I read it again today when an acquaintance shared with me a copy of an editorial from a Bend paper. The editorial was very sympathetic to Corbett and ended with what amounted to a prophecy of doom to the effect that Corbett Charter School is a small fish and that the Oregon Educational Complex won't tolerate it's continued existence.
But the phrase that most captivated me was the claim, which I have read in other publications, that Corbett is 'circumventing the inter-district transfer process'. One hardly knows where to begin...
My first challenge is to suppress the nonsensical feeling that this phrase had to have come from the movie Dr. Strangelove. It has an ominous, paranoid feel to it, as if the circumventing of THE INTER-DISTRICT TRANSFER PROCESS would herald the immanent demise of the Western world. The Inter-District Transfer Process, the U.S. Constitution, the Ten Commandments...are these not the cornerstones of civilization as we know it? And wouldn't we give up the other two rather than tolerate the weakening of the IDT?
But the serious point is a simple one. IT'S A CHARTER SCHOOL! Eliminating District boundaries as barriers to parent choice is the point. It's not an oversight, not a flaw. It's why the law is written as it is. It's been on the books for a decade now, and Charter Schools are operating in districts throughout East County. It was only when Corbett sponsored one that the law became a threat to the American way of life.
What is the political assumption behind the Inter-district Transfer Process? It seems to be that all parents residing within the boundaries of a school district owe a tribute to that agency regardless of their level of satisfaction with the schooling that is provided therein. I've never understood this, and it never occurred to me to tolerate it. I put my daughter in her neighborhood school for exactly one year. I believe in public education and neighborhood schools, and I was happy to enroll her near our home. I was astounded to find that in spite of her having a wonderful teacher, the culture of the school was such that she was not going to be allowed to progress at her natural rate. So I applied for (and was granted) an Inter-district Transfer. Lara received permission to attend Corbett every year for the next nine years, including when we moved to a new district. I didn't think anything of the annual ritual, as it was always approved without comment, and so was every request for students wanting to transfer out of Corbett. It was an open door. It lasted for a decade, more or less. We superintendents talked a lot about choice, about giving parents options, about cooperation. We talked about students and parents preferring smaller or larger schools and how good it was to allow them their choices.
Whether it was new leadership (Corbett's neighboring districts have gone through several superintendents each during my tenure in Corbett) or just economic stress, Corbett was put on notice that the age of cooperation was past. Fair enough. I understand that folks need to do what they think is best. But of course I thought that I would be afforded the same courtesy. Seems I was mistaken. Corbett sponsored a new Charter School and the recriminations have echoed in the press non-stop.
During the last legislative session, the Oregon Education Association, the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators and other interest groups supported legislation aimed at reinforcing the rights of districts to hold their residents captive (really, they call it 'capturing' students). This would leave school choice in tact for the wealthy, of course, but would eliminate it for the vast majority of people. The legislative attack failed, but these things have a way of coming back in subsequent sessions.
This recurrence is the future that the Bend editorial was predicting. And while I don't doubt that Corbett Charter School will be the target of a renewed legislative attack in the next session, I am not so pessimistic as our high-desert commentator. I believe that Oregon is ready to get serious about having better schools and is losing patience with the constant promise that just one more School Improvement Plan will lead us to the promised land.
So thank you, in Bend, for your good wishes. We'll see how it goes.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
40% Named AP Scholars!
Eighteen of Corbett's forty-three graduates making up the Class of 2009 were named Advanced Placement Scholars by The College Board. This is an astounding achievement, and it could add to the claim (complaint?) that Corbett is just packed with students who are by nature exceptional. And there is some truth to this, as 16% of the class was identified as Talented and Gifted. That accounts for seven of the eighteen AP Scholars. And the TAG students did well. They passed an average of eight AP exams each during their careers. (eight passing scores will nearly always convert to a full year of credit at a pubic university, and many of our students begin their college careers as sophomores.) The TAG-identified seniors all passed AP Calculus, AP English Comp, AP English Lit, AP Statistics and various exams scattered across nine other subjects.
What about the other eleven AP Scholars? The ones who weren't identified as TAG? They made up a quarter of the class, they weren't identified as part of any special program, and they passed an average of more than four AP exams each. They had no common passing subjects, but they put up passing scores on thirteen different exams.
