Turns out our new superintendent was a troublemaker when he was in school. In a recent interview with Nancy Udell of Santa Fe Stories, Joel Boyd describes how he frequented the principal’s office until his high school wrestling coach, of all people, helped him get on track. “He became engaged with my family,” Boyd recalls. He took the time “to know each wrestler…to connect and make wrestling relevant for them.” I was encouraged to hear this story, which seemed to indicate that Boyd would work to give our teachers and students the time and tools to build meaningful relationships.
Then I read his Transition Advisory Team’s report. The bulk of the team’s recommendations seem unlikely to foster positive student-teacher relationships. Some of them seem unlikely to foster any learning at all. Instead, the recommendations deal mostly with reorganizing the central office, and modifying and measuring student performance in math and reading.
An example: The team recommends that principals be trained to conduct “instructional rounds” to better “monitor” and observe their teachers at work. The basis of these observations, the team adds, is that “task predicts performance.”
Yes, task can predict performance, especially among mice and pigeons, but post-Skinnerian researchers like Howard Gardner have made it clear that performance (read: performance on tests) does not predict understanding. It does not predict critical thinking or creativity or the desire to learn. And it certainly does not predict if our city’s young people will enjoy learning relationships of the type that changed young Joel Boyd’s life.
Boyd’s team must be aware that research like this—which demonstrates the complexity of the learning process, the importance of relationship and the limitations of testing—flies in the face of most of their recommendations. But judging by their report, the team’s more interested in results than research. They urge us to adopt the “aggressive and transparent accountability system” that they claim has improved student performance in districts across the nation—but neglect to mention that those “improvements” have, in too many cases, turned out to be the product not of hard-hitting reforms, but of data manipulation, adult cheating scandals, deflated standards and low-performing students being told to drop out.
Santa Fe’s schools need to change, but we don’t need a results-obsessed plan that has failed elsewhere. We need a plan based in researched success and tailored to the unique strengths and values of our community.
Boyd has asked for feedback, so here’s mine: Get a second opinion. Convene a new advisory team, one that includes outside experts but also involves teachers, administrators and students; dropouts and graduates; local leaders, early childhood educators and teacher educators. This team should not ask how to improve student performance on exams, but explore simpler, more immediate questions: How do we get kids and teachers excited about learning? How do we get them to stay in school?
Such a team would undoubtedly offer very different recommendations. It might propose ideas like mentorship, student advisories and interest-based learning, which have driven graduation rates to 96 percent in Big Picture Learning schools nationwide. Ideas like the expansion of successful homegrown programs in arts and dance, in mariachi and traditional New Mexico crafts. Enhancement of counseling and support services, like the Harlem’s Children’s Zone, Inc. Quality early childhood education for all, à la Reggio Emilia. And following the Finnish model: more time and autonomy for teachers, and testing that’s limited to a random, anonymous sample group, one day a year.
Ideas like these would engage students and teachers in deep learning, distinguish our district and create opportunities for meaningful relationships to flourish. Likely, they’d also help students improve academic performance—or at least get them interested enough to try.
Boyd strikes me as a sharp, energetic guy, willing to listen. The wrestling coach story shows his heart’s in the right place. If a critical mass of us has reservations about his team’s recommendations, we need to let him and our school board know. Forward them this column, and ask them to seek a second opinion on how to move our schools toward a brighter, more imaginative mañana.
A SFPS graduate and former local educator, Seth Biderman works with the Academy for the Love of Learning to research different learning models and further public conversation about what “school” could someday be.
Thanks for the interesting and insightful article.
Well said, Mr. Biderman. I hope this will be a wake-up call to parents and others who care about learning rather than "performance."
The patient--SFPS--does indeed need a 2nd opinion. Boyd's crony "consultants" were paid at least 50k (no one seems to know the exact figure) to say what was pre-ordained by the Broad Foundation and other Big Money Boyd backers, most of whom have not seen the inside of a classroom since they were 17. The problem, these folks always conclude, is teachers. The solution: run schools like sweat shops. The problem is, kids are not widgets.
