Toward a Better Tomorrow; Future Considerations for D181 and the Immediate Questions Moving Forward

With the district events that have transpired during this past week, we thought we would reiterate our mission and purpose in being volunteer bloggers in the hopes we have provided the D181 community with knowledge and facts related to the status of our district. While the dynamics of the posts and comments on this blog have been spirited and at times heated in the last week especially, we want to convey to our loyal readers that our purpose all along has been to educate and create an awareness of the many changes, some radical, that have been occurring in the district for more then two years. And while we are passionate about district educational issues, as are many of our readers and those who have posted comments, our interests in creating and maintaining this blog have been for the greater good; the greater good for our parents, teachers and children, which in turn impacts the overall well being of the community at large.

So, as we look to the future we are hopeful that a new leader, who has a proven track record of success as a superintendent in a comparable district, will take over the reigns and guide the D181 community to a better place. Yes, any potential superintendent candidate will probably conduct an Internet search on D181 and discover this blog. The candidates who have the experience and knowledge to make necessary changes that are research based, theoretically grounded and proven to be effective within elementary school settings, will be confident enough to rise to the many challenges this district now represents.

Though there are many parent and teacher concerns, some of which have been expressed on this blog, we thought we would take the opportunity to highlight those we believe to be among the most important:

1. We have yet to see the effectiveness of the Learning for All plan presented with data and analysis. Why hasn’t there been a formal presentation of the results so parents know how well Learning for All is working across the district? How are all of the needs of children across the district, regardless of ability level, being met?
2. We now know approximately 25% of fourth graders have been identified for remediation or tutoring twice weekly due to the math acceleration the administration has pushed. How can ¼ of fourth graders require remediation if Learning for All is supposed to reach every child every day in the classroom? What adjustments are being made to accommodate these students within the regular classroom?
3. The Department of Learning administrators stated that with the assistance of the University of Chicago (the origin of Everyday Math) that consistency would be defined and carried among all grades and schools. Why are we parents hearing and seeing students from our home school working on different chapters, lessons, etc than their counterparts in other schools?
4.  Since the district withdrew from LADSE, what is the current status of Special Education within the district? How are the needs of special education students being met across the district? How are special education students performing on the ISAT?
5. Enrichment materials for math and language arts were supposed to be implemented according to the Department of Learning. Our children have not been introduced to enrichment, despite the fact many students are complaining of boredom and lack of challenge within the regular classroom.
6. How is the RtI (Response to Intervention) program meeting the needs of students across ability levels? We have heard from parents who have completed RtI meetings only to have little to no follow up of instructional programming by the administration.

These are just some of the concerns we believe to be most important. These concerns, along with others, need to be addressed by the administration and board of education prior to the hiring of a new superintendent and then acted upon afterward to improve the state of our district. The mid point of the school year has come and gone; the future of D181 looks much different today than it did at the start of the school year. We have questions and concerns. We need answers. And ultimately, we need a leader who knows how to pick up the shattered pieces and make the district whole again. Yes, we believe the district is now fragmented, veiled in secrecy, and under performing as a whole. Like it or not, these consequences are a direct result of what an administrator recently admitted as, “Trying something new in the district that has never been done before.” Well, well. We finally have an admission that the Learning for All Social Justice Plan is a massive, unfounded, non-researched based experiment that our children have been subjected to for more than two years.

Bottom line: In order to erase the trends of overall lower test scores (ISAT and MAP), math acceleration leading to remediation, stagnation of learning within heterogeneous classrooms, etc. the administration and BOE will have to work to be sure there are accountability measures in place; the district should be moving toward a better tomorrow. This is a great challenge, no doubt, given the concerns articulated on this blog and also through parent comments at BOE meetings, engagement sessions, etc.

This is our perspective. You may agree or disagree. In the end, we only want what’s best for our children. That’s been the goal all along. In addition to the topics listed above that we hope will be addressed very soon at future board meetings, in the coming weeks we plan to address the following topics:

