WASL: Drinking from the Fire Hose

Today's WASL score release by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction further underscores the incredible amount of testing data available. "Like drinking from a fire hose," quipped KING 5's Glenn Farley, reporting at noon on today's announcement. His analogy is not far from the truth.

In the wake of NCLB, the good news is, you have more data. The bad news is...you have more data.

So what do you do with it all? That's the question newsrooms around the state are grappling with right now. How do you tell a numbers story when you (1) can't see the test or (2) the test results and (3) school, in some areas, has not started? This is perhaps where principals can be a good resource for their local media -- and share some good news about what's working in schools. Conversely, this is also a time when some principals will also have to be honest about what isn't working. Still, it's another opportunity to get your message across -- even just to your staff, students and families, about your instructional priorities for the year.

How have you communicated the results of WASL scores in your school? What do you do with your staff to distill all of the WASL information? How are you using it to improve classroom instruction?

Washington's SAT Scores

An update on yesterday's post about the slight decline in SAT scores nationally (down one point in reading to 502; three in writing to 494 and to 515 in math).

According to a story in today's Seattle P-I, Washington state students who took the college entrance exam only saw their collective scores drop two points by comparison. In our state, the average scores were 526 in reading, 510 in writing and 531 in math. A detailed, state-by-state report is also available online, which allows a more in-depth look at the data for the 34,638 students who sat for the SAT. For example:

• In math, boys still outscore the girls, this time by 34 points (provided my math is correct).
• There were 31 freshmen who took the test and 493 seniors
• 67 percent of our state's testers were white; 13 percent were Asian, Asian American or Pacific Islander. Four percent were Black or African American. Three percent identified themselves as Mexican or Mexican American and 2 percent said they were Hispanic, Latino or Latin American.
• 44 percent took the PSAT as a junior and 29 percent never took the PSAT at all.
• The mean grade point average for the test-takers: 3.41.

There's a great breakdown of coursework by gender and SAT grade that's worth a closer look. Fifty-eight percent of test-takers reported taking four years of mathematics (44 percent of boys and 58 percent of girls). There's data for English, natural sciences, social sciences and history, too.

Tuesday Tidbits - Aug. 28

Each Tuesday, AWSP will try to capture some of the smaller, but still noteworthy, items making news in the K-12 world. Here's today's tidbits:

• The College Board today announced the scores for the class of 2007, the largest and most diverse class of SAT takers on record. Nearly 1.5 million students in the class of 2007 took the test and students of color comprised nearly four out of 10 test-takers. As for the scores:
  
• The average score in reading (502) declined one point from last year.
  
• The average score in mathematics and writing declined by three points each, as well, bringing the average scores to 515 and 494 respectively.
  
• Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup releases its 39th annual poll of the public's attitudes toward public schools today. You can read the full report here, which offers seven implications and lessons for leaders (politicians and educators alike). Among the highlights:
  
• For the first time since they started asking the question in 2003, 54 percent of respondents say they know "a great deal or a fair amount" about NCLB.
• Is this gain in knowledge affecting people's perceptions of schools? PDK/Gallup found that as public knowledge of NCLB grows, the public's view of NCLB is becoming less favorable.
• A new study released this week by the University of Washington's Harborview Medical Center suggests that a nationwide push to install automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in schools may not be worth the cost. The study, which was published Monday in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, suggests putting AEDs in high schools or pinpointing schools where students and staff have medical problems. According to the AP story in today's Seattle Times:

  The survey of emergency response to schools in the Seattle area over 16 years found that students suffered cardiac arrests only 12 times and a third of these children had known heart problems.
  
  Most of the cardiac arrests at schools between 1990 to 2005 involved adults — teachers, volunteers or people just walking on school property. And they occurred much more often in high schools and middle schools than elementary schools.

La Cima Leadership Camp - VIDEO!

At today's AWSP quarterly staff meeting, Student Leadership Director Susan Fortin gave a recap of the summer programs. Summer is her super busy time of the year, so it's always fun to hear how things went, especially at some of our newer events like Mascot CheerLeadership Camp and Bilingual Leadership Camp.

The La Cima Bilingual Leadership Camp is one of the newer programs (this is the second year). It's aimed at developing the leadership skills of Latino students. With each year, the camp gets a little better and grows a little more in attendance. About 50 middle and high school students attended the camp this year at Chewelah Peak Learning Center, located about an hour north of Spokane.

