I blushingly admit I have no answers to your good questions. As a teacher, I determine that my classroom will be a different place and put my ideas into practice and made it possible for all students to be successful and believed that all grew their skills and knew that all looked forward to my class and saw it as a haven. In my new setting, I do the same.
But that doesn't effect change past my classroom though it may plant some seeds of change.

I don't know how to effect change in the change-resistant places that are schools. What change I've seen over the past several decades has not resulted in change for the better.
There is no organized group of parents in the country. The NEA and AFT represent teachers - the NEA is particularly powerful in its place as the country's second largest union. Ideally, there would be a group of parents and other interested citizens to advocate for change in our schools - the push for change from parents and citizens now is not as powerful as is the push for serving the needs of teachers that comes from the NEA.
How do we effect change in the absence of such an organization?

I truly have no idea - I fell to doing what many parents do - looking out for your own children and working hard to keep them as safe and well and free from the harm of the system.

As a country and a culture - we change only in dire circumstances. Only when crisis is upon us, do we change. Only now for example are we discussing bringing change to Medicare - a badly stressed and now rapidly dying payment system for the care of our elderly. Many saw the disaster ahead but only now can we even begin to discuss needed reform to keep it from total collapse.
Perhaps the charter schools and school choice although in those states with school choice, I have not seen any significant change resulting from their embrace of school choice.
Your question remains unanswered - what positive change did you see in your time in schools? And if any what precipitated it?

Thank you for sharing the site and associated resources. Yes, please send word when you enter the twitterverse. Wonderful place to spread the word and connect with the world of folks just like us who want to share.

Joe Bruzzese

I hope to twitter soon! I still haven't gotten around to facebook! My time is so limited right now but I hope to get there soon! Will look for you. If you haven't gone to www.childrenofthecode.org yet, it is a huge resource of info. I reference it im my post a lot.
here is today:
According to the latest National Assessment of Adult Literacy report (NAAL), over 90 million (4 out of 10) U.S. adults are living lives socially and economically disadvantaged due to poor reading skills. Adults with low levels of literacy are significantly more likely to live in poverty, engage in crime and other forms of social pathology, and to live unhealthy, and even shorter lives.

Considering the number of children and adults affected and the profoundly negative life-consequences, even if we cut the NAEP and NAAL numbers in half, more children are at risk of long-term life-harm from the consequence of reading difficulties than from parental abuse, accidents, and all other childhood diseases and disorderscombined. To continue:
tinyurl.com/mvw3o2

love what you shared! Fortunately I'm on staff at UC Santa Barbara in their Teacher Ed program where I have just that opportunity. Are you twittering? Look for me "JoeBruzzese". Would love to share our upcoming discussion with you as the class looks at Ken Robinson's book, "The Element" and its impact on the future of education.

Joe Bruzzese

>The question for us now is, "How do we affect change in a system that seems change resistant?"<
1) It has to start with adminstrators realizing that professional development in literacy is the key to raising scores.
2)Teaching colleges need to change their literacy curriculum to implement scientifically proven reading methodolgies so new teachers come out prepared. Right now, it is strictly hit or miss.
tinyurl.com/mvw3o2

I agree that school was never intended to be a source of change - but I disagree that it was intended to keep order. It was intended to educate so that individuals could the requisite skills to vote and be contributing members of the community (which is why initially only wealthy boys were included in the process).

But, if the vision has remained the same - to ready or children to contribute to society, then schools must change their approach. In some ways they do have mission impossible - they must get a very diverse group of individuals up to a minimum standard.

We know that approaching each child in the same way does not get ALL children to where they need to be. Thus, IEP's and the idea of differentiated instruction.

Until we as a country are willing to financially support the vision that all kids deserve to learn to at least a minimum standard, we won't be completely successful. Bottom line - it is time and dollar intensive to approach each child individually. The current set up of heterogeneous classrooms of 20 to 30 kids does not lend itself to individualized instruction.

I'm agreed on all accounts. The history of schools and schooling is well documented. The question for us now is, "How do we affect change in a system that seems change resistant?"

Joe Bruzzese

Agreed on all accounts. The question I would love to talk about is, "How can we help?"

it would be impossible for schools to understand the needs of each student, let alone meet them. but 'standards' have created a cookie-cutter learning system. teachers are stripped of their creativity to teach a subject in a way that inspires students to learn, b/c creativity is considered 'subjective' and it deviates from a pre-set curriculum. most children (and adults for that matter) learn best with a hands-on, practical approach. yet most kids miss out on a great opportunity to excel b/c worksheet after worksheet is the order of the day. how boring is that? shouldn't kids come home from school simply on fire for what they learned that day?? presently, field trips are nearly extinct--actually, they are often used as 'leverage' in the classroom. field trips should not be ''rewards''; but instead, be an integral part of a curriculum which inspires children to learn. my most memorable academic lessons as a child were achieved on a field trip! the most unfortunate fact is this: students meet standards = school gets funding . what a disservice to the children of our nation.

