When High School Students Have Significant Academic Gaps:

More Concerns and Common Sense Solutions “When State Policy Undermines Effective School Practice” (Letters to the Editor)

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction

   For good or for bad, it is amazing to track the technological advances that many of us have experienced over our lifetimes.

   From telephones to smartphones. . . typewriters to computers. . . cars with stick shifts to cars that drive themselves. . . and now artificial intelligence that seems to think on its own.

   And then, there’s social media.

   In the “old days,” when you wrote an article, what followed—sometimes weeks later—were “Letters to the Editor.”

   Now, you have almost instantaneous “Posts”—with “Likes” or, at times, a barrage of disagreements or worse.

   Fortunately, for all my social media, I rarely get the latter. Instead, I often get many thoughtful comments that alert me to things I’ve either forgotten or not considered. These comments help push my thinking, and I grow as a practitioner and person.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Revisiting “When State Policy Undermines Effective School Practice”

   My last Blog. . .

When State Policy Undermines Effective School Practice: Too Much of Anything Often Results in Nothing (or Worse)

[CLICK HERE TO LINK]

. . . received a great many comments and social media posts. . . so much so that I have decided to use today’s Blog to respond to two of them.

   But as a recap:

The Blog began by analyzing and then describing solutions for a common high school instructional dilemma that has only been made worse by the pandemic:

 

“How to teach high school students who are two or more academic years behind in their foundational literacy, math, and writing skills.”

 

Knowing that these significant skill gaps are not easily closed through parallel tutoring or by remediating missing prerequisite skills within the same courses that depend on them, the Blog emphasized the need to provide these students with intensive intervention experiences before they take the courses that they are likely to fail.

 

Indeed, our reason went, if these students take core academic classes without this intensive intervention, a double-jeopardy exists:

 

They fail the core classes, and they never close the academic gaps that contributed to their failures.

 

But this creates a new dilemma because, by delaying their core courses, these students may take more than four years to graduate from high school.

 

This puts the high school at risk with its State Department of Education— especially when students’ four-year graduation rates are an ESEA State Report Card criterion of “effectiveness.”

 

The rest of the Blog revealed that almost 30% of our states still use this four-year graduation metric (typically established during the 1991-2015 No Child Left Behind years), and we shared the educational benefits for states that, instead, use four-, five- and six-year high school graduation rates when evaluating their high schools’ effectiveness.

 

We also suggested that high schools be allowed to qualitatively explain their high school graduation data so they could demonstrate, for example, that their “late” graduates had higher GPAs, took fewer remedial courses in college, or were more academically prepared to go into the workforce.

 

In the end, we suggested ways to rescind the anachronistic NCLB policies that still exist, and to nurture schools’ cultures of professionalism so that high school administrators don’t face the dilemma of doing the instructionally wrong things for students who are academically behind, in order to protect their schools from archaic, indefensible policies.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Letter to the Editor #1

   From a LinkedIn post of our last Blog, I received the following comment:

I read the article with interest, and my view is that the complexities of the problem are enormous, and inadequately comprehended at various levels.

 

It is evident that many stakeholders are only recently acknowledging the need for remediation services. I believe it would be highly beneficial to involve higher education institutions as integral contributors to the overall solution in supporting these students.

 

I concur that the transition from high school to a 5th year in college is a pressing concern. However, if higher education was involved in the solution from the outset, this predicament could be mitigated.

 

Also, the scale of the issue spans from K-12, and I question whether it can be effectively addressed within the confines of each (i.e., K-5, Middle, and HS).

 

Instead, a cohesive approach must be adopted, where K-5 collaborates with Middle, Middle engages with HS, and High School partners with higher education, resulting in a comprehensive solution.

 

Otherwise, the critical "hand-offs" between these stages may falter, hindering the students' progress. The magnitude of the challenge demands a collaborative effort involving higher education entities, fostering a unified approach to uplift and empower our students effectively.

 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

My Response:

Dear Colleague,

 

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response to my Blog article. You brought up a number of critical points—ones that were considered when I wrote the original piece, but by-passed in the interest of time and space.

 

But, given your comments, let me expand on a few things.

 

First: You are absolutely correct about the necessary involvement of our universities and the broader teacher-training community. Having taught at two major universities for over 20 years, however, I know how anxious my colleagues got when others asked them to expand the curriculum.

 

Nonetheless, university Teacher Training programs really do need to go beyond teaching teachers how to effectively teach the Core Curriculum and handle classroom management. Well-trained teachers need to know how to diagnostically assess student learning gaps—including the determination of the root causes of those gap.

 

As well, these teachers need to know how to link the results of their root cause analyses to strategic interventions (that include, as needed, remediations of skill gaps, accommodations of the learning process and environment, and modifications of the curriculum) so that the gaps are closed and the student can proceed with his or her next level of learning.

 

Parenthetically, it is amazing that it took a Pandemic for education to really begin addressing this area. . . right now, in the context of accelerated learning.

_ _ _ _ _

 

But, you also really “nailed” it when you emphasized that many students’ gaps in high school were gaps that originated when they were in elementary or middle school. . . and that these gaps (a) were missed, (b) were not effectively addressed, and/or (c) were not well communicated to the “next school” when the students transitioned from elementary to middle, or middle to high school.

 

Indeed, schools do not do a good job of evaluating students progress at the end of each school year, and “tag teaming” the data up to the next year’s teacher or teaching team.

