School is Not What It Used to Be

ISSUE 72 | FEBRUARY 28, 2006

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This owl wonders what the school world is coming to. It used to be simpler Kids went to school, or they got in big trouble. Now some districts have traded punishments for rewards. In Fort Worth, Texas, a high school student won a Ford Ranger truck for perfect attendance. In Chicago, a middle schooler won a months mortgage payment for his mother. In Boston, students simply got checks. These districts have changed the rules of the school game. They are in the attendance business. And they are, without embarrassment, using modern market incentives to boost performance. Read the story in the New York Times.

Other rules have also changed. Words no longer mean what they used to. Ambiguity can be dangerous. In the accountability wars, words, like data, are bullets. Be careful what ammo you are loading, and where you are aiming your rifle. (You wouldn't want to suffer Mr. Cheney's fate.) Here are a few of this owl's favorite tricky terms. If you have favorites of your own, I invite you to share them.

Diploma. Districts no longer have the power to grant diplomas. California, like many other states, has determined that high school students must be able to pass both parts of the exit exam before districts can issue them a diploma. As a result, the meaning of the diploma itself has changed. Starting this year, a diploma for a graduate of the class of 2006 will mean something different than a diploma earned by a graduate of a prior class, all because of the exit exam.

Full-time equivalent teacher. If you thought this definition was easy, think again. The Opportunities for Learning Charter school operators are locked in a legal battle with the CDE, now almost a year old. The CDE is auditing this charter operator's business practices. In a countersuit, the charter operator is defending its way of counting teachers. When a teacher works double-time, is she to be counted as 2.0 FTEs?

Read the CDE's press release on the audit and the Los Angeles Times story of the countersuit.

School. The small school movement is turning some big high schools into smaller academies. When is an academy a school? Is it a school if it occupies one-fourth of a building, and houses one-fourth of its teachers and students? Is it a school or is it a program? Is it a school if the building sits in a shopping center? Can a school, like a home-study organization, have no building where students and teachers ever sit down together? If you thought this was simple, take a look at the rules that the Demographics Unit at the CDE has issued.

See the CDE Demographics Unit on CDS Codes.

New school. If your district has a school that's been stuck in year five of Program Improvement and going nowhere, could you close it, rename it, perhaps change its grade range, get a new principal, get a new CDS code, and thereby wave good-bye to an unpleasant history? If three-quarters of the teachers who work there are the same teachers who worked there before, is it the same school? If you sell the building, but move most of the students and teachers to a new site, is it a new school?

Student. When a continuation high school student meets with his teacher three hours a week, signs an attendance form, reads textbooks, turns in his assignments, is he in school? Is he in school full-time, part-time? If the school week is 30 hours long, why isnt he one-tenth of a full-time equivalent student?

Freshman or ninth-grader. Is a ninth-grader a student who is enrolled in a high school, and is in his first year of studies? Or is a ninth-grader a high school student who has not yet completed the units (with passing grades) required to move on to tenth grade? There are districts with different definitions at work, and it is distorting the calculation of graduation rates.

Graduation rate. Is it the percentage of seniors who graduate on time? Does graduation mean that a student has completed her course requirements as the district defines them? Or in this new era of the exit exam, does it mean that she has also passed both parts of the exit exam and received a diploma? Or is the graduation rate the portion of the freshmen who started school in the fall of 2001 that graduate in May or June of 2006? When the student identifier system begins soon, this individual student-based view of grad rates could become a reality.

Highly qualified teacher. Not to be confused with a teacher who holds a full and clear credential. Indeed, this technical term is often confused with the common phrase good teacher. Rather, highly qualified is a federal term for a teacher who has expertise in the subjects she teaches. Expertise can take three forms: (a) a single subject credential; (b) a college major in the subject; (c) passage of a test in the subject. (But then there is the case-by-case review of the HOUSSE exceptions.)

Misassigned teacher. Not to be confused with a teacher who is not highly qualified (see above). And also not to be confused with the way districts are reporting "legally sanctioned" teachers for Williams purposes. Regardless of the credentials he holds, a misassigned teacher has either been assigned a course to teach for which he does not hold a proper authorization, or he is teaching students he is not prepared to instruct (e.g., English learners taught by a teacher lacking a CLAD or BCLAD) Although the CDE folks could make it easy on district management by calculating misassignments from the PAIF portion of the CBEDS census, they have not done so. Note that an out-of-field teacher should be considered to be a misassigned teacher, but often isn't. (Confused yet?)

GIVE A HOOT AND CHOOSE YOUR WORDS WISELY

You may call me an old coot, but this owl thinks it's time for plain speaking. If education leaders are to succeed in reaching the public, it is time to choose your words carefully. If the simple words we use, like highly qualified, turn out to mean one thing inside K–12 and another outside, the miscommunications will multiply. Friction will be the result — wasted energy that results from heated words exchanged with little mutual understanding but much passion.

This owl's recommendation: tighten up your leadership's use of language when communicating, both internally and externally. Your words, as well as your numbers, are more likely to have their intended effects when you think about who is listening.

REFERENCE LINKS

School Wise Press feature, "Hiding Behind Education Jargon."

Daniel Wolff, writing in EDUCATION WEEK, 5/1/2002, on EduSpeak.

Jean Johnson and Will Friedman of Public Agenda, writing in THE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR, February 2006, "Dear Public: Can We Talk?"

KSA Plus Communications, Engaging Parents for Better Schools.

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