomes and experiences, both successful and unsuccessful, and that it is a process each of them can master;
  • Until together and with enthusiasm, we have celebrated all their successes along the pathway to whatever destiny they have chosen for themselves;
  • They have developed the powerful self-esteem they will need to face the unprecedented challenges in the balance of this 21st Century; and,
  • They have sufficient strength of character and the tools to withstand the slings and arrows of prejudice and discrimination with which so many of them will be subjected.

Answer the following question for your own benefit, not for mine:

“Is the education process in which you are asked to teach structured to provide students with each of these essential components?”

My purpose as an advocate for an education model designed to provide all these things, is to recruit you to rally around a positive idea that can transform public education in America.

I am an advocate for public education in community schools that are accountable to the residents of those communities. I am an advocate for teachers, whom I consider to be unsung heroes who have one of the most important jobs in all of society.  

I encourage you to ask yourself: “What if there is another way to teach our nation’s children?” What if there is a way that gives all children, not just a lucky few, the quality education they deserve while giving teachers the career you dreamt of when you chose the field of education?

What if there is a way to ensure that you will make a difference, every day, without the distractions and complications that have led so many of your colleagues to leave teaching?

Why not sneak a peek at a new education model, The Hawkins Model©; a new way to teach your students? What do you have to lose?

Remember that it is a quality education on which the future of our nation’s children depends, and it is on those same children that the future of our nation depends.

[1] Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, the instrument used by the Armed Services to determine eligibility for enlistment.

In Case You’ve Missed Me!

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Haven’t heard a Tweet from me in a while?

At the conclusion of a wonderful holiday visit, my four grandchildren went home after generously sharing a variety of germs and viruses. Bless their little hearts. I would make the same trade again, gladly, because they are such a joy for their Grandmother and me. The exchange does not come without consequences, however, and even had I not had other commitments, it would have taken time to get my mind and body back into the rhythm of writing.

Those other commitments have to do with administering the ASVAB (Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Battery); a subject about which I have written on many occasions.

Let me tell you what is happening in Indiana.

For the 2018/2019 school year, the State of Indiana authorized the use of the ASVAB to high school students as an alternate pathway to graduation. Students who are unable to pass their ISTEP+ exams in English language arts and math, which are required for graduation, can now take the ASVAB. Whether they believe the ASVAB might be easier for students to pass than ISTEPS—which would amount to lowering standards and expectations—or is just more student-friendly, I do not know.

If students earn a score of 31or higher on the AFQT component of the ASVAB they qualify for graduation. Coincidentally, a score of 31 is the minimum requirement for enlistment in the military. The AFQT (Armed Forces Qualification Test) is comprised of four of the eight ASVAB subtests currently offered to students: Arithmetic Reasoning, Word Knowledge, Paragraph Comprehension, and Mathematics Knowledge.

Although I have not seen data to verify that many of the students who could not pass ISTEPs are having success with the ASVAB, I do believe the AFQT score is a meaningful threshold. AFQT scores are percentile scores, which means that 30 percent of all the individuals who take the ASVAB are unable to qualify for enlistment. As I begin my fifteenth year as an ASVAB test administrator, I have come to view the AFQT score as a “world ready” benchmark. I believe it demonstrates that an individual has a basic, if minimal, academic foundation that will allow them to have choices; to find a place for themselves in society.

Students who score less than an AFQT score of “30,on the other hand, will have very few choices. Young adults who score 20 or below, and remember this is a percentile score so there are many young men and women with such scores, are functionally illiterate and innumerate.

What does it say about public education when so many schools have so many students unable to pass state competency exams that they must be provided with alternate pathways?

Yes, I agree that these large, standardized exams are a burden on students, teachers, and schools and should not be utilized to evaluate their performance. That we are using these tests inappropriately, however, does not mean these tests measure nothing of consequence. We need to learn from the results of this misguided practice.

What these tests tell us is that a significant population of students cannot demonstrate proficiency on subject matter that we have identified as essential to their future well-being. That point is corroborated by NAEP (National Assessment of Education Progress) assessments; the experience of employers who are finding it increasingly difficult to find qualified young people; and, from my own anecdotal observations of the performance of recent high-schools graduates on the enlistment version of the ASVAB.

High-stakes testing has pushed public schools to change the way they teach but rather than change the way we teach to meet the needs of students with disparate levels of academic preparation, we have changed the way we teach in ways that divert us from our mission. What is that mission? To prepare young people to make a place for themselves in society where they will have meaningful choices.

As education leaders and policy makers, we have learned the wrong lessons and we are asking our teachers to teach kids things that will not help them make a life for themselves. Teachers are being pushed to teach kids to pass a test rather than to learn and retain the knowledge and skills they will need in life.

Teachers know that what they are being asked to do does not work for some children, but many of their leaders are not listening. Some of the leaders who do listen cling to the belief that if we ask teachers to work a little bit harder and if we tried a few new techniques, things would begin to change. Such tactics will not alter anything unless we redesign the process.

When are superintendents and their school boards going to step back far enough to see that what we are doing is not working for vast numbers of the children they exist to serve? When will these leaders recognize that the biggest impact of the modifications they have implemented is that they have made teaching more challenging than it already is? Their choices are putting undue pressure on dedicated teachers in our classrooms and are driving thousands of these men and women from the profession they entered because they hoped to make a difference.

In the private sector, if providers of goods and services were to produce unacceptable outcomes, year after year, their customers would demand that they redesign the entire production or service delivery process to produce the outcomes those customers want. The truth to which all public school educators must open their hearts, minds, eyes, and ears to is that this is exactly what the “school choice” movement is striving to do: replace public schools. These reformers will not cease and desist until public schools begin to produce better outcomes. And, no, advocates of “school choice” are not ready to acknowledge that charter schools are not meeting expectations.

With respect policy makers, superintendents, and their school boards, their intransigence is placing public education at risk by refusing to challenge their assumptions about what they ask of their teachers and why. Because our society relies on public education to prepare young men and women for the responsibilities of productive citizenship, that intransigence is placing our democracy at risk.

It is the easy way out to conclude that our teachers cannot teach and that some students, disadvantaged kids in particular, are unable to learn but these conclusions are absurd.

Teachers can teach and they are committed to their students and to their profession, but they can only do what the education process allows them to do and for which it provides the structure and support. If we can craft the process around teachers everything will change.

Our students can learn if we take the time to understand and respond to their needs. Once they begin to gain confidence in their ability to learn, their motivation to learn and their pace of learning will accelerate.

Please consider an alternative approach to education. Please consider an education model engineered to meet the needs of students and their teachers by creating a process that exists to serve the important work they do rather than one that forces compliance and conformity. Check my model out at: https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/education-model-white-paper/

The impact all of this testing has had on me, personally, and has contributed to a reduction in Tweets and blog posts, is that the number of schools offering the ASVAB has more than trebled. In the past, I might have administered four to five schools a month, I am now testing three to five times a week and each test, depending on the number of students who will be taking it, requires significant pre- and post-test preparation time. This quickly erodes the amount of time I normally allocate for writing and drains my energy, particularly when my nose is dripping and I am coughing. Not counting the three enlistment test sessions I have administered in the first 10 school days of the new year, I have tested over five hundred students in six schools.

Over the balance of the month of January, which is nine school days, I am scheduled to test up to 500 more students in six schools, in addition to two more of my weekly enlistment tests. During the first few months since the start of the school year, and up until the holidays, I tested over 3000 students in twenty-four high schools in Northeast Indiana. Please note that I am only one of several test administrators who are testing in high schools both in NE Indiana and throughout the state.

Thanks for your inquiries, and I hope to be writing more, soon!

The Hawkins Model: An Updated Version

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THE HAWKINS MODEL

 Implementation Outline for Educational Model in Which There Is Only Success and No Failure.

By Mel Hawkins

Version dated: September, 2018

 

A Process is Just a Process

Teaching children in a classroom is a process of human design, no different than any other production, assembly, service-delivery process, or even a software program. It is a logical construct engineered to produce certain outcomes.

We are guided by the principle that when a process continues to produce unacceptable outcomes, no matter how hard people work or how qualified they are, then the process is broken and must be reinvented. The education process in our public schools must be tasked, organized, staffed, and resourced in such a way that every child leaves school with a quality education. It is such an education that gives them meaningful choices about what to do with their lives to find joy and meaning and to provide for themselves and their families. The education process must help students discover their potential and help them develop that potential and begin taking ownership of the pursuit of their dreams and ambitions.

The existing education process in use in public schools is structured like a competition in which some students win and others lose. It is a rigid process that requires teachers and schools to conform to its structure and organization. It is our belief that the structure and organization of teachers, students, and schools must be driven by the purpose for which schools and teachers exist: “To help all children learn as much as they are able at their own best speed.”

I challenge educators to examine the model you are about to read with an open mind, seeking to understand how it could work and not in search of reasons why it will not.  My hope is that this model will stimulate your imagination and open your heart and mind not only to the deficiencies of the existing education process but also to the limitless possibilities of a model created for you.