 

That’s why—over 30 years ago—we created the “Get-Go” process.

 

Briefly, the “Get-Go” Process is a student review process where every student in the school is briefly reviewed at the end of each school year by its current grade-level team, the Building-level Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) Team, the administration, and other selected support staff. At times, the process also includes the “next highest” grade-level team, respectively, who will receive a specific cohort of students the next school year. 

The goals of the Get-Go Process are to:

• Complete a final, summative evaluation of the academic, and social, emotional, and behavioral progress of every student—including their attendance, medical and home/living status (as relevant), and their multi-tiered intervention status (again, as relevant).

• A significant portion of these data are required by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for every school’s annual report and Report Card.

• Use the information collected to help organize what classes and/or “home rooms” students will be assigned to for the next school year.

• This is often done to ensure that every (especially elementary and middle school) classroom has only three functional skills groups in it so that teachers can successfully differentiate instruction. This is also done so that all classroom teachers know the functional literacy, math, writing/language arts, and oral expression skill levels of all students—again, so that they can differentiate instruction, and in case they need to provide remediation, accommodations, or modifications.

• Identify and communicate the special needs (as identified during the process—see below) of specific students to the next year’s classroom teacher (or teaching team), as well as to the school’s administration and related services and support staff—so that the school is prepared to implement all necessary interventions starting on the first day of the new school year.

• To identify the resources and personnel needed to address the universal, strategic, and intensive needs of all students in a school prior to the end of the previous school year so that (a) needed resources are coordinated or purchased during the summer, and (b) appropriate staff can be deployed or hired.

To meet these goals, both the School Leadership and MTSS teams are formally trained, and the school prepares each year a Get-Go spreadsheet with relevant data on each student in the school imported from the District’s Data Management/Student Information System.

If you are interested in more specifics on this process, feel free to read my earlier July 25, 2020 Blog:

 

“Identifying Students with Back-to-School Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Needs: How to Screen Without Screening.”

 

[CLICK HERE TO LINK]

 

. . . or look up our Monograph, The Get-Go Process: Transferring Students’ Multi-Tiered Information and Data from One School Year to the Next

 

[CLICK HERE TO LINK]

 

Meanwhile, thanks so much for your interest and comments.

 

Best,

 

Howie

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Letter to the Editor #2

   From a post of our last Blog to the National Association of School Psychologists’ Community Forum, I received the following comment:

Hi Howie,

 

I read with great interest your blog regarding the harmful effects of an outdated NCLB policy: the 4-year cohort grad rate. I started out as a high school English teacher in 1998 and witnessed the changes you spoke about, including the shifting cutoff scores for state testing. It was lunacy.

 

I wanted to follow up with you regarding the increasingly popular movement of co-teaching at the high school level in which a special education teacher (in theory) teaches alongside a content area specialist in classes that are supposed to somehow address both the core curriculum and remediation. That gap may be as large as fourth grade skills in 9th and 10th grade level math, English, and science coursework. Students earn their HS credits in core areas “on time”, advance in the sequence, and their percentage of time in special education decreases because they are now technically in a general education class. I have found scant empirical evidence that this approach is effective for low achieving students, and the Murawski books our co-teaching staff were provided included mostly self-referential citations. For example, the author recommends that only 20% of the class is comprised of “at-risk” learners (i.e., 504, special ed, ELL, individuals retaking a class) but also states that a 30% threshold might be more pragmatic—with no evidence to support. Effectively, Special ed teachers are reallocated to the general education setting with little time for remediation and case management, with more time spent learning content mastery of grade level coursework.

 

I wonder if you have any research or opinions on the co-teaching movement and its effectiveness, which is a very expensive endeavor that has increased in use in my district over the last four years as a means to support graduation in a four-year timeline.

_ _ _ _ _

My Response:

Good morning,

 

Thanks for reading my Blog and for your e-mail.

 

Yes. I am well-aware of the co-teaching movement, but am not really an expert in it. When I worked for the Special Education Unit in the Arkansas Department of Education, we had a very successful state-wide co-teaching program (with Marilyn Friend as the lead consultant) for the 13 years I was there. It continues today.

 

As you know, there are a number of co-teaching models and configurations and—unlike the general education focus of my Blog— these models involve students with disabilities.

 

The "bottom line" for me, first, is that we should never do an "intervention" (broadly framing co-teaching as an instructional intervention) with a student with a disability (SWD) unless it will benefit them academically or otherwise.

 

Thus, I believe that the "co-teaching question" is one that should be asked at every IEP meeting. Indeed, if it will not benefit a specific student, then why do it?

 

Note that I have never seen an IEP team do ask this question, but I think it's actually a good idea.

_ _ _ _ _

 

Indeed, District Directors of Special Education typically make their own independent decision as to whether or not a school or their district will "do" co-teaching.

 

But, as in my original Blog, that brings us back to another State Department of Education policy issue. 

 

The U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) has long interpreted the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) element of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; 2004) to mean that "every SWD should be educated in a regular education classroom in the general education curriculum at least 80% of the time.”

 

In fact, this LRE criterion is one of the 17 annual Special Education Indicators that every district is evaluated on each year by its State Department of Education. This is because every state is evaluated on the same Indicators each year by OSEP.

 

And if a district is out-of-compliance on this (or other) Indicator(s), there are clear procedural and, eventually, financial penalties over time.

