By Zainab Cheema
John Schembari is a Senior Education specialist who is a consultant for Fordham University. John is also an instructional coach who has extensive experience working in the K12 school system. In this episode, I talk to John about the the Teacher Quitting Crisis, how to build dynamic schools, Allyship and Collaboration, and how Higher Education can partner and collaborate with K12. Get ready to be inspired.
Q. We’ve talked a bit about the crisis being covered in the media right now of teachers quitting their jobs en masse. What are your thoughts about that?
It’s not the leading cause of the teachers letting, but salaries are an issue, especially when you think about all the time that teachers need to take in grading, assessing and lesson planning. At the end of the day, It’s a tough job. It’s demanding job in terms of time. There is no way around that. Yet, the way that our society views teachers as either villains or heroes is problematic. During COVID, they were heroes, now they are villains again for the big quit. That’s not fair. That shows a schism in the way that our society treats our teachers. These reasons combine with the fact that students have lost some of their ability during COVID to work together. Kids are coming in not having the development skills that they should have for a certain grade level because they haven’t been engaging with other students in person. This is a consequence of COVID-19 for our students and for the educators trying to teach them.”
Q. What makes a good school where everything is working?
A good school needs to be data informed. Just to clarify, I don’t mean data driven, because I know teachers get upset by their rating being overwhelmingly determined by how their students perform [in state tests and the like]. I think that’s taking it a step too far. Still, that said, good schools are schools that look at their scholarship data. They base what they do in terms of instruction based on what the data tells them that their students need. A good school requires an assessment driven culture. Also, by assessment, I don’t mean end of year state assessments necessarily. Yes, that is a piece of data. But I’m really talking about formative, in-classroom assessment. Exit tickets. Checks on understanding. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Signaling. I’m talking project-based learning. Authentic assessment, where students are actually grappling with a case study or a problem. This kind of assessment looks at whether students are involved in the process of their learning. Are they engaged? Are they deciding on what the next goals and steps are based on the data (obviously in consultation with the teachers)? To me, all that of that speaks to a data informed culture.
Students need to have leadership opportunities at all levels of the school organization. A good school is where administrators are allowing teachers to make key decisions, because they are the ones who are actually teaching the kids. How involved are the students? How much ownership in school culture and community do students have? For instance, are students developing lesson goals with their teachers? Is there a student leadership council? Are there restorative justice practices rather than draconian discipline practices? Are students involved in part of those restorative justice practices?
A good school also is one where you see high levels of community involvement. Parents are truly involved. They are invested in meetings and engaged with the PTA. Teachers are provided with support and training on how to be an ally in teaching their students [during times when online teaching is necessary]. All of these things combine to create a school culture that is focused on not just content but students obtaining and growing in their life skills, which is at the crux of 21st century [learning].
Q. John, you’ve touched on the importance of assessments. What’s your POV on alternative kinds of assessment like ungrading or contract-based grading?
I do think that our grading practices on the K-12 level do need to be revised for a number of reasons. One, Zainab, who’s to say that an A in your class is equal to an A in my class, particularly if your grading standards are arbitrary and mine are arbitrary? However, let’s say we are both ELA teachers using an evidence-based rubric. That can cut down on the capriciousness of grading but there is still a tremendous amount of variance when teachers are deciding what qualifies as an A or B or C. That’s one problem I have with grading. One way that schools use to get around that is standards-based grading, where schools test mastery of a standard (whether that is a state standard, whether that is Common Core). In other words, I know that I am ready to move to the next step because I have mastered the standard that came before it. Focusing on students mastering a standard before moving on is a good way to ensure that students are ready for the next level. That’s a better approach to grading.
We need to involve students more in the grading process. In other words, we need to have them look over their portfolios and do self-assessment. So often in our traditional grading when you equate everything equally, it takes away from the growth that you see. I can give an example from my own experiences. I was a horrible math student. My geometry teacher once pulled me aside and told me, “Mr. Schembari, we have a problem. All of your test scores are 50s.” I told him, “I’m aware that it’s a problem. I’m trying to get to get tutoring. I’m not a great math student but I’m trying to become better.” So, my first three quarters, I failed. But because I got a B in my last quarter and a B in my final Exam, he gave me a B for the course. This is pretty novel, considering that this is a few decades ago. Traditional grading masks growth because you’re grading everything equally. If I had been graded traditionally in math, I would have gotten at best a D, which would not have indicated any of the amount of effort or growth that I put into that. To your point about ungrading, I might rephrase that more progressive grading. Grading must take into account growth as much as overall achievement. To me, the emphasis should be on the quality of the students’ work towards the end, not at the beginning of the course.
Q. What do we need to do to build a sense of allyship and collaboration in the school system?
First, as we’ve seen during COVID-19, parents really need to be allies in the education and instruction of their children. They have a key role in helping younger children with reading and literacy. They should be engaging in conversations with their older children about what they are reading. Additionally, parents should be part of the school leadership team where they help develop the school mission and vision. This means that they must first define for themselves certain things. What do they hope for their children? What are their aspirations for their children?
We should also ask ourselves, are schools providing culturally relevant learning? We must view our students, all of our students, as having assets. Some of our students might be struggling more than others, and that is based on SES and access to quality education. So, I’m not saying that there is a level playing with respect to success and growth. These factors are unfortunately, based on their zipcode oftentimes. But that doesn’t mean that those students don’t have assets. So, we also have to look at students and the communities from which they come from as having certain assets and certain cultural way of doing things. And if we can bring that into learning where students could hook onto that knowledge that they already possess while they are learning new knowledge, that could be another way of bringing in our families and our communities as allies.
Q. What are some ways in which Higher Ed and K-12 can be integrated?
We are now seeing more partnerships between Higher Ed and K12. This should be expanded. I think that K12 can be a better ally to Higher Ed by bringing some of its innovating teaching practices to colleges and Universities. Generally, in Higher Ed, you’re valued by how much you publish more than you actually teach. So, how do we bring in more small group work and individual work and culturally relevant pedagogy into Higher Education? At the same time, we need our Higher Ed to be allies with K12, telling us how our students are doing when they get to university. How are their life skills? Are they advocating for themselves? How is the quality of their work? Where are their skills strong and where do they need growth? These are some ways in which universities can partner with K12, particularly with middle schoolers and high schoolers.
I would say that it’s possible to envision a college-going culture from K12 all the way up. There is a role for universities to help develop a conveyer belt or pipeline from K12 to university. As someone who has worked with inner city schools, I can tell you, there is a school to prison pipeline. That certainly exists. Systemically, in the United States, we need to see a K to college pipeline.
We’re starting to see this in more urban schools. Students at the high school level have the opportunity to take courses that double count both towards their high school graduation requirements and college credits, either with a high school teacher who has been credited with a local college. This works especially well at the community college level for your pre-requisites. For instance, if students take these kinds of doubled credit courses with a high school teacher certified with that college, if they go to that college, they’ll get the credit for that pre-requisite. This is important, particularly in communities where economics is a stressor because students can save money and graduate earlier. As you know, right now our graduation rate in universities (for the students who graduate at all) is turning into a six year process. This can ameliorate that.
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