Life, Death, and the Dictionary

Educational buzzwords come and go. I am here today to take a stand against the newest darling of the ed reform crowd. "Rigor." Every day I see tweets from individual schools within the Howard County Schools (and well beyond) about increasing rigor for students.

Back up the truck. Hold the phone. We have a problem.

Let's go to the dictionary. *

Stop. Just stop. You want us to get all excited about a concept that has its roots in the stiffness of death? Adversity, inflexibility, cruelty... What about that says "learning" to you?

Now, maybe they were thinking "vigor"?

Okay, I am all on board for vigor, which has its roots in liveliness--a healthy life force, well-balanced growth, enthusiasm , mental strength. But thinking that we need to go in and increase "rigor" for our kids and that will just snap 'em into shape? I don't buy it.

The work our kids need is meaningful work, meaningful to them, and meaningful challenges where they can stretch themselves, not stiffen. There is no inherent benefit in struggling just for struggling's sake. And I am not willing to let corporate ed reform people sell me a bill of goods when they can't even use a dictionary properly. Words have power; they mean something--look at the implications of what you are saying!

Ahem.

My mother, a perfectionist when it came to writing, checked all my papers when I was in school and she wouldn't let me get away with shoddy and improper word usage. "You can't just make that word mean what you want it to mean," she would say, sending me back to make it right.

I don't suppose there is any realistic way to make people stop using this ridiculous buzzword, but we certainly can look anyone in the eye who tries to use it with us and let them know what we think about it. Compare both words above. Rigor or vigor. What do you want for your children?

What will serve them better in school and in life?

*please forgive shameless cutting and pasting for the definitions. My formatting abilities in this app. are limited, and I want the reader to see both words side-by-side.

 

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Seeing Yourself

I went looking for information on the Inner Arbor Trust to write this post and, to my surprise, I found this. Wow. That's me. That's my testimony at a CA Board Meeting in support of the Inner Arbor plan for Symphony Woods. Of course there's much more information at the IAT site, but it gave me a little thrill to see myself there.

That, in a nutshell, is what is vitally important about the Inner Arbor. It is a park where all kinds of Columbians will be able to see themselves. It will be a place for all generations. It will foster cultural celebrations that acknowledge our beautiful diversity. It is an expression of who we are today, where we have come from, and where we are going tomorrow.

The creation of Columbia, with its buildings and villages, green space and pathways, institutions and institutional process is something that benefits all of us. But it is also a product of its time, and more importantly, was never intended to be static, but, to grow. And the Inner Arbor responds to our need for a community park which is as engaging and inspiring as the creation of Columbia itself.

Tonight there will be a Planning Board hearing on the first phase of the plan, which includes The Chrysalis, an amphitheater. The meeting starts at 7:00 pm. You can send support by email (see link) or you can come testify in person. Or you can just come and show your support by being there. I believe they will do separate sign-ins, "for" and "against". (Yes, numbers count.)

But more important than that is who sees themself in the park. Who imagines, desires, recognizes, chooses the importance of a park which is, by design, inclusive in its scope. The struggle in our community to create this park truly holds up a mirror to who we are. We need to look long and hard at what we see.

If you can see yourself, your children, teens, or grandchildren in this park--speak up. If you can see how it would encourage young professionals and young families to choose Columbia, speak up. To paraphrase a well-known saying, "We have seen the future, and it is Us."

And it's going to be really, really fun.

 

 

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Grace in the Race

I woke up, my head hurt, and the world was wrong.

I read this from the pastor of Bridgeway Community Church:

@AndersonSpeaks: Whoever your candidate is or was it is the call of the "gracist" to celebrate with those who won and grieve with those who lost. #gracism

I am still really too sick to ponder much more than this. Perhaps that is a blessing.

A few things thoughts--

• Thanks to the people who believe. Your energy is not wasted, your beliefs are not invalidated. Thank you for fighting the good fight.
  
• Congratulations to Bess Altwerger and Cindy Vaillancourt for winning seats on the Board of Education.
• Anyone touched by Tom Coale's campaign has learned something about grace in the race that won't soon be forgotten.