These non-TAG performers are, in a way, the epitome of Corbett's unique approach to education. Most districts in Oregon would not provide these students access to Advanced Placement classes simply because AP is not part of the curriculum. In most schools that do offer Advanced Placement classes, participation is limited to somewhere between five and fifteen percent of the student body. Many of our students would have been excluded for fear of hurting other schools' passing rates. In Corbett, students who would not be allowed to participate in Advanced Placement programs are not only expected to engage, they are required to, and they earn over half of the passing scores in the school!
Corbett is unique among Oregon schools in this regard. Virtually all students, barring a significant impairment, participate in Advanced Placement work. This year, all ninth graders are taking AP Human Geography, all 10th grader are taking AP World History, all 11th and 12th graders are taking AP Language and Literature. Seventy-five students (one quarter of the 9-12 student body) are taking Advanced Placement Calculus (ab) or (bc). Sixty students (many of these overlap with calculus) are taking AP Statistics. We will administer over 425 exams in these six areas, enough to make Corbett the leader among Oregon schools again this year. But Corbett offers eleven other Advanced Placement classes and anticipates administering several hundred exams in addition to the 425 outlined above. And we don't know ahead-of-time who will pass, and we make no attempts to screen students out in order to protect passing rates. The only students who don't take Advanced Placement classes in Corbett are those for whom we believe participation in the course is inappropriate to their academic needs.
We are OK with identifying students as Talented and Gifted. It's the law, so we will continue to do so. But we don't give out special privileges or special classes. They are treated exactly like everyone else in that they are expected to engage the curriculum each year at a level that constitutes their own next steps. They are required to prove themselves again and again, just like every Corbett student. And they have responded splendidly, but when they look around at the award ceremony they find that they are not alone. The stage is crowded with high achievers, including some who nobody else would have expected to be there!
Other schools have made the claim that their 'curriculum' is just like that of Corbett. I suppose if by 'curriculum' one means a document on a shelf somewhere, that might be true. But if by 'curriculum' one means the planned educational experience that is delivered to every student each year, I think that the above constitutes evidence that Corbett is utterly unique. Yes, Corbett students study the Civil War and the potato famine, just like students in every other school in Oregon. But somehow when we are done presenting the 'same' curriculum the experience of Corbett students is significantly different.
What about the other eleven AP Scholars? The ones who weren't identified as TAG? They made up a quarter of the class, they weren't identified as part of any special program, and they passed an average of more than four AP exams each. They had no common passing subjects, but they put up passing scores on thirteen different exams.
These non-TAG performers are, in a way, the epitome of Corbett's unique approach to education. Most districts in Oregon would not provide these students access to Advanced Placement classes simply because AP is not part of the curriculum. In most schools that do offer Advanced Placement classes, participation is limited to somewhere between five and fifteen percent of the student body. Many of our students would have been excluded for fear of hurting other schools' passing rates. In Corbett, students who would not be allowed to participate in Advanced Placement programs are not only expected to engage, they are required to, and they earn over half of the passing scores in the school!
Corbett is unique among Oregon schools in this regard. Virtually all students, barring a significant impairment, participate in Advanced Placement work. This year, all ninth graders are taking AP Human Geography, all 10th grader are taking AP World History, all 11th and 12th graders are taking AP Language and Literature. Seventy-five students (one quarter of the 9-12 student body) are taking Advanced Placement Calculus (ab) or (bc). Sixty students (many of these overlap with calculus) are taking AP Statistics. We will administer over 425 exams in these six areas, enough to make Corbett the leader among Oregon schools again this year. But Corbett offers eleven other Advanced Placement classes and anticipates administering several hundred exams in addition to the 425 outlined above. And we don't know ahead-of-time who will pass, and we make no attempts to screen students out in order to protect passing rates. The only students who don't take Advanced Placement classes in Corbett are those for whom we believe participation in the course is inappropriate to their academic needs.