 

Significantly, this LRE percentage has existed since 2004, it is NOT research based, and NO state to my knowledge has EVER met the 80% criterion—largely because students in some of the 13 disability areas covered by IDEA simply cannot be successfully educated in a regular education classroom in the general education curriculum at least 80% of the time.

 

But this policy and its annual evaluation results in District Directors of Special Education trying, nonetheless, to do exactly this.

 

And what is their solution? Co-Teaching.

 

Indeed, many districts use co-teaching in all of their schools. But this is done not because it is the most effective way to teach all of their SWDs, but as a way to avoid getting in trouble with the LRE Indicator.

 

And this occurs even when everyone knows that Co-Teaching works best when the co-teaching general and special education teachers are (a) trained, coached, and supervised together; (b) develop and sustain good working relationships together; and (c) are both well-versed in the academic areas being taught, and in ways to differentiate, accommodate, and modify their instruction for the specific SWDs that they share.

 

And these characteristics do not just “magically” appear when two teachers are thrown—unaware—into a co-teaching relationship (which I have seen more often than not).

_ _ _ _ _

 

Anyways, to answer your question, I am not up-to-speed in this research area. I could Google it. . . but you might want to invest 30 minutes of your time to do this, because you know specifically what you are looking for.

 

OSEP has districts track what happens to SWDs for a few years after graduation, so that data might give some picture of co-teaching success at your local level. . . but that doesn’t necessarily validate co-teaching.

 

Has anyone in your district done an anonymous survey of your general education teachers, special education teachers, students (both with and without disabilities), and parents to evaluate their perceptions of co-teaching?  I think that would be interesting.

_ _ _ _ _ _

 

Just a few reflections on your e-mail. Let me know your thoughts (if you would like). . . and I hope some of these reflections are useful.

 

Best,

 

Howie

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Summary

   This Blog continued the discussion from our last Blog that asked:

“How do you teach high school students who are two or more academic years behind in their foundational literacy, math, and writing skills?”

   The discussion was prompted by two real “Letters to the Editor” that we responded to.

   The responses discussed the importance of addressing students’ significant academic gaps in high school by:

·    Encouraging university Teacher Training programs to teach their teachers how to diagnostically assess the root causes of students’ learning gaps, and then how to close the gaps through interventions linked to these causes;

·    Recognizing (and directly addressing the fact that) many students’ gaps in high school were gaps that originated when they were in elementary or middle school. . . and that these gaps (a) were missed, (b) were not effectively addressed, and/or (c) were not well communicated to the “next school” when the students transitioned from grade to grade; and

·    Expressing concerns when co-teaching is used especially when the students with the largest gaps are receiving special education services as students with disabilities.

_ _ _ _ _

   Thanks so much to those of you who read my bi-monthly Blog, think about the issues or recommendations that we share, discuss them with your colleagues, and (even then) share your comments and perspectives with me.

   This past week, I had a series of Zoom calls with colleagues from a number of my Grant sites who have teachers in this week for training, and students in next week for the beginning of the new school year.

   As you make your own transition from Summer to Semester One, know that I am always available for a free one-hour consultation conference call to help you and your colleagues move “to the next level of excellence” this new school year.

   Please feel free to reach out and let’s talk.

Best,

Howie

 

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

When State Policy Undermines Effective School Practice: Too Much of Anything Often Results in Nothing (or Worse)

 [CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Dear Colleagues,

When High School Students Have Significant Academic Skill Gaps

   A few days ago—in a regularly-scheduled Zoom Professional Learning (PLC) session for an out-of-state District—the conversation shifted to a common (especially post-pandemic) high school dilemma:

“How do you teach high school students who are two or more academic years behind in their foundational literacy, math, and writing skills?”

   Knowing that large academic skill gaps are not easily remediated especially in junior and senior-level courses, I responded to the dilemma with one of my instructional principles:

When the gaps between the core instruction and the academic skill readiness of students are too large to remediate, you need to “Re-core the Core.”

   Indeed, educational research and practice have shown that when students lack basic, prerequisite literacy, math, and writing skills at the secondary level, they do not effectively learn new “grade-level” material—even with supplemental tutoring focused on remediating the skill gaps.

   In other words, “Core Instruction plus Remediation” approaches do not work.

   This is because (a) there is not enough out-of-class remedial time to close the already-large academic gaps; (b) the prerequisite skill gaps cannot be bridged during classroom lessons using scaffolded acceleration methods; and (c) these gaps still undermine the learning and mastery of the new, grade-level material.

   Thus, the skill gaps are never fully closed, and the student falls academically further and further behind.

   Parenthetically, the presence of students with significant prerequisite skill gaps also often presents an instructional “drag” for the students who have the prerequisite skills and are ready to learn. Especially at the high school level, this is disruptive to these students’ quality of their learning, and they may not attain their highest potential levels of continued academic proficiency.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The Instructional Solution for Skill-Gapped High School Students

   You need to “Re-core the Core.”

   In other words, the students with significant skill gaps need to be taken out of the core curricular courses in question, and scheduled into intervention courses—providing them the intensive remediation needed to close the prerequisite skill gaps as quickly as possible.

   [I can already feel some of your “But’s.”]

   I say this knowing that these students may not receive graduation-earning credit for the intervention courses, and—therefore—they may not graduate in the “traditional” four years of high school.

