Beach Bag Blog

The Comp Book will be on vacation next week, so in the spirit of all things summertime, consider today's post the informational equivalent of a beach bag full of water wings, sun screen, flip flops and several good reads. Let's rummage around in that bag and see what we pull up first:

• Susan Kovalik of the Center for Human Brain and Human Learning closed the WASA/AWSP Summer Conference in Spokane Tuesday, and her presentation gave all of the attendees a lot to think about. Some of her better bon mots:
  
• "Everything we do in our buildings should be brain compatible."
  
• "There's a fine line between leader and ringleader."
  
• "We are not born intelligent, only the capacity to be so and every day, our experiences enhance, stifle or diminish our intellectual, social and emotional capacity."
• "We are not our genes, we are our experiences."
• "Socio-political action is the ultimate goal of any classroom."
• "Responsible citizenship begins in kindergarten."
• "When students graduate, are they jury ready? Voter ready? Credit ready? Employer ready?"
  
  
• Granger High Principal Richard Esparza is traveling in China this week with a group of U.S. principals engaged in the College Board's Chinese Bridge Delegation program. You can read his travel blog here.
  
  
• Harris Interactive, a global market research firm, announced the findings of a new national study of middle school students today. Harris polled 1,814 students in grades seven and eight Feb. 14 - March 7, 2007 about problems in their schools, standardized tests and high school course selection. There's lots to be mined in this survey, but perhaps the most intriguing: Nearly half (46 percent) of those student polled said that student behavior is the biggest problem in their schools. Fifty-nine percent said they think their school gives them the right amount of standardized testing, too.
  
  
• The Educational Testing Service unveiled its latest survey of 1,526 adults about No Child Left Behind. Aside from the overall opinions about the nation's schools (which were given a letter grade of "C" by those polled), the research also drilled down on administrators' opinions about the omnibus education law. You can review all of the slides online. Among the key findings:
• 52 percent of public school administrators believe NCLB should be reauthorized with major changes. (Slide 20)
  
• 72 percent of the general public polled said in some cases, schools should be taken over/restructured with new administrators; another 24 percent said it should not happen in any instance. (Slide 29)
  
• 77 percent of administrators said they strongly or somewhat agree more flexibility is needed for English Language Learners; teachers polled the same way, but 67 percent of those who identified as Hispanic agreed, as did 58 percent of the general public. (Slide 32)

OK, now I'm rummaging around deep in the bag...among the random Life Savers, loose Kleenexes and ponytail holders. Here's a few last items of note:

• Jerry Bender, AWSP's director of governmental relations, will enter the blogosphere shortly when he heads to Washington, D.C. later this month for the NAESP/NASSP National Leaders Conference. "Can you blog from your phone?" he asked warily. (Answer: yes, you can.) Stay tuned for that launch.
  
  
• AWSP is still looking for a few new principals and assistant principals to attend the aptly named New Principals' and Assistant Principals' Workshop later in July.
  
  
• Did you know your volunteer parents who run your levy campaigns need to register with the state's Public Disclosure Commission? It's true. Check out the election guidelines for schools and districts.
  
  
• June 28 was comedian Mel Brooks' birthday. (Just thought I would throw that one in. Hey, we're at the bottom of the beach bag -- random things appear!)
  

Time to hit the virtual beach. Have a safe and Happy July Fourth.

Summer Conference Kicks Off in Spokane

And what a great way to start things off. Beautiful summer weather, lots of wonderful pre-conferences and tonight, a friendly reception and dinner in the newly renovated Spokane Convention Center. But the most uplifting moment of the day came when the evening's speaker, Alvin Law, took the stage.

Born without arms (the result of thalidomide use by his birth mother), Law quickly engaged the audience with his witty personality and self-depricating humor.

A native of Yorktown, Saskatchewan, Law was adopted by woman who had already raised two boys but at age 55, opened her home and her heart to him. She was, he noted, "the first person who looked at me and saw a future; everyone else saw a problem." Growing up, his mother (and father) cut him no slack, encouraging him to use his feet and requiring him to complete his chores--mowing the lawn, taking out the trash and vacuuming -- just like his brothers.

Where many are moved to see Law's adaptiveness as "amazing," he reminded the audience that not ever having had arms, he feels completely normal. He drives. He carries his own luggage. He does everything other people with arms and hands do; he just uses his feet. For Law, other people's perceived limitations of him have been the biggest obstacle to overcome -- not the apparent "disability." Law related a story about the time his family attended an grade school open house, in anticipation of his starting school. The principal, sizing up the young Law, dismissed the notion ("He's got no arms!" the principal said. "What do you call that?" he asked Law's parents. "Alvin," his mother replied.). The principal stood fast, insisting the young man would be bullied. His family patiently persisted, insisting Law would handle those situations on his own. Law started school the next day.

