A New Kind of High School: What do you think?

The following article summarize the needed changes in high school structure over the next decade and years ahead. What do you think? Published Online: May 8, 2012 Published in Print: May 9, 2012, as It's Time for a New Kind of High School Commentary It's Time for a New Kind of High School By Jerry Y. Diakiw Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org. Read more FREE content! Printer-Friendly Email Article Our high schools are relics of the past. Based on an antiquated economic formula designed for the Industrial Revolution, high schools in the United States and Canada are ill-suited for the emotional and intellectual well-being of our young people and profoundly out of step with the needs of our contemporary economy. We have been tinkering with the high school formula for decades, but the recipe for innovation has yet to be written. As academic and Phi Delta Kappan columnist Ben Levin pointed out in a paper in 2010: "Schools embody an industrial model of organization in a postindustrial world, and an authoritarian and hierarchical character in a world where networks and negotiations are increasingly prevalent." And Sir Ken Robinson, the noted international education expert, said in 2006 at the TED conference that we have been "trying to meet the future by doing what we did in the past, and on the way we have been alienating millions of kids who don't see any purpose in going to school." Minority children and those living in poverty are not playing the game. They are dropping out. In Indiana University's 2007 High School Survey of Student Engagement, 73 percent of the respondents said, "I didn't like the school"; 61 percent said, "I didn't like the teachers"; and 60 percent said, "I didn't see the value in the work I was being asked to do." About 30 percent of the students indicated they were bored because of a lack of interaction with teachers, and 75 percent reported that the "material being taught is not interesting." Those students still in attendance are unchallenged, but they persist because it is the only game in town. Researchers have found that a high percentage of students dislike the place where they spend most of their learning time. —iStockphoto.com/Thomas VogelIn the most recent Canadian national study, conducted by the Canadian Education Association in 2006, student attendance dropped from 91 percent in 5th grade to 58 percent in secondary school. More significantly, intellectual engagement reportedly declined from 62 percent in 5th grade to 30 percent in high school. What on earth are we doing to the 70 percent who have not dropped out? Realistically, school is not an ideal environment for providing all the necessary opportunities for becoming an adult. Instead, school is a particular kind of environment, honoring individualism and cognitive development. It imposes dependence on, and withholds responsibility from, students. We have lost sight of young people's potential for responsibility, and it can be argued that in doing so we have sacrificed many opportunities for growth and usefulness. Teachers have difficulty providing meaningful, intrinsically interesting, and motivating experiences. Students see themselves as passive participants in an anonymous education system. This is learned powerlessness. Years ago, John I. Goodlad wrote in A Place Called School that high school classrooms "possessed a flat neutral emotional ambiance where boredom is a disease of epidemic proportion." Ben Levin added, in the paper I referenced at the top of this essay, that the source of the disease is a "prevalence of teacher talk, which remains an enduring feature of classrooms around the world." Despite what we now know about the power of learning through talking and doing, we persist in expecting students to learn by listening. The present disparity between teacher and student talk time is a profound hindrance to learning. Walking through the halls of high schools in both the United States and Canada, one invariably hears the steady drone of teachers' voices in room after room. The sound of boredom is deafening. We need to offer new kinds of schools and new kinds of classrooms. We need to revolutionize our basic high school structures: We need to tear apart the school day, the high school timetable, the school year, the four-year diploma. We need to rethink credit- and diploma-awarding authority, which need not be the sole purview of the high school. For instance, why can't we give this authority to nongovernment organizations and corporations willing to step up and offer academic credits in their workplaces relevant to the work of their institution? “We need to revolutionize our basic high school structures: We need to tear apart the school day, the high school timetable, the school year, the four-year diploma.”We need to explode the boundary between the school and the workplace. Just for starters, we need to create 24-hour, year-round high schools; a grade 7-14, or six-year, diploma; a grade 7/8 half-day school/work internship; dual-diploma programs with high schools/community colleges; and a North American retooling of the German apprenticeship system. In the United Kingdom, the remarkable innovation called Studio Schools has exploded. In them, disengaged 14- to 19-year-olds are assigned to project schools—e.g., television arts, food services—relevant to the designated theme of the studio, and in cooperation with local businesses. In these schools, work and learning are integrated. Studio Schools are sure to be a major feature of our 21st-century school system, but they cannot be the only one. We need a multiplicity of alternatives, incorporating mentorships, internships, and apprenticeships to forge a new vision of education in our rapidly changing, team-oriented society. We also need to look beyond high school to funding programs like Reading Recovery in 1st grade to reduce the eventual dropout rate in high school. We need to support and encourage emerging successful models, like the online Khan Academy, Flex schools in San Francisco that offer a hybrid online-and-in-school experience, and the Pathways to Education program in Canada that works to keep low-income students from dropping out. Likewise, we should back the schools working with the New Tech Network in the United States, which emphasize the use of more student-driven, project-based learning. New Tech schools focus on three principles: a project-based curriculum in which students work in teams; use of technology primarily, instead of focusing on textbooks and teachers; and a positive culture that promotes respect and responsibility. With any of the emerging models, we need to provide radical new social-learning structures for youths. Educator Deborah Bial's brilliant concept of the "posse" of multicultural teams of student-leaders who are intensively prepared for college success can be applied across a wide variety of student ages and settings, not just for university-bound scholarship students. The need to form small, interdependent learning groups or teams is an important adjunct to online learning. Whichever paths we take, classrooms have to change. If 70 percent of students are not intellectually engaged in classes, a revolution has to take place inside them. The time has come to stop tinkering with an antiquated model. We are delayed in our thinking because those who were able to suffer through or even thrive in this dying high school model have grown up to be teachers and lawyers and businesspeople who now advocate for reforms through the prism of their experiences. But the vast majority do not have the same fond memories of those halcyon high school days. For these students, the "high school experience" has failed. It is not only an economic issue, but a moral one of providing the very best opportunities for our young at all socioeconomic levels to flourish in a rapidly changing world. Long live the new high school! Jerry Y. Diakiw is a former superintendent of schools with the York Region Board of Education, in Ontario, Canada, and currently teaches about social justice and equity issues in classrooms, schools, and communities, in the faculty of education at York University, in Toronto. He can be reached at jdiakiw@edu.yorku.ca.