The model has been titled, the Hawkins Model, so I can retain the right of authorship. The Hawkins Model will be offered to public and parochial schools, free of charge. The only compensation I expect to receive would be royalties on the sale of my new book, that will be released, later this year, with the working title, The Hawkins Model: Public Education Reinvented, One Success at a Time!

This work will replace Reinventing Education, Hope, and the American Dream: The Challenge For Twenty-First Century America, published in 2013 through Createspace. Thanks to the wonderful professional educators who support one another and share ideas through social media, I have learned a great deal in the past five years. While I believe the original book is worth a reader’s time and consideration, I have discovered many new ideas and have abandoned others.

My final advice to prospective readers is to consider that positive advocacy for a new idea or solution is a far more effective means of driving positive change than complaints and protests. The latter are like fireworks. They are exciting, stimulating, and even inspiring, but when the last echoes fade into the night sky and the smoke has dissipated, they are quickly forgotten. Only ideas and solutions, promoted through the advocacy of positive leaders working together, have an opportunity to become real and have a lasting impact on the world.

 

Discarding the Past

What public school teachers and administrators will think when they first review my model is, “this will not work in my classroom(s),” and, of course, they are correct. This is exactly my point. In the current education process, it takes an extraordinary effort on the part of teachers and principals to implement innovative ideas and solutions that will endure and not be ground to dust by the unrelenting glacial power of the existing education process. It is my assertion that no educator can be satisfied, no matter how successful their own school, until every school is focused on the success of every student.

We commence this implementation process by rejecting our current educational process in which some level of failure is tolerated. We reject failure, absolutely.

 

Two Fundamental Truths

 There are two fundamental truths that are central to our purpose and every detail of the education model you are about to read has been designed to serve those truths.

 

Relationships

The first truth is that academic success is a function of the quality of the relationships between teachers, students, and parents. Children who feel a close personal relationship with their teacher, the kind that many of us recall when we think back on our favorite teacher(s), almost always give their best effort and that proves to be true throughout one’s whole life. In fact, is there any time in our lives when close relationships with other human beings are not the most important source of our happiness and well-being?

The current education process is not structured to facilitate those relationships for more than a given school year, if it happens at all. Neither is it an expectation on which teacher performance will be evaluated. That those special relationships that do develop are severed, routinely, at the end of a school year illustrates that the most important variable in the education equation is not even a priority in the education process in schools, today.

Of great concern is the tendency of some education reformers to denigrate the importance of teachers. We reject this notion, categorically.

In the Hawkins Model, nothing is more important to the success of kids than enduring relationships with caring teachers. Add concerned parents to the equation and students will soar.

 

Learning is the only thing that counts

The second truth is that the only thing that matters is that children learn as much as they can at their own best speed. One would think this would be obvious but all students in schools, today, are not given the same opportunity to succeed. The process is structured to move children along an identical path, at the same pace. At the end of the lesson, we assign a grade to each child’s performance, record it in our grade books, and move on to a new lesson; our job on the previous lesson, completed; or so we believe. At the end of the school year, we move all but a few on to the next grade where new teachers will try to get to know them and move them and their new classmates along the next measured segment of the path delineated by state academic standards. We then, repeat this process in succeeding years as we are gradually conditioned to tolerate a certain level of failure. It is difficult not to become inured to the failure of our students.

The model you are about to examine has been engineered to insure no child is pushed on to a new lesson until they understand and can demonstrate mastery on the current lesson. If a child has not learned a given lesson the job of educators is incomplete. The expectation must be that educators keep working with the child until they can demonstrate an acceptable level of mastery; until our students have learned. Nothing else matters. We must not be satisfied, however, that a student was able to pass a test. The true measure of learning is one’s ability to apply that skill or knowledge in real life situations. Simply stated, if a child cannot use a skill or knowledge they have not learned it, and this has devastating consequences with respect to the child’s ability to become the best version of themselves.

At the same time, the last thing we want to do is put a child in a situation in which they feel pressured to perform. Learning is supposed to be fun. It is one of the great ironies of life that many children perceive learning to be fun until they start school. Learning can be fun in any environment if success in learning is both assured and celebrated. We want children to believe in their hearts that learning is a great adventure. We want it to be a great adventure for teachers, as well.

This requires that we change what we teach. We must teach more than academic subject matter and we must teach the whole child. We want to teach applied academics–how to use what they learn in the real world. We want to teach them how to think creatively; how to solve problems; how to communicate effectively using all media; and, how to work together with other people both individually and as members of a team. We want them to embrace technology and use their imaginations to take on the challenges facing both the planet Earth and human society. We also want them to learn how to be kind; how to have an open mind and be non-judgmental. We want to teach them how to participate in their own governance and to respect the rights and beliefs of individual human beings and the principles of democracy. We want them to be good citizens who accept responsibility for their actions and their communities. We want to teach the principles of positive leadership, of organizational dynamics (people working together in organizations), and systems thinking, which is the process of bringing about systemic changes. Finally, we want to teach them to value life, family, and community.

Where our students will end up in life will be determined by their individual potential, their interests, how much they learn, and how hard they are willing to work. If they leave school with few, if any, choices about what to do with their lives then not only have they failed, we have failed them.

 

The Hawkins Model

 

Step 1 – Clarifying Mission and Purpose

The purpose of an education is to prepare children to be responsible and productive citizens who have a menu of choices for what they want to do with their lives to find joy and meaning. We want them to be able to think creatively. As citizens of a democracy, we want them to participate in their own governance and be able to make informed choices with respect to significant issues of the day.

The welfare and success of all students must be a teacher’s over-riding priority and the instructional process, and the very structure of the environment, must be molded to serve that purpose with the same dedication aircraft engineers use to design the cockpit to support and enable every function a pilot will be called upon to perform.

An education must teach children more than facts and knowledge, it must teach them that success is a process. Success and winning are not accomplishments rather they are a life-long process of getting the most out of one’s life by learning from one’s experiences; both mistakes and successes.

 

Step 2 – Objectives and Expectations

Our objective as educators is to help children learn as much as they are able, as fast as they are able, beginning at that point on the learning preparedness continuum where we find them when they arrive at our door. Each school must be a “No Failure Zone!”

It is our expectation that:

  • Every child will be given whatever time and attention they need to learn every lesson;
  • They learn that mistakes are learning opportunities and that they should never give up on themselves;
  • Success will be measured against a child’s own past performance and not the performance of other children;
  • We will strive for subject mastery and that the threshold for mastery is a score of 85 percent or better on mastery assessments;
  • Students must learn well enough that they can apply what they have learned in real life situations that include subsequent lessons, state competency examinations, and life in a democratic society;
  • There are no arbitrary schedules or time limits and that all students are on their own unique schedule; and, finally,
  • Learning is an adventure of discovery.

 

Education is not a race to see who can learn the most, the fastest and there is no such thing as an acceptable level of failure. No child should be asked to keep up with their classmates and no child should be asked to wait for classmates to catch up.

 

Step 3 – What do children need to learn?

Let us summarize all the things children need if they are to learn:

  • A close personal relationship with one or more qualified teachers;
  • The involvement and support of parents/guardians in partnership with teachers;
  • To start at the exact point on the academic preparedness continuum where we find them when they arrive at our door;
  • An academic plan tailored to their unique requirements and where disadvantaged students receive accommodations appropriate to their disadvantage much as we do for special needs students;
  • Access, under guidance of their teachers, to leading edge methodologies, approaches, and technologies; from STEM to stern;
  • Our patient time and attention;
  • A stable and safe environment for the long term;
  • The freedom to explore the world and pursue their own interests as well as the curriculum developed for them;
  • To learn how to be successful and they need to know that success and winning are nothing more than a process of striving toward one’s goal and making adjustments along the way on the basis of what they learn from experience; and,
  • To experience success and winning and to celebrate every success and every win.

 

As educators, we must understand that while cutting-edge technology may seem threatening to us, it will be an integral part of the world in which our children must, someday, thrive. Educators are encouraged to think of their smart phones as an example of something that was initially intimidating but has become an integral part of our lives. Notwithstanding that everything in life has tradeoffs, think about how our smart phones have benefited us in our daily lives.

 

Step 4 – Where do we begin?

We begin by selecting the lowest performing elementary schools in any of our targeted public school districts and using them as a test case and, also, by soliciting the support of local advocacy groups that represent the people residing in a given school’s boundaries. We stress our focus on public schools because this is the only place we can attend to the needs of all our nation’s children. When something works in public education, it will find its way into private, parochial, and charter schools but the converse is not true.

People in the communities to be targeted will be skeptical. They have spent a lifetime hearing false promises and enduring their own difficulties in school. We will need the help of a community’s leaders to convince people that this is something special that will truly give their children a path out of poverty. After sharing our objectives with the community, our primary agenda is to focus on children who are starting kindergarten and what we now refer to as first through fifth grade. Our objective will be to meet each child at the unique point on an academic preparedness continuum where we find them on day one. From that unique point of departure, our objective is to help each child move forward on their unique path at their own best speed.

