Each month I interview people in the education world about whom I want to learn more. You can see read those past interviews here.

This month, I’m lucky enough to have David Deubelbeiss as my guest. David is the founder of EFL Classroom 2.0 which, in my opinion, is the very best resource on the web for teachers of English Language Learners. David also writes his own blog, and can be followed on Twitter.

Can you give a little background about yourself — where are you from originally, when you began teaching, what your work is now, etc.?

I am Canadian and grew up in a very nontraditional environment in Northern Ontario. Hippie commune and we lived poor but happy on a farm. Nature and hard work were my best friends. Wood stove, no running water, no tv for many years.

I began teaching when I was 27. During and after university I worked construction. Loved it but finally fate caught up to me. Fell off a building and couldn’t continue steel working. There was  a teacher’s college in my city (North Bay, Ontario) so with nothing better to do while I recovered, I entered. Have been teaching since then, now 20 years! First EFL in the Czech Rep. / France / Ukraine. Then public school, adult immigrants TEFL courses in Toronto. For the last 4+ years I’ve been in Korea  teacher training. I now teach at Ewha Women’s Univ. in the Graduate school of TESOL in Seoul, Korea.

What made you decide to teach English as a second language?

Basically, when I graduated Teacher’s College, I had loads of references but few job prospects. So I decided to go overseas to get some experience. Ended up in Karlovy Vary, the Czech Republic and worked in a small school in that “Cinderella like” city.  I loved the fact that ELT offered me lots of freedom – I could be so creative and the curriculum was indeed for me, the whole of the English world (and still is, despite our efforts to corral it into some tidy box. )

How would you describe EFL Classroom 2.0, and why did you start it?

It started about 2 and a half years ago. I was teacher training and sharing lots of resources/ideas through my old site – “the batcave”.  I outgrew that and Ning had just come on the scene and I realized its powerful potential (though I do have some misgivings about it too!).

EFL Classroom 2.0 grew out of my ideal that teaching is a vocation and about giving, sharing and learning together as a community of professionals. I had seen little of that – fortunately, with new technological tools (twitter, social networking sites, RSS and aggregation, video sharing etc…) this is no longer the case. But EFL 2.0 was a forerunner in giving teachers a place to get resources and meet up without any commercial demands, ads or hidden agendas.  I always say, “I started the fire but we all “own” it and responsible for keeping it burning”.

What do you think are the best resources on EFL Classroom 2.0?  What are your future plans for it?

Too many to mention!  I get “complaints” all the time that there is “too much”! I consider that a compliment though and have tried to work hard to make the site search friendly (we are the only Ning network to have a cross community tag search feature that I designed!)

However, I first started sharing Karaoke as a way of teaching both language and reading. We have thousands of files and an editor to make your own. Also, teachers seem to love the powerpoint games I designed, plus others that are shared (I’m really proud of my BAAM game and Top 5 – both my own creations). Still, I really suggest members read through the blogs – so much there and always downloadables too.

Do you see any trends in teaching English these days that you think are positive and, on the other hand, do you see any that are not-so-positive?

Great question.  On one hand, I really see the growth of PLNs (Personal Learning Networks) and a stronger ELT international community as a wonderful new thing. Further, with the advent of anytime, anywhere, anyhow web 2.0 sharing of resources – teachers have more options to adapt the textbook and bring context into their classrooms. That’s amazing – especially how video and speech recognition are affecting teaching. There is a big change in all education – especially how the classroom won’t have 4 walls and will be more about student learning (autonomy) and less about “teaching”.

This is the “push” but there is a “pull” the other way – lead by big corporations and publishers.  Yes, I’ll take flak for saying that, so be it. There is way too too too much profit by companies in education. (think Kaplan, think Oxford – teachers should read their financial reports). Lots of effort spent to constrict the creativity of teachers and to make “product” and not enough spent on actually fostering teacher training. [oh yeah, they will always point to this project and that project or cry "poor" but it is a drop in the bucket and like BP talking about their investments in alternative energies]. It is a big negative – how institutionalized learning/education is and continues to be. (see George Siemens on youtube for a good balanced view about this).

I also hope that English Language Teacher starts to develop a closer relationship with general education. ELT seems kind of lost and it would benefit by closer adoption of a lot of the ideas of general educational practice. I find many TESOL professionals ignorant of the wider educational and pedagogical world. We can become too myopic in our view(s).

What books would you recommend to new ESL/EFL teacher and which ones would you recommend to one with some experience?

Jeremy Harmer’s “How to Teach” is great and also his larger “The Practice of English Language Teaching” if you are really serious about teaching. Michael Swan’s “Practical English Usage” is a classic. Further, I’ve enjoyed Scott Thornbury’s “A-Z of ELT” (though I think he left so much out!).

Last year, I read “How to be a more successful language learner” by Joan Rubin and Irene Thompson. I highly recommend any new teacher to read these types of books and think less about “teaching” and more about “learning” and from the student’s standpoint.  Of course, my all time fav. “serious”  ELT book is Vygotsky’s “Thought and Language”. Pinker’s “The Language Instinct” though, is a good place to start getting serious about knowing language.

Is there anything I haven’t asked you about that you’d like to share?

Again, too much to tell! I’m always stirring the soup and doing so much. I love this and it keeps me feeling alive and vital. I’d recommend teachers to read lots of the ELT blogs out there – just made The Random ELT Blog Generator for that purpose. Also, check out English Central and sign up as a teacher. I helped create the teacher’s area and you can track your student’s progress as they use videos to learn English.

Oh! Of course! Join EFL Classroom 2.0 – always free and always new.

Thanks, David!

Each month I interview people in the education world about whom I want to learn more. You can see read those past interviews here.

Renee Moore has been teaching high school in the Mississippi Delta for over fifteen years. She is a colleague in the Teacher Leaders Network, a popular blogger, and part of a group of educators that have recently initiated a direct dialogue with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

What led you to teaching and, more specifically, what led you to teaching in the Mississippi Delta?

I married into the Delta. My husband was born and raised here on a sharecropper farm by his grandparents. He moved to Detroit to get work in the auto factories; that’s where he met me. He is a minister, and we’ve always worked primarily with young people. In 1987, after much prayer, we determined that God wanted us to take our work and our family to Mississippi. He kept saying, “The kids down home need what we’re doing here; they don’t have anything like this.”

To me, moving to the Delta was like walking into the middle of a black-and-white movie; it’s been quite a cultural adjustment. Back in Detroit, I had done some freelance writing for local publications, so I needed something else to do. And, through a series of very strange events, the only place we could find to live with our four children was in the married student housing of the local college, which meant one of us had to go back to school. I volunteered, but couldn’t decide on a major since the school didn’t offer journalism. As my husband was leaving out one morning he hollered back over his shoulder, “You like to write, and you like kids. Why not try teaching!” Turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made.

Much of the national attention on schools appears to miss rural areas. Do you think that there tend to be specific strengths and weaknesses unique to many rural schools?

Rural schools, of course, reflect the strengths and weaknesses of rural communities today. The schools and districts tend to be smaller. The high school I attended back in Detroit had over 5,000 students; whereas, both of the high schools in which I’ve taught had fewer than 400 students. The teachers and students know each other well; heck, many of them are related. We shop together, eat together, bowl together, attend church together. Many of the students I have taught were also members of the non-profit youth organization my husband and I started when we moved here.

That close-knit characteristic, however, can also be a weakness with rural schools. Sometimes, the people (adults and students) are very parochial and narrow in their views and suspicious of what’s not from “around here.” Rural schools are among the poorest and most under-resourced. Many of our students have to be bussed great distances to get to school; this sometimes makes providing after school or extra curricular programs difficult. On the other hand, few of them have traveled very far from their home county. The rural poor have fewer resources available to them; and much of rural poverty is hidden. Most of our talented young people, if they graduate, leave the area to attend college or pursue careers and few return to their communities. Those that do have trouble finding jobs. Like many inner city schools, rural schools often have trouble attracting and keeping teachers. Some of these problems are being lessened by technological innovations.

You’ve been involved with the Teachers Leaders Network writing a book on what the teaching profession might look like in 2030, and have recently written about it in Educational Leadership. Can you give a “sneak peek” into some points that will be in the book?

I am really excited about this book. I along with 11 other members of TLN worked for over a year on the background research for the book and then on our own writing. We talked with a host of interesting and informed persons: futurists, researchers, economists, educators. Among the most important points in the book are our vision of what we call the “Emergent Realities,” what the context of our teaching will look like 20 years from now. For example, we envision more personalized learning, expansion of teacher residencies, seamless connections in and out of cyberspace, teacher unions evolved into something closer to professional guilds.

At the same time, we believe school buildings will become hubs for more coordinated community services as well as places where students and teachers meet face-to-face to supplement virtual learning or to coordinate the work of learning teams. One of our team members came up with the concept of “teacherpreneurism” – practicing classroom teachers at the forefront of educational innovation and getting paid for it (that section alone is reason enough to read the book). We also lay out six “levers of change” that will bring affect whether and how soon we reach these realities. We also address issues of equity and actions that need to be taken now to ensure the best possible future for the education of all students.

When you look at what is happening both nationally and locally with teachers and schools today, what are two things that you are excited about and two things that make you feel frustrated?