Law shared several humorous stories about his experiences growing up in school -- too many to mention here (his book, Alvin's Laws of Life, likely captures many of these gems). An affable, wickedly funny speaker, Law's thoughts on humanity, personal challenge and just plain growing up were thought-provoking and authentic. Here are just a few of the humorous and compelling observations he made during tonight's presentation:

• "Positive attitudes are better than negative attitudes. Duh! Even stupid people know that!"
• "I can teach a child about my life in about 35 seconds. How do I know they've learned it? They change the subject."
• "Kids have an amazing ability to stop looking at what I didn't have."
• "The biggest challenge has not been not having arms. It's been people."
• "It's good to be alive."

Notes on AWSP Board Meeting

Traditionally, the AWSP Board meets in June the Saturday prior to the Summer Conference; this year was no different. Today's board meeting saw the addition of new members, including Cle Elum-Roslyn High Principal Boyd Keyser and Serene Lake Elementary Principal Karen Reid. The board also thanked Lydia Hawk Elementary Principal Paula Quinn for her service to the board as the Association's past president.

Unlike our component board meetings, where elementary, middle and high school principals and assistant principals meet to share best practices, the AWSP board is largely a business meeting. Budgets are reviewed and reports are given on each of the Association's strategic plan goal areas.

Here are some of the more compelling, non-business -related points from today's meeting:

• AWSP passed a resolution in support of the simple majority referendum on the 2007 fall ballot.( Check back for actual text.)
  
• State Board of Education Member Amy Bragdon reported that the SBE is considering adding a high school graduation credit in tribal history. AWSP is appointing a committee to review this proposal.
• AWSP will continue researching the new NAESP E-Knowledege Portal as a member benefit.

Field Trip: Summer Conference in Spokane

I'm headed for Spokane tomorrow for our annual Summer Conference with the Washington Association of School Administrators (also known as WASA or the supes' association). Will do some blogging from the Inland Empire and hope to meet some potential guest bloggers at the event.

Would 'Onboarding' Work for Schools?

There is often a tendency to compare the private sector world with that of public schools, and the comparison is not always fair or accurate. Or feasible. But this article from Business Week suggests a new trend in leadership development could be an exception to that rule.

In the article, executive leadership coaches Marshall Goldsmith and Sue Schaefer discuss the new corporate trend of "onboarding" - helping new executives and their companies prepare for a leadership change. The parallels between prepping a new exec and a new principal are uncanny. Consider this exchange about corporate leaders in the context of bringing on a new administrator:

The old model just doesn't work often enough! Business cannot afford the existing failure rates that result from misaligned expectations. Harvard's Michael Watkins, author of The First 90 Days, has revealed that a staggering 58% of new executives—those hired from the outside—don't succeed in their new position within 18 months. The cost per failure is more than a million dollars.

Companies spend an enormous amount of money recruiting people. While we hear about recruiting costs and the costs of failed executives, we often don't factor in the indirect costs of hiring an executive who becomes toxic to the environment. It can take months—or even years—to rebuild an organization after a particularly negative experience. The higher up the executive, the more costly the "reconstruction" costs. Very high-level negative experiences can definitely damage the company's reputation and stock value.

Again, forget stock value for the moment. Consider instead the implications for a school and district as a result of a leadership change - on the students, staff and community. And the research on successful schools only reinforces the importance of strong principals.

AWSP is working on a new project that might help with the "onboarding" process in schools by developing leadership coaches for members at every step of their career. In fact, the association trained more than 20 skilled, veteran principals to serve as coaches. We hope to have more to share on this project with the start of the new school year.

What do you think? Would "onboarding" work in schools? Does your district already do this?

The Paramount Duty

Educators often cite the language of Washington state's constitution when discussing the funding of public education. But where does that language come from -- and what exactly does the constitution say about funding education?

You'll find it all in Section 1 of Article IX, in the preamble to the education portion of the document, not the preamble to the entire constitution). To wit:

It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex.

Bonus trivia question: How many articles are there in the Washington state constitution?

Bonus extended dance remix question: What is the official state amphibian? (Hint: Ask the students at Boston Harbor Elementary in Olympia. They lobbied the Legislature this past session to make it official!)

Raising Green for More Green Time

As mentioned here in previous posts, AWSP has long advocated for the importance of outdoor education and outdoor experiences for years. Now it looks like some bigger players -- including the Walt Disney Co. and Sesame Workshop -- are making outdoor time a major priority.