 

Step 5 – Organization and structure

 We will eliminate references to grades K through 12 as well as any other arbitrary schedules in the educational process and replace those grades with three phases of a child’s primary and secondary education:

  • Elementary/Primary Phase (formerly grades K through 5)
  • Middle School Phase (formerly grades 6 through 8)
  • Secondary Phase (formerly grades 9 through 12)

 

While addressing pre-school learning is not within our purview, what we will be doing will bring the importance of pre-school learning and development into sharper focus. The primary focus of public schools, however, must be on the children who stand before us.

It is understood that many school districts have divided elementary schools into smaller segments, e.g. K to 2, 3 to 5, etc. While these segments could be preserved in our proposed education model, we would ask administrators and policy makers to remember that one of our core objectives will be to sustain the relationships between children and their teachers and between students and their classmates for as long as possible.

 

Step 6 – Teaching teams

We will rely on teams of 3 teachers with a teacher to student ratio no greater than 1:15, meaning not more than 45 students assigned to a team of three teachers. To optimize our chances for success we would solicit volunteers from among the school corporation’s most capable and most innovative teachers. We want teachers who will be proud to be part of something new and excited by the opportunity. It is our belief that while modifications to existing classrooms might be nice they are not essential.

Teams have proven beneficial in business and industry for a long time and they have a clear record of productivity and excellence. Even in strong union environments in manufacturing venues, teams often prove more effective in dealing with subpar performance and commitment than management. Individuals who are marginal performers and evidence low levels of commitment may be able to hide in the crowd. Within a team setting, there is no place to hide and each person is held accountable by the team.

Teaching teams have the added advantage that if one teacher is having difficulty with a student, another member of the team can step in, thus increasing the probability that every student will find a teacher with whom they can bond. Teams will also make it easier to develop a rapport with parents as we triple the likelihood that a parent will find a teacher with whom they feel comfortable.

Finally, teams provide much more stability. If one team member is off due to illness or other reasons, the team is still able to maintain its equilibrium, even given the insertion of a substitute or replacement.

 

Step 7- Optimizing teaching staff

If a school has teacher aide slots for elementary classrooms, we recommend that the funds allocated for such positions be redirected to paying for additional teachers. Striving to optimize teacher resources is a top priority and if we are utilizing the proper tools, aides will not serve our purpose, however capable they may be. Qualified teachers are an essential variable.

Like the practice of medicine, teaching is an uncertain science. Physicians practice medicine and they are challenged to learn, relentlessly. Just like their students, practice is an integral part of a teacher’s learning process and provides one with opportunities to learn from the outcomes we produce, whether positive or negative.

 

Step 8 – Duration and stability

Students will remain together as a group and will be assigned to the same teaching team throughout their full elementary/primary academic phase. Eventually, that model will be employed as students move from the elementary/primary phase to the middle school and high school phases.

Close personal relations with teachers and their students, in a safe environment, can best be accomplished by keeping them together over a period of years. Why would we want to break up relationships between teachers and students because the calendar changes? We are guided by the adage that “the child who is hardest to love is the one who needs it the most.” Sometimes, it takes teachers most of the year to bond with some of their most challenging students only to have the relationship severed at the end of a school year, which is nothing more than a designated point on an arbitrary calendar.

These types of long-term relationships also increase the likelihood that parents can be pulled into the educational process as partners with their children’s teachers. Finally, we believe keeping students together in such an intimate environment will strengthen the bonds between classmates and have a positive impact on both the incidence of bullying and our ability to respond to such incidents.

 

Step 9 – Reaching out to Parents

Reaching out to parents must be a high priority. By partnering with their child’s teachers, the parent can play an important part in helping the child succeed.  There is a high expectation that, as students begin to experience success, their parents/guardians will begin to see a difference in their children, at home. Success is contagious, even for those of us on the sidelines. It is our hope that the desire to share in and help celebrate their son or daughter’s success will lure even the most skeptical parents into partnerships with their child’s teachers.

We also know that when we form close relationships with parents we also get to know their families. This creates a real opportunity to intervene, if there are younger children in the home, to help insure that they enjoy improved enrichment opportunities thus optimizing their academic preparedness. With each parent we pull into the process, we expand our presence in the community and raise awareness that our new education model is a special opportunity.

 

Step 10 – Assessment and tailored academic plan

Select an appropriate assessment process/tool and utilize it to determine the level of academic preparedness of each child when they arrive at our door for their first day of school. We will then utilize what we learn to create a tailored academic plan to meet each student’s unique needs.

We know that the disparity with respect to academic preparedness of students spans the full spectrum. We also know that children have different learning styles. What educators must do is to recognize that these differences exist and do their best to accommodate the unique style, potential, and interests of their students.

 

Step 11 – The learning process

Academic Standards

Academic standards have been established by most states and on a nation-wide level there is “Common Core.” These standards drive expectations of schools, teachers, and their students and they also drive the high-stakes testing that assesses performance against those standards. While assessing standards and curricula is not my area of expertise, the other area of concern is the expectation that students are all expected to be at the same place at the end of a school year. Given that students have different starting points and that they are headed for more than just one destination, such expectations set millions of kids up for failure.

As new approaches to teaching children using experiential learning methodologies gain popularity, the greater the disconnect will be between standards and what kids truly need. Education leaders and policy makers must begin to re-evaluate the efficacy of existing standards.

Most of us would agree that there are foundational academic skills upon which a diverse population of young people can build different lives. The common denominator, however, is no longer limited to being able to read and write and to have basic math and science skills, although these are essential. Our challenge is to prepare children for life, not test-taking, and this demands that we find new and better ways to help kids learn by doing. Critical skills such as creative thinking, communication, team work, problem-solving, and the ability to understand and utilize technology will be as essential to their success as reading, writing, and math skills. The compelling need to be better stewards of our environment will make science and engineering more important than ever. As citizens of the 21st Century, our students must not only be able to utilize what they learn they must be able to adapt to the accelerating speed of obsolescence.

Because of the disparity in the academic preparedness of children arriving for their first day of school, we need to help children progress along a tailored academic path from their unique starting point and we must also be helping them assume ever greater responsibility for their own growth and development. As their interests and aptitudes evolve they must begin charting their own futures, with the help of caring teachers. The process for helping kids develop mastery over an ever-widening range of subject matter must be adaptive and involve, in some form:

  1. Presentation, appropriate to the subject matter, through utilization the full spectrum of media, methodology, and technology;
  2. Practice and review, giving the student as much time as they require to learn from their mistakes;
  3. Assessment of their ability to demonstrate mastery over subject matter, which we define as the ability to utilize it in the real world. When that level of mastery is quantifiable, such as a grade on a test or other instrument of measurement, the target will be minimum of 85 percent;
  4. The expectation that no child will be pushed ahead before they are able to utilize what they have learned even if that means starting over using other means and approaches; and,
  5. A verification assessment, in each subject area, to confirm retention of subject area mastery at a point in the near future, such as 6 to 8 weeks.

 

If the student scores 85 percent or better, their success must be celebrated and, also, formally documented. Students are, then, ready to move on to the next steps on their unique academic path in a given subject area. It is envisioned that such formal documentation will, someday, replace the need for standardized competency exams given once a year.

One of our Twitter colleagues, @nkgalpal, reminded us that students can also play a vital role in helping classmates who may be struggling on a given lesson or subject area.  Educators have long recognized that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it. This suggests that more advanced students benefit as much or more as the classmates they have an opportunity to help. Not only does this enhance the level and quality of learning that takes place it also strengthens the bonds between students.

We want our classrooms to function like a family or like an athletic team in which members have formed the strong bonds that result from dedication to shared purpose and objectives; sharing the demanding work required in practices; cheering for and supporting their classmates; and shared celebration of success in overcoming their academic challenges. Think about how many times you have seen starters, at the end of a basketball game, cheer excitedly for teammates who work hard in practice but rarely get an opportunity to make a basket, a steal, rebound, or an assist in an actual game. These bonds are enduring.

 

Character, Creativity, Imagination, Service, and Civic Responsibility

As we have noted, our objective as educators extends beyond subject matter mastery. Even when character, creativity, imagination, service and civic responsibility are covered in the academic standards of some jurisdictions, they are easily forgotten in challenging environments and situations, particularly in our era of high-stakes testing.

We suggest that these things are interdependent. Think of subject matter mastery as laying a foundation upon which character, genius, and individuality will be built.  An individual’s ability to explore and create is very much, if not always, a function of fundamental knowledge and skill sets.

 

Step 12 – State-of-the-Art technology and tools of success

Provide each student and teacher with appropriate technology with which to work. We must be willing and able to utilize state-of-the-art technological tools, as they evolve, to help teachers teach and kids learn. Among other things, this requires that teachers be willing to relinquish their reticence.

No matter what some education reformers might say, technology will not and cannot replace teachers. This education model is premised upon the primacy of teachers in the education equation. Technology can and will empower teachers, however. The world is becoming and will continue to become more technology-driven than it is today, and this trend will only accelerate and expand in scope.