Why Teacher Evaluation Ratings Should Not Be Made Public

Several states are considering publishing the results of teacher evaluations for public view. This is already occurring in California and New York where specific evaluation ratings are published in select school districts. As a result of this recent trend the credibility of the evaluation process is diminished and teacher morale is declining. Revealing the quantitative scores of teacher evaluations is ill conceived and has many unintended consequences detrimental to the very nature of personnel evaluation. Publishing evaluation results erodes the trust that serves as a basis between educational professionals if evaluation is to serve its purpose as a constructive and useful tool.



The evaluation of employees in any organization is necessary to ensure that corporate goals and objectives are being met by both the organization and the individual employee. It serves as a basis for continuous improvement and employee retention. In many areas of private industry evaluation tools are correlated with salaries or bonuses. The key to employee productivity and satisfaction is directly correlated to performance reviews and relevant feedback. At the basis for all evaluation practices is the need for the individual to reflect upon his or her performance and measure it against the role they must play in the success of the organization as a whole. This is basically the same philosophy that serves the educational profession except that the measurements are more difficult to quantify due to educational outcomes associated with the complexities of measuring human growth and development in our profession.



There is a natural tension regarding the purpose for evaluation as it applies to decisions about professionalism, performance, advancement, accountability, tenure, and employee satisfaction in the complex arena of the delivery of educational services. If the true nature of evaluation is to assist the professional improve performance and demonstrate progress along a path that parallels organizational goals, then the relationship between the individual assigned the responsibility for evaluation and the person being evaluated is critical to the validity of the evaluation. In other words, if criticism or analysis of performance is designed to achieve a positive and progressive set of outcomes a unique and confidential relationship between participants must serve as a foundation for improvement.



The intimate nature of assessment and the collaborative relationship of the parties engaged in the evaluation process must be preserved in order to ensure that the commitment toward reaching both organizational and individual goals is maintained. This requires that all parties respect the process of evaluation and are committed to a non-defensive posture when it comes to formulating an honest discussion concerning the strengths and weaknesses of educators being evaluated. The ratings assigned to various areas of evaluation must not serve as roadblocks to conversations about how to improve performance.



