Written by a group of recently retired school superintendents in Manitoba:

AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL MANITOBANS

We, the undersigned, call on the Government of Manitoba to reconsider its intention to pursue the passage of Bill 64 – The Education Modernization Act for the purpose of allowing greater public dialogue on the advisability of the changes proposed therein.

Until March 15, 2021 the Manitoba education system was often the envy of other Canadian provinces, our American neighbours and our international friends, particularly those in the OECD countries. As Manitoba superintendents we took our role as educational leaders on the forefront of educational advancement seriously, enthusiastically embracing made-in-Manitoba solutions to social, economic and political challenges, and carrying them to all corners of the earth in leadership roles beyond Manitoba. We were often asked by our colleagues far and near, “how are your new initiatives possible?”

Our response inevitably included the facts that we worked in a non-partisan environment, where children and the public good were given primary consideration, and everyone – the government, the ministry, boards of trustees, superintendents, principals, teachers, and communities worked together on matters of common interest. We did not care where ideas came from or whose ideas they were – they were ideas to be shared and agreed upon. We celebrated and publicized each others’ initiatives and achievements as if they were our own, and we learned from each other. And we assumed that, if an idea had merit in pursuit of education for all, all would support it and each other. Not to be taken for granted any more.

As just a few examples of Manitoba leadership in education:

On Sustainability Education

Our Deputy Minister of the day, supported by all educational partners, took a Manitoba sustainability education agenda to the United Nations and worldwide, always acknowledging that this was a collective enterprise in development and implementation.

On Educational Response to Child Poverty

The Manitoba Association of School Trustees (MAST), now the Manitoba School Boards Association (MSBA), supported by the Manitoba Association of School Superintendents (MASS), initiated a Canada-wide discussion on the educational consequences of child poverty. This conversation, which is continuing to this day, has resulted in hundreds of school projects, and collaboration with the Social Planning Council, addressing the needs of poor children and families at the community school level.

Mental Health Education and Supports

MASS initiated a study and focus on the relationship between the mental health of students and their educational experiences addressing how schools might attend to mental health concerns, something which has proved to be prescient in light of the current pandemic. A first in North American education.

Social Justice Issues

The Manitoba Teachers’ Society (MTS), in support of Manitoba children, families, and teachers, took the lead, campaigning and advocating for gender rights and racial justice, and supported teachers working on other human rights and equality issues.

Inclusive Education and Accessibility

Originated by Manitoba parents, and supported by community organizations and the faculties of education, tremendous strides have been made in inclusivity and accessibility in school and other public places.

Indigenous Education

Manitoba is the home of the Manitoba First Nations School System (MFNSS), conceived by the Manitoba First Nations Resource Centre (MFNERC) in which over 10 First Nations combined their resources to enhance education for on-reserve children. It is another Manitoba first, the only one of its kind in Canada. It owes at least some of its success to the supportive efforts of MSBA, MASS, MTS, and Manitoba Education and the pioneering work of the Frontier School Division, also a Manitoba first, supported by governments of all stripes. One of the main features of Frontier is the partnership between over 10 First Nations and a public school system with elected trustees.

Accomplishments like this, of which there are too many to mention, are only possible where people trust each other, value and nurture their relationships and are not jealous of each others’ achievements –where they work together for something greater than themselves and their organizations. Not caring who was recognized, or who got the credit, made these educational advancements as provincial triumphs into local, national and international contributions to the education and well-being of our children, our communities and our world.

Among other inaccurate contentions, Bill 64 is based on false and divisive premises and promises – of quality (test scores vs poverty); participation (individual parents vs school boards); collegiality and professionalism (principals vs teachers); and, efficiency (extreme centralization vs local discretion). Nowhere in the world have the solutions being advocated ended in the results being proclaimed. And everywhere in the world, extreme centralization has led to standard formula-driven prescriptions – one size-fits-all answers – insensitive to local differences and impervious to local input. And nowhere in the world have they increased trust in government.

The loss is magnified, loss of confidence in government accompanied by a breakdown in mutually beneficial relationships among the guardians of public schools. And the loss of the collective “people” power which has resulted in a continuous improvement of a system considered among the best in the world.

Bill 64, now being implemented by government even before it passes, places the relationships which led to our working together for better schools everywhere at risk. In the process it jeopardizes public education itself. For the sake of all Manitobans, and the future of Manitoba education, some of its provisions must be reconsidered. We urge all Manitobans to inform

themselves, and to let our politicians know that we expect better from them than this divisive and destructive bill.