Let me take this one in reverse. What frustrates me right now is the building chorus of anti-teacher, anti-public education demagoguery in the media and political circles. I categorically reject the proposition that everything in education would be better if more of it were privatized and subject to market forces. A free, quality, education is an essential and fundamental right of every citizen. My other frustration is the hypocrisy of holding teachers accountable for student learning outcomes while in most places giving us little or no control over the conditions under which we teach and our students learn. Remember, I have taught my entire career in an open-shop, no tenure, no collective bargaining state. If half of the charges made against the teacher unions were true, then we and the other Southern states should be at the top in terms of student achievement, which of course, we are not.

What excites me are the examples I see around the country of communities where parents, teachers, administrators, students and others are coming together to “turnaround” their own schools; to reclaim and restore educational excellence. I’m also encouraged by the growth and depth of teacher networks across the nation and the globe. Developments such as the k12online Conference, the Professional Learning Practice Networks, of course – Teacher Leader Network, all sorts of Nings, collaboratives, and other groupings of teachers bode well for the future health of our profession.

What is a book — or two or three — that you’d encourage both new and veteran teachers to read?

There are so many great books (articles, publications, blogs, e-books, etc) out there for teachers today. A couple that I would encourage others to read and reference include: Gloria Ladson-Billings, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children – a wonderful book not just for teachers of Black students, but for every teacher to remind us of the importance of truly knowing and respecting our students. For new teachers and close-to-being-burned out veterans there’s a short but wonderful piece by my TLN colleague, Cossondra George “Wonder Teacher” or the similar-themed “We Cannot Let Our Work Consume Us” by Ellen Berg.

As an English teacher, I find myself going back to Mina Shaughnessy’s Error and Expectations which is about a whole lot more than just teaching writing. I also recommend Into the Classroom: Developing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning by Thomas Hatch. Disclaimer: I am in the book, but I suggest it because it uses the examples of real teachers to drive home a point very important to me: the need for teachers to be both practitioners and scholars in our own classrooms. To quote from the opening of the book, “every teacher and student can benefit from an educational system in which teachers critically examine and build on the work and ideas of their colleagues” (xxiv).

You’ve written about parent engagement in schools. What have you seen that has worked effectively?

I’ve seen what can happen when parents really trust teachers, and teachers genuinely respect parents. I’m thinking of one school back in Detroit that had been all but given up to the neighborhood dope dealers and gangsters. Parents and teachers united to reclaim the school and over just a couple of years, it became a highly successful, vibrant educational oasis. Here in Mississippi, where as I mentioned earlier, teachers do not have the protections of tenure or collective bargaining, I’ve seen instances in which parents and students rallied valiantly to protect teachers from unfair treatment.

More often though, I’ve seen the effects of strong parent-teacher collaboration at the classroom level make all the difference for children. In an area like the Delta where over 40 – 50% of our adult population is illiterate, parents expect teachers to “do right” by their children, not only opening doors of educational opportunity, but helping them navigate the often bewildering educational journey. To care for other people’s children as if they were our own is still the most effective way for educators to reach their parents.

Is there anything else you’d like to say that I haven’t asked you about already?

My husband and I have raised 11 children; two of whom had special needs. No two of our children are alike. I’ve now taught thousands of students; each one different and precious. We as parents and educators must reject the attempts to standardize and restrict children in either curriculum or assessment. One reason parents have been shut out of the educational process in many ways is that schools were designed at the turn of the last century to make it convenient for adults to mass educate children efficiently. It’s time to redesign public education to make it effective for children and convenient for their families.

Thanks, Renee!

Each month I interview people in the education world about whom I want to learn more. You can see read those past interviews here.

Mary Ann Zehr is an assistant editor at Education Week covering, among other topics, English Language Learner issues. She writes a must-read blog for Ed Week titled Learning The Language.

What led you to covering the English Language Learner “beat” for EdWeek?

At age 25, when I came back to the United States after teaching English in China for two years, I was torn between going to graduate school to get a master’s in journalism or a master’s in TESOL. I chose the journalism degree. But then when I started working for Education Week in 1997, it was natural for me to take an interest in English-language learners. For two years, I specialized in writing about technology in schools. I expressed an interest to my editor that if the ELL beat was ever free, I’d love to have it. The beat did become free and I got what I had asked for.

What are the stories you’ve liked writing the most and why did you like them so much?

I really enjoy writing a story that enables me to get to know students and parents from a culture that is new to me. It expands my horizons, and I hope it also expands the knowledge of EdWeek’s readers. I enjoy immersing myself in a culture other than my own. For example, a number of years ago, I wrote a story about how parents from several groups of immigrants—Hispanic Pentecostals, Russian Pentecostals, and Muslim Kurds—were concerned about the clash between their conservative values and what they viewed as more liberal values of their children’s peers and some educators in the public schools of Harrisonburg, Va. For that story, I attended a quinceanera, the traditional party for a Mexican 15-year-old. I also ate a meal seated on the living room floor of a Kurdish family. And I attended a Russian Pentecostal church service. So I got a glimpse into several cultures at the same time I learned about the school-related concerns of some immigrant parents.

I also really get excited when I have a chance to write about a school or school district that seems to truly be giving access to English-language learners to the regular curricula in schools, which is unfortunately, not always the case. I get excited when I visit a school and see that ELLs have the chance to study science and social studies, not just math and English, from the start. I found that to be true when I wrote about the Brooklyn International High School in New York City. It also was the case for a newcomer program in Columbus, Ohio, schools that I wrote about when featuring Somali refugees. It seemed that Salt Lake City schools also came a long way in giving access to the core curricula to ELLs after receiving pressure from the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights. I noticed when I visited an elementary school in that district that the teachers were very aware of the needs of the ELLs in their classes.

Are there any things you can characterize as “trends” nationally in teaching ELLs?

More and more school districts are seriously trying to figure out how to teach academic content and English to ELLs at the same time. How to do so is a big trend in professional development. How to apply “response to intervention” to ELLs is a very hot topic in the field. Response to intervention, or RTI, is an approach in which educators give struggling students extra help with the aim of preventing referrals to special education. I’m noticing that how best to teach second-language learners at the preschool level is also becoming a very hot topic in education circles.

How might you characterize the positions that the Obama Administration might be taking on specific policies related to teaching English-language learners?

The Obama blueprint for ELL provisions that should be in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (now called No Child Left Behind) doesn’t have a lot of details.The key components for ELLs are that states should establish an evaluation system on the effectiveness of programs for ELLs and that states should standardize their criteria for identification of ELLs and for their readiness to leave special programs.

I haven’t heard any word from the Obama administration, for instance, on whether it would support making the category for ELLs stable for federal accountability purposes, so that school districts and states get credit for ELLs’ performance on tests after they no longer are getting special help to learn the language. Now, students’ test scores can be counted in the ELL category for two years after they are deemed fluent in English. Researchers from the Working Group on ELL Policy are pushing for this change in the law. At the same time, I’ve talked with at least one state education official that doesn’t like the idea.

During the presidential campaign, the Obama platform said it endorsed “transitional bilingual education.” But I haven’t heard the president mention these words since he was elected. I don’t know of any instance in which U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan mentioned bilingual education. In general, I haven’t heard much from this new administration about instruction of ELLs. The U.S. Department of Education has hosted a forum on how best to assess ELLs. Mr. Duncan has also talked publicly about the need for better assessments for ELLs.

Are you working on any particularly interesting future stories?

I’m always looking for school districts, rather than just individual schools, that have been successful with ELLs. I also would like to be able to feature high schools that are implementing promising practices for ELLs. It’s not easy to find them. I haven’t yet had a chance to visit a school district to write about Burmese refugees, the 2nd-largest group of refugees now being settled in the United States. I’m not sure if our news priorities will permit that in the next school year. Right now, Iraqis are the largest group of refugees coming to the United States. Bhutanese rank third. I’ve had an opportunity to write about both of those groups.

Is there anything you’d like to share that I haven’t asked you about?

I meet many English-language learners whom I find to be inspiring. I’m particularly impressed by students who have missed years of schooling and come to this country and take advantage of whatever opportunity they have to learn. I’ve met students who have learned to read for the first time IN ANY LANGUAGE when they were teenagers. That can’t be easy. I think their stories should be told.

Thanks, Mary Ann!

Each month I interview people in the education world about whom I want to learn more. You can see read those past interviews here.

This month’s guest is Carrie Rose, Executive Director of the nationally acclaimed Parent/Teacher Home Visit Project. Our school works closely with Carrie and the Project, I’ve written a chapter about it in my book on parent engagement, and I also wrote an article about it last year for Teacher Magazine.

Can you give a brief description of what the Parent Teacher Home Visit Project is and how it came into being?

The Parent/Teacher Home Visit Project is a unique partnership between a community organizing group (Sacramento Area Congregations Together), a local teachers union (Sacramento City Teachers Association) and a school district (Sacramento City Unified School District). The project developed through an effort to address the cycle of blame that existed between parents and site personnel at several south Sacramento schools where there was a pervasive history of low student achievement, high levels of poverty, and where high percentages of children entered school as English learners. Home visits were identified by teachers as one way to build trust and respect. Community organizers recognized the potential for leadership development through home visits given the similarity to their model of 1:1 interactions. Parents, educators and community organizers came together to develop a training and model for the visits and launched the project in the 1998-1999 school year.

How did you get involved in it, and where do you get the energy to continue being the Executive Director?

My background is in social service and law. In 1999, when my children were very young, I was looking for a more flexible job. The director of Sacramento ACT offered me a part time job as a fund developer and I had to quickly learned to do grant writing and fundraising in the nonprofit world. Luckily, one of my main responsibilities was to raise funds for a new parent engagement project- the parent/teacher home visit effort. As my understanding of community organizing grew, and my participation in the logistics of the home visit project evolved, I experienced a profound shift both personally and professionally.