Washington Post Writer Donna St. George reports in today's paper the corporations will join 40 other civic, governmental and private groups tomorrow in launching a $20 million campaign to to fund 20 initiatives across the country. The goal? To encourage children, quite simply, to go outside and play. St. George writes:

Advocates and researchers have been aware of the downturn in outdoor activity for a long time, and it has been documented by experts such as Sandra Hofferth, a family studies professor at the University of Maryland. From 1997 to 2003, Hofferth found, there was a decline of 50 percent, from 16 to 8 percent, in the proportion of children 9 to 12 who spent time in such outside activities as hiking, walking, fishing, beach play and gardening. Organized sports were not included as an outdoor activity in the study, which was based on detailed time diaries.

Hofferth's study also showed an increase in computer play time for all children and in time spent on television and video games for those ages 9 to 12. And it found increases in sleep time, study time and reading time.

At the National Wildlife Federation, St. George reports, they've started promoting a "green hour," encouraging children to spend at least an hour outside every day. By making it a part of their daily routine, like brushing their teeth, advocates believe the trend data could begin to turn around. From the Post story:

Marguerite Kondracke, president of America's Promise Alliance, which calls itself the nation's largest organization of groups focused on children, said the change in how children spend their leisure time is more dramatic than most people recognize and can lead to problems such as obesity and depression.

"I believe this has happened so gradually," she said, "that we as adults don't realize what's taken place. . . . I think we as a nation need to wake up to this."

What are your schools doing to encourage more outdoor time at school? Has your school ever visited Cispus or Chewelah Peak?

The Kids in the Marketing Department

Here's a fun one for you. The writers and editors of the Washington Post's kids section wanted to see how well a new TV commercial for breakfast cereal scored with its target audience. So they set up a focus group of fourth- and sixth-graders from a local elementary school to write down what they believed was the main idea of the advertisement, what they liked and what they disliked (it might make for a fun WASL prompt someday!). As Art Linkletter warned, kids do say the darndest things.

Presidential Primary Bumps Special Elections for Schools

As you may have heard, Washington state has a new presidential primary date -- Feb. 19. This bumps the Feb. 5 special election date many schools and districts use for bond and levy approval. Seattle-Northwest Securities (SNW), the state's largest financial adviser for school district bond and levy issues, recently issued a handy elections guide outlining the new election and resolution filing dates for 2008.

Incidentally, SNW will co-host its popular School Finance Workshop again Sept. 18 at the Shoreline Center with the help of the Washington School Public Relations Association.

Childhood Obesity Gets Another Champion

Move over Arnold. Make way, Bill Clinton. There's a new force in the fight against childhood obesity.

You may recall earlier this year California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and President Bill Clinton joined the American Heart Association in the launch of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, an initiative to eliminate childhood obesity and promote healthy lifestyles among kids.

Well, on Tuesday, June 26, ABC premieres "Shaq's Big Challenge," starring NBA star Shaquille O'Neal in a reality show aimed at combating childhood obesity. According to the show's Web site, O'Neal will "help transform six obese middle school youngsters from Florida into healthy, fit kids - and along the way, demonstrate how other communities nationwide can help fight childhood obesity." The NBA All-Star will serve as the kids' coach and motivator, but they'll also work with Shaq's his own physician and trainer, as well as a nutritionist, a childhood obesity expert from Miami Children's Hospital, Food Network Chef Tyler Florence and Shaq's basketball coach from L.S.U., Dale Brown.

In an April 2006 survey conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 92 percent of all Americans consider childhood obesity to be a serious national problem. Interestingly, the same survey found that parents are less concerned about obesity in their own children:

• Only 41 percent of parents with children under age 18 were very concerned about their children being or becoming obese or seriously overweight.

The show about kids may really be aimed at adults; it will air at 9 p.m. (late on a school night, but it is summer, after all). With one-third of the country's children already obese or at risk for obesity, this new reality show could be the sleeper hit of the summer. It's hard to believe all of this all gets resolved in just six one-hour segments; it took "The Sopranos" six seasons and they're still seeking closure...

Depending on how the show goes, we may need a second helping of "Shaq's Big Challenge." Let's hope everyone who tunes in does so after at least 30 minutes of running, jumping and exercising.

Student Press Bill Moving Ahead in OR

Oregon could be the next state to broaden student media freedoms.

On Monday, the Oregon Senate approved House Bill 3279, and sent it off to Gov. Ted Kulongoski for review and signature. The bill makes students in high schools and higher education institutions responsible for the content of school-sponsored media. Amendments were made in the Senate to soften the measure, stripping out specific protections for student media advisers, restrictions on prior review and language about "public forums."

The Oregon bill was introduced on the heels of Washington state's own House Bill 1307, brought forward this past session by Rep. Dave Upthegrove (D-Des Moines). That bill died in the Senate, though the lawmaker told attendees at a journalism workshop this past May at Central Washington University that he plans to reintroduce the measure again next year -- but may start with a higher ed-only bill.