RECENTLY RETIRED SUPERINTENDENTS

Coralie Bryant Ray Derksen Brian Gouriluk Scott Kwaznitza Ross Metcalfe Vern Reimer Winston Smith John Wiens

Karen Crozier Catherine Fidierchuk John Janzen

Paul Cuthbert Cam Giavedoni Ken Klassen Lawrence Lussier Strini Reddy

Roy Seidler Don Wiebe

Bob Cesmystruck
Arnold Dysart
Don Hurton
Pauline Lafond-Bouchard Brett Lough

Paul Moreau Jean-Yves Rochon Jerry Storie
David Yeo

Dan Reagan Janet Schubert Dave Swanson

Literacy starts with listening and speaking

A couple of months ago I read an article by Richard Allington in the ASCD's Educational Leadership: October 2014 entitled "Reading Moves - What Not to Do". 
In one part of the article, he references "the need for literate conversations".

Thinking about those "literate conversations":  I wonder how much of the difficulty for struggling readers originates in a paucity of oral language prior to ever learning to read, and then throughout the years that they're developing as readers.  How much more difficult it must be to make meaning of text (really just oral language committed to a secondary, visual form) when a child hasn't had the opportunity to "decode" anything beyond a trivial level of meaning in the conversations they've heard from birth.  This lack of oral fluency, and listening "fluency" (if there is such a thing) must translate into difficulty with the written word, I'd think.
 

In the latter part of the article, the author advocates for "turn, pair and share".  Okay, fine, if the children are capable of doing so fluently, intelligently.  What if they simply haven't the facility to do this well?  Repetition without a means of development can't reasonably lead to significant growth.  This is where modelling - students having an opportunity to repeatedly hear two (or more) literate people have a discussion - might be significant, and damnably difficult to create in a one teacher environment.

There are 6 identified language arts (here in MB, anyway).  Reading is the one we virtually obsess over; writing the poor sister who gets attention when we notice that she's being neglected.  The other four starve, really.  There may be speaking and listening in school, but I have no sense that we work very hard at actually improving these skills in classrooms.  Viewing and representing, sure, when we think of them; and at that, my uninformed observation is that we feel almost "clever" by including them - "Look how progressive we are by having students draw, create posters, create other visuals, record their voices, etc."  Is reading really the most central of the visual arts?  I don't think so; that centre, in my view, is the speaking and listening that we evolved to do.  Perhaps that's what we should be focusing on first with our struggling, nascent readers in K, 1, 2.  Help them learn to speak and listen with verbally rich language first, then indulge them in reading.  And maybe that isn't even an "either-or" proposition, but rather a choice of emphasis about which needs must come first.

Averaging grades? Just stop.

There is simply no acceptable reason to average a student's grades earlier in a course with those received nearer the end.

Every student deserves multiple chances to demonstrate his or her learning.  This may be through two or more different assessments that assess the same outcome(s).  It may also take place using redos/retakes of the same assessment (the teacher may require acceptable evidence that the student has undertaken subsequent learning before the redo).  It's not always easy, but it might also involve providing the student with an alternative form of assessment - better yet, that alternative is suggested by the student.

In either case, how can a teacher justify averaging the student's earlier "on the way" evidence of learning with later evidence that the student has progressed?  No matter how you slice it, that's punishing the student for not learning fast enough.  Why would we care if it takes a student 2 weeks, 5 weeks or 15 weeks to learn something?  What matters is that they get there.

Let's address some practical issues that might get in the way:

• Most importantly perhaps, common "grade books" encourage or practically mandate averaging grades throughout a course.  So?  If the practice is wrong, it's wrong, and while these grade books may be a practical barrier, they're not insurmountable.  In an earlier post, I published a spreadsheet that we created and use instead of a traditional grade book.  We'll share with anyone who'd like to contact me.  In addition, though we didn't find any stand-alone software that didn't automatically average throughout a term, our division is moving to PowerSchool as our student management software next year, and we understand that the capability to sidestep this averaging is built in.  If it's not, we'll sidestep that and find another way.