   But I also say this knowing that:

·     If students are missing significant prerequisite skills and they take a Core Curriculum course anyways, they are either likely to fail the course (thus, not earning graduation credit anyways), or they will barely pass the course, missing yet another critical set of skills that will be the prerequisite skills for the next course in the sequence; 

·     If they take the Intervention course(s) and close the prerequisite skill gaps, they will not only pass and benefit from the next Core Curriculum course, but they will eventually graduate from high school with the cumulative skills needed to proceed successfully into the college, career & technical education, or career option of their choice; and

·     The ultimate instructional goal of high school is not about GPAs and the number of courses taken, but about student opportunities to learn, master, and demonstrate their competence across targeted functional skills.

   This last statement emphasizes a competency-based approach to high school coursework, instruction, and grading—something that every state in the country now allows.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Softening the Blow: Looking at Some Related High School Facts

   Let’s look at some related facts. . . to hopefully soften the “shock” of my “Let’s Go Backwards to Go Forward” high school intervention course recommendation.

   First: Most high schools already use a competency-based approach to graduation. . . with their most-capable students (!).

   That is, many skilled high school students graduate after their junior year and go to college, or they take dual-enrollment high school/college courses as seniors.

   Conversely: Some students—for example, students with disabilities—may (by law) receive high school instruction and related services until they are 21-years-old.

   In addition, other non-disabled high school students take adult learning or career & technical education courses when they are 19, 20, or 21 years old until they successfully graduate from high school.

   Next: Too many high school students graduate from high school after four years only to spend their first year of college taking remedial courses (national statistics suggest that 25% or more of community college students require such courses).

   In essence, despite their high school diploma, the first year of college for these students is functionally their fifth year of high school.

   Finally: It is professionally irresponsible to graduate students from high school with the lowest GPA possible knowing that we have not fully prepared them for post-graduation success.

_ _ _ _ _

   So, once again. . . high school instruction and graduation should not be about time; it should be about proficiency.

   But. . . one of the high school principals attending my virtual PLC last week told me. . . it’s not that simple.

   With frustration in his voice, he told me, “But if we don’t graduate enough students in four years, then the State Department of Education 'dings’ us, and we lose our accreditation or go into school improvement status.”

   Hmmmmmmm.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The Ghost of “No Child Left Behind”

   While we know that high school graduation requirements differ across many states, the U.S. Department of Education—through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA/ESSER)— has now standardized the calculations so that the data can be compared from state to state.

   But ESEA/ESSER still lets individual states determine their own accountability criteria when identifying a “low performing high school” that requires “comprehensive support and improvement” (CSI). This includes how different states determine that high schools are not graduating high-enough percentages of students in a timely way.

   It is here, critically, where one “ghost” of No Child Left Behind (NCLB)—the previous ESEA legislation that guided education between 2001 and 2015—still lurks.

   This is because almost 30% of our states still use NCLB’s four-year graduation metric to evaluate high schools relative to their need for systemic improvement.

   And yet, when NCLB became ESSA in 2015, some states did change the rigid four-year metric, establishing more flexible “tiered” models that recognized that some students need more time to graduation from high school. These states now evaluate districts on the percent of high school students— graduating from their 9^th-grade cohort—who graduate, for example, in four years versus five years versus six years.

   For example, in 2021, Alaska, Arkansas, and Ohio school districts receive points for students graduating from high school in both four years and five years, respectfully. Connecticut districts got points for students graduating in four years and six years, respectfully. And, Delaware and New Mexico districts got points for graduating students in four, five, or six years, respectfully.

[CLICK HERE for a State-by-State ESEA State Accountability Spreadsheet]

_ _ _ _ _

Tying this Blog Together

   Going back to the high school principal on my Zoom call, and his fear that putting students with significant skill gaps into intervention courses would extend their graduation to a fifth (or more) year. . . resulting in his school being “rated down” by the State Department of Education. . . here is the reality and the issue.

   He is right.

   As he is in a four-year high school graduation state, his high school might be rated down for too many fifth-year graduates. This might result, over time, in his high school being cited by the State Department of Education as a “low performing” school. And, the high school might then require “remediation.”

   But why is he and his staff of professional educators being put in a position of doing what is right for his students, when it may turn out wrong for this school?

   And the answer is: He shouldn’t !

   As someone who worked for a State Department of Education for thirteen years during the No Child Left Behind era, this situation is just one of many examples where restrictive and inflexible state educational policies undermined effective school- and student-centered practices.

   And the solution for THIS dilemma is ?

·        Every state in the country should move to a tiered, multi-year, punishment-free approach to track and quantify how many years it takes its students to graduate from high school; and 

·        Every school district in every state should have an opportunity to qualitatively and quantitatively explain why it took some students longer than four years to graduate.

   For example, if a high school had 25% of its students graduating in five years, and showed that their GPAs in the last two years of high school were in the top 50^th percentile of all graduating seniors, how could a State Department of Education say that this high school was low performing?

   Or, if a high school had 25% of its students graduating in five years, and showed that half of them went to college or community college and none of them needed to take remedial courses, how could a State Department of Education say that this high school was low performing?

   And, if a high school had 25% of its students graduating in five years, and showed that the other half went immediately into full employment with salaries above the poverty level—allowing them to live independently, how could a State Department of Education say that this high school was low performing?

_ _ _ _ _

   Bad education policies too often result in bad educational practices.