Boyd et al. chant "equity" like they mean it, but we need to closely examine just what their equity looks like. It looks like holding up the test scores of rich white kids as the be-all-and-end-all for everyone else to emulate. It means measuring success solely by test scores, and assuring that every kid has an equal right to be tested to death. It means handing out contracts to their crony test-makers, test graders, test-prep curriculum purveryors, etc., until there is no money left for kids, teachers, or pencils. And no joy. Sweatshops aren't supposed to be fun.
When the money's gone, when the cheating scandal breaks, when the schools are declared unfixable and auctioned off to the privatizers, the school reform gang leavves town and moves on to the next victim, I mean school district.
Your suggestion re: learning from the Finnish model--more time and autonomy for teachers, and testing that’s limited to a random, anonymous sample group, one day a year--is spot on.
Thank you, Seth and Cate, for pointing us in a better direction. A wise teacher friend of mine tells me they never use the word "learning" in ANY of the endless meetings she attends. That speaks volumes.
In my limited experience as an educator in alternative education what I find is it always goes back to us. What do we want to influence, what do we want to show up for and illicit change? I have seen too many experts hired into a district(Like Santa Cruz City Schools did in the 80's)that cost more then they are worth. Often programs are supported, new buildings are built for administrative services and workshops are offered for teachers but not much changes. The main element I have seen that works over and over is parents doing the work with a staff what wants to partner with them(not use them to follow their ideas) and build the resources they want for their children. I still feel that public education is not really going to change much and relies too much on political careers and plans(Wes Beach's words in the movie about alternative education). I like Seth's article because it is well written and brings to light the holes in the overbuilt dam. I think if anything it is too kind given the mess that is perpetuated with this process over and over in public education with the look of equity. I wonder if school buildings like parking lots could just be torn down and a field would grow up for small organic farmers to sell decent produce in it's place or maybe beehive like centers made for students to come to those sites to meet up, and apprentice with local community or dialogue with teachers active in something they loved rather then teaching to the test. I wonder if all that very alive energy would create a whole other environment then constantly resurfacing cracks in the asphalt, shoring up out dated buildings, textbook companies dominating reading material for young readers. I see another kind of aliveness in this scene where something is tilled for a fresh adventure, and it is not a consumer education but an engaged one. I know it is not practical for all the needs we seem to have to drop kids off, and go to work but kids are entrenched in that model along with us, and not sure what is so wonderful about that for the future. Something inside of me remains interested in movement, honest, hard, self motivated in our inherent nature that is not rearranging piles in a room but cleaning it out so one can really work.
I agree, Seth. Positive movement starts with the community speaking up. Santa Fe is terribly apathetic about education.
Boyd's commitment to getting more pay for our teachers? I don't think so. If teachers do see a small raise, I'm afraid it will come with strings heavy as chains attached, all dependent upon student test scores. The community needs to speak up now and let him know that further tying teacher pay to student test scores is unacceptable. It's flawed math, even if one believes it's a good idea.
"If he listens deeply to our city's teachers and students and community members." I don't think so. I am convinced, Seth, that the man hates teachers. With a capital H. I hear from a lot of SFPS teachers, throughout the district. The same story: Boyd barges unannounced into classrooms, targeting veteran and male teachers (because they are most likely to be secure enough to object to his policies),"observes" for a minute or two, barks insults and criticisms at the teacher in front of students, and storms out, barking a threat over his shoulder. I've heard this story now from many teachers I know and trust, at many schools. Boyd does not introduce himself or say hello to the kids. He is crazy out of touch with kids. He has reprimanded numerous teachers because he looked in their doors and saw kids moving around out of their chairs or speaking, laughing, etc. He believes kids should be silent and glued to their chairs--in elementary school!
I do not "like Boyd's energy." He is trained in ramming factory school reforms reforms down the throats of unsuspecting communities--that is the entire focus of the quickie graduate program he attended. Boot camp for privatizers. His sense of "urgency" strikes me as a motivation to ram his policies through before anyone notices what he's up to. I attended one of his "listening sessions." After saying he would listen and not speak at all, he hammered away at the audience for almost the entire two hours, interrupting every speaker until s/he backed down and shut up.
There are good superintendents out there. Ones who do listen deeply to and support teachers and kids. Diane Ravitch has been giving them "hero" awards on her blog for months now. Check it out, if you haven't already.
As for board oversight of Boyd; it's not happening. Electing teacher-friendly board members to replace Gudwin and Montano could make a difference.