Evaluation research indicates that the relationship between the parties engaged in evaluation will change dramatically if each time the person being observed is not assigned a rating. Here is where formative assessment is so critical to the evaluation process and why summary judgments about the summative assessment (rating) should be reserved until the end of a complete performance cycle. The separation of formative evaluation practices from ratings is the key to the productive relationship between all parties. In a collaborative process both parties are able to view the totality of variables not as threats but opportunities for constructive discussions and actionable items. Improvement occurs over a broad period of time when both parties agree to a dialogue about performance that sets a roadmap for continuous improvement on agreed upon goals and objectives.



In New Jersey public schools for example, many of the evaluation tools are heavily tipped with summative ratings all along the evaluation continuum. Every time a teacher is observed for example, a rating is anticipated and serves as a basis for that particular evaluation event. This does not serve the entire process very well. Why not use the observation as an opportunity to reflect on performance rather than rate performance?



A classroom visit by an evaluator serves at best only as a snapshot of performance: what is needed is an entire motion picture of overall effectiveness. This is what is fundamentally flawed with the entire process for current evaluation as it leaves little motivation for a constructive dialogue about the evaluation event and circumstances surrounding the act of teaching. Thus, the relationship between the evaluator (as manager) and teacher (as employee) often becomes contentious and laden with subjective overtones as overreliance on one or two “snapshots” become the fundamental basis for judging performance. If standardized test scores enter the picture the results cloud the evaluation picture even further. What ultimately compounds this process and deepens the divide between the employee and observer is the idea that these ratings will be published for view and public judgment.



Until educators establish a truly valid, reliable, and consistently credible process for teacher evaluation inclusive of multiple indicators and an extended time for observation, reflection, correction, improvement, and professional development to be embedded in the overall process, summative ratings must remain confidential. Absent any definitive rubrics for performance indicators and overall assessment the evaluation process will remain entirely a subjective process and less than perfect science.



To expose ratings of teachers to the general public given the lack of valid and reliable evaluation tools creates even more doubt about the worth and value of public education in American society. Not to mention the contribution to low morale and potential damage to the profession as a whole. Let us not contribute to the dialogue about what’s lacking in performance but instead give our educational professionals a chance to improve by maintaining a confidential and intimate relationship between the teacher and administrator in the evaluation process. And let us work collaboratively to shape new evaluation practices that provide more reliable results in the first place.

American Teacher Satisfaction may Impact Public Education's Future

A report published by Education Week on March 7, 2012, concerns itself with the results of a national survey sponsored by MetLife of the American Teacher. According to the results of this annual survey American teacher job satisfaction is at an alarming low point. Only 44% of teachers nationwide indicate that they are very satisfied with their work, down from almost 60% in 2009. This downward trend is more disturbing when considering the fact that 29% of teachers indicate they will leave the profession in the next five years. Almost a third of teachers nationwide say they experience a lack of job security due in part to the stressful conditions of the profession.




This decrease in professional satisfaction may be due to the overall economic conditions and the resulting cuts to education budgets nationwide. As resources and teaching manpower shrink to all time lows at a time when accountability measures have peaked at unrealistic high levels, it is no wonder that those most impacted would be experiencing some degree of stress. As class sizes increase at all levels due to reduction in force initiatives there appears to be a strong correlation between the changing conditions in America’s classrooms and the associated decrease in professional satisfaction by teachers. I would suggest that this cause and effect relationship is likely to extend itself to administrators and support personnel as well.



According to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the budget cuts and “demonization” of American teachers by politicians and media figures are major contributors to growing professional dissatisfaction. The national frenzy for “tax relief” in the name of reform is a direct attack on public employees and institutions like public schools. Politicians grab at gimmicks like charter schools and privatization to the very detriment of public schools in the name of saving tax dollars. The unintended consequence to the actions by high profile political personalities may result in the permanent undermining of American public education.



Teaching is far more complex than one can imagine who has never set foot in a classroom. It is a pure blend of art form, passion, common sense, nurturing, skill, content knowledge, motivation, and inspiration. The increasing demands placed upon the institution of public education have not been matched with dollars and resources to match. In fact, the school calendar and length of the school day has largely remained unchanged in the past century, in spite of a technological revolution and doubling of the world’s information base every two to three years.