As often happens with leadership camps, the people who are there and experience the fun return home full of fun stories and enthusiasm. But unless you were there, it's a little hard to sympathize or share in that fun. That's why video has become such a powerful medium.

Fortunately for AWSP, one of our Leadership Camp alumni is a filmmaker. Brad McLaughlin took some time to go up to the camp this summer and has pulled together some initial video. Unfinished or not, you can really see how much fun these students had at camp!

Putting Some English on School Improvement.

Let's say you're the principal of a very successful elementary school. Staff is great. Kids are doing well. Things are generally great. Would you increase your current workload to help a similar, though less well-performing school? Leave your building for a part of each week? And take your assistant principal with you, too? (Note: there is a stipend for the effort.)

If you have a moment, fish the Aug. 1 issue of Education Week out of your reading pile. It's worth taking a glance at page 8 and their focus on world learning. Accessing the article online requires a free registration-- or use of your existing one -- but Lynn Olson's article ("In England, Top 'Heads' Oversee Two Schools at Once") gives another perspective on how principals in some successful schools in England are helping their colleagues (and the students) in struggling schools through a privately funded initiative. It's particularly intriguing in light of our own school improvement efforts at AWSP and in Washington state.

Here's the gist of it: High-performing head teachers -- the equivalent of American principals -- are paired with low-performing schools with similar characteristics. It's part of an initiative in England known as National Leaders in Education (NLE) /National Support Schools (NSS), operated by the National College for School Leadership, a private entity that reads more like a corporation than a traditional institution of higher education. You can read their goals and corporate plan online.

The scope of work apparently varies from school to school depending on the nature of the contract between the "NLEs", their school and the local school district.The program started in 2006 with 68 schools and a second cadre of 59 schools has been added. NLEs in the first cohort were paid approximately $10,000 for their work.

Lawrence Montagu, the head teacher at St. Peter's High School and Sixth Form in Gloucester, is one of the NLEs mentioned in the story. His perspective largely tracks with AWSP's own role in the state's school improvement efforts:

"You take into the school a vision of what's made your school successful," he said, "but do not tell them that's the way to do it. I think to transport one school to another is a recipe for disaster."

Take a read and let us know what you think. Should we broaden our efforts in Washington state and incorporate more of the NCSL program into ours? As a principal of a low-performing school, would you welcome this sort of help? As the principal of a high-performing school, ould you do this if you could?

Read any good books lately?

According to a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll, only one in four Americans has in the last year.

Or, put another way, three in four Americans have NOT read a single book in the last year.

Given everything on their "to do" lists, most principals will not find this terribly shocking. In an age of media overload, reading a book has become a rare treat for people already swimming in e-mail, snail mail, soccer practice, extended family obligations and everything else in between. And per the poll, the fact that you're reading this means you're contributing to the malaise:

Analysts attribute the listlessness to competition from the Internet and other media, the unsteady economy and a well-established industry with limited opportunities for expansion.

So who's included in that 27 percent who haven't read a book? Deeper analysis by the pollsters said a third of men and a third of women count in that category. They tend to be older, less educated, have lower incomes, minorities, from rural areas and are less religious. But take heart: people in the West and Midwest are more than likely to have read a book in the past year. And "many in the survey reported reading dozens of books and said they couldn't do without them."

At AWSP, we're doing our part to help the curve. We know several principals have read books this past year, because they're participating in our book reviews for The Principal News magazine. For the past two years, our business partner, University Book Store, has generously donated several books for our members to read (and keep) and review in each issue. This fall's titles include The World is Flat, The Freedom Writers Diary and A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Informational Age to the Conceptual Age.

So, have you read any good books this past year? Or are you sympathizing with the polling data? And what message, if any, does this send to students?

Tuesday Tidbits

Each Tuesday, AWSP will try to capture some of the smaller, but still noteworthy, items making news in the K-12 world.

Today's Tuesday Tidbits include:

• The Professional Educator Standards Board will meet in Yakima on Wednesday, Sept. 12. Included in their agenda will be a 30-minute panel discussion on "the effects of collective bargaining agreements and local hiring practices on teacher assignment." Panelists include AWSP's own executive director, Gary Kipp, along with Jim Meadows of the WEA; Kevin Chase, superintendent, Grandview School District; and Missy Hallead, executive director of human resources, Vancouver School District. This meeting is open to the public.
  