Our children will live, work, and rear their own families in a technological world that surpasses anything most of us can imagine. Our job is to prepare students for that future, not find ways to avoid it because of our own fear and reluctance.

There are wonderful digital tools on the market but many of them are specialized to the extent that it is unlikely they will provide the full range of support teachers and students need. We are seeking something comparable to an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that is real-time, cloud-based, and integrated with 360-degree feedback capability. Such technology must be relieve teachers of all classroom management responsibilities, so they can be devoted, optimally, to relationship building and teaching.

It is envisioned that, as the scope of the potential market for such a product begins to reveal itself, developers of technology solutions will be competing aggressively to capture sustainable market share. Astute providers of such solutions will work closely with their prospective customers to ensure satisfaction.

A system must help the teacher manage the process as they will have students working at multiple levels, in various subject areas, utilizing an array of resources to meet the needs of a diverse student population.  Students will be on a unique path even though many of the paths may be parallel.

Software must be able to:

  • Keep attendance records;
  • Manage various subject areas;
  • Help teachers and students through lesson presentations;
  • Generate practice assignments and grade them if they are quantitative;
  • Permit teacher to enter qualitative assessments of performance;
  • Identify areas that need review and more practice;
  • Signal readiness for Mastery Quizzes;
  • Grade and record the results of quizzes and assignments and then direct students onward to a subsequent lesson module or back for more work on current modules;
  • Celebrate success much like a video game;
  • Signal the teachers at every step of the way;
  • Recommend when it is time for a Verification Mastery Quiz;
  • Document Mastery achievements as verified by VMQ as part of the student’s permanent record; and,
  • Give students the freedom to pursue their interests, as they strive to explore the universe.

 

Our objective is to empower teachers so their time can be devoted to meaningful interaction with each and every student as they proceed along their tailored academic journey. Meaningful interaction will include teaching, coaching, mentoring, consoling, encouraging, nurturing, playing, and celebration. That interaction must also include time spent with students’ parents.

 

Step 13 – No Failure and No waiting

No student is to be pushed to the next lesson until they have mastered the current lesson as success on one lesson dramatically improves the readiness for success on subsequent lessons. Similarly, no student who has demonstrated that they are ready to move on will be asked to wait for classmates to catch up. Every student moves forward at the best speed of which they are capable. This creates opportunities for students to move ahead on their own initiative and take ownership of their own adventure of discovery even if it means teachers must scurry to keep up.

It also means that no student will experience the humiliation of failure.The ultimate mission of education is to put the fun back in learning and teaching. Success is what drives motivation, commitment, and fun. If all we ever do is lose when playing a game, it is only a matter of time until we avoid playing.

Success is a process of applying what we learn from our experiences, whether successful or unsuccessful. The more we succeed, the more confident we become and the more confident we become, the more motivated we are to learn and grow. As children gain confidence in their ability to control the outcomes in their lives, their self-esteem is strengthened and their ability to overcome obstacles, including discrimination, is enhanced.

Educators are challenged to understand that the single greatest flaw in education, both public and private, is its acceptance of failure on the part of our students. Nothing destroys motivation to learn and creates an atmosphere of hopelessness as much as repeated failure. The fact that we permit children to fail is unconscionable and inexcusable.

In our definition, “failure” and “making mistakes” are not the same thing. We all make mistakes. Mistakes become failure only when students are allowed or are required to stop trying before they come to understand. This happens every time we ask a child to move on to a new lesson before they are ready and every time teachers are asked to record an unsatisfactory grade in their books. This type of failure not only deprives children of an opportunity to experience success, it robs them of the essential knowledge and skills they will need to be successful on subsequent lessons, and to live productive and meaningful lives.

Children must be able to use what they have learned in “real-life” situations. The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) defines “proficiency” as:

“having a demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter, including subject matter knowledge, application of such knowledge to real world situations, and analytical skills appropriate to subject matter.” [The emphasis is mine.]

Anything less than proficient is unacceptable and that includes “approaching proficiency.” Approaching proficiency is a good thing only if a student subsequently  becomes proficient. The work of our teachers and schools is not complete until students have actually achieve “proficiency.”

 

Step 14 – the Arts and Exercise

We also consider the arts and physical exercise to be essential components of a quality education. Student must be given the opportunity to go to art, music, and gym classes where they will:

  • Develop relationships with other teachers;
  • Exercise their young bodies;
  • Learn to appreciate and to express themselves through art; and,
  • Interact with children from other classes.

 

Step 15 – Performance Management and Metrics

Identifying how performance against objectives will be measured is a vital part of any operational plan because how we keep score determines how the game will be played. We want teachers and administrators to be rewarded for the quality of the outcomes they produce. Our objective is to measure how effectively teachers are helping kids learn and be able to apply what they have learned in real-life situations.

Students will be expected to pass not only a Mastery Quiz (MQ) with a score of 85 percent or better before moving on to subsequent lessons, but also a Verification Master Quiz (VMQ) that will be administered to students 6 to 8 weeks after passing the MQ. The purpose of the VMQ is to ensure that students have retained what the have learned and are able to utilize that knowledge and/or skills in real life situations. This can best be measured by determining the percentage of students who pass their VMQ on the first attempt. The higher the percentage of passage the better the performance of teachers.

We are not expecting perfection, however. Certainly a few students will not pass their VMQs, signaling that they were not ready. While we want to minimize such occurrences, teachers will not suffer consequences. We must ensure that “pace of learning” does not replace “understanding” as the objective of teachers or the education process. The failure of a VMQ by a student is nothing more than an opportunity for teachers to learn from their disappointing outcomes.

 

Step 16 – High Stakes Testing

The performance of teachers will not be evaluated on the results of high stakes testing. We do not want teachers to feel pressured to move students along before they are ready. Every student who passes a VMQ will be demonstrating that they were, indeed, ready.

High stakes testing using state competency exams will not disappear until they have been proven to be irrelevant and obsolete. Teachers and students should spend no time worrying about them or preparing for them. If students are truly learning, their ability to utilize what they have learned will be reflected in competency exam results. Such exams are, after all, nothing more than a real-life opportunity to apply what one has learned.

 

Step 17 – Stability and Adaptability

We will not concern ourselves with the arrival of new students or the departure of students during the process or with teachers who may need to be replaced, for whatever reason. These events will occur, and we will deal with them when necessary. These inevitable events must not be allowed to divert us from our purpose. We must keep in mind that there are no perfect systems, but the best and most successful systems are the ones that allow us to adapt to the peculiar and the unexpected.

 

Step 18 – Relentless, non-negotiable commitment

We must stress that winning organizations are driven by operating systems in which every single event or activity serves the mission. When we tinker with bits and pieces of an operation out of context with the system and its purpose, we end up with a system that looks very much like the educational process we have today. It will be a system that simply cannot deliver the outcomes that we want because there are components that work at cross purposes with the mission.

We are striving to create an environment in which the fact that some children need additional time to master the material is inconsequential in the long run and in the big picture, much like it is inconsequential if it takes a child longer to learn how to ride a bicycle than his or her playmates. Once children learn they all derive benefit from the knowledge gained.

 

Step 19 – The Power of positive leaders

As with any human endeavor, positive leadership is crucial. Administrators at every level, whether superintendents, assistant superintendents, principals, or assistant principals, must be trained to be more than administrators. They must be powerful positive leaders who understand that their success is a function of both their ability to keep their organizations focused on purpose and the quality of leadership they provide to their people. The bottom line is that the over-riding priority of positive leaders is to help their people be successful at every level of their organization and its supply chain; which includes students, parents, and the community.

Education departments in our colleges and universities must ensure that the study of leadership is a core component in the education of school administrators, at every level. We must view them as leaders, not administrators.

 

Step 20 – Special Needs

At anytime along the way, from initial assessment and beyond, if a child is determined to have special needs they will be offered additional resources, much as happens in our schools, today.

 

Summary and Conclusions

The only justification for preserving the status quo in public education would be if we truly believed the children who fail are incapable of learning. If, on the other hand, we believe all children can learn, we are compelled to act.

The fundamental premise of the Hawkins Model is that all children can learn if given the opportunity and if they feel safe and secure. The fact that we have clung for so long to an ineffectual educational process that sets kids up for failure and humiliation is unfathomable. Refusal to seize an opportunity to alter this tragic reality is inexcusable.

Once a school district becomes satisfied that this new model produces the outcomes they are seeking, the model can be implemented in every school in the district and can be modified to fit the needs of students as they move on to middle school and high school.

The success of this model will also drive the need for revolutionary change in our institutions of higher learning. Colleges, universities, community colleges, technical schools, and vocational education programs must be prepared to reinvent themselves as the needs of their students will have changed exponentially.

 

All Kids Can Learn but Many Are Sure to Fail If We Fail to Help Them

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Every day that we delay addressing the problems of public education in America more kids give up on themselves because they have fallen so far behind their classmates that they have no hope that they will ever catch up.

