CMS students write letters to Thailand

About a month ago, I had the opportunity to meet two of our neighbors, David and Jo Lynne Johnson .  The Johnson's are both retired from their respective careers, but certainly not from living and teaching.  This past winter, they spent 2 months teaching English to middle-level age students in a small village in Thailand.  (Click here to see more of their travels.)  

Early in May, they not only came to CMS to share their story with nearly 450 6th and 7th grade students (which was about twice the size of the entire school in Thailand), but their dream of beginning a "pen pal" relationship between CMS students and their Thai counterparts. Today, we began this incredible relationship with our Thai friends.  Over 60 CMS students wrote letters to their Thai "pen pals" in hopes that returned letters will be received prior to the end of our school year, thus cementing the pen pal relationship and beginning what will hopefully flourish into an unforgettable cultural exchange between CMS and the students of this small Thai village.  

In addition to (hopefully) the students continuing to write back and forth, next September we plan to have either a book drive or a fundraiser to purchase pre-k and elementary books for this Thai village.  The Johnson's plan on returning to the school next winter, and would love to have the books as resources.

I want to thank the Johnson's for volunteering their time with our students and for sharing with us a rare opportunity to touch the lives of people from a different part of the world.

"ED"ies Award in the Press

A link to the Portsmouth Herald article on CMS being awarded the "ED"ies award.

A link to the Exeter Newsletter article on CMS being awarded the "ED"ies award.

A link to the Exeter Newsletter article on CMS's Destination Imagination team.

CMS AYP Results Mixed

Earlier today the Department of Education released the preliminary 2008 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Report for all New Hampshire schools.  While I am very proud to announce that CMS made AYP for Reading in all subgroups, I am saddened to report that CMS did not make AYP in the area of mathematics.  

The No Child Left Behind Act states that public schools must make Adequate Yearly Progress in the content areas of Reading and Math.  To measure AYP, each state tests all students grades 3 - 8 and grade 11.  In addition to "whole school" performance, NCLB also recognizes specific subgroups that must make AYP, thus eliminating the possibility of a perceived high performing school "hiding" the performance of a subgroup of students within the much larger "whole school" data set.  There are several identified subgroups, most notable to CMS are "students with education disabilities" and "economically disadvantaged students".  In the state of New Hampshire, schools who have subgroups populated by greater than 10 students, are accountable for those groups.  Since CMS has more than 10 students in both of the above mentioned categories, it is held accountable for each.  Schools who fail to make AYP two years in a row in a content area, either as a whole school or on any of their subgroups, become a School in Need of Improvement (SINI).  Once designated a SINI, a school must make AYP two years in a row in that content area and in all subgroups to no longer be designated a SINI.  With that background, let's look at CMS's story:

Three years ago, CMS earned SINI status in the area of mathematics because of the performance of its students with educational disabilities.  Two years ago, that subgroup made AYP in math, however, economically disadvantaged students did not.  Last year, CMS made AYP in math for all subgroups, meaning that if CMS made AYP in math for all subgroups this year, we would no longer be a SINI.  At a Exeter Region Cooperative School Board Meeting early this year, I told the board that we were "cautiously optimistic" that we would make AYP.  Unfortunately I was wrong.  While our economically disadvantaged students did make AYP in math, our student with educational disabilities missed the mark.  Based on these preliminary results (there is an appeals process) CMS will continue to remain a SINI for at least two more years.

While NCLB recognizes subgroups for accountability purposes, we do not look at our designation as a SINI as an indictment on any one group.  We are a SINI because of our inability to make AYP in the content area of math regardless of the performance of any one subgroup.  We know from Dr. John Cronin's visit in November that our low achieving student- independent of subgroup identification - are not growing as fast as our high achieving students. In effect, the achievement gap at CMS is widening.  This AYP designation only corroborates his findings.  