For example, the concerted efforts that brought about the Americans With Disabilities Act - that was a change in policy. And then that policy change that mandated 'least restricted environment'.
Yet those policy changes taken together essentially created unteachable classrooms. A teacher cannot meet the stipulations of multiple IEPS - we write IEPS that can't be implemented yet we respect the policy change that it was to mandate IEPs.

None of those policy changes, however, generated at the board leve and I'd be grateful for an example of a policy change generated at the board level that was intended to impact on student learning. And while the newly popular mission statements have adopted the language that is 'clients' -where is the 'oomph' in such language? Should I as a client of my physician be unhappy, I am free to take myself to another provider of such services -without selling my home.
We celebrate the free market economy and 'clients' is the language of such but parents are hardly free to be clients in the current system. To seek another school, they must often sell their home or incur the great burden that is private school tuition. Or in some places they may be so fortunate as to have charter schools but those charter schools are mostly yet not so fortunate as to be receiving their proper payment from public districts.

Client and recipient of services are hardly the same thing - I find it interesting that you lump them together. The word client implies an empowered consumer and the other is sadly what parents in our schools are - they receive what services that are - or are not - provided.

That's first reason why schools operate from the premise that all students have the same needs is because it has been the tradition of schools to focus on the group - not on the individual child. Schools in their origin were set up to manage groups of children. The very idea of individuality and individual need is a very new one in history. Let's also remember that school for most of history was something most people didn't go to and children who struggled in school dropped out and were allowed to.Those children pursued other avenues outside of academics - in those days school was not seen as the only place to learn.

Indeed, the idea that that all children must go to school arose in the 1890s.That's little more than a hundred years ago. School as we have it is a fairly new institution in history. That said, the basic design of it - accomplished in the 1800s - has changed very little since the 1800s while society has changed Remarkably since then.

School hasn't kept up with the changes in society or with the changes in our understanding of how children learn. Why not? Because school wasn't set up to keep up and it really wasn't set up to achieve learning in the first place. When we designed our schools in America, we were at most hoping to impact some basic literacy - readin', writin' and 'rithmetic. We weren't intending to do more than that and our first intention was really to keep order. Schools and teachers focused on keeping order - not imparting learning.

Over the course of the 20th century, though, we came to expect a Great Deal more of our schools. We wanted them to be effective in new ways - we wanted safe schools that included all children regardless of ability or learning profile and we wanted children to be learning and in many subjects. And now - we want our schools to even be accountable to society as defined by scores on standardized tests.

It's a Tall Order. And - it may help to understand this for on top of that - we want our schools to be the places where students are sorted and graded. Prior to WWII, hardly anybody went to college in our country and now - well over half of all Americans attend college. That's wonderful but how do we decide who gets to go where? Harvard took everybody once but now it gets 40,000 applications a year.

We now look to our schools to be the place where things - and children - get sorted out. At the same time NCLB says don't leave any child behind - we get slammed for grade inflation if every child does in fact do well in school and earns good grades for it. It's an Enormous Contradiction that comes to vest itself squarely on the shoulders of our children.

And on schools which then stubbornly insist - for all of the above reasons - that they are meeting the needs of our individual children when clearly they're not. Schools are not allowed to say outloud - "we're not getting the job done." When a school says that, it obligates itself by law to pay the tuition for your child to attend another school. Schools will say that only in very exceptional cases. Nor is it the mentality of schools and teachers to acknowledge their flaws - the ancient idea that 'Teacher is always right' can still prevail in schools.

The standards of which you speak are politics' attempt to create order among the chaos. I personally agree with you - I don't like them much and the idea of national standards gives me the creeps - but somebody is trying to make things better though I think they're going about it in all the wrong way.

School was never intended to be a place of change . School as an institution was intended to keep order - in school and in society. So when change comes to society - and to the expectations of parents - and comes knocking on the door of schools, they don't know what to do with that. Schools react more than they respond - they become very defensive.

Because they've always been that way, because they're intended to be that way, because they were never intended to recognize the needs of individual children and because our government has made promises to us that it's impossible for schools to keep.

Interesting viewpoint! While I think you and I are on the same page with respect to this issue I would push the discussion one step further by asking, "How do school assess the individual needs of students?"

Joe Bruzzese

yes, schools cannot meet the needs of all students, but why is it that schools operate under the premise that all students have the same needs? children learn in different ways. 'standards' attempt to create 'stepford' students.