It is enough of a demand that American teachers are charged with differentiating instruction in our classrooms to meet the needs of an exceedingly diverse population, but now we are asking them not just to teach America’s children but to raise them as well. The institution of American public education may just be at the breaking point. If political forces have the day, they will starve American public schools of the necessary resources needed to accomplish a rather formidable task. Given that teachers perform millions of small miracles each day in American schools, it will be a dark day for our nation’s schools if politicians manage to strangle the lifeblood out of public education: the financial resources needed to keep her alive.

Time to Take on Political Forces out to Discredit Public Education in America

(Excerpted from my AASA blog in February, 2012)
Attending the Third General Session of the AASA National Conference on Education in February of 2012, I was intrigued by the analysis presented concerning the goals of AASA and how the current political climate and the interests of political forces in our country appear to be in conflict with the basic core mission of American public education: To provide the basis for an informed citizenry in order to perpetuate our democratic society. There appears to be real disconnect between the more extreme positions of those ambitious politicians who would dismantle public education in lieu of privatization under the guise of “tax relief” and move their own political agenda forward and derail our primary purpose as educational leaders to offer equal opportunity to children from all walks of life. Legislators (who have little knowledge or even less capacity for understanding what the challenges of public education provide to educational leaders) have no claim in the race to improve American public education in my opinion. There is a hidden agenda to move forward with the private sector’s influence and many politicians use every effort to discredit the excellent work of American educators publically.

There appears to be an even greater political view that somehow denies the fact that we are the most diverse society that ever existed in the world, and that fails to acknowledge the great diversity that exists in our population. It is this rich variation in population that walks through the doors of American public schools each day seeking opportunity and validation for who they are. They are not one-size-fits-all cookie cutter children, nor are they quantifiable entities, rather they are individualistic, technologically savvy, and intense learners who present learning styles and needs that must be attended to by American teachers. It is time to scream loudly about the absurdity that politicians spin about the failing nature of public education and turn the media frenzy about the low percentage of “failing schools” into an intelligent and thoughtful discussion on the future of American public education. The fact is that the vast majority of American public schools are highly successful at offering quality educational services to the students that walk through the schoolhouse doors every day. That is why we are here today at AASA having the important conversation about American education and I am thankful that AASA is the voice of reason in this sea of uncertainty concerning the purpose and value of American public education. The future of our society depends on it.

Tenth Anniversary of No Child Left Behind

At the tenth anniversary of No Child Left Behind it is clear from my perspective that the federal government’s ambitious effort to set a national education agenda for America’s Public Schools has met with limited success.  The Washington “one size fits all” perspective on meeting the needs of millions of children in our nation’s schools was ill conceived at best by the former George W. Bush administration.  The punitive labels that were assigned to school districts nationwide as a result of the lack of compliance for making “Adequate Yearly Progress” under N.C.L.B. did much to discredit the positive strides American educators made in the past decade if not the past century.   

Let’s be clear about what we have accomplished as a society that creates educational opportunities for all of its children in a systematized and formal manner.  The facts are clear on the complexities that confront public education in America and the challenges we face in our attempts to teach the most diverse population of students in the world.   In the past century the United States of America has distinguished herself as a world economic power and social force for justice and human rights.  This did not occur by accident!  We are the world leader in higher education, human rights activism, and creative thinking as a result of a system of free and appropriate public education in all fifty states.

In the years since the Reagan administration decried the inadequacy of public education in America when A Nation at Risk was published America has transformed the world socially, economically, technologically, in the broadest possible global context.   American public education is largely responsible for our success as a nation.  It is time to recognize and celebrate that fact.  Are there matters that we have to address in order to take our system of free and public education to a higher level?  Undeniably yes.  But the federal government should not be administering to 100,000 public schools nor should it be determining whether each of those schools and its teachers are successful or failing.

In the words of former U.S. Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, “This decade’s experience has reminded us that Washington may be able to create a better environment for school improvement, but Washington cannot make schools better; only teachers, principals, parents, and communities can…it is time to move most decisions about whether teachers and schools are succeeding or failing out of Washington and back to states and communities.”  I could not agree with Mr. Alexander more on this important point.  Educational issues are determined locally and solved locally by dedicated professionals who are in the best position to know what it takes to nurture and teach children.  Just give communities the resources to accomplish this important task and get Washington politicians out of this equation once and for all.