The Good to Great Committee will be making its recommendations to the CMS faculty next week as to how to close this achievement gap.  There after, the committee will be presenting these recommendations to the school board.  I look forward to reporting about those recommendations in future blog posts.

CMS Wins "ED"ies Award

On a perfect New Hampshire spring afternoon, Dr. Barbara Gondek, co-chair of the "ED"ies selection committee announced to a crowd of more than 1500 students, teachers, administrators, school board, and community members that, indeed, CMS was selected as the 2007-2008 New Hampshire School of Excellence recipient. As the banner was unfurled from atop the school, representative from corporate sponsor McDonalds, outgoing superintendent Dr. Hanson, and the five CMS teachers who will be retiring this year (Ann Douglas, Chip Nelson, Gary Tilden, Joe O'Donnell, and Bill Taylor) rang the "ED"ies bell officially bestowing the title "Best Middle School in New Hampshire" upon CMS.

"Great" School Diagram and G2G Update

At the March 25th meeting of the Exeter Region Cooperative School Board, I unveiled the "Great" Schools Diagram  which was developed through the work of CMS's Good to Great Committee (G2G).  

By way of reminder, CMS mobilized G2G as a response to Dr. John Cronin's analysis and reportof the NWEA results of CMS  students from 2004-2006.  On page 12 of his report, Dr. Cronin referred to CMS  as "a reasonably good school with aspirations to become a great one."  That statement, which he said several times during his November visit, led to the genesis of G2G.

As G2G reviewed the recommendations of Dr. Cronin, page 10 of his report gave us some insight as to our purpose. It reads:

The grouping arrangements in place today work substantively better for high achieving students than low achievers.  In reading and language usage, the flexible grouping arrangement produced better growth for high achievers than the ability grouping arrangements.  Low achieving students have shown poor growth in the flexible grouping arrangement, but did not show substantively better results in ability grouped situations.  In mathematics, the current course assignments produce excellent growth with high achieving students in grades seven and eight, although growth has slipped this past year.  This assignment system has produced poor results with low achieving students and these results have declined further during the most recent school year. 

This leads to the general conclusion that decisions about grouping per se may not have much to with the results produced by the middle school.  The school employes flexible grouping arrangements for reading and groups by achievement in mathematics.  These "conflicting" arrangements have both worked relatively well for high performers and both work very poorly for low performers.  Thus simply making a change in grouping arrangements, whether toward or away from ability grouping, without a constellation of changes that are targeted more directly at improving the quality of curriculum and instruction, is unlikely to make much difference.

With the declaration from Dr. Cronin that a change in grouping would not appear to have an effect on the performance of students at CMS, G2G focused on the "Constellation of Change" about which he wrote and spoke.  Our discussions, both with the committee proper and the faculty-at-large have led to a focus on three key domains:  Curriculum, The Holistic Well-being of Students (which includes the social, emotional, academic, and physical well-being of our students), and the Constancy of Purpose that Dr. Cronin spoke of so eloquently at his presentation (See the "Great" Schools Diagram to see how the three domains intersect). Moreover the G2G committee has come to the conclusion that in order to provided a high quality education for each student, the three domains must be acutely balanced.  Specifically, if any one of the three domains is deficient the ability of the school to deliver high quality education will be compromised. 

With the "Great" Schools Diagram model in mind, G2G is now involved in a couple of processes.  First, trying to determine how well each domain is currently woven into the fabric of the school.  Are we lacking in any of the three domains?  More than one?  All three?  Further, can specific reasons be determined as to why any one or some combination of the three domains are deficient?  Is there a domain (or 2?  or 3?) in which CMS is outstanding?  Why are we outstanding?  Is there a common trait between those areas in which we are outstanding that can be replicated?  Which leads to the second process.  Developing action plans to address deficient domains and replicate those that are outstanding.  More will come of this process on a later post.

What Are the Purposes of Assessment?

Source

1.  Student Learning:  Assessment is a way for educators to measure progress, strengths, and areas of growth.  Many teachers assess their students using a pre-test, mid-term, and post-test to gauge student learning.  This may take place throughout a unit or the entire school year. 