While I had always been involved in social justice work, community organizing offered new and effective forms of advocacy and leadership development! In 2003, the Parent/Teacher Home Visit Project became a separate 501(c) (3) non-profit organization (jointly governed by representatives from the original three partner groups) and I left ACT to become the Executive Director. Like all non profit directors, there are days when the grind of raising money, adapting to recent policy changes and other stress make me stop and question if I still have what it takes to move forward. To date, I have found a reliable remedy – when I start to have doubts, I either do a home visit or facilitate a home visit training session. As I listen to the “testimony” of parents, teachers or students, I always find the inspiration and guidance I need to move forward.

What are the biggest reservations that School Districts, schools, and teachers typically have about doing these kinds of home visits? How do you respond to them?

There are some common concerns that surface regarding home visits. Funding is always an immediate concern in this day an age of education budget shortfalls. Our partners all believe that staff participation should always be voluntary and compensated because visits take place outside of the scope of the regular work day (nights, weekends, etc). Over the years, participating districts have used various foundation, state and federal grants to fund home visit activity (as most grants have a parent engagement component) but the most sustainable source of funding has been Title I funding (which has a minimum 1% parent engagement mandate).

Administrators and staff also need to be able to talk about their concerns for the safety of staff while out conducting visits, mandated reporting requirements that may be triggered during a home visit, and possible language and cultural barriers that may prevent good home visit communication. Our non-profit provides participating school sites a three-hour home visit training session – led by parents and teachers- that is designed to provide both a clear step by step guide and a frank discussion of possible barriers and solutions to insure the visits are very effective. In a nutshell, I can tell you that no teacher has ever been harmed in the course of our home visits and the incidence of mandated reporting has been extremely rare because our model is specifically designed to insure the safety and voluntary nature- for everyone- of every single visit. Language barriers have been easier than expected to address given the non confidential nature of these conversations that allow for “unofficial” interpretation by other staff, family or community members. As for cultural barriers, teachers often report that the act of stepping into homes has been one of the most effective capacity building experiences of their careers.

Truthfully, in our experience, the real barrier to home visits working at a school is usually connected to the assumptions we hold. In other words, what does the staff already think is true about the students/families/community? What do the families already think is true about the staff and school? We spend a considerable amount of time in our training session addressing this barrier and offering a practical exercise we can all use to “check our assumption”.

You’ve had some evaluations done on the results of home visits. What do they say?

Nationally, there have been decades of research linking effective parent engagement to increased academic and social success for students. Our evaluations have focused on whether home visits are an effective parent engagement strategy. In order to measure that connection and the outcomes for students, there have been several independent evaluations spanning the course our project.

The first evaluation (1998-2001) focused on whether home visits made a difference in Sacramento schools. Dr. Geni Cowan from the California State University at Sacramento found that “Student performance has improved over the three years of the project’s implementation; parental involvement has increased, and communication between home and school has been enhanced.”

The second evaluation focused on whether the model and training were effective in California schools outside of Sacramento. EMT Associates, Inc. found “Widespread implementation of the program, increase in the number of teachers involved per site, successful dissemination of materials and subsequent trainings following initial training sessions. Participants perceiving benefits including increased parental involvement improved parent/teacher relationships and improved academic achievement.”

The third evaluation focused on the adaptation and effectiveness of home visits as a strategy to help increase high school graduation rates. Beginning in 2007, Paul Tuss of the Center for Student Assessment and Program Accountability with the Sacramento County Office of Education found that: students who received a home visit were considerably more likely to be successful in their exit exam intervention and support classes and more likely to pass the English portion of the exit exam; parents reported home visits improved their understanding of key school issues (graduation requirements, exit exam, college entrance requirements), increased knowledge of school resources and support available for their child, and improved their relationship with teachers/school staff; and, attitudinal shifts among teachers and other school staff concerning the needs of at-risk students and the barriers they face to succeeding in school.

A follow up evaluation for the initial cohort of students at Luther Burbank High School (one of the two pilot schools piloting exit exam home visits) found that visited students passed the exit exam by 12th grade at significantly higher rates and earned sufficient academic credits to graduate at significantly higher rates and graduated at higher rates. Then Paul Tuss began an evaluation on a feeder pattern plan to connect schools and conduct visits with students at key times (in elementary, transitioning to middle school and high school, and before and after the high school exit exam? The evaluation showed that these transitional home visits were associated with increased academic performance for middle and high school students.

Our evaluation focus at this time, thanks to the support of the National Education Association, we are involved in a planning process with some of the best nationally known parent engagement experts and researchers to create a common data collection instrument for any k-12 school conducting home visits with our model so that we can begin to build a consistent and meaningful set of data connecting to home visits to outcomes in the area of parent engagement, staff development and, most importantly, student success. This instrument will then be piloted in several areas throughout the country where home visits are used.

What’s happening locally, state-wide, and nationally now with your project?

Locally: There are two very exciting developments for us in our local work. First, even in the midst of budget challenges, Sacramento City Unified School District’s new superintendent, Jonathan Raymond, has prioritized the expansion parent home visits under the district’s parent engagement funding! Second, representatives from five neighboring districts in the our county are working with the Sacramento County Office of Education on a regional plan to increase graduation rates that includes a strong secondary school home visiting component based on our model.

Statewide: The California Teachers Association (CTA) recently awarded our non-profit grant funding that will allow us to expand training capacity to include more sessions on the connection between home visits and building staff cultural competency and individualized instructional skill sets. Additionally, along with another one of our statewide partners, PICO California, we are working on the release of a publication documenting the steps and outcomes of our secondary school home visiting efforts and the connection between this strategy and increased high school success for our students. We expect that publication to be available within the month.

Nationally: Thanks to a vibrant partnership with the National Education Association, most of our growth this past year has been on the national front! Currently, schools and districts in five different states have fully adopted and adapted our model- Ohio, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, and Massachusetts. We are also in the process of working with local leaders to plan and launch efforts in schools in Virginia, Louisiana, Washington DC, Maryland and Alaska.

Thanks, Carrie!

Regular readers know that in the fall I began a new feature called “Interview of The Month” where I interviewed various people in the education world about whom I wanted to learn more. You can see read those interviews here.

This month my guest is Jim Burke, author of numerous books and founder of the popular English Companion Ning group.

Next month, I’ll be interviewing Anne T. Henderson, researcher on parent engagement issues and co-author of Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family/School Partnerships.

You can see a list of other future guests here and suggest questions.

Here’s my interview with Jim:

How and why did you become a teacher?

I became a teacher by accident, in many respects. One summer, when I was 19, I had two job opportunities: pull tree stumps in 110 degree heat in Chico where I would earn a lot of money; or work as a camp counselor near Santa Cruz for 300 dollars a month (working for about 15 hours a day!). Somehow kids won out, though I had not worked with them before. This led me to study cognitive psychology at UCSB where, as part of my degree, I had a practicum at a school for kid with developmental disabilities (the Devereaux Foundation) where I ended up working with kids who had to be taught 1:1 because they were too violent. From here, I entered the Peace Corps where I helped create a school for developmentally disabled kids in a mosque in the small town of Menzel Temime on the Mediterranean coast of Tunisia.

When I returned, I realized I needed new challenges beyond behavior issues. I had spent the whole time in Tunisia reading voraciously and writing, so when I returned it made sense to become an English teacher. As a student teacher at SF State I wrote my first published piece on a Day in the Life of a student teacher. I sent in a 5000 word article and the man at the SF Chronicle said, “I think you have a really good 500 word piece in there.” He helped me cull out those words and I think from that point on I was a writer.

You’ve written a number of education-related books. What prompted you to begin writing them, and what effect — if any — do you think they’ve had on your own teaching?

I had no real intention to write the sort of books I do. I was going to be a “real” writer: novels, poetry, essays. And I wrote all those. And none of them were publishable, something I only realize now after seeing what it really takes to write a publishable book. I did, I will say, win some nice recognition for my poetry but it didn’t amount to enough to buy a cup of coffee to drink while wrote more. But I was writing personal essays for Education Leadership, Teacher Magazine, and others. I compiled these and sent them to Heinemann where a woman named Lois Bridges said I should write about what I do in the classroom. This was fall of 1997. I had a student teacher at the time who had no idea how to play a lesson. I wrote something up for my student teacher on how to plan a lesson and design a unit. Maybe 15 pages. I had no idea what was at stake. Based on that Lois offered me a contract to write what became English Teacher’s Companion.

I just finished my 20th book, What’s the Big Idea: Using Question-Driven Instruction to Improve Reading, Writing, and Thinking. It has transformed my teaching, making me about as reflective and analytical as I could be. If I got any more reflective I would turn into a mirror. I see things, keep in the conversation. It makes us tinkerers, this writing about our practice, the idea that there is always some better or other way to do this that might help kids more, save you time and thus allow you to do more. A day does not go by when I do not give thanks for Lois Bridges and the invitation she extended to me to think and write about my teaching.

In the same vein, you’ve begun a very fast-growing network of English teachers called English Companion Ning. What prompted you to create that group and what are your goals for it? And how has it affected your own teaching in the classroom?