I see these young men and women as seniors in high school or shortly after they finish high school when they show up to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). They are hoping to find a way to make a life for themselves by enlisting in the Armed Services. At the end of the test session, they walk out of the room with an envelope in their hands and their heads hanging low. In the envelope are the results of their ASVAB that show they have scored below the minimum score of 31 out of a possible 99, which is the threshold for enlistment eligibility.

So far this year, 25 percent of the candidates to whom I have administered ASVAB have scored below 31, and half of those score below 20. A score of less than 20 indicates a high probability that individuals are functionally illiterate and innumerate. Two-thirds of the young people who scored below 31 were African-American. Not only do these young American men and women not qualify for enlistment, they will also fail to qualify for all but the most menial and lowest-paying jobs in their community. In all likelihood, the young African-American men will return to their poor urban or rural communities where many will to turn to gangs, crime, and or drugs. Some will be killed during commission of a crime or as a result of black on black violence. Far too many will end up in a state penitentiary. The young woman will most likely get pregnant and begin raising their own children in the same cycle of failure and poverty in which they were reared.

All of the young men and women who scored below 31 are victims of flawed educational process in which they started out behind and found it impossible to catch up with their classmates. The sad truth is that they never had a chance and they are left with very few choices in life. There are millions of other young children in public schools all over the U.S. who are destined to the same fate.

Our systems of public education are like any other system that has lost focus on its purpose and has been allowed to deteriorate over time. Somewhere along the line, as the society-at-large became exponentially more complex, our systems of public education began to view accelerating levels of failure as normal and acceptable.

We must stop blaming poverty and recognize that poverty is a consequence of our flawed educational process not the cause of it. We must stop blaming our teachers and schools that are doing the best they can under a flawed educational process that is neither structured nor tasked to help children who show up for school with a range of “academic preparedness deficiencies.” It is a system that allows an unacceptable percentage of students to fail while contributing to the burnout of a growing population of teachers; men and women who have lost faith in the profession they chose with youthful enthusiasm and lofty purpose.

We must stop educational reformers who have no clue about the damage they do when they siphon off tax dollars of which our most challenged schools, teachers, and students are in desperate need. We must not allow them to further weaken the ties between our public schools and the communities they exist to serve, while destroying the hope of students and teachers, alike.

In their defensive postures, professional educators like to scoff at the results of the Nation’s Report Card, presented by the National Assessment of Educational Performance (NAEP), which provides documented evidence that public education in America is in a state of unacceptable crisis.

The irony is that professional educators would be well-advised to embrace the findings of the Nation’s Report Card as verifiable proof that the educational process, with which teachers are asked to do their important work, is fatally thawed.

Here is a quick summary of the NAEP’s findings for 20131, showing the percentage of American students whose performance is measured to be below or above “Proficient.” The Achievement Levels identified by the NAEP are “Basic,” “Proficient,” and “Advanced.

NAEP defines “Basic” as: “denoting partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at each grade assessed.”

NAEP defines “Proficient” as: “representing solid academic performance for each grade assessed. Students reaching this level have demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter, including subject-matter knowledge, application of such knowledge to real-world situations, and analytical skills appropriate to the subject matter.”

1 The italics are mine. NAEP data can be accessed at http://nces.ed.gov/programs/stateprofiles/sresult.asp?mode=full&displaycat=7&s1=18

Average Scale Scores
8th grade math: 67% Below Proficient; 33 Proficient +
8th grade reading: 71% Below Proficient; 29% Proficient +
8th grade science: 73% Below Proficient; 27% Proficient +
8th grade writing: 69% Below Proficient; 31% Proficient +

For purposes of this article, the author identifies “Proficient” as the minimum acceptable level of achievement for our students for the simple reason that if a student has achieved only partial mastery of the subject matter and is unable to apply what they have learned to real-world situations they our job is not finished.

Clearly, the goal of education must be that students be able to “demonstrate competency” over the subject matter and they must also be able to apply what they have learned in “real-world situations,” which would include subsequent lessons within a subject area.

How long do we allow roughly 70 percent of American students, a disproportionate percentage of which are black and other minorities, to be less than “proficient” before we say this in unacceptable? How long can we allow public school educators to claim that American public education is better than ever? How long can we allow the educational reform movement’s focus on privatization and standardized testing to abandon our nation’s most vulnerable students and school districts and hurt these kids, their teachers, and their communities?

It does not have to be this way! Through a straightforward application of “systems thinking” and organizational principles we can alter this reality for all time.

For an overview of my book and its recommendations, I invite the reader to check out my blog post of October 26, 2015, which is a white paper entitled, “Breaking Down the Cycles of Failure and Poverty:
Making Public Education Work for All Students Irrespective of Relative Affluence or the Color of Their Skin.”

At the end of this post, I have provided an implementation outline that will show just how simple it would be reinvent the educational process at work in American public schools. It is a model that requires no legislative action and can be implemented by local school districts, acting on their own authority.

Finally, the reader is also encouraged to check out my book, Reinventing Education, Hope, and the American Dream: The Challenge for Twenty-First Century America and my blog, Education, Hope, and the American Dream.

Implementation Outline for Educational Model in Which There Is Only Success and No Failure

Submitted by: Mel Hawkins, BA, MSEd, MPA

April 18, 2016

Discarding the Past

We commence this implementation process by rejecting our current educational process in which some level of failure is tolerated. We reject failure, absolutely.

It understood that most public school teachers and schools believe they work hard to make sure that every child learns and that no child gets left behind. The reality, however, is that each year children are moved from grade to grade who are behind their classmates. Each and every year thereafter they fall a little further behind until they lose all hope that they can ever catch up.

That this occurs is not the fault of teachers rather it is a flaw in a structure that does not provide each teacher with the time and resources they need to teach and does not provide each and every child with the time and support they need to learn. We cannot alter those unfortunate outcomes until we alter the internal logic of the educational process and also the structure that exists to support that process.

What we offer is a new reality that can benefit every child in America and that can transform public education.

Step 1 – Clarifying Mission and Purpose

The purpose of an education is to prepare children to be responsible and productive citizens who have a wide menu of choices for what they want to do with their lives in order to find joy and meaning. As citizens of a democracy, we want them to participate in their own governance, and be able to make informed choices with respect to the important issues of the day.

Note: An education must teach children more than facts and knowledge, it must teach them that success is a process. Success and winning are not accomplishments rather they are a life-long process of getting the most out of one’s life.

Step 2 – Objectives and Expectations

Our objective as educators is to help children learn as much as they are able, as fast as they are able, beginning at that point on the learning preparedness continuum where we find them when they arrive at our door. Our schools must be a “No Failure Zone!”

It is our expectation that:

• Every child will be given whatever time and attention they need to learn each and every lesson;

• We teach children that success is a process that must be learned and that all of our students can be successful;

• That success will be measured against a child’s own past performance and not the performance of other children;

• That we will strive for subject mastery and that the threshold for mastery is a score of 85 percent or better on mastery assessments;

• That students will learn well enough that they can apply what they have learned in real life situations

• That there are no arbitrary schedules or time limits and that all students are on their own unique schedule.

Note: Education is not a race to see who can learn the most, the fastest and there is no such thing as an acceptable level of failure. Our task is to create a model of an educational process that rejects failure and where the only thing that matters is that children learn.

Step 3 – What do children need In order to truly learn?

Children Need:

• To start at the exact point on the academic preparedness continuum where we find them when they arrive at our door;

• A close personal relationship with one or more teachers;

• Our patient time and attention;

• A stable and safe environment for the long term;

• To learn that mistakes are wonderful learning opportunities that come only when we extend ourselves beyond our zones of comfort;

• To learn how to be successful and they need to know that success and winning are nothing more than a process of striving toward one’s goal and making adjustments along the way on the basis of what they learn from their mistakes.

• To experience success and winning and to celebrate every success and every win:

• An academic plan tailored to their unique requirements.

• The involvement and support of their parents or guardians.


Step 4 – Where do we begin?

We begin by selecting the lowest performing elementary schools in any of our targeted districts and use them as a test case.

Note: Our primary agenda is to focus on children who are starting kindergarten and all of the action items are presented with that assumption. If a school district’s commitment to this model is sufficiently high, however, there is no reason why we could not, similarly, organize students in the higher elementary grades in the same manner. Doing so creates additional challenges because the farther along children have been pushed, the further behind they will be. If we commence with these older children, it still requires that we know where they are in terms of their academic development in each subject area, and then that we tailor a plan to begin the process of starting over with that unique student. Teachers will have less time to help these kids play catch up but, clearly, these students will need all the help they can get before they move on to the middle school phase.

Step 5 – Organization and structure

We will eliminate references to grades k through 12 as well as any other arbitrary schedules in the educational process and replace those grades with three phases of a child’s primary and secondary education:

• Elementary/or Primary Phase (formerly grades K through 5)

• Middle School Phase (formerly grades 6 through 8)

• Secondary Phase (formerly grades 9 through 12)

Note: We chose Kindergarten rather than first grade for our starting point because the sooner we intervene in the lives of our students, the better. Part of the problem in disadvantaged communities is that children live in an environment in which intellectual and emotional enrichment opportunities are few in number. The longer a child is left in such an environment the further behind they will be.