   And bad educational practices most often hurt students who are at-risk, underachieving, unsuccessful, and without the power to advocate for themselves.

   But in order to change bad educational policies, we also often need to understand the dynamics of how they came about. . . and recalibrate these dynamics.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Too Much of Anything Often Results in Nothing (or Worse)

   The fact of the matter is that many of the policies written into No Child Left Behind were based on a belief that school staff were either incompetent or unmotivated, and that punishment—or the threat of punishment—would change their behavior in the classroom or across a school.

   Said a different way: When NCLB was passed in 2001, the U.S. Congress and even our President (Bush) believed that educators were untrained, unsupervised, unmotivated, unprofessional, and uncaring relative to students’ academic outcomes.

   Indeed, according to NCLB, if a district or school did not attain a progressively increasing level of student academic proficiency, the principal could be fired, the school could be reconstituted, and the staff could be “on the street” looking for new jobs.

   And the result?

   NCLB did not markedly change students’ functional skill levels in literacy, math, and writing across the country.

   While the percent of students “passing” the State Proficiency Test appeared to go up annually in many states, one reason was the use of a “floating proficiency cut score” that different State Education Departments moved from year to year to show statistical increases that did not reflect students’ actual skill improvement. These fluctuations allowed some states to avoid NCLB federal sanctions.

   In the end, our schools were no better off because of NCLB. . . and, in fact, many of them were worse off.

   For example, at-risk, underachieving, and unsuccessful students did not close their academic skill gaps. Teacher and administrator motivation was strained. And school morale plummeted.

   Educational policy—driven by NCLB—was pushed to the extremes. And we were all worse for it.

_ _ _ _ _

   But educational policy during that time was not completely punitive in nature. During this same time, many states instituted bonus programs for their most successful teachers.

   Here, it was believed that these incentives would motivate large groups of teachers so that large groups of students would become more academically proficient so that large groups of schools would “move the needle” of continuous school improvement.

   Once again, it did not work.

   This policy bred within-school staff anxiety, jealousy, in-fighting, distrust, disengagement, and disputes.

   The teachers who received bonuses often were snubbed by their peers the next year. The teachers who “just missed” getting bonuses were frustrated or disheartened the next year. And the teachers who believed that they “did not have a chance” to get bonuses showed up, but simply rolled over in apathetic resignation.

   And who incurred the greatest losses? The at-risk, underachieving, and unsuccessful students.

   Teachers did not want to teach them because they would not show the academic proficiency improvements that would earn them a bonus.

   And so, these students often got the new, inexperienced, and/or least proficient teachers.

_ _ _ _ _

   All of these outcomes were predictable if policymakers had considered the individual, social, and group psychology of motivation and human performance.

   At this point, this same psychology needs to be discussed and applied so that NCLB’s legacy of bad policies can be rescinded, to be replaced by newer, scientifically “smarter” policies that will bring us the educational outcomes that we all want.

   Ultimately, these policies should lead to practices that:

   Ensure that teachers consistently teach (a) academic and (b) individual and group social, emotional, and behavioral information, content, and skills to students in effective, differentiated ways such that, in a developmentally-sensitive way, they learn, master, and are able to independently apply these (a) to real-world problems or situations, and eventually (b) to successful employment and community functioning.

   Critically, this is the same goal that we advocated in our four-part Blog Series—earlier this year—that focused on the “Four Pillars of Teacher Preparation and Proficiency.” The four pillars discussed were:

·       Teacher Hiring and Orientation

·       Teacher Induction and Tenure

·       Continuing Teacher Appointments and Coaching, and

·       Teacher Leadership and Advancement

[CLICK HERE to LINK to Part IV of this Series]:

“Ensuring that Post-Tenure Teachers Remain Actively Engaged as Collaborative Contributors in their Schools: Aligning the Seven Areas of Continuous School Improvement to Teacher Leadership and Advancement” (Part IV)

_ _ _ _ _

   The point here is that the actions and activities within these pillars help to create a climate and culture of professionalism in a school and district that minimizes the need for artificial incentives, consequences, and punishments.

   This professionalism eliminates the need for policies that undermine effective, common sense practice.

   And this will relieve administrators of having to choose—literally and figuratively—between (a) providing critical intervention opportunities to high school students with significant prerequisite skills gaps in literacy, math, and/or writing; and (b) potentially sacrificing their high school’s status as a truly effective school because of an archaic, poorly-conceived policy.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Summary

   This Blog began by analyzing and then describing solutions for a common high school instructional dilemma that has only been made worse by the pandemic:

“How do you teach high school students who are two or more academic years behind in their foundational literacy, math, and writing skills?”

   Knowing that large academic skill gaps are not easily remediated—especially in junior and senior-level courses, we responded an essential instructional principle:

When the gaps between the core instruction and the academic skill readiness of students are too large to remediate, you need to “Re-core the Core.”

   Indeed, educational research and practice have shown that when students lack basic, prerequisite literacy, math, and writing skills at the secondary level, they do not effectively learn new “grade-level” material—even with supplemental tutoring focused on remediating the skill gaps.

   If we keep these students in their “core” classes, we create a double-jeopardy outcome: They not only fail these classes, but they also never close the academic gaps that contribute to the failure.

   But if we hold these students out of these core courses and provide them the intervention courses that will close their skill gaps and help them pass the core courses in the future, a new dilemma results.

