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Pete Reilly has written an insightful and touching story about his experience with some kids that didn’t fit in with school.  I especially appreciate the compassion and understanding that he showed with these kids.  This story stuck with him through the years and shaped his approach to education today.  Pete reflects on the influence they had on his teaching:

They weren’t going to “play” school like the others. They weren’t going to “pretend” this was important to them. I could count on them reflecting back to me the best and worst of my teaching. If I was at my best I would see them engaged fully. Anything less, anything that was not relevant, not well planned, not taught well; and they would find something else to keep them busy. Generally, something that got them in trouble.

Thanks for posting that, Pete.  Sometimes we learn just as much from our kids as they do from us.

OregonLive.com: NewsFlash - Bill to mandate 180 school days in Oregon gets hearing

It’s just a bill right now, but it is currently before the House to require 180 student contact days in the state of Oregon.  According to the Oregonian, this bill would cost schools $180 million.  From this article, it is unclear as to whether or not the bill would provide that additional funding.  The Republicans are encouraging districts to remove prep time, parent conference time, and professional development.  If that isn’t able to make up the difference, they would like an hour to be taken off each day.  That last part doesn’t make any sense at all.  Let’s require more days in the school year, but we won’t provide any additional money for it, so we’ll make each day a little shorter to make up for it.  Am I reading that right?  The idea is to improve student contact time, not take away from it.  And for the record, I’m all for adding student contact days to the school year.

I didn’t realize that 30 states require at least 180 school days.  In fact, the average school year in our state consists of 167 days, among the lowest in the nation.  A few years ago, many school districts in our state actually cut a few days off of the school year in order to meet their budgets.  Those were not good times in our state. 

It’s time for our state legislature to fund schools at an acceptable level.  Unfunded mandates are not the way to go about improving education in our state.

Technorati Tags: Oregon education, school funding, politics, education

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If you’re running a WordPress blog, you might want to check and make sure your spam blocking plugins are installed and activated.  This morning before I left for school, my Akismet blocker indicated less than 400 spam comments blocked.  When I got home tonight, I had more than 600.  I went ahead and installed Bad Behavior in an attempt to block these automated comment bots from even being able to see my site.  Even after the install, the hits just keep on coming. 

Even though 99% of these posts never see the light of day on the blog itself, it takes me time and effort to remove them from the control panel.  And that’s not to mention the bandwidth they’re eating up.  Looks like it’s time to look for a decent word challenge plugin to add to the comments section, as much as I hate to resort to that.  If you’ve got any other ideas, let me know. 

I was doing some research for an upcoming post on TESA, when I found Matt Horne’s blog.  Matt is an ESL teacher in nearby Milton-Freewater and is apparently also a fellow admin-wannabe.  I very rarely run across fellow bloggers from my region, so I thought I would take the opportunity to say hello and encourage my readers to go check out what he has to say.  He is a “self-proclaimed geek” and says that “incorporating technology seems to become more and more relevant” in the ESL classroom.  Looks like he’s got some good things to say about his subject and the field of education in general.

So everybody be sure and go over and say hey to Matt.  Welcome to the blogosphere.

Note:  This blog entry satisfies the requirement for “Final Reflection” for the EDAD 615 English Language Learners class.  It is in question/answer format.

Were there any misconceptions you had about ELL/immigrant students?

Not really, although I tend to get into some myopic thinking and I forget that there are other ELL students than of Mexican descent.  At my school, this is the sole minority language.  At my first administration position, though, that may be completely different.  I would then need to put together an ELL program that reflects what the school needs, and not just what I know from experience.  Confession:  I had always bought into the idea that younger children pick up language skills rather quickly.  Although they can acquire some skills surprisingly fast, it’s easy to get fooled into thinking that the language skills they do have are greater than what they actually are. 

What information was most interesting to you?

Personally, I thought that the inside to students’ thoughts and feelings the most interesting.  Coming from a counseling/psychology background, I feel that this is one of the most important considerations to running an ELL program.  If you can’t accommodate the emotional needs of the students, everything else you will become futile. 

What information do you feel most frustrated about?

We received a great deal of relevant information during the course of the class.  That said, I still feel like there is much information that I need to obtain.  Before the class, I didn’t realize there was so much to know.  Before, I was at the blissfully ignorant stage.  Now, I’m aware of the many details that need to be addressed in a comprehensive ELL program.

What do you still want to know about working with ELL/immigrant students and/or ESL programs?

I’m always in the market for school programs that cross teaching platforms, adhere to good practices, and travel well.  As I’ve seen SIOP implemented in our school, I’m eager to view that program with new eyes.  Many, if not most, of our teachers, value the program not only for our ELL students, but for the students in the general population as well. 

I don’t know how your school does it, but here in Oregon we rely on a computer-based system to assess our students.  Technology-Enhanced Student Assessment (TESA) has been in place since 2001, and up until now it’s been a reliable, stable system to use for that purpose.  Like I said, though, that’s been up until now. 

For the past week or so, we’ve had daily, somtimes hourly, e-mail updates that have indicated the system’s on-again, off-again status.  We’re supposed to be testing our kids next week.  Thursday, the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) is saying that it is down “until further notice.”  Our own local coordinators decided to postpone testing at all next week, regardless of whether or not TESA was going to be available.  That’s a good call.  It’s better in the long run to let this run the course and let them get whatever glitches figured out.  I would hate to see any of our kids get halfway through a test, and have the system go down with no database back-up in place.  However, this Eugene Register-Guard article is reporting that ODE has indicated that TESA will be available on Monday.  We’ll have to wait and see.

And, it may not be just a software glitch that is causing the problems.  Apparently, the vendor that is contracted to run TESA, Vantage from Pennsylvania, has not been contracted to do the work next year. These problems could not come at a more inconvenient time.  Most schools I know are planning on testing this week, and only have until the end of May to do so. 

TESA has been an important way of assessing our students for the past few years.  Let’s just hope that this is a blip on the radar screen and not a preview of things to come.