We are OK with identifying students as Talented and Gifted. It's the law, so we will continue to do so. But we don't give out special privileges or special classes. They are treated exactly like everyone else in that they are expected to engage the curriculum each year at a level that constitutes their own next steps. They are required to prove themselves again and again, just like every Corbett student. And they have responded splendidly, but when they look around at the award ceremony they find that they are not alone. The stage is crowded with high achievers, including some who nobody else would have expected to be there!
Other schools have made the claim that their 'curriculum' is just like that of Corbett. I suppose if by 'curriculum' one means a document on a shelf somewhere, that might be true. But if by 'curriculum' one means the planned educational experience that is delivered to every student each year, I think that the above constitutes evidence that Corbett is utterly unique. Yes, Corbett students study the Civil War and the potato famine, just like students in every other school in Oregon. But somehow when we are done presenting the 'same' curriculum the experience of Corbett students is significantly different.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Forum?
Good for a laugh. My kids occasionally tell me about particularly entertaining postings on the so-called 'community forum'. It's a curious phenomenon. The posters would be discouraged, I think, to know what the best Corbett students think about them. It makes for some good laughs, but there is something serious going on, too.
The erosion of community. One of the earliest meanings of the word forum is an open-air meeting place where people gathered to exchange ideas. People participated face to face and with civility, and those who might have chosen instead to shout obscenities from behind a shrub or croak from beneath a rock would not not have been considered participants. As for the definition of community, well, playing online might be its perfect inversion. Sadder and sadder.
The marvels of modern technology. While technology provides some wonderful benefits, its darker side is that it can engender laziness and foster illusion. It can degrade some magnificent old traditions, like the forum. Those who peck away anonymously and post irresponsibly on so-called 'online forums' are missing out on the satisfaction that comes with participating in the human community as a person with a name and a face. Like reality TV, online 'forums' are probably here to stay, and that's O.K. But the illusion that one is heroically contributing to the public conversation, while evidently either satisfying or merely addictive to some, is no substitute for real public life. And 'online forums' are no more public discussions than reality T.V. is, well, reality. And when the topic is education, irony compounds upon irony, as no educated person could take seriously the anonymous postings of online would-be education consultants. As a dear friend often says, 'Virtual means not really.'
Education is a serious enterprise. It calls for responsible deliberation among grownups. Grownups sit up straight, look others in the eye, and only hide their identities when they are doing something of which they are ashamed. While I suppose there is some glimmer of hope in the fact that so many forum posters choose to remain anonymous (which means that they do still have some capacity for shame) it is a sad example that they are setting for our youth and a horrible reflection that they are casting on a lovely community filled with wonderful people.
A special apology. I know that there is someone who, upon reading all of this, will feel his or her fingers twitch with the need to respond. Unfortunately, this is a blog and not a 'community forum'. It's a one-way street, designed for those who are interested in what is going on not only in the district but also in the thoughts of one of its several architects. If you feel an urgent need to post, then there are places you can go. Catch you later.
The erosion of community. One of the earliest meanings of the word forum is an open-air meeting place where people gathered to exchange ideas. People participated face to face and with civility, and those who might have chosen instead to shout obscenities from behind a shrub or croak from beneath a rock would not not have been considered participants. As for the definition of community, well, playing online might be its perfect inversion. Sadder and sadder.
The marvels of modern technology. While technology provides some wonderful benefits, its darker side is that it can engender laziness and foster illusion. It can degrade some magnificent old traditions, like the forum. Those who peck away anonymously and post irresponsibly on so-called 'online forums' are missing out on the satisfaction that comes with participating in the human community as a person with a name and a face. Like reality TV, online 'forums' are probably here to stay, and that's O.K. But the illusion that one is heroically contributing to the public conversation, while evidently either satisfying or merely addictive to some, is no substitute for real public life. And 'online forums' are no more public discussions than reality T.V. is, well, reality. And when the topic is education, irony compounds upon irony, as no educated person could take seriously the anonymous postings of online would-be education consultants. As a dear friend often says, 'Virtual means not really.'
Education is a serious enterprise. It calls for responsible deliberation among grownups. Grownups sit up straight, look others in the eye, and only hide their identities when they are doing something of which they are ashamed. While I suppose there is some glimmer of hope in the fact that so many forum posters choose to remain anonymous (which means that they do still have some capacity for shame) it is a sad example that they are setting for our youth and a horrible reflection that they are casting on a lovely community filled with wonderful people.