   This is the dilemma that, because it may take these students more than four years to graduate from high school, the high school make get lower school effectiveness ratings from its State Department of Education, and run the risk of being identified as a “low performing high school in need of comprehensive support and improvement.”

   The rest of the Blog discussed the fact that almost 30% of our states still use the four-year graduation metric that they established during the (1991 to 2015) No Child Left Behind years to evaluate high schools’ need for systemic improvement. We share the educational benefits for the states that now include five- and six-year high school graduation rates in their high school evaluation processes. And we discussed why and how these school policies came about, and what happens when bad school policies undermine effective student-centered practices.

   In the end, we recommend (a) reviewing and rescinding the archaic, ineffective NCLB policies that still exist; (b) nurturing schools’ climate and culture of professionalism through effective hiring, coaching, and tenuring practices; and (c) taking high school administrators out of situations where doing right by students turns out wrong for their schools.

_ _ _ _ _

   As always, I appreciate everyone who reads this bi-monthly Blog and thinks about the issues or recommendations that we share. . . especially in the middle of your summer break.

   As we soon begin to re-engage to begin the new school year, know that there are many Project ACHIEVE resources to help you (see our Website Store: www.projectachieve.info/store), and that I am always available for a free one-hour consultation conference call to help you and your colleagues move “to the next level of excellence” relative to your students, school, or organization.

   Please feel free to reach out if you would like to begin this process with me.

Best,

Howie

 [CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Teaching Students Needed Academic and Social-Emotional Skills: We Need to Sweat the Small Stuff

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction

   Once again, I am writing this Blog while flying at 33,000 feet. . . this time traveling from Vancouver, British Columbia back to Little Rock, Arkansas (for about 10 hours until I fly to my next consultation in New Jersey).

   I spent a phenomenal week working with the school psychologists attending the British Columbia Association of School Psychologists’ Annual Conference. There, I guided some in-depth discussions regarding how to design and implement effective (a) school-wide Social-Emotional Learning/Positive Behavioral Support and (b) Multi-Tiered Academic and Behavioral Support systems, and how to differentiate among and address (c) student stress, anxiety, and trauma practically in the classroom as part of a multi-tiered process.

   As always, I benefitted as much from the experience as I think I contributed.

_ _ _ _ _

   During our discussions, I emphasized a number of times the importance of “sweating the small stuff.”

   I “get” that the intent of the saying, “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” is to encourage us to look at the “big picture of Life,” to take a deep breath, and to not obsess over the small irritants that seem to occur daily.

   But in education and psychology, and especially when working with students who are academically struggling or demonstrating social, emotional, behavioral, or mental health challenges, we must drill way past the “big picture” into the details of why these struggles or challenges are occurring, so that we can link them to the how reflected in the specific services, supports, strategies, and interventions needed for change.

   In today’s message, I want to provide some school-related instructional or intervention examples of this theme to remind both educators and related services professionals that a focus on the “small stuff” is needed to generate the “big stuff” that maximizes students’ academic and social-emotional learning, mastery, proficiency, and independence.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

A Brief Medical Miracle Analogy

   Before focusing on education, let’s start this journey by using medicine—and its focus at times on the “building blocks of life” as a metaphor for the need to “go small.”

   Just this week, it was announced that doctors were able to successfully treat in utero an unborn child with a rare genetic condition called Infantile-onset Pompe.

   According to the Hospital’s Press Release:

Pompe disease is seen in less than 1 in 100,000 live births, and is caused by mutations in a gene that makes acid alpha-glucosidase, an enzyme that breaks down glycogen. Without it or with limited amounts, glycogen accumulates dangerously in the body. After delivery, treatment to replace the enzyme is available, but the disease still often results in very low muscle tone, ventilator dependency and death.

 

The disease is one of several rare lysosomal storage disorders that can severely damage major organs before birth. Babies born with Pompe typically have enlarged hearts and die within two years if untreated.

   Two medical miracles actually occurred here.

   First, doctors have the know-how to complete genetic testing on unborn children that reveals different life-threatening conditions early in their prenatal development.

   Second, in this case’s new medical breakthrough, doctors provided this baby the enzyme replacement therapy well before she was born.

   The child is now 16 months old, and she has hit virtually all of her developmental milestones—for example, crawling, walking, talking, eating—at the expected times. More significantly, her cardiac functioning is normal.

   According to the attending doctor:

“This work also continues to expand the number and type of rare genetic diseases that can be treated prenatally. As new treatments become available for children with genetic conditions, we are developing protocols to apply before birth. I think of this as another step in expanding the repertoire of fetal therapy to treat genetic diseases that, while individually rare, are a large percentage of congenital anomalies.”

_ _ _ _ _

   The point here is that many areas of science and medicine “travel” at the cellular (or smaller) level.

   Indeed, we are now treating illnesses and conditions that affect us at the “big picture” level—impacting our day-to-day functioning, our quality of life. . . indeed, our life itself—because doctors and other scientists are able to modify minute, microscopic biochemical, genetic, or physiological structures, pathways, and interactions.

   Ultimately, in many professions, success occurs because they attend to and “sweat” the small stuff. There just are no other alternatives.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Some “Small Stuff” Examples in Education

   Critically, the five “small stuff” examples below have all occurred during the last three weeks in some of the schools where I am consulting.

