Letter to Alonso

This is a letter I wrote to Dr. Alonso, the CEO of Baltimore Public Schools. I like him, thinks he wants students to learn well and in the right way. Here it is:

Dr. Alonso,

I wanted to thank you for coming to ACCE to speak with teachers about how they we are doing. I look forward to continuing the dialogue, and seeing Baltimore schools improve as we work in the city. This got pretty long, but I hope you can bear with it.

This is a continuation of the conversation I was a part of at ACCE high school in late February (I am the first year TFA teacher).

I think the first thing you should know is that even though I came into teaching through Teach for America, I don’t like to categorize myself as such. I didn’t get into teaching to get into a grad program, and I don’t see myself as teaching for only two years. I am employed by Baltimore City to work for young people in Baltimore and my supervisor is Mr. Mitchell. Teach for America was the enabler and not much else for me. Although I think that this is a plus, you may not, either way I think you should know in the interest of full disclosure.

The topics I want to talk to you about are: 1) State Assessments, 2) Technology, and 3) Teach for America cooperation.

State Assessments -- I know that (only) controlling the city’s education system you don’t have a huge impact on State (let alone Federal) mandates. It is because I think you are a true reformer of public education that I will try to think with you, and convince you, about what changes need to be made with public education.

I was so delighted, and completely agree with what you said about the way we need to teach our students at the meeting. We absolutely need to teach them computer skills, as well as how to criticize, analyze, create, innovate, etc. I believe we are wasting minds putting kids through an education system that hasn’t changed in form since the advent of the computer (or electricity for that matter).

I have tried to do this in my classroom, and will continue to try as I improve my teaching. I am lucky in that I don’t teach an HSA tested subject. The point of my course (science and sustainability) is to get students to think critically about their world. I have problems with the curriculum, and there are a lot of things I’ve altered, but I believe it has the right idea at heart.

The Biology on the other hand, seems to be a very important class assessed by a trivial and imprecise test (its not bad for a multiple choice test, but those tests have their limits). One can be a great scientific mind (in that they think critically, logically, design and perform experiments well, and can draw conclusions from the experiments), but they can fail the HSA because they don’t know natural history very well. Science is a process not a pool of knowledge. (Think the Liberty Science Center in NJ not the American Museum of Natural History in NYC). On the other hand, someone can be a bad scientist but pass the test because of specific test taking skills or content knowledge.

I agree that if we taught science from elementary school on as a process and not specific knowledge, our students would pick up the information they needed on the test as they were doing great work in the classroom. I believe this doesn’t (and probably can’t) happen in the current system. The pressure that principles and teachers feel in the lower grades puts science on the back-burner, and once students get to high school there is a 2 or 3 year cram to get students to learn the content they need for the biology HSA.

Even if we can’t get the assessments to change, we need the buy-in from science staff. Inquiry is the buzz word now, but we don’t need only a curriculum that is inquiry based, but a staff that comes wanting to teach science as a process, not merely a content area.

As I said at the meeting, the bridge projects are a much greater assessment of students ability to do science then the HSA. I went to The Beacon School on the upper west side of Manhattan (I’m from the Lower East Side). That school had a waiver from the Regents test and instead had yearly portfolios and each subject had a graduation portfolio at the end of our junior or senior year. I had to design many of my own experiments, and write papers or lab reports on those experiments. Not only did it prepare me for college science, it meant that I could work easily in a college science lab. I did this for all of my classes, and it revolutionized my critical thinking abilities as well as my college readiness. I know that this school would not have been able to do this if I had to take the Regents test (even though I am confident in my ability to pass them!)

Technology -- Part of the reason we are teaching in such a old-fashioned way, is because its the only thing available to us. Because of the light quality from my southern exposure, I don’t have to use electricity on a sunny day until after noon (as long as I’m not using an overhead projector). I know that there is a huge initial cost to technological and infrastructure upgrades, but I believe that those investments must be made.

I believe that I’m better then most at using technology in my life (although not yet in my classroom), but an education conference I went to earlier this year gave me a huge sense of what is possible in terms of using technology. Here is a link to the conference website that should tell you a lot:

I am going to go back next year and try to bring a lot of my staff members along.

Technology should only help, never hinder become something we are a slave to. Here are some ideas of how better using technology could help our classrooms (I’m thinking especially at ACCE for many of these although I think they would work throughout the city).

Immediate and accurate information about students’ attendance in each class, as teachers input attendance on computers on a wireless network
A detention system that immediately and specifically updates based on teacher input. I had the idea of implementing a system where every time an expectation is broken it gets recorded, and each number of broken expectations turns into time served for detention.
A reward system that immediately and specifically updates based on teacher input.
Grade wide behavior tracking system that could be kept online (i.e. google docs), with each teacher having several students they are responsible for calling on behalf of the entire grade level team.
Deeper and more immediate class conversations where students post on wiki-boards to analyze material, debate different viewpoints, and create new ideas
Useful computer training so that future scientists can use a spreadsheet application to do statistical analyses and future office workers could make a spreadsheet and graph to show where food services is losing money, and how to close the budget gap while making the food healthier
Students being able to practice doing (and do) research for critical or analytical essays, lab reports, debates, etc.
Video Production and other modern art forms
There are many more that I can’t think of right now.

Teach for America -- I think this is a very good organization that is trying to move sub-par schools to the point where they are on point with America’s mediocre education system. Now that I have begun teaching I have realized how little I know, I don’t trust a non-teacher’s educational philosophy. That is part of what gives me great respect for you and less then great respect for Arne Duncan and those that set the TFA agenda.

I have been having conversations with Omari Todd about how TFA could best improve education quality in Baltimore City Schools. I believe that the organization should focus on retaining the quality teachers that are entering their third year rather then expanding the Corp so quickly. I believe that expanding the Corp is best for TFA the corporation, and retaining teachers is best for Baltimore City. (How much more effective is a third year teacher than a first year teacher? How many 1st year teachers equal a 3rd or 4th year teacher? I know at my school the third year TFAs are far more productive in the classrooms then the first years).

I could see you not agreeing with this, but I think that you making a case for TFA making ANY effort to retain teachers in teaching (and not only policy or administration, etc) would have an impact on the quality and experience of teachers in Baltimore.

I also think that the focus on the TFA Baltimore office on its current teachers would help teacher retention before the two years are up. I think its partially the decision of the office to expand the corp that took focus away from current corp members that led to those corp members not getting the help they needed that led them to quit. I don’t think that the corp members were necessarily going to quit, the believed (and still believe) in the mission, but didn’t feel as if they were making a difference and became hopeless and distraught. I’m afraid that the same thing will happen next year when we expand the corp by 33%.

Sorry this is so long, thank you for your time