 

2.  Improvement of Teaching:  Teachers use assessment to determine what is effective in their teaching practices; what is working and what needs improvement.  A variety of assessment tools may be used in order to determine what types of instruction are most beneficial in meeting the needs of students. 

 

3.  Communication:  Assessment should serve as a means of communication between educators, students, administrators, and parents.   Parents and students often look at assessment to see WHAT is being learned, HOW progress is being measured, and the TYPE of instruction being received.  Educators and administrators use assessment to evaluate teaching practices and to determine if there are gaps in the curriculum.   

 

4.  Program Evaluation:  Assessment can prove a good measure of one’s program, revealing evidence of the effectiveness of that program, throughout the year, assessment can offer direction to the program and modifications can be made to increase both student and instructional success. 

 

5.  Program Support:  Consistent assessment can be used to validate one’s program.  Data gained is objective and can show evidence of goals and objectives being met by both student and teacher.  With clear data presented, a strong measure of program support may follow. 

 

6.  Motivation:  Assessment shows progress.  When improvement is shown, students feel positive about their learning environment.  Documented assessment can offer proof of growth, thus enhancing students’ motivation to perform to the best of their ability. 

Do your kids learn differently than you? YES!

Ever wonder how your child can listen to their iPod in one ear, their cell phone in another, while they IM and study for their french test all at once?  They learn and work differently than previous generations.  They are, as Ian Jukes says, master multi-taskers.  Take a look at this blog post to learn more.

What do we do on "Inservice Days"?

Often times, people come up to me and ask what goes on during those mysterious "inservice days". Well, Tuesday was one of those days and I thought it would be worth sharing  a bit about the program.

The entire SAU professional staff met at the high school for two presentations. Ray McNulty, Senior Vice President, International Center for Leadership in Education and Dr. Stephanie Spadorcia, from Lesley University both spoke to the group about literacy, specifically, 21st Century Literacy. After their presentations, all faculty returned to their respective schools, broke into small groups and discussed how what they learned in the morning could be applied to their classroom everyday.

I'd like to share my thoughts about what Ray and Stephanie shared with us, respectively.  I'll report some of the general remarks of the staff on a later post.

First, I'd like to comment on Dr. Spadorcia.  Her presentation focused on four current issues:  scientifically-based educational practices, response to intervention, high-stakes assessments, and the widening of the achievement gap.  More specifically, she addressed how effective reading instruction can address all four of those issues.  She made the argument that the "Whole-to-Part Model of Silent Reading Comprehension" can be one such strategy.  Ultimately, she said, the ability to read and comprehend silently is of vital importance to today's learner.  If you think about it, it makes sense.  How often do you read aloud and/or are read to once you reach high school and beyond (Although she does believe that all students should read aloud and just be read to not read aloud themselves at upper grades - it is actually more difficult to read aloud and comprehend as you increase in skills no matter the age.  Students need to hear words multiple times before they can pronounce it correctly - think of the first time your biology teacher wrote the work deoxyribonucleic acid or adenosine triphosphate on the board.  In fact, she specifically said, "Oral language, hearing others read aloud, and discussions are the most effective means of supporting vocabulary growth".  She credited www.nifl.gove/nifl/pfr.html for that research.)  She really punctuated the fact that students need to be skilled in the area of silent reading comprehension if they are to be literate in the 21st century.

Dr. Spadorcia broke silent reading comprehension into what she called the "three legs" of the reading table.  They were Word Identification, Language Comprehension, and Print Processing Beyond Word Identification.  She said that just like a table, if any one of these three parts are missing (or undeveloped) the ability of the student to read at grade level is unstable.  She then spoke of several practical strategies to increase proficiency in all three areas.  I would encourage all of you to review her presentation to learn more about those strategies.  Early feedback from the teacherswas that they were glad she shared strategies that could be used the following day in their classroom.