   Some of you may remember that I wrote the five-year U.S. Department of Education School Climate Transformation Grants that were awarded in 2019 to three different school district clusters in Oklahoma, Michigan, and New Jersey, respectively.

   As part of the Grant activities, I work on-site in these districts’ schools for up to 40 days per year—helping them design and implement effective multi-tiered academic and social-emotional learning/positive behavior support systems, using Project ACHIEVE’s (www.projectachieve.info) evidence-based model, from preschool through high school.

   Ultimately, to accomplish our student-centered goals, we need to get “small.” Here are five examples that we hope will motivate you to think “smaller” about some of your professional activities or interactions with your students, staff, or others in your workplace.

_ _ _ _ _

Small Procedures

   When we are preparing to conduct a Case Conference on a specific struggling or challenging student involving the multi-disciplinary, school-level Multi-Tiered Services (or Student Services) Team, we always asked the student’s teacher(s) to complete the “First Things First.”

   This involves a set of activities where the teacher(s) supported by select MTSS Team members (a) complete a Student Record Review, (b) Interview parents and previous teachers (or interveners), (c) determine the current functional academic and social-emotional skill level of the student, (d) identify or discount critical medical (or related) conditions, and (e) do classroom observations so that others can see the depth and breadth of the problem.

   One of my schools recently prepared for and conducted an MTSS Team Case Conference that I observed so that I could provide feedback on their use of our data-based problem-solving process.

   The Case involved a Second Grader who was way behind academically (e.g., she was “reading” at the end of kindergarten level), who was still reversing many numbers and letters, and whose First Grade teacher had recommended retention—which the parents had rejected. The child had been in this school since kindergarten, and she was only receiving periodic academic intervention supports.

   Nonetheless, when the School Counselor interviewed the mother three days before the Case Conference, for the very first time, the parent shared that the child had had significant breathing difficulties at birth, that her developmental milestones (e.g., walking, talking, etc.) were very delayed, and that she had had occupational therapy services before starting kindergarten.

   Small procedures means that we break, here, the MTSS process into the specific steps needed to collect the initial background and historical information needed on every student for every case.

   Everyone around the MTSS table acknowledged that the developmental information above should have been common knowledge at least two years ago. Indeed, this was a case of a parent not knowing the importance of this information, coupled with no one at the school ever asking for it. This not a case of a parent withholding the information.

   The MTSS Team immediately initiated a referral for special education and accommodation services and supports that would include (a) the completion of cognitive, processing, and academic achievement assessments; (b) a complete social-developmental history with the parents; and (c) a neurological screening to determine other potential concerns in that area.

_ _ _ _ _

Small Gestures

   In another one of my Grant districts within the last two weeks, we were reviewing the results of a school climate survey completed by all of the students in Grade 5 and above.

   The Superintendent was very concerned because, among a number of troubling outcomes, a large percent of the student body agreed or strongly agreed to a statement, “My teachers care about me and my peers.”

   Noting that even if this was a student misperception, something needed to be done.

   A discussion ensued that focused on (a) some questioning the validity of the results, and wanting to re-write some questions and re-survey the students; (b) some expressing frustration that the students were not recognizing what the staff was already doing for them—suggesting that they were ungrateful; (c) some saying that the results had to be from a small minority of students—completely missing that eliminating these students’ results would not appreciably change the data; and (d) some generating interventions to “fix” the problems.

   The Superintendent patiently waited for the discussion to subside and then she asked me for my reflections.

   I first told the group that we should not be responding or making changes to the survey just to make us feel better.

   I then briefly explained that this survey—just like a thermometer—was a screening tool. . . it was simply identifying some “hot” areas within the school that concerned the students.

   Moreover, even if we re-wrote specific survey items and re-surveyed the students, the results—just like a thermometer—would not likely or fully tell us why we were getting the “hot” results. And this “outcome” would occur after spending (wasting) a lot more time in re-writing, re-surveying, re-analyzing the data, and re-discussing “the problem.”

   In the end, I suggested that we “get small”. . . that we begin to connect with the students and show them that we care by setting up a series of focus groups to listen to their concerns, their analyses, and their suggestions.

   In this way, everyone would experience two wins. First, the win of demonstrating to the students that the staff care enough to listen to their voices, and to entertain their suggestions on how to improve the school’s climate for them.

   This would then pave the way for a second win. . . an improvement of the school’s climate that would result in greater student attendance, engagement, motivation, and—hopefully—learning.

_ _ _ _ _

Small Goals

   Another one of my Grant schools has a period each day at the secondary level for either academic remediation or enrichment.

   Relative to the latter, the staff have struggled—for the last two years—to figure out how to maximize the benefits of this intervention time.

   In fact, the outcome data suggest that there have been minimal academic benefits to the students, and that the staff are pretty frustrated with the entire endeavor.

   For me, the core of the problem is that the school is (a) focusing on reading and then math intervention weeks for all students on a rotating basis; (b) the intervention groups are organized by students’ scores from a computerized academic screening and progress monitoring program; and (c) the students in the intervention groups seem to be constantly changing (as are the assignments to intervention teachers).

   Rather than focus on the flaws embedded in the processes above, I—again—suggested that the school “get small.”

   This entailed the following:

·       Identifying the specific and core-essential skills in reading and math that each student needed remediation in; 

·       Prioritizing—for each quarter of the school year—whether a student would focus on either reading or math during their intervention time; and

·       Mapping all of the students with different reading or math skill needs on a white board, and clustering the intervention groups so that each one would focus on a homogeneous set of skills, targeted intervention materials, evaluation approaches, and expected outcomes.