I returned from NCTE in November of 2008 struck by the absence of new and young teachers at the convention and in the membership in general. I realized they were not joining nor were they, as a result, participating in the larger professional conversation. They were all going online and just googling “reading strategies” instead of reading Stephanie Harvey or Kelly Gallagher (or me!). I created the EC Ning on a whim—it only took five minutes to do!–and by the next day it had 100. It has not stopped growing since then and will have 10,000 members this week, its first anniversary. I quickly realized that while I may have created it for new teachers, we all needed it, all meaning English and ESL, ELL, TOEFL around the world! Our work is as enriching as it is (or can be) isolating. The tagline one the front of it says it all: “A place to ask questions and get help. A community dedicated to helping you enjoy your work. A cafe without walls or coffee: just friends.”

I cannot say that the Ning has had the direct impact on my classroom instruction that it may have had for others; I end up spending more time running it than reading it, something like the person who throws a party and is running around too much to enjoy the party but is fulfilled by it nonetheless. I would say the book groups have had the biggest impact on me, I guess. We have the biggest names in literacy running them. Right now Penny Kittle is running an amazing book club on her book about writing. I read and participate as much as possible. Publishers are now seeking me out to suggest other books. We seem to have become a place to be, to go, to learn. I am very proud of and grateful for what everyone on there—including you, Larry!–has helped us to create.

There’s been a fair amount of controversy about the LEARN Act, the proposed $2.35 billion program to support direct literacy instruction. What’s your take on it?

My earlier years in positions of leadership were all devoted to leadership and politics. I confess I cannot keep up with this at this point. I will say that politics is and will remain, for good or ill, a fundamental player at the educational table. I think this began first in California under Pete Wilson when he grabbed power away from then Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig who was, on the whole, doing some remarkable things with teachers very directly involved. Suddenly it shifted to the legislature and the Board of Education, all of whom were appointed by, that’s right, Pete Wilson. No candidate will ever be able to get re/elected by calling for the abolishing of standards, testing, or an increasingly core curriculum. The attitude is: we are paying the bill and want results for our money (even if the results are not the ones the country needs). President Obama and Duncan like data; they will want data and believe it can be used to drive policy and improve instruction. I have yet to see examples of lots of testing used in ways that support and even enhance teaching and learning.

What might be three important lessons you’ve learning in your career that others might find helpful in their own teaching?

Find and cultivate deep relationships with real mentors who will teach and support you, who want to learn with you. These people embody the notion of life long learning and a love of the profession. Stay away from the naysayers and the others who want to complain. Even when things are terrible, the great ones just find it another set of challenges, like some new level of difficulty in a game, to try to work around.

Read! We make time for what matters most to us. Nothing—nothing! Has made a bigger difference on my teaching, my emotional and intellectual health than the commitment to just keep reading for myself all the time. No matter how busy. I get the New Yorker and read something in it every week, even if it is just the cartoons, but usually more than that. Carol Jago, one of my mentors (see #1 above) taught me this. I listen to books in my iPod on the way to work. I keep a stack of books, poetry handy. Take a break from grading papers or preparing—read a Stafford poem, a gulp of Whitman—and return to the grading refreshed, the palette cleansed. It sustains and feeds me. This is another thing that relates back to #1: all my mentors—Elaine Caret, Diane McClain, Carol Jago, Sandy Briggs—they all read read read. They come up and say Have you read, for example, The Painter of Battles? Well you have to! And so I do.

Trust kids to help you improve. Admit your vulnerabilities whenever you can. Go public with your own learning. This transformed me. To admit that I really struggled with a poem or try a piece of writing they are doing and enter into the process you are imposing on them. You see things you would not have noticed, experience the world from their side of the desk. They appreciate it and see how it helps you be a better, more responsive teacher.

What future books and projects do you have in mind?

I am working on a completely new edition of English Teacher’s Companion for the next three years. The profession has changed so much, even publishing, how the book will be distributed. I am really enjoying slowing down, taking longer to write fewer books. I feel I am learning more and thinking more deeply.

Is there anything else you’d like to share that I haven’t asked you about?

Yes. I am profoundly grateful to you, Larry, for the example you provide to us all when it comes to using the web and Twitter to share resources with other teachers. You’re the model to us all. So it’s a great honor to be asked to do this interview for your site. Thanks. See you (and everyone else) on the EC Ning!

Thanks, Jim!

Regular readers know that in the fall I began a new feature called “Interview of The Month” where I interviewed various people in the education world about whom I wanted to learn more. You can see read those interviews here.

These interviews will continue in the coming year. I’ll be posting one with Jim Burke, author of numerous books and founder of the popular English Companion Ning group,  next week.

I have quite a few other guests “lined-up.” I thought I’d share who they are in this post and invite readers to contribute questions they might like me to ask — you can leave it in the comments section of this post or use this contact form. I don’t feel I can absolutely guarantee that I’ll use all that are suggested, but it’s highly likely I’ll ask them.

I’m also interested in hearing suggestions of others you think would be good guests.

Here are the people who I’ll be interviewing over the next several months, not necessarily in chronological order:

Anne T. Henderson, researcher on parent engagement issues and co-author of Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family/School Partnerships

Deborah Meier, the well-known educator, author and blogger

Judy Willis, teacher and neurologist who has written several books on brain-based learning

Sue Waters, the most helpful and best-liked person in the education blogosphere

Carrie Rose, Executive Director of the nationally-acclaimed Parent Teacher Home Visit Project

Robert Pondiscio, writer of the Core Knowledge blog

Judie Haynes, author and longtime teacher of English Language Learners

I’m looking forward to hearing your suggestions!

As regular readers know, I post a monthly feature called “Interview Of The Month.” It’s focused on people in education who I want to know more about. You can see previous interviews here.

This month, I’m interviewing John Norton, director of The Teacher Leaders Network. I was invited to join TLN this year, and it’s helped me become both a better teacher and better thinker on education issues. I knew of John earlier through his generous sharing of resources through Middleweb, one of the “granddaddies” of ways to share education resources on the web. You can also follow John on Twitter at @middleweb.

My guest next month will be Jim Burke, author of numerous books and founder of the popular English Companion Ning group.

1) You’re known as the co-founder and moderator of the Teacher Leaders Network, and you’re also involved in other projects that support classroom teachers. What’s your own background?

I’m A graduate of a small southern high school. BA in English; most of an MA in history. I spent the best part of 25 years bouncing between roles as an education journalist and a staffer for non-profit education groups, several of which advocated on behalf of what were then called “disadvantaged students.” I’m old enough that some of this took place during the intense years of school desegregation.

In the mid-90s I went to work for myself and continue to write, edit and (in the 21^st century) support virtual communities of educators. In the course of my career, I’ve written in-depth about schools in Long Beach CA, Louisville KY, Chattanooga TN, and many districts in Alabama and South Carolina. I guess I’ve interviewed more than 1000 teachers and several hundred principals. I received a first-place prize for investigative reporting back in the 1980s from the Education Writers Association, where I later served on the board of directors.

2) Can you describe the Teacher Leaders Network and how you become its moderator?  And what exactly is the Center For Teaching Quality, which sponsors TLN?

Let me turn that around and tell you something about the Center for Teaching Quality first. It was an outgrowth of two fairly famous teaching policy reports from the mid-1990s, “What Matters Most” and “Doing What Matters Most: Investing in Quality Teaching.” The effort behind these reports, led by Linda Darling-Hammond at Stanford and others, was the first big push to position teachers as the most critical factor in students’ success AT SCHOOL. I capitalize that because the research doesn’t say teachers alone can overcome all the outside factors that influence student success. But the message of those reports and the follow-up work inspired by them has been that teachers are the essential component of public education and they need to be supported at the highest levels to do their jobs well.

The “Matters Most” reports was written by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. After the report came out, the Commission supported several initiatives to spread its ideas. One of those was to establish the Southeast Center for Teaching Quality at the University of North Carolina. Barnett Berry launched the Center which became a private non-profit a few years later, with Barnett as its CEO. CTQ’s “pledge” is to advance the teaching profession – in part by promoting teacher leadership and teacher voice in important decisions that impact the daily professional work of classroom educators.

So creating the Teacher Leaders Network was a logical step for CTQ to take. Barnett and I had been friends and colleagues for many years. He and I were instrumental back in the 1980s in starting the South Carolina Center for Teacher Recruitment — a state-supported organization with few bureaucratic entanglements that was an early advocate for teacher voice and leadership (now known as CERRA). I was SCCTR’s first director and Barnett its first major consultant. One of our chief accomplishments was establishing a Teacher Cadet honors course in more than 100 high schools, where academically able students learned about the complexities of the profession and had a chance to work with accomplished teachers. I think the number of HS students who’ve completed the course is now approaching 40,000.

When Barnett and I began working together again in 2001, we had a teacher voice/agenda in mind. By 2003, thanks to Barnett’s great skill at fund-raising, we found enough financial support to launch a national virtual network with a sample of accomplished teachers from across the USA. We never had the idea of creating a membership organization like an NEA or NCTE – too expensive and cumbersome to manage. Instead the idea has been to invite a few hundred teachers from among the hundreds of thousands of excellent educators in the United States and ask them to commit some time and effort to exploring important education issues that bear on teaching success. We have members leave us and we invite new members to replace them, but we try to keep membership at around 300-400.

What do we do? First, we talk all the time, in a 24/7/365 private community, using social networking tools. You’re a TLN Forum member so you know about that. We publish excerpts and other “teacher voice” material in a public blog. This discussion can be quite powerful and over months and years, our members have become both well educated about many policy issues and more likely to exert leadership within and beyond school walls. The Forum serves as a ever-ready pool of savvy professionals who write and blog in public places, serve on important policy panels, and participate in what we call “TeacherSolutions projects,” which involve careful study of a major issue affecting teaching and learning, followed by a major report that adds the voices of expert teachers to the debate. Our latest initiative in this area is around the importance of school working conditions on teacher effectiveness.