True!

Great points! Many of which I agree with, including your thoughts about the current state of special services in schools. The current focus among public schools is to bring students to the standard. Focus and funds are brought to those groups who are closest to meeting the standard. Unfortunately, after these resources are exhausted the children on the outer ends, Gifted and Challenged, miss out on their share of funding and resources. The great equalizer though is the knowledgable parent. Read the mission statement on most school district web sites and you will find that the "parent" is referred to as the client or recipient of services. Although your thoughts and ideas may be not requested with respect to board policy, when you have concerns and are willing to express them openly to the school board, policy changes.

Joe Bruzzese

AMEN SPEDEXAMINER !!

>Our current public schooling system is focused on bringing underperforming students to a standard. <
The only pretend to.
www.examiner.com/x-4959-Special-Education-Examiner~y2009m4d9-School-superintendents-or-stuporintendents-What-were-they-thinking

>Schools and districts are penalized when student test scores don't meet the standard<
The answer has been thrown in their face for more than 20 years. Just look at the litigation cases, most are all about reading and the geting the school to pay for qualified instructos thru non-public schools.

The teachers are not taught the proven FEW methodologies in college for Sped credentials. The focus more on the 10% of disbablilities than the overwhelming number of kids who have reading disorder that make up 80% of the Sped population.
www.examiner.com/x-4959-Special-Education-Examiner~y2009m3d29-The-best-kept-secret-in-special-education

'' Assuming that the school will measure your child's needs accurately and then meet these needs with a challenging level of curriculum, may be beyond the realm of current reality.''

The thing is, most schools don't do this. How can anyone say the schools can't meet all needs if they don't try it to start with. I get where you are coming from, though.

I know it's not fair to paint a broad brush on all schools, but I have been a member of many sites, boards, groups, etc for 10 yrs and have had experiences with 6 schools, 40 school personnel, even a BLIND school for crying out loud!
And, I have helped many many parents and the truth is, special ed in public schools is very corrupt, lots of times with the acknowledgement, approval and assistance of local and state education depts and even judges at the state and national level.

Top US sped attorneys Pete Wright and Reed Martin can attest to that.

Classic responses. All sad, but true, and yet comical. My top recommendation is to read a book that I am now thoroughly enjoying called, "The Element" by Ken Robinson. After watching his talk at TED (www.Ted.com) or google "Ken Robinson and TED" I became an evangelist (not in the religious sense. You will get it when you watch and read).

Bottom line here is that all schools, however well intentioned, cannot meet the needs of all students. Slightly reminiscent of the old saying, "You can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please everyone all the time." Assuming that the school will measure your child's needs accurately and then meet these needs with a challenging level of curriculum, may be beyond the realm of current reality. Our current public schooling system is focused on bringing underperforming students to a standard. Schools and districts are penalized when student test scores don't meet the standard. Students who meet or exceed the standard don't receive the same level of attention.

Joe Bruzzese

Its funny you bring up spelling. My dyslexic son would get a 90-100% every week on his spelling test on Friday. On Monday, he forgot how to spell all the words. When it came to STAR testing, spelling was also his highest score (it was in the 20's percentile wise, so it wan't great) but it was easier for him to pick out a "correct" spelling on the STAR multiple choice test vs spelling out of memory.

Your post hits to the fundamental reality that lies at the heart of the process that is school - our government makes us promises that our schools aren't really allowed to keep.
Consider this - our government want students' scores on the state tests to rise every year - they want schools to educate children more every year. That sounds quite nice.

But if grades on the report card also rise, then people scream grade inflation. So at the same time, we are to be working to educate every child and leave none of them behind and proving that with rising test scores, their grades are not supposed to budge.

That's a fundamental contradiction that no one can explain to me and that I think explains why parents encounter such ridiculous things as did you when you were told 'None of the 5th graders can spell."

Oh, really? If that were the case, then your standardized test scores would show that and you would be subject to government censure. So.... some of your 5th graders can spell is much closer to the truth. This school's aggregate test scores are public knowledge and usually easily accessed on-line. Check the 5th graders' scores on writing to see how well they're really spelling in your school.

I wouldn't be helpful to comment on each of the comments made to you but none of them should have been made - if we lived in the better world. Teachers are put into the front line of society's judgment but most see their position in a very righteous way when sadly there is too little that is righteous about the way we approach education in our society. They are not seeing the forest for the trees - having raised two children of my own and one with severe learning differences, it helped to strip the wool from my eyes.
Good luck to you and your children.

wow spedexaminer, you should read and post on millermom proboards special ed section. It's a GREAT message board, the best on the internet.