• The February 24 visit and report to the Board by Dr. Moon and Dr. Friedman.  Dr. Moon’s January 2012 report is now 2 years old.  She is returning to review and observe all of the changes that have been implemented since her recommendations.  We will address what those recommendations actually were, review the changes the administration has implemented instead and then raise questions and issues we hope Dr. Moon will answer and address during her visit and presentation.  And who is Dr. Friedman, yet another consultant hired by the administration? What is her purpose?
• The D181 teachers. We fully support the teachers in D181.  Over the last couple of years they have been put in a very difficult position.  Sweeping changes in the areas of curriculum have been imposed on them, not just through Common Core requirements that all districts in Illinois and in many other states have had to implement; they have also had to handle the additional acceleration and all-inclusive model that the D181 administration has pursued.  Teachers have expressed concerns regarding many of these changes in surveys conducted by the administration.  They also expressed facilities and health concerns.  Yet, until there was an actual crisis at HMS, their facilities and health concerns went unaddressed by the Board who, we believe, had not been made aware of them by the administration.  What kind of crisis will it take for the Board to act now on the teachers’ curriculum concerns?  Teachers in this district are outstanding, but they too are human and can only accomplish so much when faced with all of the changes they have had to manage during the past two years.
• Contract Negotiations.  The current three-year teachers’ contract expires at the end of this school year. The teachers made many concessions in their last contract, driven in great part by the downturn in the national economy.  With the economy in recovery mode, and in light of all of the increased challenges and demands that every teacher is now facing due to all of the changes brought forward by the administration, we expect the Board to acknowledge the value of all the D181 teachers during the contract negotiations.  We can ill afford to face a teachers’ strike that might shut down all of the D181 schools and negatively impact instructional time in 2014-2015.
• Superintendent Search:  We will closely monitor the progress made by the Board in conducting what we hope will be a comprehensive search for a superintendent to replace Dr. Schuster.  None of the current Board members was in office during the last search. The Board will need to act quickly to hire a national search firm to guide them through this critical task.

We will continue blogging and keeping the parent and teacher community updated on D181 events and issues.  We welcome relevant comments and feedback from all constituents district wide.  In keeping with our goal of transparency by the administration and Board, we hope the future will bring some much needed “sunshine” on D181 and a better tomorrow.

D181 Administration Trots Out "Interactive" Dog and Pony Show on Common Core Math

Source of Photo: BARCROFT Media, 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5295607/Dog-rides-horse.html
"A 'dog and pony show' as a term used in the modern sense has lost its original meaning altogether. It is frequently used to mean a lamely contrived visual presentation, photo opportunity, political speech, or sales pitch, mostly for promotional purposes." www.wisegeek.com

After we bloggers began to receive comments regarding the D181 Common Core Math "Event" that was held at Elm School on November 20, we thought we would verify the format and context of what approximately 55 parents attended. By the administration's own description listed on the D181 website, this event was designed to be "interactive” thus, parents were placed into groups wherein they were assigned a Common Core Standard and then had to review a typical related lesson:


Common Core Math - November 20 Event
Posted October 30, 2013
On Wednesday, November 20, we invite all community members to attend an event in the Learning for All Family Education Series - Common Core: Math. District leaders will present an interactive session that includes an overview of the new Common Core State Standards for mathematics and their impact on teaching and learning. The program begins at 6:30 p.m. and takes place at Elm School. No pre-registration is required. For more information about the series, visit www.d181.org > Academics > Learning for All.
Source: http://www.d181.org/news/detail.aspx?pageaction=ViewSinglePublic&LinkID=1523&ModuleID=37&NEWSPID=1


A couple of You Tube videos were played showing children supposedly working on Common Core math lessons. But what is striking to us is that no time was allocated for parents to ask questions about this topic or related topics to the administrators who were present: Kurt Schneider, Kevin Russell, Dawn Benaitis and Christine Igoe. These administrators basically served as facilitators, much in the same way as they envision our teachers as facilitators in the near future. They walked about, listened in on parent communication in small groups, and offered no presentation or structured information for parents. How disappointing for those who attended, as this seems to be the new norm from the administration in our district.


We thought the format of this meeting was suspect, just as in the Community Engagement Meetings the administration sought to control the messaging. Two-way discussion does not exist, nor is it encouraged. Is this typical of school districts, especially with the new demands of the Common Core? Answer: NO


Here is a recent Common Core parent presentation that was conducted by the
Curriculum and Instruction Department at top rated Lincolnshire-PrairieView District 103. Notice the slides are in depth and there is actually a final slide that encourages "Questions."

The Spin Cycle: Scrubbing the Stains From D181 Double Speak

Now that we have recovered from the antics of last Monday’s BOE meeting, we are providing our readers with several areas of concern. It was difficult to select only a few. We encourage you to listen to the podcast on the D181 website so you can hear the meeting in its entirety. (Click to open podcasts link.) As you listen, keep in mind that Dr. Schuster and her administration felt it was necessary to give 90 minutes of meeting time to three outside presenters before hearing the voices of the 11 parents who stepped up and made public comments regarding the state of their children’s education.