When we began TLN, it was very difficult to find philanthropic support for the teacher leadership/voice idea. Six years later, the curve seems to be catching up with us – many more foundations and education groups are beginning to see the wisdom in asking teachers for ideas about the right ways to improve schools. We’re always interested in hearing from outstanding teachers who might be willing to commit some time to the TLN work. Right now, we’re especially interested in recruiting some outstanding younger teachers in the first decade of their careers. Anyone who’s interested can email me – including a resume or background info would be good.

3) I understand the Center For Teaching Quality is doing a project with the National Education Association focusing on “high needs” schools.  What’s that all about?

As you know, a lot of the so-called “teaching quality debate” tends to circle around high-needs schools. All of the issues we may raise about the kinds of supports and commitments teachers need to do their jobs count double for those working in high-needs schools, urban or rural. CTQ produced a paper recently for NEA that looks at all the best research on what it will take to recruit, retain, develop and sustain teachers who are both eager and well prepared to serve kids who so often see their teachers come and go through a revolving door. The NEA is launching several initiatives to address these issues and CTQ’s paper and continuing advice are part of that.

4) How would you characterize any differences between the concerns and questions raised by teachers with whom you’ve worked between ten or twenty years ago and now?

Well, that’s a dunk-shot question! Let’s all say it together: No. Child. Left. Behind. Not the idea of it – not the dream of making school better for all kids that led many well-meaning progressive reformers to fall for it. But the reality of it. I’ve always felt that the well-meaning group of folks who supported NCLB (there’s a less well-meaning group too, as we know) fell for a bait-and-switch. The bait was “we need to help these kids get an education and get out of poverty.” The switch was that instead of placing the blame for their condition where it belongs – on our entire society and our culture of haves and have-nots – somebody switched the villain in the story to the American public school teacher.

Of course I realize that NCLB has impacted teachers across the board, not just in our highest needs schools, but that’s how it started and teachers in those schools still bear the greatest brunt of the top-down sanctions and general professional humiliation. The teachers I hang out with every day at the Teacher Leaders Network are truly top-notch educators. They set the highest standards for themselves and their profession. They’re not in the business of protecting “weak teachers,” they just understand that the real problems in our public schools are not going to be addressed by an “off with their heads” strategy.

These are teachers who are eager to get policymakers to listen and learn about the genuine core problems – and some expert solutions. But it’s a hard go. It’s much easier to grab the public’s attention these days with a cartoon villain — and her/his counterpart, the heroic teacher who is defying the status-quo simpleton teachers who have somehow taken over our schools en masse when the public wasn’t looking. That’s meant to be sarcasm, in case anyone is thinking of sending me a blistering email or tweet.

5) What’s your “take” on the recent “Teaching for a Living: How Teachers See the Profession Today” survey that says 40% of teachers are disheartened?

See the previous question for part of my answer. But you know, I have great hope. When that report from Public Agenda hit the streets this past October, there was a LOT of discussion about in our TLN community and in the many blogs published by our various members. The report divided teachers up into three groups: disheartened, contented, and idealists. Many of our folks thought about that awhile and came to the conclusion that they fell into all three of those categories. It depended on which day you surveyed them.

I have the luxury of pontificating from outside the classroom, so take this with that in mind. But I see some real movement lately in the level of respect for teachers and (more importantly even than that) the level of willingness to turn to teachers and say, “Hey, you work in schools don’t you? What do YOU think would help?” Yes, “duh, what took you so long?” But better late than never. In the midst of a semi-depression, budget-cutting, and deep growling all around us, it’s hard to see it. But there could be a tunnel and there could be light down there at the end. And not a train!

6) What do you think are the things that seem to get teachers in the Teacher Leaders Network most energized, and can that be extrapolated to teachers in general?

I’m not sure about “teachers in general,” but I am sure – since I have contact with many other teachers in all the different work I do – that there are hundreds of thousands, maybe several million, teachers who would be energized by the news that they would all be held to the same standards, that they and their peers would devise those standards, that the standards would recognize the particular work they do, that they would be compensated at a professional level and in a professional way (with rewards for excellent performance that they help design), and that hybrid roles would be created that would keep them in classrooms working with kids throughout a career, but also give them time to pursue other leadership work directly related to improving schools, students and teaching. How’s that?

Thanks, John!

I’m doing two “Interviews Of The Month” in November. As regular readers know, I focus this feature on people in education who I want to know more about. You can see previous interviews here.

David B. Cohen, one of the key people behind The Accomplished California Teachers and co-author of a recent Op Ed piece titled Test scores poor tool for teacher evaluation,  is my guest today.  Next month, I’ll be interviewing John Norton, director of The Teacher Leaders Network.

What is the Accomplished California Teachers (ACT) and why did you help start it?

ACT is a network that aims to bring teacher voice and teacher leadership to the forefront of education policy debates and reform efforts.  We are under the umbrella of the National Board Resource Center (NBRC) at Stanford University.  Our current projects are a pair of policy reports on teacher evaluation and professional pay.  These reports are researched and written by teachers, and crafted to represent a consensus built through extensive conversations among our core members.  We assembled a diverse group of accomplished teachers from around the state, representing the full range of K-12 education.  As we grow, we aim to help California’s teacher leaders to broadcast their expertise to policymakers, media, and communities, and to develop their leadership voices and skills.  We have some good models for this work in the Teacher Leaders Network (which I’m also part of), and the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession (CSTP) in the state of Washington.

My involvement in ACT is a result of working with the National Board Resource Center.  I worked as a support provider for National Board Certification candidates for a couple of years, and after each of our support sessions, the support providers have lunch and discuss the work of the NBRC.  Gathered around the table were teachers from around the San Francisco Bay area, and we were collectively able to talk about our glimpses and insights into the schools of dozens of our colleagues in the region.  Time and again, we were seeing teachers whose decision-making ability about how to reach their own students had been superseded by schools and districts whose sole concern was raising test scores.  So, the need for ACT was apparent.  The credit for starting ACT should go to the Stuart Foundation for funding the work, to Sandy Dean of the NBRC for providing all of the administrative direction, and to Linda Darling-Hammond for guiding and supporting our work on every level.  Outside of Stanford, Anthony Cody and I are the two teachers helping plan and direct ACT at the moment.

Merit pay and not-basing lay-offs on seniority are just two of many challenges “reformers” are making to the present public school teaching structure.  What is your perspective on those two issues, and any other challenges that you’d care to comment on?

I think merit pay and layoff/tenure issues are both on the table because there’s a welcome focus on teacher quality.  The problem is that we don’t have a consensus about how to define and measure teacher quality.  Outsiders looking at the problem love to reduce the issue to test scores, and offer facile pronouncements that “we know who the good teachers are” based on narrow and suspect data.  The idea of paying teachers for raising test scores should raise all sorts of opposition from anyone who really cares about the quality of teaching.

ACT is trying to help policymakers see teacher quality in a more complex way.  We’ve found that teachers welcome evaluation if it’s done properly, in ways that help us improve teaching at every level, and in ways that encourage collaborative analysis and reflection.  Our report on evaluation will emphasize shifting away from what is sometimes called the “drive-by evaluation” – an annual or bi-annual visit by an administrator with a checklist.  We found that in discussions among teachers who are mostly National Board Certified Teachers, and even including recipients of various regional and national honors, everyone is committed to ongoing improvement of their work.  The National Board Certification process and Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching were among the models that we find promising.

Once evaluation has been improved, I think districts and states are better equipped to work with teachers to address compensation and job security issues.  Our report on compensation will suggest that we ditch the term “merit pay” or even “performance pay” – in favor of the term “professional pay.”  If there is an ongoing commitment to invest more in teachers who demonstrably elevate the quality of their own teaching and the quality of education in their schools, then we could embrace differentiated pay for teachers with higher professional skills.  The higher pay becomes a function of a different role and broader responsibilities for the teacher.  We don’t want to see such a flat landscape for career teachers.

As for layoffs and seniority, the first step should be to attack the underlying problems by stabilizing funding for education.  Layoffs should be rare in schools or districts with steady or growing enrollment.   But in the face of layoffs, any changes in the privileges of seniority present a complex issue that must be negotiated locally.  Districts vary so much in their resources, sizes, and student populations.  We have unified districts, elementary districts, high school districts, and each setting has its own challenges.  If changes occurred in the context of a comprehensive approach to all the related issues, I would be open to proposals that weigh other factors as much or more than seniority, as long as we don’t throw seniority out of the equation entirely.  Any policy with the unintended consequence of introducing competition among teachers will end up hurting students.  Still, when you hear about teachers who are put into teaching situations entirely outside their training, experience, skill and knowledge base, you can’t argue that there’s any educational rationale for that.

Teacher unions are often criticized for supposedly blocking changes that would benefit students.  What do you think is an appropriate response to those critics?

First, I would say that it’s a mistake to discuss teachers’ unions in monolithic terms.  The national, state, and local level unions are not all the same.  So, I don’t have much use for criticisms aimed at unions collectively, though I’m sure some of the criticisms have some merit when framed appropriately.  Some of the criticism comes from within – as you’d find in any large organization.  Much of the negativity aimed at unions also sensationalizes the most egregious teacher failures, especially those cases that have not been satisfactorily resolved.  But look – I have two sons and a number of other family members who are students in California public schools; as a parent and as a teacher, I have as much desire as anyone to see unfit teachers removed.  Better yet, I want to see teachers supported enough that few of us ever reach a point where we need to be removed.

