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The Vital Equation

obriena's picture

Last Friday, teacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron embarked on what she called a “webquest of sorts,” simultaneously posting three articles that address three key components of the “vital equation” she believes must exist in order for a student achieve.

Family + Student + School + Policymakers/Voters = Student Success

At the Huffington Post, she offers the top ten things she believes family/home life must contribute to this equation. Among them: getting a student to school on time, fed on something other than Snickers, having received the proper medical care. And communicating with the school, being accessible and being honest with what the student has a tendency to do socially/academically/behaviorally.

On her Edutopia blog, she shares her top ten suggestions for the responsibilities that students must own in order to achieve. They include: being their own advocates, asking lots of questions and communicating struggles to teachers. She also suggests surrounding themselves with other students who can help, and dressing for success.

And at TweenTeacher, she proposes ten responsibilities of teachers to avoid student failure. Among them: being experts at content and communicating that content. Being a role model, including modeling collaboration and modeling lifelong learning. And importantly, enjoying the job and the clientele.

On all three blogs, she closed with the important role of voters and policymakers in ensuring that students succeed. Her challenge to all of us is to make education a priority in the voting booth and in campaigns. The voters must send the message that public education is important – and policymakers must do what is best for children.

I believe Heather's equation to be right on, and I hope that education advocates take this message to heart. It is so easy to blame teachers and school leadership (or evaluation procedures that some believe allow ineffective educators to remain in the system, or pay scales that some believe serve as a disincentive for talented individuals to join the profession). But the best educators in the world cannot do it alone – we know that.

At the same time, it is also easy to blame a parent who is not supervising homework or afterschool activities, or not attending parent-teacher conferences, for not ensuring their child reaches his or her potential. Or to blame a student who would rather be the class clown – or not in class – for not succeeding. But the best parents and students in the world will obviously have a hard time achieving in a school that pushes them away.

And even if you combine great teachers, engaged parents and eager students, without adequate resources and external social services to offer assistance when necessary, you will not get a student ready to succeed in the flat world.

So yes, I think that Heather's got this equation right. Does anyone disagree? Can we, as a nation, start advocating school improvement strategies recognizing the role of all stakeholders?


The equation is missing

The equation is missing several critical pieces.

First, it's missing the coefficients-- not all of these things effect student outcomes equally. So it's gotta look more like

a(Family) + b(Student) + c(School) + d(Policy) = Student Success

Second, it has a peculiar order. Personally, I would look at it like this:

a(Policy) + b(School) + c(Student) + d(Family) = Student Success.

The driving force of this ordering is that now the variables are listed in the order of our ability to change/improve/tamper with the cause. We control (to a far greater extent than the other things on this list) the policies that exist and the schools we build and how they're run. Motivating students and getting them to do their part is easier than families because 1) they spend hours and hours of their days within the school and our policy context 2) we have meaningful control/they have less autonomy. Adjusting the family, even through policy intervention, is the most challenging and expensive approach with the greatest likelihood of falling short of truly penetrating and changing lifelong habits/beliefs/actions/abilities in perpetuity.

The final thing to remember is that not only are some of these elements easier to "reform", "improve", "tinker with", etc, but that the coefficients in front of each of these factors CHANGES depending on the context.

Sometimes the schools are so poor that it's clear improving what happens there will be far more effectual. Sometimes the family conditions weigh heavy on an otherwise successful school, etc etc.

Writing rules was out of date

Writing rules was out of date in the day of Horace Mann. Setting some goals, metrics, and a process to renew them is how we do things now, even in the age of NCLB and RTTT. I strongly suggest (not mandate) that you look into Arnold Packer's Verified Resume system - GOOGLE IT! to avoid the spam filter.

Packer, of the SCANS Report of the 1990's, and "inventor of the soft skills," formulated eight categories of skills: responsibility, teamwork, coping with diversity, inquiry, creativity, listening, work with tech, and planning. He then urged scoring on a five point scale from "never" to "all the time," and that scoring take place at regular intervals.

We adapted that to self-scoring and group comparing times, both to accommodate new classes and members, and to build self-assessment into a routine, regular, and frequent activity in any subject, any project, any event. And, since that self-assessment was in the context of the group, it also built the group, and addressed, in only positive terms, issues like attendance - so you can help and be helped by others - that are usually the retreat of failed communication.

Ironically enough, almost all your 10 points (or 11 or more for quibblers) can fit comfortably within Packer's 8, and the process is at least as important - critical to - the product. Our challenge now is to explore whether self-assessment changes variables like attendance, grades, aspirations and those pesky test scores. Probably.

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