• OSPI will host a K-20 today from 2 - 4 p.m. on communicating the AYP and WASL results this fall. Space is limited so be sure to call the site ahead of time. More information is on the AWSP Web site.
• Don't forget to vote! Today is primary election day in Washington state. Ballots must be postmarked by today, Aug. 21, 2007. Secretary of State Sam Reed's office has created these great e-mail reminders and MySpace vote reminders to spread the word among social media users (and perhaps a younger demographic of voters). According to Reed's press release, only 34 percent of eligible voters will cast ballots in this election.
  

College Rankings

Although the K-12 world often shies away from school comparisons, it's hard to not at least peek at U.S News and World Report's rankings of "America's best colleges."

Oh, there are a lot of familiar names amid the top 25 -- Princeton garnered the number one ranking followed by Harvard and Yale (sure to incite some Ivy smackdowns). In terms of Washington's schools, the University of Washington came in tied for 11th among public universities and 42nd among all universities in the country. Washington State University also made the overall list, tied for 118th with Samford University (AL) and University at Buffalo (SUNY). Peruse the full list for yourself and let the office/home bragging rights begin.

The list our state should be particularly proud of, though, is the magazine's ranking of the top schools for master's degree programs. That's where Washington really shines, with whopping 11 of the 55 spots (58 if you include the ties). Here's how that list shook out:

• Gonzaga (3rd)
• Seattle U. (6th)
• Whitworth (9th)
• Pacific Lutheran University (13th)
• Seattle Pacific University (14th)
• Western Washington University (17th)
• The Evergreen State College (27th)
• Walla Walla University (nee College) (29th)
  
• Central Washington University (43rd)
  
• Eastern Washington University (44th)
  
• Saint Martin's University (tied with three others at 58th)
  

With this announcement coming out today, the magazine's Web site is about as slow as I-5 between Spokane St. and I-90. Needless to say, there's lots of fodder for office water coolers everywhere.

Riding the Audit Trail

AWSP was recently invited to attend a meeting on the status of our state's K-12 performance audits. These audits are the result of I-900, which passed in 1995, requiring independent audits of all state and local governments. ESDs were the first entity in the K-12 system to undergo the audits. No publish date yet on the findings from those audits.

Next up: the state's 10 largest school districts. This includes:

• Seattle P.S.
• Tacoma P.S.
• Spokane P.S.
• Kent S.D.
• Evergreen P.S.
• Lake Washington S.D.
• Federal Way S.D.
• Vancouver S.D.
• Puyallup S.D.
• Edmonds S.D.
  

At the meeting, representatives from the State Auditor's office and the independent audit group, Cotton & Company, discussed this next phase. Cotton lists K-12 audits as one of its areas of expertise.

According to Lou Adams, the state's K-12 performance manager, there are two dozen program areas that will be examined, including district business offices, transportation and food services, instructional technology and professional development. Each audit will look at the efficiency and economy of each district's administrative operations, including:

• Gaps, overlaps in programs or services
• The feasibility of pooling technology systems
• Recommendations for regulatory changes to better allow districts to carry out their functions.

Site work is expected to run from Oct. 8 - Nov. 16 and the audit teams will spend one week in each of the 10 districts, save for Seattle. Results are expected in the spring of 2008.

ESDs and big districts have been put under the microscope with this initiative, came one question, so "what about OSPI?"

"They are on the radar screen," Adams said.

Tweens, Teens and Technology

According to a new study out by the National School Boards Association:

Online social networking is now so deeply embedded in the lifestyles of tweens and teens that it rivals television for their attention.

Nine- to 17-year-olds report spending almost as much time using social networking services and Web sites as they do watching television. That pencils out to about nine hours a week on social networking and 10 hours a week watching TV, the study found.

It's worth noting this research was funded by three companies with a vested interest in teen and tween communication habits: Microsoft, Verizon and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. And while it confirms some things most people assume (young people are highly engaged in using technology) it also raises questions about ways schools might engage otherwise disconnected kids. So-called "nonconformists" -- students who step outside of online safety behavior rules -- seem to have

an "extraordinary" set of traditional and 21st century skills, including communication, creativity, collaboration and leadership skills and technology proficiency. Yet they are significantly more likely than other students to have lower grades, which they report as 'a mix of Bs and Cs,' or lower than, other students.