One last thing. Tomorrow night there will be a Planning Board hearing about the first phase of building the Inner Arbor. (Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods.) Please come and show your support. You have a chance to influence to creation of something truly wonderful for our community. Here's Bill Woodcock's post about it this morning.

 

 

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Looking Forward, Looking Back

You might say that there is no room for looking backward on Election Day. Months of work, aimed at forward motion, push towards the finish line. There's not one moment to spare for a backward glance.

And yet.

And yet everything and everyone has a history which is as much a part of Election Day as promises for the future. Those who do not learn from the past--well, you know.

So these three moments are on my mind today:

1. This post from the late blogger Dennis Lane about preparing to work the polls for Courtney Watson. It is just one piece among many which show his evolution from someone who had supported her Republican opponent to gradually becoming both an admirer and a true supporter. And though itwasn't really his thing, he was willing to put on his t-shirt and get out there.

2. Tom Coale's announcement for the 9B Delegate seat. This was the first time I had attended an announcement event, and the first for an actual friend. Knowing someone personally has completely changed my perception of the election process. It's not about "them". It's about "us".

3. This Board of Education meeting in the Spring where it became painfully clear that we needed more people like Cindy Vaillancourt on the Board representing us, as parents turned out in droves asking for respect, responsiveness, and transparency regarding changes to the elementary arts ed curriculum.

I'll be carrying these memories with me to the polls today, along with hopes for the future. I wouldn't be voting if I didn't believe that my participation makes a difference. I hope to be standing at the polls later today in support of Board of Ed. Candidates Altwerger, Beams, Furman, and Vaillancourt.

I'm fighting bronchitis at this point, so I can't promise. No matter what happens today, I have to look ahead to tomorrow, when I'll need to be singing and dancing with preschoolers. I hope that election results will give me an extra spring in my step.

Vote.

 

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Time Travel and Rats in a Shoebox

Well, fasten your seatbelt. Let's go back in time. While I have been nursing my cold, someone else wrote a great description of what I had been planning to discuss. Let's start with that.

Once upon a time "standardized tests" were administered periodically, without any particular fanfare, to students across the country. The results were looked at in general terms to see how districts compared, and which schools within a district might be stronger or weaker --- and that information was used to initiate additional review. Somewhere along the line scores began to get out and were used by some folks to claim one school was better than another --- then property values went up around "good schools" --- then schools began to chase high test scores. That wouldn't be a problem if it were purely a function of improved instruction... but it wasn't. In many cases instruction became so focused on test scores, that large chunks of other important education got lost. ----Cindy Vaillancourt, member, Howard County Board of Education and candidate for re-election.

To be clear, the words "somewhere along the line", clearly refer to No Child Left Behind and its aftermath. With the institution of NCLB, a decision was made that the way to accurately assess progress in remediating the achievement gap would be through standardized testing. And the way to make sure schools took that testing seriously would be to attach serious consequences to "failure". Hence, the term, "high-stakes standardized testing."

The problem is that lawmakers chose an inaccurate measure on which to focus their efforts. Since 2001 study after study shows that these tests show correlation with the level of poverty or affluence of the student. In addition, studies also show that the greatest indicator of school failure is poverty.

Look at this list, included in a recent letter by Assistant Principal Nancy Chewning to Time Magazine.

*Childhood poverty has reached its highest level in 20 years

*1 in 4 children lives in a food-insecure household.

*7 million children lack health insurance.

*A child is abused or neglected every 47 seconds.

*1 in 3 children is overweight or obese.

*Five children are killed daily by firearms.

*1 in 5 experiences a mental disorder.

*Racial/ethnic disparities continue to be extensive and pervasive.

*Children account for 73.5 million Americans (24%), but 8% of federal expenditures.

*Child well-being in the United States has been in decline since the most recent recession.

(From a study released by JAMA Pediatrics)

This tweet from teacher Will Valenti speaks to the disconnect between the focus of NCLB, Race to the Top, and other similar education reform:

@WillValenti: The entire #edreform narrative is a manufactured crisis. To fix real issues in education, we first must fix the wage gap for working people.