Step 6- Teaching teams

We will rely on teams of 3 teachers with a teacher to student ratio no greater than 1:15

Note: Teams have proven beneficial in business and industry for a long time and they have a clear record of high levels of productivity and excellence. Even in strong union environments in manufacturing venues, teams often prove more effective in dealing with subpar performance or commitment than management. In large work groups, marginal performers and those with low levels of commitment are able to hide in the crowd. Within a team setting, there is no place to hide and each person his held accountable by the team.

Teaching teams have the added advantage that if one teacher is having difficulty with any individual student, another member of the team can step in. Teams will also make it easier to develop a rapport with parents.

Teams also provide much more stability. If one team member is off due to illness or other reasons, the team is still able to maintain its equilibrium, even given the insertion of a substitute.

If a school has teacher aide slots for this age group, we will recommend that the funds allocated for such positions be redirected to paying for additional teachers. Striving to optimize teacher resources is a top priority and if we are utilizing the proper tools, aides will not serve our purpose.

Step 7 – Duration and stability

Students will remain together as a group and will be assigned to the same teaching team throughout their full elementary/primary academic phase.

Note: Close personal relations with teachers and other students, in a safe environment, can best be accomplished by keeping them together over a period of years. Why would we want to break up relationships between teachers and students because the calendar changes. Sometimes it takes teachers most of the year to bond with some of their most challenging students only to have it brought to a halt at the end of a school year.

This type of long-term relationships also enhances the likelihood that parents can be pulled into the educational process as partners with their children’s teachers.

Step 8 – Reaching out to Parents

Reaching out to parents must be a high priority.

Note: We know that students do better when they are supported by their parents and when parents and teachers are working together as a partners behind a united front. We also know that when we form close relationships with parents we also get to know their families. This creates a real opportunity to intervene if there are younger children in the home to help insure that they enjoy improved enrichment opportunities.

Step 9 – Assessment and tailored academic plan

Select an appropriate assessment tool and utilize it to determine the level of academic preparedness of each child when they arrive at our door for their first day of school. We will then utilize what we learn from that assessment to create a tailored academic plan for each and every student based on where they are and pursuant to the academic standards established in that state.

Step 10 – The learning process

From their unique starting point, we will begin moving our students along their tailored academic plan, one lesson module per subject at a time. The learning process will be:

• Lesson presentation

• Practice

• Review

• Mastery Quiz (MQ)

• Verification Master Quiz (VMQ)

Note: Teachers can spend as much time as necessary on any of the steps in the process and can even go back to re-present a lesson using other methods and resources. Each review gives teachers the opportunity to help children learn from the mistakes they made on practice assignments and on unsuccessful quizzes. When the student’s success on practice assignments suggests they are ready, they can move on to the MQ. If the student scores 85 percent or better, their success can be celebrated and they are ready to move on to the next lesson. If not, the teacher can recycle back through all or part of the learning process until the student is able to demonstrate mastery.

Step 11 – State-of-the-Art tools of success

Provide each student and teacher with a personal tablet with which to work.

Utilize technology to help teachers teach, and kids learn with the Khan Academy’s program as but one example. The tool must also help the teacher manage the process as they will have students working at multiple levels. Students are all on a unique path even though they may often be parallel paths. Software must be able to:

Keep attendance records,
Manage various subject areas,
Help teachers and students through lesson presentations,
Generate practice assignments and grade them if they are quantitative,
Permit teacher to enter qualitative results generated by them,
Identify areas that need review and more practice,
Signal readiness for MQ,
Grade and record results of quiz and direct student on to next lesson module or back for more work on current module,
Celebrate success much like a video game,
Signal the teachers at every step of the way,
Recommend when it is time for VMQ, and
Document Mastery achievements as verified by VMQ as part of the student’s permanent record.

Note: The purpose of the software is to empower teachers so their time can be devoted to meaningful interaction with each and every student as they proceed on their tailored academic journey. Meaningful interaction will include coaching, mentoring, consoling, encouraging, nurturing, playing, and celebration. That interaction may also include time spent with students’ parents.

Whenever it is deemed advantageous, we believe there is also great value in group learning sessions, projects and interaction.

Step 12 – No Failure and No waiting

No student is to be pushed to the next lesson until they have mastered the current lesson as success on one lesson dramatically improves the readiness for success on subsequent lessons. Similarly, no student who has demonstrated that they are ready to move on will be asked to wait for classmates to catch up. Every student moves forward at the best speed of which they are capable.

The beauty of this approach is that students can progress at their own speed, even if that means charging ahead with teachers rushing to keep up. It also means that no student will feel pressured to move faster than they are able nor will they experience the humiliation of failure.

Step 13 – Verify and document mastery

The Verification Master Quiz (VMQ) will occur a few lessons later as the purpose is to assure that the child has retained what they have learned and are able to utilize it on future lessons. Ultimately, if the child cannot utilize what they have learned in real-life situations they have not learned it and, therefore, our job on that lesson is not completed. Once verified, mastery is documented as part of the student’s permanent record.

Step 14 – High Stakes Testing

High stakes testing using state competency exams will not disappear until they have been proven to be obsolete. Teachers and students should spend no time worrying about them or preparing for them. If students are truly learning, their ability to utilize what they have learned will be reflected in competency exam results. Such exams are, after all, nothing more than a real-life opportunity to apply what one has learned.

Note: Ask yourself “Who would we predict to perform better on a competency exam given in the second semester of what we currently refer to as the 5th grade?

The child who has fallen further and further behind with each passing semester and simply has not learned a significant portion of the subject matter on which they will be tested?

Or,

The child who may or may not be on schedule as determined by state academic standards but has actually mastered the material they have covered and who are demonstrating an accelerating pace of learning?

I think we all know the answer.

Step 15 – the Arts and Exercise

We also consider the arts and physical exercise to be essential components of a quality education. Student must still be given the opportunities to go to art, music, and gym classes where they will:

• Develop relationships with other teachers;

• Exercise their young bodies; and,

• Learn to appreciate and to express themselves through art.

Step 16 – Stability and adaptability

We will not concern ourselves with arrival of new students or the departure of students during the process or with teachers who may need to be replaced for whatever reason. These things will happen and we will deal with them when necessary. These inevitable events must not be allowed to divert us from our purpose. We must keep in mind that there are no perfect systems but the best and most successful systems are the ones that allow us to adapt to the peculiar and the unexpected.

Step 17 – Relentless, non-negotiable commitment

Finally, we must stress that winning organizations are driven by operating systems in which every single event or activity serves the mission. When we tinker with bits and pieces of an operation out of context with the system and its purpose, we end up with a system that looks very much like the educational process we have today. It will be a system that simply cannot deliver the outcomes that we want because there are components that work at cross purposes with the mission.

Note: We are creating an environment in which the fact that some children need additional time to master the material is considered to be inconsequential in the long run and in the big picture, much like it is inconsequential if it takes a child longer to learn how to ride a bicycle than his or her playmates. Once they learn to ride they all derive equal benefit and joy from bicycling.

Step 18 – Special Needs

Anywhere along the way, from initial assessment and beyond, if a child is determined to have special needs they will be offered additional resources, much as happens in our schools, today.

Summary and Conclusions:

All children can learn if given the opportunity and if they feel safe and secure. The fact that we have clung for so long to an ineffectual educational process that sets kids up for failure and humiliation is unfathomable. If we refuse to seize an opportunity to alter this tragic reality it is inexcusable.

Once a school district becomes satisfied that this new model produces the outcomes we want, the model can be implemented in each and every school in the district.

What If We Change the Way We Keep Score for Both Teachers and Students?

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In this last segment of our series of articles in examination of the performance gap we will shift our focus to taking action.

A year or so ago, actor Michael J. Fox put out a poster that challenged educators. It said:

“If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.”

We do not like to think of our classrooms as hostile environments, as envisioned by legal scholar Randall Robinson (see Part 1 of this series). Teachers work hard to make their classrooms as welcoming and interesting as possible.

The hostility Robinson describes is a function of a competitive environment in which we expect children, who arrive with any number of disadvantages, to compete on equal terms with children who have been primed for academic competition. We start all students off from the same point of departure even though the level of readiness of the students can only be described as cavernous.

That this disparity has a significant impact on the ability of some students to keep pace with others is a fact that we all know, intuitively, but are programmed to ignore.

Recall “5 Things Well-Meaning White Educators Should Consider If They Really Want to Close the Achievement Gap,” by Jamie Utt, published at his website at www.changefromwithin.org (see part 1).

The fifth thing Utt suggested that must be done, which we have modified, is:

“Envision and Create Schools Where People of Color are Centered (And Whiteness Is Not) and Where All Children Are Centered for Who They Are As Unique Individuals, Irrespective of Color, Language of Birth, Religious Tradition, Relative Affluence, or Sexual Orientation.”