  

Here are some concerns: 

·               As we predicted, Dr. Schuster and her administration did promote the ROE presenters as a diversionary tactic. However, the presenters appeared to be duped: their focus was on social justice and special education, not the D181 Learning for All Plan (LFA) specifically. Frankly, we were embarrassed for the ROE speakers, who obviously did not realize the quagmire they stepped into. Kurt Schneider (Assistant Superintendent for Whatever), attempted to lead these speakers in agreement with the strategy he has promoted through the LFA plan (listen to his questions and the comments made by Madeline Will starting at time 26:29 of the Podcast).  
While Schneider tried to steer Ms Will’s answers, at one point she stated she was not comfortable answering the questions he was raising, which we should be hearing from Schneider, who in our opinion also has no qualifications outside of special education to be making educational decisions about our children.

·                Parents were also able to hear that D181 is a “pioneer” in its quest for social justice, automatic math grade level acceleration on top of the Common Core requirements, and full inclusion for all within the backdrop of falling ISAT and MAP scores; meaning, no district, at no time, and no place, has undertaken these sweeping changes and practiced them with success. And yes, despite the fever pitch of Schuster’s “celebrations,” the fact is that even with three schools trending slightly upward, their rankings are still down from years past, while the remaining district schools are headed on a downward slide. The numbers don’t lie.  Is this what Schneider means when he says, “We will raise the floor to raise the ceiling?” 

•                Even more concerning was the comment Schneider made regarding the district’s minority population, which he stated was 21%. According to the Illinois State Report Card for 2013, the minority population is actually 19%; this figure comprises different ethnic groups, people of color, etc.  

The performance by ethnic group is highlighted within the State Report Card. (Click to open interactive Report Card link.)

Source: http://www.illinoisreportcard.com/District.aspx?source=StudentCharacteristics&source2=StudentDemographics&Districtid=19022181004

It’s obvious the highest achieving group is Asian, which is why Schneider’s public comment at last Monday’s meeting is so confusing (at time 1:12:50 on podcast) :  

Common Core ≠ Learning For All. Fact or Fiction?

Today we begin our second series focusing on Common Core and Acceleration under the Learning for All Plan in District 181.   Part 1 of this series will explain that the D181 Administration’s crusade for classroom heterogeneity and unnecessary acceleration-- currently called the Learning for All Plan -- has resulted in an inaccurate perception that this plan is part of Common Core. Instead, we will demonstrate that the two are not related and that there are serious concerns about the origins of D181’s Learning for All philosophy and the impact it will have on our students. (Don't worry -- we haven't forgotten about our series on D181 Administrators and will publish the next post in that series very soon.)

Common Core (click to open link to Common Core) is required by many states and is now highlighted in discussions during board meetings and communications with teachers and parents.  All Illinois districts are required by law to implement grade level Common Core learning standards in math and language arts. The belief is that the Common Core standards will increase the grade level rigor and performance expectations for all students.

D181 appears to be using this Common Core mandate for its own agenda – implementation of an accelerated inverted Learning for All instructional model.  What is troubling about the concurrent promotion of the Learning for All Plan and Common Core by the District Administration and the Board of Education is that the messaging has become so confused that many parents believe the Learning for All Plan = Common Core.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Brave, Anonymous Teacher Raises Concerns

Today we received the comment below from a brave "Anonymous Concerned Teacher." We consider the issues raised of such serious importance that we are publishing it as a free-standing post, because we want to make sure that all of our readers see it.  Following the Anonymous Teacher's Comment is the response we published. As we point out, the teacher is correct when he/she states that "only the parents can stop the madness." It is time more parents contact the Board of Education with their concerns. Concerned parents successfully convinced the Board of Education to vote NO to "Late Start Days." Concerned parents successfully convinced the Board of Education to vote NO on the "Math Pilots." 

Concerned parents should come forward once again and convince the Board of Education to address not only the Curriculum Concerns, but also the newly identified "Donoroo" fundraising debacle first brought to our attention in a comment posted on the 10/16/13 Post on "The Experimentation on our Children Must Stop."  

As we state in our response comment," "It is time the Board Members realize that they need to ask Dr. Schuster and her administrators some tough questions and get answers, not spin.

ANONYMOUS TEACHER'S COMMENT

Dear 181 Blog,

I am a teacher in our school district. I have never been so disheartened and dismayed at the morale of teachers and the state of education in District 181. What happened? We went from a fully high functioning district with a handful of higher level administrators to a district with a huge increase in the amount of administrators, with little experience in the area of their supposed expertise. These leaders want to take all that is good and change it to their vision. The students are ultimately the ones who will lose.