A letter to Hopatcong, NJ, Teachers and Staff

Hopatcong administrators, teachers, and staff members:




Thank you for another year of dedicated service to the youth and families of our community. As I reflect on my 39th year in the education profession it is apparent that much has changed over the decades. We are at a transition point in the profession that has placed public school employees under a microscope as expectations rise each year. The remarkable thing is that our teachers, staff, and administrators all respond remarkably to the formidable challenges we now face.



It is with all sincerity that I express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you for the devotion that you demonstrate every day to the young people we teach and the community we serve. As I visit each school (I try to get into a classroom each day) it is apparent to me that we are blessed in this educational community with exceptional faculty and staff members. I witness great teaching and wise counseling each and every time I visit one of our schools.



Perhaps my reflections are simply nostalgic manifestations of the wonderful relationships I experienced from my own years as a classroom teacher. My personal observations however are validated by the extensive research and work in teacher evaluation that was the subject of my dissertation at the College of William and Mary. It is abundantly clear that we employ some of the very best teachers and staff available. The result: our students are nourished and challenged to reach the highest possible individual outcomes, thanks to each of you.



I have said on more than one occasion that the whole of public education contains many components: academics, arts, activities, and athletics. We are about teaching the “whole child” and creating experiences that prepare our youth for life in an ever-changing democratic society. While social norms appear to be eroding at a rapid pace, the public schools in our community hold onto standards and values that appear to be almost non-existent in the greater society-at-large.



This makes the accomplishments of our teachers even more remarkable. Children come with many needs: developmental, intellectual, emotional, social, physical, medical, etc. We meet the challenges that confront us every day and somehow find a way to meet the demands placed upon us. No child is the same as another (think about how different siblings are) with every child demonstrating the need and capacity for nourishment in different and varied ways. Here is where the remarkable teaching has a profound impact: on the individual student as an individual.



I applaud the accomplishments of our classroom teachers, counselors, aides, staff members, coaches, administrators and everyone else who touches the lives of our youth. The New Year offers an opportunity for a renewed commitment to the profession we choose as our calling, our purpose, our challenge. In spite of the difficult economic times and the formidable challenges that we face, including the often unfair and biased media perceptions concerning public education in America, our schools are vibrant environments where the youth of our community thrive each day thanks to our teachers.



Please take the time this holiday season to reflect on the great work you are doing and to enjoy the blessings of your own families. Peace to each of you as the dawn of 2012 approaches and we bring closure to the year soon to pass. I look forward to working with you again as we continue on our educational journey in Hopatcong Borough.

Random Drug Searches at Hopatcong Schools Reveal No Drugs

Random and routine drug searches of Hopatcong Middle School and Hopatcong High School were conducted over a two day period December 6 and 7th, 2011. Both were initiated by school officials in collaboration with the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office. The random searches are constitutionally allowed in a public school setting following strict guidelines outlined in the New Jersey School Search Policy Manual. Drug dogs and handlers of the New Jersey State Police Canine Unit were employed for the search of classroom, hallways, lockers, and other common areas of the schools.



“These type of suspicionless searches by police officials are prudent exercises,” said superintendent of schools Dr. Charles Maranzano, Jr. “and are designed to impress upon students and the community our commitment to a safe and secure school environment.”

One or two people in the entire school district were made aware of the search in advance according to Maranzano, in order to maximize the impact of the search. School Board members approved of the idea for the searches months in advance and were appraised of the search only after they were initiated and conducted.



All of the schools in New Jersey are prepared for such searches and are required to conduct emergency drills such as school lockdowns on a monthly basis by law. The students at the middle and high schools were sequestered to their classrooms throughout the search process, except where individual classrooms and student items searched. The inception of the search is constitutionally permissible based on the objective of the search as long as such searches are not excessively intrusive according to state guidelines.



“We stand ready to cooperate with local police or state police when the issue of student safety is at stake,” added Maranzano. “The facts support our effort to free schools from any item that represents a threat to the common health, safety, and welfare of students.” Maranzano said, “Generally speaking our students are well-behaved and conduct themselves with a high regard for the general welfare of other students in Hopatcong. From time-to-time it is necessary to demonstrate the authority and responsibility that school officials have to ensure the school climate is safe and secure which is the reason for such routine searches.”



No drugs were found at either school location.