This is far and away the most vital of the “5 Things” because this is one that is well within our power to control whether we are a school superintendent, school principal, or even a single teacher in a classroom.

One of the easiest ways this can be accomplished is by changing our expectations of teachers and the things for which they are held accountable. Rather than evaluate teachers on the percentage of children who achieve passing scores on annual standardized competency examinations, what if we were to evaluate them on the percentage of students who score 85 percent or better on short mastery quizzes following individual lesson plans?

The goal is that 100 percent of each teacher’s students achieve 85% or better on mastery quizzes following every individual lesson plan they are given. It does not matter whether every student earned 85% or better the first time they took a quiz or even the second or third. What matters is that they achieved mastery, that the student’s accomplishment is celebrated and rewarded, and that the teachers’ efforts are formally acknowledged.

Neither does it matter if some students, within a given grading period or semester, achieved mastery on two, five, ten or more lesson plans. What matters is that a student is not permitted to move on to a new lesson within a given area of subject matter until they have mastered the preceding lesson. Each lesson mastered is a success and each success is tallied and valued equally with every other success.

The single most powerful driver of the number of lessons a student is able to master is the level of confidence they have gained through repeated success, absent even the hint of failure.

Even within the current educational process, where we move everyone along the same path and test them on the same material each year, we have learned that by the time they finish the 12th grade they will all be at different levels of accomplishment. Some are off to college, some leave school illiterate or barely literate and are destined to a life of poverty or crime—probably both—and also a life of virtual disenfranchisement, and the rest fall somewhere in between.

Whatever their destination, what distinguishes graduates from one another is the strength of the foundation upon which their charted destinations are constructed.

What is better? Is it a student who was given 1000 lessons but failed 80 percent of them and is proficient in only 10 percent? Or, is it that they are proficient in each of the lessons they were given whether 100, 200, 500 or a thousand?

Even though we want to downplay the value of standardized testing as much as possible, NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Process) definitions bring the matter into brilliant focus. The NAEP defines “proficient level of academic performance” as:

“. . . solid academic performance for each grade assessed. Students reaching this level have demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter, including subject matter knowledge, application of such knowledge to real world situations, and analytical skills appropriate to subject matter.” (The emphasis is mine.)

The crucial variable is that kids must be able to apply “such knowledge to real world situations. . . .” Ultimately their ability to utilize what they have learned is the only thing that matters. If they cannot use it effectively, they haven’t really learned it.

It is when students are unable to apply the knowledge and skills we strove to teach during 12 years of school that they are doomed to a life separate and apart from mainstream America. We like to blame poverty for this separation but poverty is the inescapable outcome that burdens adults who were unsuccessful in acquiring the skills necessary for life as a productive American citizen.

The fact that most of these kids and the adults they ultimately become are poor, black, or other minorities is not a coincidence. Neither is it a coincidence that many of these are folks for whom English is a second language or are illegal immigrants. The educational process is poorly designed to meet the needs of this fastest-growing population of American children.

The glaring and tragic truth is that these young people are set up to fail. It is bad enough that they are victims of a flawed educational process. Worse is the fact that the teachers into the hands of which these kids are entrusted are inadequately prepared, under-resourced, poorly supervised, and are held accountable for outcomes that are counter to the best interests of their students.

This is a reality that must be altered before it is too late. It is already too late for millions of Americans who were the victims of a dysfunctional system and every day we delay, more kids are lost.

All that we need to in order to change this reality for all time is to step back and evaluate the American educational process as an integral whole, re-examine our purpose and assumptions, and make a few structural changes in what we do on a daily basis the most important of which is nothing more than changing the way a game is scored.

As soon as we change the way we score success, players and coaches (teachers and principals) will begin developing strategies and structural designs to support the new objectives. There is nothing magical or mystical about this process. It is simply the way systems function within the context of organizations.

What stands in our way of bringing about such transformational change to education in America, whether public or private? Other than our intransigence, not one damn thing!

The reader is invited to read my book Reinventing Education, Hope, and the American Dream: The Challenge for Twenty-First Century America, where I offer a blueprint for bringing about the systemic changes we have discussed. The reader is also invited to check out the rest of this blog, Education, Hope, and the American Dream for a full discussion of how we can overcome the challenges of public education in America. I am not suggesting that the reader will find all of the right answers in my book and blog but they will find many of the right questions.

Both the blog and book can be found on my website at www.melhawkinsandassociates.com.

Denying the Crisis in Public Education a Strategic Error on the Part of Bad Ass Teachers and Their Colleagues.

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The Bad Ass Teachers Association, Diane Ravitch, and every other teacher advocacy group make a strategic error when they argue that there is no crisis in American public education and that our public schools are doing better than they have ever done.

It is a strategic error for several reasons all of which weaken the argument against the corporate reforms that are sweeping the nation. It is a strategic error because it portrays public school teachers as being in complete denial and overly defensive.

The truth is that our systems of public education are in a deep state of crisis and it is a crisis in which teachers bear only a modest share of the responsibility and are as much the victims of the crisis as are the students in their classrooms.

While it is true that our nation’s top students are learning more than at any time in the history of public education we could make an argument that even the interests of these accomplished youngsters are being compromised by the crisis in education. The sad truth is that the students at the other end of the academic success continuum may be learning less than at any time in the history of public education.

The overwhelming majority of our nation’s public school teachers are heroes of the first order as they dedicate their lives and careers to serving the interests of our nation’s children. Yes, there are bad teachers just like there are underperforming members of every other population of professional men and women. Do teachers need to do a better job of policing their own? Absolutely! Do teachers’ unions and associations need to do a better job of serving the interests of both their members and the teaching profession? Absolutely!

When examining the problems of our systems of public education, no one is guiltless, teachers included. The flip side of that statement is that when examining the problems of our systems of public education, no group of people does more for the children in America than the men and women who stand in front of our classrooms. When examined with an objective eye, in the midst of all of the forces that conspire to thwart their efforts, what public school teachers accomplish is nothing short of remarkable.

The truth is that teachers deserve all of the support we can give them and they deserve none of the mounting blame and criticism that is heaped upon their heads and shoulders, unmercifully.  It is also true that teachers need their unions and their associations. These are, after all, the only entities that support the efforts of teachers consistently. We do not plan to let the teacher organizations off the hook, however, as they are no different than any other business organization and need to relentlessly re-examine their mission, their strategic objectives, and retool themselves in an ever-changing political environment.

The one thing about which we can be sure is that very little of that which has worked in the past can be expected to work in the future.

Let us examine the evidence for the argument that our systems of public education are in a state of crisis. For the benefit or our teachers we are going to save the empirical evidence for later. The compelling truth is that teachers know in their hearts that public education is in crisis because they deal with the reality of it every single day in their classrooms.

You know it every day when the emphasis you are asked to place is more on test preparation than sustained learning. You know it every day that you must move your class on to a new lesson when you know there are students who are not yet ready; students who do not yet understand yesterday’s material and will be even less prepared to understand what is presented to them tomorrow.

You know when you deal with the disruption of students who will not behave and will not try and when their parents are convinced that you are being unfair to their child.

You know it when you deal with students who could be honor students if only they would try. You know it when parents of such students seem to have no more ability to motivate their children than you do.

You see it when you experience, first hand, the performance gap between the white and minority students in your classrooms and you know that many of the students who are failing place no value at all on education and neither do many of their parents.

You know it when, at the end of a school year you are approached by administrators asking what you can do to help a student improve his or her grade so they are able to graduate with their class; students who have done little or nothing to earn that grade for an entire semester or school year.

You know it when you look at children who are weighed down by the crushing burden of a range of disadvantages: disadvantages with which the students are as powerless to deal as are you, their teachers.

The empirical evidence for the crisis is so overwhelming is seems almost pointless to rehash the data. That teachers are unfairly blamed for the results of the standardized competency examinations administered in their respective states does not mitigate the fact that far too many children are failing.

There is the performance gap between white and black students, and between white and other minority students a gap that show no sign of narrowing and yet is rarely the topic of frank discourse.

NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) results that show that a full 60 percent of American students are below proficiency in virtually every subject of inquiry and anywhere from 85 to 90 percent of minority students are below proficiency. Contrary to the arguments of so many of the defenders of public education, the demarcation line between proficiency and below is the one that counts. NAEP defines “proficient” in several ways but the most noteworthy is the assertion that students must be able to use in real-life situations what they have learned in school. Anything less than this is simply unacceptable no matter how much we might wish, otherwise. After all, if we cannot use knowledge or skills in real life then we have not really learned.

So, the reader may ask, what are teachers to do in the face of the unreasonable scrutiny and the unfair burden of blame heaped on them by reformers and many of the families they exist to serve? It is so easy for teachers to feel overwhelmed by the forces that impede their ability to do what they know must be done.

The answers to these questions are the subject of my book Reinventing Education, Hope, and the American Dream: The Challenge for Twenty-First Century America.