The "Learning for All" (aka Advanced Learning) directive is one of those ideas that appears good on paper and fails in reality. One of the goals of this directive is to eventually get rid of the bubbles of support educators--reading specialists, special education teachers, academic strategy teachers, gifted specialists etc. Right now, administration wants these teachers to "push in." We now have our most fragile and needy students trying to receive support in a classroom where other things are going on. How do we expect them to focus? Is it fair to have them working in the corner of the room? Eventually, the district wants to put all of those students in our classrooms and let the regular education teacher meet their needs. I was told that I need to "increase my capacity." I think I do a pretty good job meeting the needs in my classroom, but I am NOT a special education, reading, or gifted teacher. I do not have the specialized education that they do. And, for years, I have witnessed students growing under and with these "special" teachers and classes. I am outraged that a few administrators think that teachers should be able to handle EVERYTHING that the district is throwing at them and that we should buy in or "find another job." By everything I mean the following: implementing the new Common Core standards (which should be first and foremost), differentiate (for gifted, standard, and struggling students) all subjects and activities every day, form flexible grouping work for all subjects and classes, meet the social/emotional needs of students, view data on each student to set individual goals for each student (even if you have 90-180 students at the middle school), prepare students for testing, choose multi-leveled texts for students for every area of the curriculum (even if you have 90-180 at the middle school level), incorporate technology into our lesson plans (even if it's not available in all buildings), and increase rigor and develop relationships that are so important with our students. I was taught that humans have developmental stages and that you can't force an individual through these stages unless he/she is ready. So, are our students who aren't ready developmentally somehow behind? I think that would be like expecting all of our students to be ready to complete in the Olympics. We understand that some students can achieve this and we foster that, but we don't expect everyone to achieve this. That would be an unrealistic goal and humiliating to some students.

Please, bloggers, look into the CHMS Donoroo debacle. What started out as a wonderful charitable event (the first three years) ended up a slush fund for the CHMS music department and was condoned by the principal. This fund was mismanaged and misused. I hope parents will demand an explanation into what happened and learn the truth about what has happened over the past three years.

I would personally like to thank all the informed, supportive parents who have realized that "the Emperor has no clothes!" Teachers know that it is only the parents that can stop the madness in District 181. The teachers fear retribution, poor performance evaluations, and a possible loss of employment for speaking up.

Sincerely,

An anonymous concerned teacher

The Experimentation on Our Children Must Stop -- The Board of Education Must Halt The "Living Plan" of D181's "Own Design"

Guinea Pig.  Look in a thesaurus for its synonyms.  Lab rat, experimental subject, experimental animal, test animal, test subject, testee, victim. 
(Source: http://thesaurus.com/browse/guinea%20pig.)

The last word in the chain sums it all up – guinea pigs are "victims," because we all know that things don't usually bode well for the lab rat, test animal, or whatever name you want to give the "subject" of an experiment. Why are animals usually used as "test subjects?" Because until scientists know with certainty that their experiment will be beneficial and not cause more harm than good to people, they prefer to run their experiments on animals. The lab animals that are unlucky enough to be experimented on in the first round of testing suffer the most harm - sometimes irreversible.  The "scientists" then try and learn from their initial mistakes, will "modify" or "tweak" the experiment and then conduct more tests on a new group of unlucky subjects.  

And so it goes, experiment, victim harmed, "tweak," experiment, victim harmed,  "tweak," until perhaps one day, after many rounds of experimentation, the scientists might achieve positive results. But then again, they might not and the experimentation is cancelled. Regardless of the outcome, the scientists will justify the harm they caused to the test animals as unintentional consequences of trying to achieve a greater  "good" for all.  But others in the scientific community would call such experiments "torture" of innocent victims and ask if they were worth the permanent damage caused to the unknowing, innocent subjects of the experimentation in round 1, round 2, round 3...?

Good questions, and questions we, as parents of the D181 students who have been turned into guinea pigs, lab rats, test animals, and yes, victims, must ask ourselves and demand answers to.

Last week, we posted for your review the comments published on “Dr. Schuster’s Blog” found on the D181 website.  We hope you have read them and reflected upon Dr. Schuster's admission that the Learning For All Plan is a product of "D181's own design."  It is a "living plan" that she expects "will be modified based on the data we receive throughout each year of its implementation." (Click to open Dr. Schuster's Blog.)

2012-2013 Year in Review: Elementary Math -- with a focus on Third Grade -- The Transition Year Structure

We have already discussed the Middle School Math rapid acceleration plan that was rolled out in 2012-2013.  The next three posts will discuss the math changes that were implemented in Elementary School.