Now, to those who are concerned about who we are to know whether students are on grade level, I ask--how did we know before 2001? I know it seems like a long time ago. But the truth is school systems had established curriculums. Teachers worked with students. Students participated in learning activities and assessments. None of it was perfect, of course, because people aren't perfect nor has income equality ever been optimal. But standardized tests played a much smaller role in understanding the educational progress of the child.

There is a lot more to be said on this topic, but I still have one more place to travel today. Here. Do you remember learning about spontaneous generation? I remember being fascinated that people once believed you could put shredded paper or rags in a box and produce rats. How delightfully wacky. How clearly wrong-headed.

But it took systematic, laborious research by Louis Pasteur to disprove this long-accepted concept. And he was clearly challenging established thought.

We have years of research and results that show that high stakes testing does not help close the achievement gap. We have studies that show how attempts to adhere to NCLB and Race to the Top have narrowed educational experiences and opportunities for our children. And yet we still keep putting shredded newspaper in a box, hoping for rats.

Coming back to the present day, my suggestions for addressing what the "Ed reform" movement was meant to address?

• High quality prenatal care
• Addressing childhood poverty
• Including the expertise of teachers, who have been on the front lines all along, in creating and sustaining plans for improvement.

To those who say, "what will we do instead?" I remind you--it was not ever thus. And it need not be now, if we so choose.

Think outside the box.

 

 

 

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Halloween: Mapping and Apping?

Good morning. I'm still too sick to take on major feats of intellectual bloggery. So I want to turn your attention to two excellent articles about Halloween.

Halloween Carpetbaggers

In Praise of Halloweens Ability to Connect Neighbors

Of course Halloween took a major hit years ago when talk of razor blades and evidence of Tylenol tampering poisoned our trust in our neighbors and in neighborhood trick or treating. In many ways that trust has never been recovered.

As a parent, I have never lived in a neighborhood that "did" trick or treating. So, I have always had to rely on the kindness of friends who lived in good trick-or-treating neighborhoods to include my children. This is not because we were desperately poor. In Bolton Hill in Baltimore City the affluent closed their doors and turned off their lights against the onslaught of "carpetbaggers" from Eutaw and North Avenue. We were renters amongst the affluent--where to go?

We lived in apartments, and we have lived in a quadroplex community in Talbott Springs that just doesn't "do" Halloween. (Some do. Very few, though.)

I kept seeing Columbia/HoCo friends post about a lack of trick or treaters this year. When I picked up my daughter from her friend's house in Stevens Forest, the sidewalks were full of costumed children and adults tagging along. And I thought, I guess it depends on where you live. We've been talking a lot in Oakland Mills about how the decision of many single family homeowners to age in place has meant a shortage of housing stock for new families to start out and grow.

There are so many streets where there are no children.

This immediately made me think of blogger Bill Santos of Columbia Compass who is incredibly good with data and charts and graphs, and who is rightly concerned about Columbia's lack of families with young children. Could this be tracked by crowd-sourcing trick-or-treating results? I wonder.

Would we able to see where housing turnover has occurred and where young families are thriving? We might also see areas where nearby apartments or pockets of poverty cause an influx or "carpetbaggers". (I hate that term.) I am not sure how one can deal with the variables here, but I think it would be fascinating to track.

A grateful shout-out to all the friends who, though the years, have taken my children under their wings so that they could enjoy a neighborhood Halloween experience. And especially to the Pastora Place/Rocksparkle Row folks: your neighborhood really has it goin' on. If there were an app to map Halloween joy, your little circle would light up the night.

 

 

 

 

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Spelling Counts

Yes, boys and girls, spelling counts. So does following election law. You can't post a campaign sign without an authority line.

 

You can't use campaign materials to try to mislead people, as in this "ballot" where the words "Howard County Public School System" run across the top. (Note the color similarity to recent hcpss logo.)

 

I wonder who is paying for this last-minute flurry of campaign materials? It would be interesting to know. It would also be gratifying if they had been executed in compliance with election law.

And again, it would help if they could spell.

 

 

 

 

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