For the purpose of today’s subject, the answer is that teachers need to stand tall and declare, going beyond what the Bad Ass Teachers are declaring:

“Damn right the system is in crisis and we’re through taking the blame for an antiquated educational structure and process that has not been substantially altered for more than a century.”

“We are through taking the blame for what may be the lowest level of student motivation to learn on the part of students in decades.”

“We are sick and tired of being held responsible for the cavernous disparity in the levels of preparation of students when they arrive at our door for their first day of school.”

“We are fed up with being blamed for the burgeoning population of American parents who have lost hope and faith in the American Dream and no longer believe that an education provides a way out for their sons and daughters.”

And, “We categorically reject responsibility for a reality that the combined power of the influence of the peer group and social media, both of which are fueled by the power of Madison Avenue, has made it exponentially more difficult for parents to sustain their role as the biggest influence in the lives of their pre- and post-pubescent children.”

When parents have ceased being the major influencing force in the lives of their children it will be that much more difficult for teachers to preserve their own level of influence in the lives of those same children.

But complaining about these realities will only take teachers so far. The operative question is what can be done about these challenges and right now, in this point in history, the only ones coming forth with what they believe to be a solution, however ill-advised it may be, are the corporate and government reformers with their “runaway train of misguided educational reforms.”

The Bad Ass Teacher Association, by taking a stand and shouting that they “aren’t going to take it anymore,” has positioned itself to play a lead role in countering the “reformers” with real and meaningful reforms of our educational process. In my next post, I will publish and open letter to the Bad Ass Teachers of America challenging them to take the lead in changing this reality and offering a comprehensive plan of action as a place to begin.

What is the truth about claims that American public education is in crisis and what is the evidence to support such claims?

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As much as I admire and respect public school teachers, and as important as it is that we pledge our support to them, they are no better positioned to judge the efficacy of public education in America than cooks, waiters, and bus persons are positioned to judge the quality of the food their restaurant serves. Such judgments must always be left to the customer and, as we shall see shortly, sometimes our teachers are a customer of the system.

It is clear to this observer that the American educational process is failing in spite of the valiant efforts of the men and women who stand at the front of a classroom. While it is a gross disservice to lay the blame on our teachers, we must look objectively at the system’s performance.

So what is the evidence that suggests that our systems of public education are in a state of crisis?

Let’s start with what motivated the business men and women, whom we often refer to as “corporate reformers,” to focus so much attention on education. These business executives are motivated by the frustration they feel when it is so incredibly difficult to find qualified workers for their operations and it doesn’t matter whether they are seeking skilled or unskilled labor, or professionals.

Applications for work are submitted, daily, from prospective employees who are unable to understand and apply basic mathematical and scientific principles, who are unable to craft a coherent sentence or to express themselves effectively, whether orally or in writing. They are young men and women who demonstrate minimal motivation to do their best and insufficient self-discipline to earn the status and prestige to which they consider themselves entitled.

The quality of this labor force requires that employers allocate enormous sums of money and inordinate time on the part of their trainers, supervisors and managers to teach these young adults what they need to know; what most of us believe they should have brought to the table in the first place. The sheer mass of the resources diverted for such purposes has a measurable adverse impact on both productivity and profitability of business entities.

Not sufficient proof, you say? Then let us ask the classroom teachers in our more challenging public schools, particularly in middle- and high school classrooms, about the disruptive behavior, lack of motivation to learn, willingness to copy a classmates work without the slightest remorse, and about the apathy and/or hostility of the parents of these youngsters who make no attempt to be supportive of their children’s teachers. Yet these parents are fully prepared to accuse teachers of incompetence and of unfairly picking on their children.

Ask the teachers in our best schools how many of their students could do so much better if only they tried; if only their parents were more supportive; if only teachers were able to give them more time, attention, and encouragement. All of these “ifs,” by the way, are activities and investments of time and resources that our current educational process is not structured to support.

Still not enough? Let’s ask the military services how many young men and women, the majority of which are high school seniors or graduates, who are unable to earn the minimum score on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) to qualify for enlistment. Ask them what percentage of the enlistees who do qualify are able to do more than the most basic jobs in the military? How many are qualified for the highly technical jobs or for officer candidacy? The answers are most disturbing.

Need more evidence? Let’s examine NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Process) results that indicate that only forty percent of American eighth graders are able to score well enough on NAEP assessments to be categorized as “proficient” or above. Let’s keep in mind that the definition that has been established for “proficient” is:

“solid academic performance for each grade assessed. Students reaching this      level have demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter, including subject matter knowledge, application of such knowledge to real world situations, and analytical skills appropriate to the subject matter.”

The emphasis is mine and it is vital that we consider the significance of this expectation that students gain the ability to apply what they have learned “to real world situations.”  It means it is not enough that students are able to earn certain scores on the assessments for given subject matter, they must also be able to utilize what they have learned throughout their lifetimes.

This means that a full 60 percent of American eighth graders have not acquired sufficient mastery over subject matter that would enable them to utilize, on the job or in solving other real-life problems, the math, science, reading, and writing skills that they were supposed to have studied in the classroom.

Let’s examine NAEP results further to see that only 10 percent of African-American students and 15 percent of Hispanic students are able to earn the achievement level of “proficient” or above in math, science, reading and writing. This is the most glaring fact in all of education and most teachers and other educators are reluctant to even talk about this performance gap. Corporate reformers don’t talk about the performance gap, either, they simply offer vouchers programs so a handful of such students can escape their “failing schools.” We talk around the performance gap but we do not deal with it.

Ask yourself whether there are any circumstances in which we should be satisfied with these performance levels of American school children. Should we, in fact, be anything less than appalled by these data?

We won’t bother to go into detail about the performance of American students on PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), as some have questioned the validity of such measures. Shouldn’t we be concerned, however, that our response in the face of unfavorable comparisons with between American kids and their counterparts in other nations, is to cry “foul?” Rather than accept these data as worthy of our serious attention and accept responsibility for them, we revert to claims that such assessments are biased and/or unfairly administered.

The unpleasant truth is that China, India, and other developing economies (not to mention Europe and Japan) are dedicated to replacing the U.S. as the richest and most powerful nations in the world. If we continue to scoff at these challenges, make no mistake, the future of American society will be decidedly unpleasant for our grandchildren and great grandchildren.

It is this author’s assertion that, in spite of the best efforts of dedicated American school teachers, our educational process and the system in which it functions are poorly structured and minimally prepared to meet the needs of American children, irrespective of their relative position on the academic performance continuum, on the affluence continuum, or their race or ethnicity. I would suggest to you that our educational process inhibits all students, even our most accomplished, from reaching their full potential and this reality demands our attention and compels us to action.

The United States is a competitor in a dynamic international marketplace. Like competitors in any sport, success is contingent upon the efficacy of one’s player development program.  I suggest to you that the American “player/student” development program has languished for long enough.

Powerful forces are poised to rip control of education out of the hands Teachers and communities

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Yesterday’s (5/8/14) report, by Kimberly Hefling of the Associated Press, under the headline: “Nation’s students not improving: Exam finds no gains in seniors’ critical skills since ’09,” is certain to renew exclamations that our teachers are failing America’s children.

However absurd such proclamations may be, it is time for teachers, working collectively and with their communities, to take the lead in advocating substantial reforms of the educational process. If teachers permit educational reforms to remain exclusively in the hands of the government and corporate reformers, they are putting America’s children at risk and are leaving the teaching profession unprotected.

It is not sufficient to take a defensive posture and cry out against such reformers. What is needed are proactive proposals that the entire teaching profession can support with all of its political influence and might at the local, state, and federal level.

The reforms themselves must be substantial and they must literally reinvent the American educational process so that it:

• Is focused on success in real and substantive ways that allows teachers to teach children how to be successful;

• Shifts the focus back to subject mastery rather than test preparation, using the NAEP definition of “proficient” as a model where the expectation is to help students acquire the ability to apply what they learn to real-life situations;

• Puts teachers in a position to teach in an intimate environment in which they can form close, nurturing relationships with both students and parents;

• Help children experience the fun of learning under the tutelage of a “favorite teacher” rather than deal with the stress of looming annual, standardized exams;

• Integrate student assessment and teacher accountability into the instructional process, much like industry has done with quality systems, obviating the need for annual standardized examinations to demonstrate competency;

• Provides teachers with state-of-the-art technology and other tools to facilitate rather than obstruct what they do, where the technology is as seamless and productive as the smartphones most of us carry in our pockets and purses; and,

• Begins the challenging process of re-establishing the highest possible level of trust between parents and their children’s teachers.

Teachers must also use their collective might to aggressively pursue grants for creative programs that engage parents as partners in the education of their children (I encourage teachers to count the number of such programs of which they are currently aware).

I offer my book, Reinventing Education, Hope, and the American Dream, as a model for implementation at the local level in schools and communities all over the nation. It is a model that can also serve as catalyst for brainstorming or as a springboard for the development of other models.

In any case, it is time for teachers to act before their credibility is completely tainted and their social capital squandered.