Randy Ward, the current superintendent of San Diego County Schools, was in a roundtable discussion with John Merrow on PBS about a year-and-a-half ago, and given a chance to criticize unions, Ward made a wonderful comment that I’m paraphrasing here:  “I always tell school boards, ‘you signed the contract, too.’”  In other words, we shouldn’t expect unions not to stick to contracts, so if in the process of following a contract, the union is doing something the district doesn’t like, well, there’s an item for negotiation next time around.  If districts expect concessions in one area, I’d expect them to come to the table offering concessions in some other area.  And if unions were the root of our problems, you’d expect “right to work” states that lack collective bargaining to have significantly better results to offer, but they don’t.  They also struggle with teacher quality issues and various reform efforts.

I have a hunch that if you examined the places that have the most contentious labor relations, you’d find that there’s usually a scarcity of resources.  I work in a community that invests heavily in education, relying mainly on voter-approved local taxes rather than state funding, and our union relationship with the district is generally positive.  Our local association even has a no-strike agreement with the district.

You teach in a fairly affluent community — Palo Alto.  My first job as a community organizer over twenty-five years ago was in the adjacent very low-income city of East Palo Alto. How would you compare the two school districts today?  Is there any relationship between the two districts?  Does what you see in this particular situation speak in any greater way to issues facing schools in California and throughout the nation?

East Palo Alto and Palo Alto are divided by Highway 101, and are also in separate counties.  However, some East Palo Alto students attend schools in Palo Alto, as part of a court-ordered desegregation plan that dates back to 1986.  East Palo Alto students are served by three separate public school districts, and there are also some private and charter schools serving the community.

The disparity in resources among schools is indeed striking, but I observe that in dialogue with colleagues across the region, state, and country – not just across the freeway.  Not only do some districts raise their own taxes, but they also benefit from well-funded private foundations that provide supplemental resources.  These differences in funding mean more courses, smaller classes, more electives, more materials and equipment, and more teaching applicants to choose from and more stability within the staff.

I don’t hold out much hope that schools will ever really be equal across the board, but I do believe that we can summon a vision of quality schools that doesn’t rely on comparisons, and then ask some hard questions about how to rectify our failure to provide that quality to so many children.

Are there any particular books you’d recommend that teachers should read that might not be on their typical education booklist?  Why would you recommend them?

I love that question, and wish that I had some really cool, unexpected answer – like I’ve been reading Thucydides lately, or found some gem of Chinese philosophy.  In fact, my reading habits are education-saturated these days, with a sprinkling of fiction.  The last two books I’ve read that might come close to fitting your description have still been widely discussed in education circles.  Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers was a fascinating collection of analyses of exceptional people, events, trends.  Carol Dweck’s Mindset provides some valuable insights into success, with clear lessons that apply to teaching and parenting.  I have definitely made a conscious shift towards talking to my sons and my students more frequently and directly about how they grow from tackling difficult challenges, and pointing out how we acquire skills and knowledge rather than possess them innately.

But I would be curious to examine the wording of your question, the idea that teachers have a “typical education booklist.”  I worry that too many of us have only a typical “teaching” booklist – we prefer practical books and other readings that help us manage our day-to-day work in our classroom, but we pass up books that put our work in a broader context. I wish more teachers would read books on underlying issues we face, like Robert Marzano’s What Works in Grading and Assessment. It’s not a book on English teaching, but it has dramatically changed the way I teach English.  It took almost 15 years, but I’ve broken out of the grip of the points and percentages and averages.  I wish more people would read about tracking, and pick up Detracking for Excellence and Equity by Carol Corbett Burris and Delia T. Garrity.

I think it’s important for us to know more about the field of education, to understand how we reached the present moment, and what we’ve gained and lost over time.  Linda Darling-Hammond and Deb Meier are educators whose books have been helpful to me in that regard.  I also read a lot of articles and blogs, and have learned so much that way in recent years.

What do you hope to accomplish in your teaching career?

The beginning and ending point has to be about working with students.  The most professionally gratifying feelings I know are these: leaving work at the end of the day knowing you’ve made a positive impact on your students, or having a former student tell you months or years later how much you helped them academically and personally.  I don’t think I’ll ever get the same level of satisfaction from any of the work I do with the grown-ups instead of the kids.  I know I have a long way to go to be the best teacher I can be, though.  That’s an ongoing process that I expect will never end.

Still, I do have hopes that my teaching career will include some noteworthy contributions as a teacher leader, locally and beyond.  I have a long way to go in that regard too, but I’ve been taking on what I can, and doing my homework.  In the leadership realm, I think of myself as that baseball player on the bench, the kind of guy who’s made the team, but he’s not playing every inning and every game. But, he’s always hovering near the manager and talking to the All-Stars, watching, listening, learning constantly, making the most of his chances when they come, and expecting to crack the starting lineup soon enough.

For more information on Accomplished California Teachers, you can visit its Stanford site or its Ning. David can be contacted at Twitter.

For November, I should actually call it “Interviews Of The Month” because I’ll be posting two of them.

Today, I’m sharing my interview with Alexander Russo, writer of the popular blog This Week In Education (and several others). Next week, David Cohen, one of the key people behind The Accomplished Teachers Forum and co-author of a recent Op Ed piece titled Test scores poor tool for teacher evaluation, will be the guest.

Can you give a little background on who you are and how and why you got connected to the education “world”?

I’m a 45 year-old freelance education writer who lives in Brooklyn, NY. I got into this by teaching at a parochial boys school in LA for three years right out of college – English Lit – going to grad school to learn a little more about policy and politics, and then ending up in Washington DC working on the Hill as a legislative aide in the Senate (and briefly for the former Chancellor of New York City Schools, Ramon Cortines). I worked on education issues for Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, and for Jeff Bingaman, a Dem from New Mexico who is on the Senate education committee.

I currently have three blogs, This Week In Education (about national trends), District 299 (about Chicago schools), and most recently Hot For Education (about pop culture and schools).

Your popular blog, “This Week In Education,” seems like a combination of an education news digest, some strongly opinionated pieces, plus an occasional touch of Walter Winchell thrown-in. How did you arrive at this combo, and how did you ever get a company like Scholastic, which has a bit of a stodgy reputation, to publish it? What are your goals in writing it?

I started This Week In Education in 2004 as a weekly email. I was living in Chicago and missed being in DC. I turned the email into an awful-looking Blogger blog in 2005 and spun off the Chicago-related content into District 299 a year later. In late 2006 the far-sighted folks from Education Week signed me on as a paid freelance blogger, where I was their first big blog to get rolling. A year after that I moved over to Scholastic where I work with the folks who put out Instructor and Administrator, Scholastic’s two magazines for educators.

My Chicago blog has also had two different homes – Catalyst Chicago, a nonprofit publication about Chicago schools, and (currently) ChicagoNow, a part of the Chicago Tribune that’s sort of like the Huffington Post.

The goal is to educate, engage, and amuse – and to provide a little bit of a reality check where needed. I like to skewer trendy school reform ideas and lame news coverage of schools – and educators who do knuckleheaded things like ‘ban’ hugging. Plus which, school reform is difficult and can be demoralizing. There’s so much failure and so much judgment and hot air. And there’s so much misunderstanding among educators, reformers, advocates, and the media. No one understands each other’s values or methods.

In a couple of paragraphs (maybe three?), do you think you could summarize — for someone who might not at all be familiar with what has been going on — what you would consider the major “school reform” flashpoints and the positions of key public players on them?

Most of what gets discussed in the school reform bubble seems incidental to me, if not downright superfluous. Performance pay, for example, seems like a tremendously difficult and only mildly effective way to change academic outcomes. Ditto for charter schools, mayoral control, vouchers, alternative certification.

I’m not saying that we need to wait for research to prove these things effective or ineffective – the research is almost always going to be outpaced by lawmakers’ and leaders’ needs for short-term action. I’m just saying that the things that are most likely to make the most difference are the very most basic levers: the amount of time spent in school, the rigor and depth of the curriculum that’s taught, the quality and ability of classroom teachers, and the measures of success that are used to determine and compare achievement. There’s nothing cute or innovative about this stuff. But it’s what’s going to make a real difference in and when it happens.

I think that most think tanks are glorified PR outfits for their funders, and that many many education advocates are sadly ineffective. I think innovation is highly over-rated compared to implementation. (I’m currently in favor of a moratorium on innovation while we implement some of the things we already know how to do. Maybe with a little less distraction we’d actually get down to business and get some things done.)

I haven’t really answered your question. Sorry.

Who do you think are some important people to watch in education over the next few years — and why– who might not be on everybody’s radar now?

Someone is going to come along in the next year or two who is hard-working, passionate about education and has an amazing skill at communicating complex issues. A Malcolm Gladwell type, if you will. That person – I don’t know who it is – will be picked up by a mainstream media outlet and could become the nation’s first mainstream education blogger, the person through whom many Americans will come to understand school reform issues. That’s who I’m looking for. That’s what I’m waiting for. Meantime, I think my blog is the fastest, smartest, most wide-ranging education blog out there (besides yours, of course).