• This leads to accepting the role of teachers' professional judgment in determining a student's grade.  If it's not by averaging, how do we determine a student's final standing for a particular outcome?  The answer is to trust to teachers' judgment.  This determination should be based on the most recent and most consistent demonstrations of student learning.  It should "triangulate" that data with the teacher's conversations with the student, and with observations of the student's learning outside of formal summative assessments (though these latter should be primary determinants).  There should be no "math" involved in determining a student's learning for an outcome.  In determining an overall grade for a course, these outcome by outcome judgments will be appropriately weighted and combined to give that overall grade, but that's the only occasion for using math in grading.
• Administrators, are you uncomfortable with relying on teachers' professional judgment?  We put teachers in charge of students and their learning every day.  If these teachers can't be trusted, then we need to take responsibility for that, work with them to improve, and/or find better teachers.  We also need to acknowledge that teachers influence grades, profoundly, every day in their teaching, and every time they create an assessment toward that grade.  Teachers can move grades 10, 20, 30% or more up or down simply by changing the assessments themselves. That's silly, but it's true, so let's not put teachers in a straightjacket, even if it's sometimes of their own making.
• Percentages - how does a teacher exercise that judgment to pick a number between 0 and 100 to characterize learning?  The answer is that they don't.  We use a simple 4 point scale (again, described in an earlier post, and based on the province's report cards).  3 if the outcome has been met as prescribed, and 4 if the student exceeds the outcome or is extraordinarily proficient.  2 if the student has a "basic" but not yet all the way there level of learning, and 1 if it's just somewhat acceptable.  0, or better, "not yet" is used as a placeholder only, not a grade to be averaged.  We only convert to a percentage twice in a semester, for the sake of the report cards, and then only by provincial mandate.  No reasonable person can say they can discern the difference between 76% and 78%, and let's stop pretending that we can.
• What is the role of a final exam or other form of final assessment?  Well, it's a great opportunity to give a student that one last chance to demonstrate learning, if we do as we should, and assess each outcome separately from every other.  Our senior math/sciences teacher gives the exam to students in pieces, one outcome per piece.  Students choose which outcomes will comprise their final exam  in advance, as they know where they stand at all times in their learning, and choose these outcomes based on those which can stand to be improved upon.  This way, students are not required to reassure the teacher that they have learned that which they have already amply demonstrated.  They get to focus on the learning that is most important at that point instead.  Also, the final exam/other has no set weight.  Why should it?  Suppose a student has struggled with trigonometry throughout the course, has a breakthrough and "gets" it, and proves that on the final exam.  It doesn't make sense that this should only count for 30 or 40% of the final grade.  The student has learned it, as surely as the student who got it right from the beginning, and should be credited fully with that learning.

There's more, of course, and we're all getting at it in our #sblchat's and other forums.  There are a ton of good resources for learning more, online and in print.

The bottom line is that I don't believe this is really open to debate.  If we are averaging students' grades and giving significant weight to early-on demonstrations that they haven't yet learned something, then we are at fault.  That's not how it works in the "real world", so let's just fix this practice, once and for all.  

I'm struggling...

• with the dichotomy between those (of us) who push for child-centred reform in education, based on children's interests and passions; and those (of us) who remind us constantly of the reality of difficult, disinterested students who seem to remain so despite the best efforts of those teachers.  A year of Twitter has led to a ton of growth, but also significant frustration with those (of us) who sometimes preach without having to practice.  Humility in the presentation of alternatives to traditional paradigms is needed to prevent a hardening of position when teachers try out new ways of doing things, only to encounter unacknowledged difficulties.  Suggesting that "this will solve all your problems", even if it's not stated explicitly, sets others up for failure when success is hard to come by.
• to reconcile the huge promise of new technologies with the realities of insufficient funds to provide equity between students, and to provide consistent access, training and so on.  Also, there is the seeming disappearance of students almost right into their devices during breaks, lunch, and any other downtime they have.  It sure feels like something human is being lost, even as I myself have experienced the potential of learning with others from around the world. I know there are answers, and have some faith that we'll get to a better place with this, but it's scary sometimes as we're going down this road.
• to understand how staff (and not only teachers) who are no longer in this business, this vocation to make a positive difference in the lives of our children can continue to occupy a position that others would so gladly embrace, if only they were only given the chance.  It isn't necessary to be actively toxic to hurt our kids: it only takes a lack of caring, not spending time with them or being available to them, not doing the unseen preparation, to cause harm.  To be sure, there are a majority that are absolutely wonderful, often (mostly?) unsung.  It's also true that life sometimes gets in the way, and we (administrators) need to support staff through those times until they are ready to resume a wholehearted dedication to the welfare and growth of our students.  But, some have chosen, consciously or perhaps even subconsciously, to see the education of children as a casual pursuit and effort, saving their best for the rest of their lives.  That's just not good enough, not for this vocation, not for our kids.
• and other things - perhaps another post.

We (I) know that struggle is a part of the bargain in caring.  It's a good thing.  But it's not an easy thing!

SBG / SBL Post 4 Course Outlines

Fundamental principles of backward design and outcome based assessment dictate that teachers, students and parents should all have a common understanding of the outcomes in a course.

To that end, teachers have been asked to follow a common template in delineating those outcomes, and how they will be assessed (both formatively and summatively).

That template is provided below, as well as a completed example.