One of the most interesting things I learned from Dr. Spadorcia is the importance in blending strategies from both phonics and whole language instruction. In short, she said that neither way, in and of itself is the one right way to teach reading, that students need to employ both phonics and whole language strategies to be proficient readers.

Ray McNulty shared with the faculty his belief that education systems need to change to adapt to the needs of 21st century learners.  He spoke of the "false proxies" we have created to signify learning such as finishing a course or textbook, listening to a lecture or getting a high score on a standardized test.  He emphasized that teaching and learning are two separate entities and that learning should focus on meaning, engagement, inquiry, exploration, personalization, collaboration and trust.  Mostly, he stressed that educators need to become agents of change. Instead of reacting to change (i.e. NCLB & Standardized Assessment), educators need to be proactive and author and cultivate those changes that are needed to help students compete in a global economy.   He spoke passionately about the idea that what has worked in education in the past will not necessarily work today (or tomorrow).  The needs of society today are much different than they used to be.  For example, our students are immersed in what he called "millennial-oriented Technology" (blogs, wikis, tagging, IM, Myspace and Podcasts for example).  Many students talk of "powering down" when they enter a classroom and "powering up" when they leave. He distinguished between digital immigrants and digital natives.  Immigrants work at conventional speed, natives a twitch speed.  Immigrants like linear problem solving, natives like random.  Immigrants read text first, natives "read" graphics first.  Immigrants are "work" oriented, natives are "play" oriented.  Couple these observations with the fact that the skills needed in todays workforce are changing, that employers are looking for workers who can solve problems, communicated effectively and in diverse manners, apply technological skills to access, apply and create new information, are leaders, and who have a thirst for lifelong learning, self direction and renewal and schools, for the most part, are not only missing an opportunity to capture a fleeing school population, but also to prepare students for 21st century work opportunities, opportunities that are quickly going over seas.

In short, it was a thought-provoking, perhaps even thought-challenging lecture.  I encourage all readers to view his presentation and to visit the institute's website.

Teachers take a pie in the face for Pi Day!

To celebrate Pi day, Mr. Wiggin - the 8th grade math teacher on the VIP team - hosted not only a pie eating contest, but gave students an opportunity to throw a pie in the face of their teachers. Additionally, the winner of the pie eating contest won the grand prize, throwing a pie in the face of Assistant Principal, Mrs. Faulkner.  Congratulations to Mr. Wiggin and the VIP team for a spirited and well-deserved celebration.

Cell Phones and iPods

Recently, the Exeter Newsletter ran an editorial entitled Cell Phones Should be Banned in Class, in which they commented on many of the negative features of cell phones and iPods as they relate to school.  They even noted that parents "complicated" the issue by allowing their children to carry theses devices in school and while I agree that such devices should not be used to distract from or inhibit learning, I do believe there are alternative uses of cell phones and iPods - uses that may have a more positive impact on learning.

Since then, I have done a bit of research about some of those more positive, educative ways that new technologies can be used to enhanced student learning.  I wanted to share some of those with you here.

1.   Will Richardson's blog about "participatory media"

2.  Again, Will Richardson, this time about "Digital Citizenship" and the students' role in the creation of new media.

3.  This article from Newsweek talks about the release of "Kindle", Amazon.com's digital book reader.

4.  Will Richardson makes some interesting comments in his blog about the use of cellphones and texting by students that are both scary, but also make one think a bit about their use.

5.  Ian Jukes writes of a "Cell Phone College Class" opening in Japan.

6.  Karl Fisch, the original creator of Did You Know?/Shift Happens, has examples of how students are using iPods and podcasting in their classes at Arapahoe High School in Littleton, Colorado.

7.  Ian Jukes shares this article entitled, "Study:  iPods Help Students Concentrate".

8.  Students2.0 is a new blog created with students from around the world.  They have some very pointed and interesting views.  It is worth reading.  They are worth listening to.