The other category of person we’re going to be hearing a lot more from in the future are what I call the aisle-crossers or hybrids – people who have worked for districts and teachers unions, or governors and legislators. People who understand the other side’s perspective. Brad Jupp from Colorado is an example. Jonathan Gyurko is another. There may be a few more. Ideally, they’ll help bridge the different worlds of education and help get more done faster.

What kind of legacy, if any, do you think Arnie Duncan and the Obama administration are going to leave with public education?

I’d love to be wrong about this, but Arne Duncan could well end up exposed as the Obama administration’s version of Rod Paige – a generally nice guy who’s in way over his head in Washington as he may have been in Chicago. And I worry that the Obama administration will be too focused on innovation and political needle-threading that it won’t get anything meaningful or transformative done on the education front. Even before the past six months, Obama displayed an enormous unwillingness to take a side or make someone mad. Vagueness is a good way to get and stay elected, but it’s a bad way to make important changes. I’m not saying Obama and Duncan should be unnecessarily confrontational. But they’re trying to be everything to everyone and that isn’t going to do much good. Duncan has been wagging his finger in a lot of peoples’ faces without doing much heavy lifting of his own. Unless Race To The Top ends up being a much bigger success than I think it’s going to be, NCLB reauthorization is going to be a struggle.

What people — through their writing, speaking, or actions — do you get most intellectually stimulated by these days?

I very much enjoy communicating with longtime education writers like Greg Toppo (USA Today), Jay Mathews (Washington Post), and Stephanie Banchero (Chicago Tribune). I’m also a big fan of Charles Payne, the University of Chicago academic who seems to tell it like it is. I greatly admire the writings of Jesse Katz (Los Angeles magazine) as well as Kate Boo (New Yorker) and James Traub (New York Times Sunday Magazine). I’m writing a book about a bunch of educators in LA who are trying to turn around Locke High School under a Green Dot unionized charter. There’s also a small set of smartypants and big thinkers who give me great ideas and correct me all the time, but they don’t like to admit that they know me so I can’t tell you who they are.

Is there anything else you’d like to share that I haven’t asked?

Not that I can think of. I love your blog and I appreciate the chance to share my thoughts and experiences with your readers. I’m always looking for good content to share with my readers, whether or not I agree with it. Thanks again.

Last month I began a new feature called “Interview Of The Month.” In these interviews, I’ll be talking with anybody in the education world who I want to get to know better and who I think others might be interested in, too. How’s that for a broad criteria?

The first person I interviewed was Kelly Young from Pebble Creek Labs, one of the best people — if not The Best — in the country for assisting teachers develop better instructional strategies.

Next month, David Cohen, one of the key people behind The Accomplished Teachers Forum and co-author of a recent Op Ed piece titled Test scores poor tool for teacher evaluation, will be the guest.

This month, I was lucky enough to interview Claus von Zastrow, the director of the Learning First Alliance, a partnership of 17 leading education associations. He writes the influential Public School Insights blog, which I highlight regularly here.

It’s a bit lengthy, but well worth reading!

Can you describe the Learning First Alliance and how you got involved with it?

The Learning First Alliance is a permanent partnership of 17 major national education associations that collectively represent some 10 million parents, education practitioners and education policymakers. Rather than dump the entire list of members on you right here, here’s a link to the membership list. We represent the people who work in and for public schools every day. We need to have a voice at the national policy table.

We give our very diverse membership opportunities to find common ground on a host of education issues that affect the well-being of children. The Alliance exists because the members believe they can accomplish much more for children if they work together.

We’ve done some important work establishing common ground in areas like reading instruction, mathematics instruction, district-wide improvement and staffing hard-to-staff schools. We want to create alignment among our own members in these important areas, but we also want to remind the outside world that the people who carry out the work of public education have to be partners in the formulation of policy.

How did I get involved with LFA? My previous jobs in education were quite different. I started working on workforce issues and proceeded to curricular issues at a couple of DC think tank/policy organizations. It occurred to me after that work that parents and practitioners were often left out of discussions about school reform. They, after all, will have to carry out many of the reforms currently under discussion. LFA operates on the assumption that the people who work in and for public schools everyday can become a powerful force for improvement.

You’ve written a lot about the fallacies of looking at school reform through the lens of “either/or” — it’s either the merit pay/standardized tests/charter school etc. way or one that has all the elements of what are often considered a “progressive” vision for schools. Can you give us an overview of these thoughts, and why you think so many people have that “either/or” perspective?

I think people like to go whole hog on the newest reform ideas, and they tend to dismiss earlier reform ideas as passé or ineffective. That tendency creates either/or thinking, because people begin to harden into ideological camps.

Take, for example, the biggest proponents of alternative certification. Many discount investments in “traditional” teacher education or staff development. One prominent advocate even counseled the federal government to defund traditional programs. As Linda Darling-Hammond notes, however, neither traditional nor alternative certification programs can boast stellar results across the board, so it’s time to learn what’s best from both to create something much better. (Of course, Darling-Hammond had to endure vicious ideological attacks, but that’s another story.)

The charter school debate offers another example. There are terrific charter schools out there, and we can learn a lot from them. But the True Believers in the charter movement—and their enablers in the media—would have you believe that charters offer the only answers to what ails public schools. There are wonderful traditional public schools out there that are having astonishing results for low-income kids, but you wouldn’t know it from reading the papers. And as a result, the public is getting a distorted view of what’s possible in school reform. For many, the charters vs. traditional public schools discussion boils down to a zero-sum game.

Case in point: A very intelligent friend asked me if we should just convert all schools into charter schools to improve the system as a whole. I had to remind him that (1.) charter schools are on average no better than traditional public schools, and many are worse; (2.) Many of the best charters are difficult to replicate; and (3.) we have important lessons to learn from high-performing traditional public schools as well. These are common-sense positions, but you won’t find them in the New York Times or Washington Post these days.

One more example: The highly-publicized battle between those who advocate for a “schools plus” approach to improving student performance and those who argue that schools alone can get the job done. You would think it would be uncontroversial to argue that factors both within and beyond schools affect student performance—and that we should address both. But somehow the media framed this argument as a debate between those who believe schools are powerless to effect change and those who say schools alone can effect change. What a preposterous debate! And yet national commentators like David Brooks, commentators who should know better, fueled the phony debate with simplistic op eds.

Why does this happen? Many organizations have focused more attention on PR than research into what works. Brass knuckles PR types have made sure that national media outlets like the Times or Newsweek play up the battles between opposing factions rather than actually weighing evidence or learning more about the nuances of education policy. Nuances can make for uninteresting copy, but they sure matter when it comes time to make things better for kids.

I’m often asked by people outside of education what I think should be done to make schools better. What would your response to that question be?

That’s a challenging question, because It invites silver bullet answers. The real answer is actually more complex than many journalists think it is. Any answer that does not consider how reforms affect classroom practice isn’t really much of an answer at all.

We’ve published an “emerging vision” that lays out some big areas for school improvement. I won’t repeat all of that vision here, but I will point to some important themes. For one, we need excellent standards AND curricula AND assessments—and we have to be sure that they support excellent instruction. Standards-based reform often stopped at standards—assuming it went that far. Assessments have too often been lousy, and curricular supports for teachers all but non-existent. So standards that do little to build educators’ capacity don’t accomplish much—other than giving politicians nice talking points.

Another important theme is personal attention to students’ needs. This, after all, is the reason for better data systems. Teachers need information and time to address students’ individual instructional needs. They need the right kinds of information, they need to get it in time to be useful to students, and they need help—professional development—to use it most effectively. Too many commentators have made a fetish out of data systems for accountability purposes without considering how they can boost educators’ ability to provide first-rate differentiated instruction.

And let’s not forget the importance of families and communities. Schools need their help—but they also have a responsibility to engage families and communities as partners in the work of educating children. (Your excellent new book can be a guide here, Larry). The media have distorted calls for greater community engagement as attempts to let schools off the hook. That’s pure rubbish. Schools alone can have a profound effect on students’ lives, but schools working with their communities can tackle the broad array of challenges our most vulnerable students face.

As for the reforms that get the most ink in our national papers—charter schools, merit pay and mayoral control…. They can be promising if they truly improve instructional conditions for kids. Yet too many reformers seem to support them as ends in themselves, even though the evidence for these reform strategies remains murky.

Whose thinking/writing most challenges and pushes your own thinking about education?

Yours!

Otherwise, I’m hesitant to name too many names. The education writers who challenge my thinking in the best ways are often the writers I don’t agree with. Often, they simply irk me, but they can also unsettle some of my own assumptions and force me to reconsider my positions on issues of school reform. It’s important to keep these critical friends on the reading list!

Your blog is widely read in education circles. What do you consider its primary purpose, and what might be three or four posts you’d characterize as particularly good and/or insightful?

The blog’s primary purpose is to highlight what’s working in public schools and districts—and to call for reforms that build schools’ capacity for improvement. A closely related goal: The blog aims to call some received wisdom about school reform into question. The media stage the “reformers vs. establishment” drama. In doing so they turn complex debates about school reform into a kind of morality play, complete with personified virtues and vices. I hope the blog reminds people that true reform has many faces. There’s much more to reform than changes to incentives and governance structures.

What are my favorite posts? Hard to say. It’s often disappointing to reread them. I’ll give you three very recent posts: The first, which aims to sum up the teacher’s predicament, received a fair number of comments. The other two, which I published since yesterday, received few or no comments—and I wish they would get a few more. (Yes, I’m shamelessly trolling for comments):

1.) “You Can’t Win”

2.) “Merit Just Ain’t Worth What It Used to Be”

3.) “Welcome to Our World”

I hope people also visit our “Success Stories” page, which is the heart of our website: One-hundred, fifteen stories and counting.