Interestingly, almost 60 percent of the students suing social networking say they talk about education topics online, and more than 50 percent talk specifically about schoolwork. But, the study points out, "the vast majority" of school districts have stringent rules against nearly all forms of social networking during the school day.

Among the other key findings of the poll:

• More than one in four school districts (27 percent) say their schools participate in a structured teacher/principal online community.
• Districts that report that their parents are influential in technology decision making are more active in social networking (71 percent vs 59 percent in districts with low parental influence).
  
• 96 percent of school districts say that at least some of their teachers assign homework requiring Internet use.

Have you ever used a social networking site? How is your school dealing with social networking among students?

Tested

Right now, educators are preparing for the first day of the new school year and the annual WASL and AYP announcements. Perhaps that's why the piece in today's USA Today jumped off the page.

The paper carries an interview with former Washington Post reporter Linda Perlstein, the author of a new book about No Child Left Behind and student testing. Curious about the real effects of NCLB, Perlstein spent an academic year at Tyler Heights Elementary, a high-poverty school in Annapolis, Maryland. Her findings are detailed in her new book, Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade.

Interviewer Gregg Toppo talks with her about the book and about testing:

Q: Reading your account of a teacher dropping nonsense words into lessons to prep for their appearance on a vital speed-reading test, I thought about Thoreau's warning against becoming "the tools of our tools." What is wrong with this picture?

A: The teacher wanted her kindergartners to be prepared for their assessment, which makes sense. Kids should learn to sound out letter combinations whether or not they make actual words. But she would have preferred to use that time teaching her kids real vocabulary.

Take a look at the interview and read the excerpt from her book. Do you agree with Perlstein's analysis of the impact of NCLB on teaching and learning? Would you let a reporter undertake the same project in your school?

Education Funding Task Force

Last Friday, Gov. Gregoire announced a new task force to develop a plan for school funding in Washington state. You can read the entire press release here. The entire panel will eventually consist of 14 members, five of which are appointed by the governor. They include:

• Dan Grimm of Puyallup has been appointed as chair to a term effective immediately, ending in December 2008. Grimm is the Director of Doughty Hanson & Co.
• Cheryl Chow of Seattle has been appointed to a term effective immediately, ending in December 2008. Chow is the president of Seattle School District board of directors and is a long-time educator with teaching, administration and state agency experience.
• Bette Hyde of Bremerton has been appointed to a term effective immediately, ending in December 2008. Hyde is the superintendent of the Bremerton School District and was a member of the Washington Learns K – 12th advisory committee.
• Jim Kowalkowski of Davenport has been appointed to a term effective immediately, ending in December 2008. Kowalkowski is the superintendent of the Davenport School District and the executive director of the Rural Education Center at Washington State University.
• Laurie Dolan of Olympia has been appointed as the representative from the Office of the Governor/Office of Financial Management to a term effective immediately, ending in December 2008. Dolan is the director of the Executive Policy Office for Governor Gregoire and spent 30 years working for Spokane Public Schools.
  

Additional task force members will be selected from the House and Senate Democratic and Republican caucuses. State Superintendent Terry Bergeson will also serve on the panel.

Generation Net: Unplugged

And you thought Gilligan had it rough.

(No phone, no lights, no motor cars. Not a single luxury!)

Try no electronic media for 24 hours.

No cell phones, regular phones, iPods/MP3 players, computers, Internet access, blogs or TV.

For one whole day.

To give you some perspective on the upcoming generation of young adults (read: future teachers and principals), take a look at this Washington Post article written by Danna L. Walker. Walker is an adjunct professor of journalism in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C. Last spring, she put forward this e-blackout challenge to the students in her "Understanding Mass Media" course. As a sign of solidarity, Walker said she would participate in the e-fast, too. She noted their initial response in her article:

"No cellphones?" they asked in pleading voices, looking around at one another with wide eyes and open mouths.

"How are cellphones media?" another student protested, but she could sense that resistance was futile.

Now, to some, this may sound like heaven on earth. But for today's wired "Net generation," it's seemingly the quite the opposite. As Walker observed:

The 50 young women and men in my class at AU are what are called digital natives or "millennials," those born between 1980 and 2000, many of whom graduated from high school as the 21st century dawned. Researchers say they will constitute the largest generation in American history, outnumbering baby boomers by as much as 33 percent.

