What If You Ran the Zoo?

What if you had the chance to start a brand new school?  What if you could implement all of those innovative ideas and practices, those things you know you should be doing with and for kids to prepare them not only for the assessment du jour, but more importantly for their lives?  What if in addition to academics, you could focus on those critical social emotional competencies that will ensure your students are able to meet the demands of the uncertain future that lies ahead? What if you were bound to the Common Core, but you were able to decide how you would get the kids to where they needed to be?  What if every child in every classroom had access to a variety of technologies and rich digital content, not only in school, but also at home?  What if you could hire your own staff from scratch, ensuring they shared your vision and passion for innovation?

Would you do it?  

I said, "I'm all in!"  I would like to introduce you to the Founding School Leader of the Carolina Voyager Charter School in Charleston, South Carolina - ME!  CVCS will be an amazing place for our children.  (You can Google us or see an earlier blog post for the link.) Building this school from the ground presents incredible possibilities, as well as daunting challenges.  In the coming months, I will be sharing my experiences through this blog as we operationalize our vision for CVCS.  You may want to follow this process in case you are ever in the enviable position that I find myself in this year.  After 34 years in public education, I am completely re-energized at the opportunity to finally not only think outside the box, but implement outside the box as well.  Stay tuned for the next posting - Are Charter Schools Good or Bad for Public Education?

Common Core Implementation: Are we making it harder than it needs to be?

     To say teachers across the country are stressed and disheartened with the roll out and implementation of the Common Core might be the understatement of the year.  Seeing the stress and anxiety firsthand as a building principal, I find myself asking, “Are we making this harder than it needs to be?”  Have the Common Core Standards added more to already full plates for teachers or have they freed teachers of a curriculum that to date has been a mile wide, an inch thick, and overly prescribed?  It is my belief teachers can now break free of the bonds of teacher-proof lessons and lock-step curricula.  They should be feeling a new sense of freedom and a rejuvenation of their profession.  Teaching can be fun again!  Now, how do I convince my teachers?

     At the heart of the Common Core Standards is the goal to develop students who are able to think critically and creatively.  Metacognition, problem-based learning, 21^st century skills– along with all of those things you wanted to focus on for years but felt like your hands were tied, are now not only possibilities, but will make the difference between kids who score well on the new assessments and those who don’t, and more importantly, those who will do well in life and those who will not. (Boy, was that a run on sentence, or what?)

     In this age of instant information at your fingertips, hopefully the Common Core will help us all focus on developing the skills, behaviors and mindset that will enable our students to not only cope, but thrive in the uncertain future that lies ahead for them.  It is my hope that as we gain greater comfort with the Common Core, will be able to focus on emotional intelligence, persistence, and resiliency as much as readin’, ritin’ and ‘ritmetic.

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I'm All About Technology, But Really???

I love technology.  You know that.  I believe it will continue to change how we educate our children, but really - algorithm scoring of essays?  I came across this article the other day and have heard about essay scoring programs, but I remain a skeptic.  Has writing become so formulaic, at least the kind of writing in the upcoming release of high stakes tests that will purportedly measure writing, that a computer program can skim and scan looking for key words and phrases and grammatical errors and then profess to be scoring a studneets' writing?    Mr. Vander Ark of OpenEd Solutions is quoted, Providing students with instant feedback about grammar, punctuation, word choice and sentence structure will lead to more writing assignments.  SO that's what writing is?  Really?  I remain a skeptic.  Read the piece below and see where you stand.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/business/essay-grading-software-as-teachers-aide-digital-domain.html?_r=1