   Thus, “getting small” here meant focusing on a small set of skills to remediate, small student groups that would stay intact for at least nine weeks—with the same teacher, and small goals that had a high probability of being successfully attained.

_ _ _ _ _

Small Behaviors

   While presenting at the British Columbia Association of School Psychologists’ Conference, I talked some about our Stop & Think Social Skills Program, and why social skills instruction needed to target specific, observable, and measurable skills.

   Yes. . . we got small.

   I first made the point that an effective Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) initiative or program would be unsuccessful—relative to students learning and demonstrating actual interpersonal interactions—if it focused only on behavioral constructs—for example, respect, responsibility, safety, caring, honesty, cooperation, altruism.

  Indeed, to attain any goal related to behavioral constructs, teachers would (a) have to determine what respectful behaviors, responsible behaviors, safe behaviors, caring behaviors, honest behaviors, cooperative behaviors, and altruistic behaviors they want students to demonstrate; and then (b) teach their students these skills using sound behavioral instruction practices.

   This then led to my second point.

   In order to get the desired student behavior outcomes, social skills need to be taught from preschool through high school, using a scaffolded scope and sequence taught across the school year, the instruction needs to focus on behaviorally teaching—not just talking—about desired goals and expectations, and the instruction needs to use the same behavioral strategies that are used when we teach sports teams, theatre groups, painters, or musicians their crafts.

   To be sure. . . getting small is not always easy, but it is always necessary.

_ _ _ _ _

Small Steps

   Staying with the social skills theme above, within the past two weeks, I was doing demonstration Stop & Think Social Skill lessons in one of my Grant middle schools.

   In one 6^th Grade classroom—organized by the school as a self-contained general education classroom because the students had a hard time transitioning to seven different periods and teachers during the school day—I taught the “Dealing with Teasing” skill.

   [Note that I had never worked with these students before. In addition, while I wanted to teach this skill to the students, another purpose for the demonstration was to model an effective social skills lesson for the classroom teacher.]

   When we got to the role play part of the lesson, I chose two willing students at random to come up in front of the class and role play a scene where one of them would “tease” the other, and he (in this case) would verbalize and then demonstrate one of the “good choice behaviors” embedded in the Dealing with Teasing skill script.

   I noticed that the student who was going to be teased in the role play was somewhat quiet and a bit awkward. At the same time, as I always stay with the students doing a role play—to guide them through the script and the skill (as needed), and to ensure that a “positive practice” of the skill occurs—I was confident that this “teachable moment” would be a successful one for him.

   In the end, I needed to provide a fair amount of guidance and “scripting” for this student, but he did a great job and really seemed to both embrace and understand the skill, its intent, and its importance. He also appeared to be very pleased with his performance.

   Later in the day, I met with the 6th Grade Teacher to debrief the training. It was at this point that she told me how proud she was of the roleplaying student because he is on the autism spectrum.

   I was actually really surprised because, while I noted his awkwardness, I did not pick up his developmental-behavioral challenge during our interactions earlier that day.

   So. . . the “small stuff” lesson here is that (a) teaching students social skill behaviors is a step-by-step process; (b) even some of the students who most need these skills (e.g., those on the spectrum) can learn them when the skill steps are broken down and systematically integrated; and that (c) virtually all students can learn when we “sweat the small stuff” as we build their skills toward “the large stuff.”

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Summary

   Educators consistently talk about the importance of evidence-based practices. This is complemented by discussions noting that evidence-based practices—in order to work—need to be implemented with fidelity. And yet, in order to attain fidelity, educators typically need to attend to and follow the specific implementation steps that (full circle, here) are the reasons that the practices in question are evidence-based.

   Said a different way:

In order to make big and meaningful academic and social, emotional, and behavioral gains with students in our classrooms and schools, we need to sweat the small details that make effective practices work.

   In this Blog, we shared five school-related instructional or intervention vignettes to demonstrate the importance of this theme, and to remind educators and related services professionals that a focus on the “small student stuff” is needed to generate, as above, the “big educational stuff.”

   The vignettes described actual situations that I have experienced over the past three weeks—many in one or more of the schools where I am helping to implement effective multi-tiered academic and social-emotional learning/positive behavior support systems as part of three different five-year U.S. Department of Education School Climate Transformation Grants.

   The five vignettes focused on five “small” areas: Small Procedures, Small Gestures, Small Goals, Small Behaviors, and Small Steps.

   We hope that this discussion will encourage educators to look at and evaluate their current practices with students, and ask two Questions:

·       Am I attaining the success I am having with students because I am “sweating the small stuff?”

·       Where I am not having my desired success with students—or where I know I could have greater success, is it because I am missing, ignoring, or not “sweating the small stuff?”

_ _ _ _ _

   I hope that the reflections in this Blog are relevant and useful to you.

   In many ways, one of the reasons why I write these Blogs is that it gives me an opportunity to “Stop &  Think” about my work in the field, why I have been successful in specific cases, and how I could be more successful in others. This makes my future work more intentional, planful, and impactful.

   As always, if you and your colleagues would like to “get small” and reflect on your students, schools, or professional settings with me—please feel free to send me an email, and let’s set up a time to talk. I would be honored to assist.

Best,

Howie

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]