People might also enjoy our page of exclusive interviews with education visionaries. We’ve interviewed about 75 people, including some big names like Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author Dave Eggers and fitness legend Richard Simmons. More important, we’ve interviewed many educators and parents who are doing remarkable work.

What might be the three most important lessons you’ve learned about making change in schools?

1.) The people on the front lines have to be central players in discussions of school reform.

2.) Don’t oversell any reform idea: You’ll do more harm than good over the long term.

3.) Reformers should have a clear vision for how their reforms actually improve classroom instruction.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with this blog’s readers?

I’m afraid I’ve said too much already. It’s such an honor to be interviewed by you. Thanks so much for the opportunity.

Thanks, Claus!

I’m starting a new feature called “Interview Of The Month.” I was inspired by David Kapuler’s Inside The Cyber Studio, where he interviews teachers about how they use technology in the classroom.

My “interviews of the month,” though, will have a different focus. I’ll be talking with anybody in the education world who I want to get to know better and who I think others might be interested in, too. How’s that for a broad criteria?

Future people who I’ll be talking with for this series include:

Claus von Zastrow, the director of the Learning First Alliance, a partnership of 17 leading education associations. He writes the influential Public School Insights blog.

David Cohen, one of the key people behind The Accomplished Teachers Forum and co-author of a recent Op Ed piece titled Test scores poor tool for teacher evaluation.

John Norton, director of The Teacher Leaders Network.

Anne T. Henderson, co-author of Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family/School Partnerships.

Jim Burke, author of numerous books and founder of the popular English Companion Ning group

I’m starting off this series with Kelly Young, who I consider a key mentor.  I’d be surprised if there is  anybody else in the country who knows more about effective instructional strategies than Kelly.

Kelly is the founder of Pebble Creek Labs, which provides curriculum and professional development to urban high schools across the United States in Language Arts and Social Studies.  Kelly has been a teacher, principal, and district Superintendent (and a lot else along the way!).

Luther Burbank High School, where I teach, has had the advantage of working with Kelly as we have completely restructured our ninth and tenth grade English curriculum — and instructional strategies. We  have done the same with Geography and World History.   A great number of our teachers say that working with Kelly has transformed the way they teach – including me.   Readers know by the student evaluations I’ve shared here that students like the results, too.  I don’t believe that test results are the be all and end all of assessment, but it’s good information to have, and our test scores have gone up, too.

Other ESL teachers and I at Burbank have also been able to successfully adapt these engaging instructional strategies to these classes. I share a number of examples in my forthcoming book “Teaching English Language Learners: Strategies That Work,” which will be published next year by Linworth Publishing.

Because of Kelly’s talent and expertise, I asked him if he would agree to answer a few questions:

Based on what you’ve seen in the time you’ve spent in hundreds of schools across the country, what have you seen working most successfully and what have you seen not working well?

Well I’m biased, but I find that teachers get energized when working on instruction.  Teachers want more tools, more options. Relative to engaging and challenging students, teachers want choices.  They need repertoire, our favorite word.  They want to think about the science and art of teaching—learn more, talk and share, practice and get better.  The work is more satisfying and stimulating, also they become successful, so it becomes a self-renewing and self-sustaining proposition.

What breaks spirits and creates cynicism is prioritizing things other than teaching, turning down the screws relative to test scores, and not giving teachers’ relevant tools, skills, and support.

As part of your work, you do professional development regularly with hundreds of teachers.  How do you think they would characterize the challenges they face today?  What do you think they take-away from your trainings?

My, the challenges…  If you think too hard about it, it blows you away.  It overwhelms.  It breaks your heart.  The good news is how much students need good teachers.  Forget how badly they deserve them, regardless of ability, SES, race, gender, language, their antennae is sharp; they can sniff immediately when they have a teacher that a) cares, and b) has tools that will help them.  Our professional development is all about application and classroom practice.  The take-away is that what I learn today I can use tomorrow, and the more I practice it, the more I can help students.  And students can smell that.  They know when they are in the hands of a teacher who learns, who cares, who believes in their skills and is eager to change student learning trajectories and really, lives.

What do you think are the three most important skills/strategies for a teacher to have in their repertoire in order to help students learn?

Just owning a rich, powerful repertoire is huge.  And that journey never ends.   We have to study our craft continually.  There is a huge library of instructional strategies, stuff I knew nothing about when in school or in my early years of teaching.   But when I found out about the concept of repertoire, it was like a religious experience.  Imagine playing guitar your whole life knowing only two chords.  When you know there is much more, it is freeing, and a life long study.  So three?  Hard question.  I’m going to cheat a little by being a bit broad in my answer… 1. Literacy strategies to help students engage with text and make meaning.  There are a lot of them. 2. Strategies to help students talk with one another about their learning.  They like school more, and learn more, when they have to dialogue, purposefully, about their learning.  It is also a vital skill for work and life.  3.  The Inductive Model.   This strategy is so rich, so full, can go so many places.

Can you expand a bit on those three skills you think teachers should have?  Could you briefly “paint a picture” of what each might look like?

I could write and talk for days about this… but I’ll try to exercise brevity…

1. Students HAVE to learn how to make sense of text.  There is no getting around that, as a high school student, college student, worker or adult.  But students have been woefully unprepared, especially with expository text, which is 90% of their reading in high school, college and workplace.  So we MUST learn techniques that teach and help students think while they read. Our curriculum provides strategies, that with modeling and lots of practice, make a big difference for students.

1. Learning groups, and later work groups, talk to one another.  They problem solve, they read, discuss, argue, interact.  Schools where teachers talk and gab and blab some more aren’t doing students any favors, especially with students of limited engagement and lackluster skills.  Students need daily practice with working in teams, with reading text and writing to prompts and talking to one another about their work, their ideas, their problem solving.  We simply don’t have enough classrooms where dialogue is student to student around text, ideas, student work.

1. The Inductive Model is a learning/teaching strategy that is as powerful as they get, and few teachers know about it. It’s a natural higher-order learning strategy, and if students used it daily they wouldn’t just like learning more, AND learn their content better, they’d actually become smarter.   I cannot say enough about its power.

I understand that Pebble Creek Labs is in the midst of some changes.  Could you share what those are?

We began as a consulting shop that helped teachers grow their instructional repertoire.  Studying teaching is fun, real, relevant, useful, inspiring.  I began to write curriculum to help teachers practice the strategies daily, to get more expert with strategies faster.  This also exposed what a lack of engaging curriculum there is out there.  It is sad.  We had to start somewhere, and chose to start where the greatest need is— the early years of secondary school, in literacy.  The work took off and we got so busy helping schools with our curriculum that we become kind of nichey… inadvertently.  We want to help teachers of all levels, at all disciplines, with learning about teaching.  I really believe in our curriculum, and have seen amazing results.  I believe in the need to help urban, traditionally underserved, secondary schools and their students.  Having said that, we also want to work with students and teachers everywhere on instruction and repertoire.  All students, and all teachers, want to be in classrooms of diversity, depth, challenge, creativity.

If a school or district has a relationship with Pebble Creek Labs, what does it look like?

It depends.  We start with a focus on instruction, and a commitment to practice.  We have curriculum materials to move the process along.  We have other embedded structures to assist with professional community.  Mostly we care about a commitment to learn and get better, and establishing and developing a learning relationship together.  We don’t do “in and out” work. We partner with the school and/or district and go on a learning journey.

What cities are you working in now?

We’ve been lucky to work in interesting projects and towns over the years.  We spend between 35-50 days a year in a site, so we get to know it well and develop some really special relationships with school and district personnel.  It’s a joy and pleasure.  Most of our projects are multiple years. We are into our sixth and seventh year in a handful of projects, so the impact and change is profound.

Presently we have large projects in Milwaukee, Austin, Sacramento, Houston, with a number of smaller projects across the country.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with this blog’s readers?

Oh, well, probably some dirt on you…..  Nah, actually I’d like to share how much fun it has been to watch your growth as an educator, and how satisfying it is to see how much you model what it means to be a “professional teacher.” Your readers see your expertise through your web site and blog, but probably don’t get how much you are an “everyman”  teacher… like them, with classes that go well, and classes that don’t.  With colleagues that are amazing and colleagues that aren’t.   My guess is your readers are much like you—smart, dedicated, committed.  So I guess I’d like to thank you for your contribution to the field, and for keeping it real.  And I’d like to thank them, who by virtue of reading this website are kindred spirits. Let’s keep helping kids and representin’ this wonderful profession.

How should people get in touch with you if they’d like more information?

We have a new, improved web site we are just launching…. pebblecreeklabs.com We want it to be dynamic, helpful, fun.  Check it out and help us improve it.  I can be reached at Kelly@kellyjyoung.com .  We care, we respond.  Please feel free to connect.

Your new web site has a blog, doesn’t it? I know that I, and I suspect other teachers,  would be very interested in hearing your views.

Well I’m not afraid to share my views, and maybe, hopefully, my musings will be of interest to readers. Our new site will have a blog, in some respects inspired by yours.  We are still learning about the new web site and its applications.  We know we want it to a) explain the company, b) provide a place for Pebble Creek teachers to talk and share and problem solve with one another, and c) to allow for us at Pebble Creek to share all the great things we see, as well as to comment on and “weigh in” on topics of interest and importance to teachers and the field.

People can visit and subscribe to Kelly’s new blog here