Millennials grew up thinking that computers were as much a part of the family room furniture as my generation thought televisions were. While we boomers have had to change our thinking entirely from its static analog map of reality, their generation has always been comfortable with the malleable, non-physical terrain of electronic networks. They started life with VCRs and CDs and led the charge to digital video and MP3s. They were the first generation to link up through cellphones and instant messages. Personal computers came of age as they were born, and they grew up with the World Wide Web and e-mail, not to mention Nintendo, Game Boy, Sony PlayStation, GameCube and Xbox. They are the demographic that marketers love to court, but they can be elusive to advertisers tied to old media.

The results of this one-day loose experiment offer a revealing glimpse of not only this generation, but of the reach of technology in our daily lives.

Most Prestigious Occupations

The research crew at Harris Interactive is out with the results of a new poll today that puts teachers in the mix of the six "most prestigious occupations."

According to Harris, half of U.S. adults polled by telephone between July 10 and 16 identified six occupations as having "very great" prestige: firefighters (61%), scientists (54%), teachers (54%), doctors (52%), military officers (52%), and nurses (50%). They are followed by police officers (46%) priests/ministers/clergy (42%) and farmers (41%).

Interestingly, the perception of teachers in this poll has risen significantly -- by 25 points from 29 to 54 percent -- in the 30 years since the poll was first started. Athletes, by contrast, have fallen 10 points from 26 to 16 percent. Some other established professions have also seen declines, including scientists (down 12 points), doctors (nine points), bankers (seven points) and entertainers (six points).

Principals, though not mentioned specifically in the mix, should take pride in these findings. After all, where do principals come from?

As the AWSP Executive Board discussed yesterday at its annual planning retreat, the development of principals, particularly principals of color, is largely dependent on the number of students who see teaching as professional calling. Therefore, the more that can be done to model teaching as a positive profession, the greater the opportunity for more young people to enter the profession and, perhaps, take the next step into educational administration.

In case you were wondering: the five occupations perceived by one-quarter or more of adults to have "hardly any prestige at all include stockbrokers (25%), union leaders (30%), entertainers (31%), real estate brokers (34%) and actors (38%).

Inbox Zero

For many principals, finding a way to tame the animal that is the inbox is an ongoing struggle. That's where the philosophy of Inbox Zero might come in handy. Created by writer/blogger Merlin Mann, it's a straightforward way of processing and managing the e-mayhem that has quietly taken over many people's lives.

The goal: zero e-mail in your inbox.

Intrigued?

Mann recently gave a Google Tech Talk about the Inbox Zero system. It takes about 30 minutes to view the formal part of his presentation (there is a Q& A for the last 30 minutes), which makes some pretty compelling points:

Today I feel like the only way you are going to succeed at a job...one of the most important soft skills you can have is figuring out how to deal with a high volume of e-mail.

The two most precious natural resources you've got are your time and your attention. They're both finite and they're both irreplaceable.

A lot of people are living in their inboxes...They leave their e-mail open all day long...it's auto-checking throughout the day. Little blips and e-mail becomes the nexus for everything they do at work.

There is no better way to have your time burgled than not having a healthy relationship with your e-mail.

Principals may not be able to apply all of his concepts to their inboxes, but there are some tips that can easily be put into practice (like the two-minute reply, spending time to address an issue immediately rather than allowing the message to junk up your inbox). It's worth trying, particularly if your inbox runneth over...And your time does not.

Tech Conference for Educators

Attention all tech-savvy principals!

(Yes, that's YOU!)

The National Association of Elementary School Principals is co-sponsoring the T+L Conference Oct. 17-19 in Nashville, Tenn., in what's billed as the largest annual educational technology event. Although we would not want to discourage anyone from attending AWSP's Principal's Conference that same week in Vancouver, Wash., this does sound like a great opportunity for school leaders with an interest in technology.

The event (we assume the T&L stands for technology and leadership) is being hosted by the National School Boards Association's Technology Leadership Network. According to the conference Web site, the event will focus on six big tech ideas, including "21st Century Skills" for students and educators alike.

With 75,000 new blogs and 200,00 MySpace pages being created every day (per Technorati), today's students, and to some extent, younger administrators, expect the world to be interactive.

What are you doing to keep your own technology skills up to speed? How about those of your staff?