A special apology. I know that there is someone who, upon reading all of this, will feel his or her fingers twitch with the need to respond. Unfortunately, this is a blog and not a 'community forum'. It's a one-way street, designed for those who are interested in what is going on not only in the district but also in the thoughts of one of its several architects. If you feel an urgent need to post, then there are places you can go. Catch you later.
Way to go, Joe!
Joe Perry, Class of 2009, has earned National AP Scholar recognition from The College Board. The criteria for this award include achieving a score of 4 or higher (on a scale of 1-5) on eight or more Advanced Placement exams. Joe is no stranger to AP Honors and was recognized as an AP Scholar with Distinction for his work in 2008. He was also a member of the 2008 state champion Academic Decathlon team from Corbett High.
Joe is currently a freshman at Reed College, one of the premier undergraduate schools in the nation.
Way to go, Joe!
Joe is currently a freshman at Reed College, one of the premier undergraduate schools in the nation.
Way to go, Joe!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Communication Breakdown
I really don't mean that there has been a communication breakdown. I mean that I want to take some time to break down the question of communication.
Nine times out of ten when people use the word communication they don't mean anything very specific by it. It is often serves as generic expression is dissatisfaction. So we hear, "There should have been more communication!" "Why didn't we hear about it before now?!" "I was blind-sided!" (which, unless one actually has a blind side, is unlikely). "The District should communicate more!" What are these phrases really getting at? It's often hard to say.
How do Corbett's communication efforts measure up?
1. Corbett School District has a web site. Because we are a school and not a bank, our web-site is largely the result of student efforts under the guidance of a very able teacher. The web site allows patrons access to District Policy online, board agendas and minutes, staff blogs, information regarding athletics, general contact information, lunch menus, online lunch accounts, links to community groups, the calendar.
2. Corbett School District has a newsletter. It is published by the District Office staff.
3. Corbett has a Key Communicator network that every patron can sign up for.
4. Corbett has open houses, parent teacher conferences, and written progress reports.
5. Corbett's administrators have had open door policies for a decade that I know of.
6. Corbett's Board meetings are open to the public, and to date I would judge that fully half of 120 or so meetings that I have attended have had 2 or less audience members.
7. In spite of having no local paper, Corbett receives significant coverage in the local, statewide and national press.
8. Corbett has two emergency networks that are employed to notify families within 15 minutes of any emergency.
Corbett produces as much or more communication than other districts with which I am familiar. I have lived in three Oregon school districts, and none communicated more than Corbett. (My only contact with the district in which I currently reside has been the occasional football player knocking on my door raising money for the team.) More important is the fact that none do nearly as good a job educating children as Corbett does. And so long as there are limits to our per pupil funding, I will argue that the District's efforts at general communication must always take a back seat to the fostering of student achievement.
Although I believe that we currently communicate far more (and more clearly) than does the average school district in Oregon. This doesn't alter the fact we could certainly do more. We could have a communications officer, or perhaps even a communications office. We would have to pay for it, and that would mean doing without something that we currently pay for. After a decade of budget cuts, I cringe to think what would go next.
Speaking of cuts, the District could communicate more if we hadn't eliminated two full-time administrators, a counselor, a full-time business office position and two full-time secretaries over the past decade. Communication would be easier if our Special Education Director and our Elementary Vice Principals didn't teach all day (that really gets in the way) and if Mr. Trani didn't do the jobs of two or three people. We really could communicate more. But would it improve student achievement? And since it would not (sorry, rhetorical question), should we shift resources away from what we are doing in order to increase the volume of general communication? (oops, I did it again!)
The most impactful communication in the entire education enterprise, outside the classroom itself, is the communication between parents and their students. President Obama did a fair job of articulating the ideal theme of much of that conversation. In addition to instilling in students the urgent need to attend school, work hard, show respect and focus on their work, parents can help by getting children in the habit of reviewing with them, hour by hour, subject by subject if need be, what they learned or thought about or wondered in school that day. Students who anticipate this daily requirement learn a couple of important things. First, they learn that what they do in school is so important that parents are willing to invest time in hearing about it every day. Second, they begin to anticipate this daily requirement and they start keeping track of their day, thinking about what they will report and how to summarize the day's work. This is a great exercise for a young mind.