Where Credit is Due

Last Friday's "Report to Families" by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction suggests that students in the class of 2008 are rising to the challenge of the WASL as a graduation requirement. According to OSPI, 86.8 percent of the class has passed the test in reading and about the same (86.7 percent) did so on the writing exam -- both great numbers to cheer about. Math continues to be the subject of greatest concern, as just 74.3 of next year's graduating seniors have passed the test. The math requirement has been postponed until 2013, during which time the state will be working to review the standards, among other things.

The good news is more resources are being allocated to help those students still needing to get over the bar. The Legislature has allocated $12 million for Promoting Academic Success (PAS), which high schools and districts can use to target those students in need of additional reading, writing or math help.

Is the bar still too high for Washington's high school students? To see what the papers are saying about student progress, you can read this, this, this and this. Oh, and check out this and that, too.

Grad Requirements Translated

The Center for the Improvement for Student Learning (CISL) just completed its translation of the Washington State High School Graduation Requirements into nine different languages, including:

• Spanish
• Tagalog
• Cambodian
• Russian
• Vietnamese
• Korean
• Somali
• Ukrainian

The documents are all available as PDFs that can easily be printed and reproduced.

Commencing with Commencement

Here's a humorous read from a community columnist at the Kitsap Sun newspaper in Bremerton. Guest blogger Rob Woutat delivers a pragmatic virtual commencement address to students in Kitsap County high schools. Among the advice offered:

The further you drift from the protective arms of your parents and your school, the more you’ll have to jack up your skepticism, and the more you’ll recognize that skepticism is a basic survival tool.

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt may have had the best approach to giving speeches: "Be sincere. Be brief. Be seated."

Since it's that time of year, tell us what you think makes a great graduation address (high school or college)?

How do you select the speakers at your high school? And for middle and elementary schools: do you hold commencement or transition ceremonies?

At Least They Spelled It Correctly

(Punctuation is another matter.)

Apparently someone walking by the AWSP office in Olympia last night felt strongly about Ms. Hilton's plight. This is the backside of our office sign, which we discovered first thing this morning.

Although the celebrity was released today from the L.A. County jail, I'm not sure we can count on the same person returning to restore our sign to its original condition.

Combatting the Summer Slump

And we're not talking about the Mariners here.

According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, 65 percent of the achievement gap between poor and more affluent students can be attributed to unequal summer learning opportunities during their elementary school years. Their study found that:

On average, children from low-income families lose nearly three months of grade-level equivalency, compared to one month lost by middle-income children when reading and math performance are combined.

What are your schools doing to prevent a summer slump?

By the way, National Summer Learning Day is July 12.

WASL Data

According to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), our state's education department, just 85 test score appeals have been filed so far this year. (That's out of 240,000 tests, BTW.) The numbers were released earlier this week as part of an informational event for Washington state media. Of those filed:

• 66 were in math; 12 were granted
• 9 were in reading; 1 was granted
• 10 were in writing; none (0) were granted

There are also about 2,000 students who have applied to submit a collection of evidence, according to Molly O'Connor, the state's assessment communications manager. The collection of evidence is one of the multiple alternatives to the WASL, a means by which high schoolers can demonstrate mastery in the content areas without re-taking the test. Another 85 students have filed their scores on the ACT, PSAT, SAT or ACT as proof of their abilities; 82 filed to use their PSAT scores, one filed to use SAT scores, and two filed to use ACT scores.

FYI, State Superintendent Terry Bergeson will present her "Report to Families" teleconference to the media on Friday, June 8, at which time she will announce the number of sophomores and juniors who passed the WASL in reading, writing and math this year.

Under Pressure

The photos from the Scripps National Spelling Bee do a wonderful job of capturing the emotion associated with this event. As I mentioned in Tuesday's blog, the official Web site has a great collection of trivia and resources about the famous contest. But it's the photos that really captured my attention. Here are a couple of my favorites, courtesy of the Scripps site:

1. This poor little guy. He received the dreaded "ding" of the bell, indicating an incorrect spelling. Not sure if he's near tears or just wincing. Or both. (Cute shot, though.)
   

2. Oh, the agony of a missed word...













And my favorite shot of all that I have seen so far is this one:


3. Forget the pressure of letting yourself down, let alone your school, your family, your city, your state... Consider the plight of the poor student facing THE MEDIA in all of this. The media moat in front of the stage would rival a senate hearing. There's even a priest on hand for this event!

Participation in this event gives students an education in more than just spelling. It gives them a taste of life in the 21st century modern world.

By the way, the winning word, if you don't already know by now, was serrefine. Don't know what it means? Do what my mom always told me to do: look it up!