Communication is important. It is more important the more it directly impacts student achievement. It is less important the further it is removed from that priority.
I think that most calls for 'more communication' come from a desire to be in the loop and to participate more in the decision making process. That is perfectly understandable, and it is our goal to offer those opportunities when the situation warrants and when time and resources allow. But when an urgent issue arises in Corbett today, we don't have the luxury of assigning one group of staff members to get to work on a solution while others crank up the communication machine. That second part of the staff doesn't exist. It was eliminated six budget cuts ago. So we do our best. And we communicate as we can. And we keep our thoughts fixed on a single question: How are the children doing?
Nine times out of ten when people use the word communication they don't mean anything very specific by it. It is often serves as generic expression is dissatisfaction. So we hear, "There should have been more communication!" "Why didn't we hear about it before now?!" "I was blind-sided!" (which, unless one actually has a blind side, is unlikely). "The District should communicate more!" What are these phrases really getting at? It's often hard to say.
How do Corbett's communication efforts measure up?
1. Corbett School District has a web site. Because we are a school and not a bank, our web-site is largely the result of student efforts under the guidance of a very able teacher. The web site allows patrons access to District Policy online, board agendas and minutes, staff blogs, information regarding athletics, general contact information, lunch menus, online lunch accounts, links to community groups, the calendar.
2. Corbett School District has a newsletter. It is published by the District Office staff.
3. Corbett has a Key Communicator network that every patron can sign up for.
4. Corbett has open houses, parent teacher conferences, and written progress reports.
5. Corbett's administrators have had open door policies for a decade that I know of.
6. Corbett's Board meetings are open to the public, and to date I would judge that fully half of 120 or so meetings that I have attended have had 2 or less audience members.
7. In spite of having no local paper, Corbett receives significant coverage in the local, statewide and national press.
8. Corbett has two emergency networks that are employed to notify families within 15 minutes of any emergency.
Corbett produces as much or more communication than other districts with which I am familiar. I have lived in three Oregon school districts, and none communicated more than Corbett. (My only contact with the district in which I currently reside has been the occasional football player knocking on my door raising money for the team.) More important is the fact that none do nearly as good a job educating children as Corbett does. And so long as there are limits to our per pupil funding, I will argue that the District's efforts at general communication must always take a back seat to the fostering of student achievement.
Although I believe that we currently communicate far more (and more clearly) than does the average school district in Oregon. This doesn't alter the fact we could certainly do more. We could have a communications officer, or perhaps even a communications office. We would have to pay for it, and that would mean doing without something that we currently pay for. After a decade of budget cuts, I cringe to think what would go next.
Speaking of cuts, the District could communicate more if we hadn't eliminated two full-time administrators, a counselor, a full-time business office position and two full-time secretaries over the past decade. Communication would be easier if our Special Education Director and our Elementary Vice Principals didn't teach all day (that really gets in the way) and if Mr. Trani didn't do the jobs of two or three people. We really could communicate more. But would it improve student achievement? And since it would not (sorry, rhetorical question), should we shift resources away from what we are doing in order to increase the volume of general communication? (oops, I did it again!)
The most impactful communication in the entire education enterprise, outside the classroom itself, is the communication between parents and their students. President Obama did a fair job of articulating the ideal theme of much of that conversation. In addition to instilling in students the urgent need to attend school, work hard, show respect and focus on their work, parents can help by getting children in the habit of reviewing with them, hour by hour, subject by subject if need be, what they learned or thought about or wondered in school that day. Students who anticipate this daily requirement learn a couple of important things. First, they learn that what they do in school is so important that parents are willing to invest time in hearing about it every day. Second, they begin to anticipate this daily requirement and they start keeping track of their day, thinking about what they will report and how to summarize the day's work. This is a great exercise for a young mind.
Communication is important. It is more important the more it directly impacts student achievement. It is less important the further it is removed from that priority.
I think that most calls for 'more communication' come from a desire to be in the loop and to participate more in the decision making process. That is perfectly understandable, and it is our goal to offer those opportunities when the situation warrants and when time and resources allow. But when an urgent issue arises in Corbett today, we don't have the luxury of assigning one group of staff members to get to work on a solution while others crank up the communication machine. That second part of the staff doesn't exist. It was eliminated six budget cuts ago. So we do our best. And we communicate as we can. And we keep our thoughts fixed on a single question: How are the children doing?
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Our Girl
Each year The College Board recognizes two State Advanced Placement Scholars, one male and one female, from each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia. The winners are determined by which students pass the greatest number of Advanced Placement exams (with a score of 3 or higher) during their school careers, with a minimum cumulative average score of 3.5 on a 5 point scale. A tie in the number of exams passed is broken by the highest average score.
The College Board has announced that Lara Dunton has been designated a 2009 State AP Scholar for Oregon. Lara's response? "Neat." Quite the speechifier, that one. (It was a text message, to be fair.)
Lara began her AP career by passing just three of her first four exams with an average score of 2.75. Then she responded like she always has. She worked harder. She hit her stride in her junior year and passed the next nine exams with an average score of 4. In recognition that all work and no play is, well, all work, Lara took time out from her AP studies to lead Corbett's Academic Decathlon team to two state titles and to win an individual gold medal in Language and Literature at the 2009 United States Academic Decathlon national competition in Memphis last spring.
Lara graduated from Corbett in 2009 and is currently a sophomore at Willamette University.
That's our girl.
The College Board has announced that Lara Dunton has been designated a 2009 State AP Scholar for Oregon. Lara's response? "Neat." Quite the speechifier, that one. (It was a text message, to be fair.)
Lara began her AP career by passing just three of her first four exams with an average score of 2.75. Then she responded like she always has. She worked harder. She hit her stride in her junior year and passed the next nine exams with an average score of 4. In recognition that all work and no play is, well, all work, Lara took time out from her AP studies to lead Corbett's Academic Decathlon team to two state titles and to win an individual gold medal in Language and Literature at the 2009 United States Academic Decathlon national competition in Memphis last spring.
Lara graduated from Corbett in 2009 and is currently a sophomore at Willamette University.
That's our girl.
Monday, September 7, 2009
President Obama's Speech
President Obama is going to address the nation tomorrow. He is specifically going to address school aged children. I applaud his interest in education and honor his concern for young people. During the scheduled air time of his speech, the students and staff of Corbett School District will be in school. We are going to be taking to heart and putting into action his admonitions to work hard and to stay engaged. We are grateful to know that his thoughts are with us and that he is using his bully pulpit in support of our efforts. I hope that many Americans will gather their families together in the evening and watch what will doubtless be a memorable address.
Education is a noble cause. And an educated citizenry is clearly necessary to our national well-being. But education is not primarily a national cause. Education is local. K-12 education is based in the school community. The inspiration that matters most, the admonitions that will maintain the excellence of some of our schools and help to turn around others, has be local. The experience of Oregon schools in the years since the State took increased control over education has provided clear evidence of futility of 'remote' control over schools. Governors and presidents cannot be school board chairs, and legislative bodies make ineffective boards of education.
So we welcome the support and attention of President Obama. We respect his own achievements and his hope for a quality education for all children. We agree with him regarding the importance of a great education for every child. And we will spend the day forging the bonds that will keep our students in school and developing the habits that will support their long-term academic achievement.
Education is a noble cause. And an educated citizenry is clearly necessary to our national well-being. But education is not primarily a national cause. Education is local. K-12 education is based in the school community. The inspiration that matters most, the admonitions that will maintain the excellence of some of our schools and help to turn around others, has be local. The experience of Oregon schools in the years since the State took increased control over education has provided clear evidence of futility of 'remote' control over schools. Governors and presidents cannot be school board chairs, and legislative bodies make ineffective boards of education.
So we welcome the support and attention of President Obama. We respect his own achievements and his hope for a quality education for all children. We agree with him regarding the importance of a great education for every child. And we will spend the day forging the bonds that will keep our students in school and developing the habits that will support their long-term academic achievement.
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