Let’s be fair. District 150 board members and administrators do not claim that shortening the school day by 45 minutes is an educational benefit to students, per se. Rather, they claim that the benefits of (a) common prep periods for teachers and (b) an integrated curriculum outweigh the detriments of a cut in classroom time. They cited three studies to support this assertion at the May 5 school board meeting. Let’s take a look at them.
“On Common Ground – The Power of Professional Learning Communities” by DuFour, Eaker and DuFour
If there is anything that the research community agrees on, it is this: The right kind of continuous, structured teacher collaboration improves student learning and professional morale in virtually any setting. (p. xii) But, like Fullen and Darling-Hammond, Little (1990) found that when teachers engage regularly in authentic ‘joint work’ focused on explicit, common learning goals, their collaboration pays off richly in the form of higher quality solutions to instructional problems, increased teacher confidence and, not surprisingly, remarkable gains in achievement. (p. xiii)
These quotes are from the forward of a book that advocates for a strategy of teacher collaboration called a Professional Learning Community, or PLC. The principal authors have created a whole website devoted to this process called All Things PLC.
What is a PLC, exactly? It’s defined this way, according to the website: “Educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve.” However, they caution, “Collaboration is a means to an end, not the end itself. In many schools, staff members are willing to collaborate on a variety of topics as long as the focus of the conversation stops at their classroom door. In a PLC, collaboration represents a systematic process in which teachers work together interdependently in order to impact their classroom practice in ways that will lead to better results for their students, for their team, and for their school.”
So, what this research is really telling us is that merely sharing prep time is not sufficient to improve student achievement. In order to really be effective — to become a true PLC — teachers must work interdependently, “engage in collective inquiry into both best practices in teaching and best practices in learning,” apply those best practices in their classrooms (which may require learning new skills), and continually assess their results (more than standardized testing), making changes/improvements as needed. In short, they have to develop a “culture of collaboration.”
Thus, the question is, does the district’s plan to provide shared prep time accomplish the benefits they imply it will by quoting DuFour’s research? Possibly. The teachers of each primary school could form PLC teams and use the new shared prep time for such effective collaboration. However, there are some reasons this might not happen.
First, the teachers’ contract lets the teachers decide how they will use their prep time; they don’t have to use the time for collaboration and the administration can’t force them. There are a number of other legitimate activities that can take place during prep times, including planning, grading papers, tutoring, meeting with parents, preparing materials, etc. Teachers may choose to use their prep time for one of those activities. Second, even if teachers do decide to “collaborate,” unless they are doing so in the way described above (and in more detail on the PLC website), there’s no evidence such cooperation will translate into higher student achievement — at least, not according to the research the school district cited. Third, having the common prep time first thing in the morning makes it a convenient time for parents to drop off their children early or seek an unannounced conference with their child’s teacher. These and other interruptions can disrupt efforts to participate in the kind of intense collaboration DuFour advocates.
The bottom line is, in order to ensure that a shared prep time results in the kind of collaboration the administration is (at least implicitly) advocating, the teachers’ contract would need to be renegotiated first. The current contract expires in 2009.
2. “Extending the School Year and Day,” by Thomas I. Ellis ERIC Digest, Number Seven.
Research data reveal, however, that the correlation between time and achievement is far slighter than expected and suggest that the quality of time spent in learning is more important than the quantity.
You can read the full article (originally published in 1984) online here. The quote used by the administration is a good summary of the article. A similar article written by Evans and Bechtel in 1997 said it best when they concluded: “The research literature indicates that time is a necessary but not sufficient condition for improving achievement.”
What these studies are saying is that just throwing more time into the school day is not in and of itself going to make students learn any more or any better. First of all, the goal should not be to simply increase allocated time (the time a student is physically present at school), but to increase the academic learning time (the time a student is engaged in learning material). Ellis further argues, however, that even increasing academic learning time only yields marginal student improvement. He concludes that “the quality of instructional time is more important than quantity.”
The district administrators contend that, based on this study, decreasing instructional time will have minimal effect on student achievement. But that’s not what this research states. It’s tempting to deduce that, since increasing instructional time does not significantly increase student achievement (what the research affirms), then the inverse must also be true. But that’s not necessarily so.
Since it’s been established that time is a necessary condition for learning, we can safely assume that there is some minimum amount of academic learning time required. Indeed, at the very least, enough time must be allocated for teachers to adequately cover federal (No Child Left Behind) and state learning requirements. Furthermore, there is always going to be some minimum amount of non-instructional time as well; things such as lunch, recess, and transition time between subjects are good and necessary components of the school day.
Research on this is available — in fact, I found it referenced by the author of the very next citation from the district. Hinde (see below) references a study done by R. J. Marzano in 2003 titled, “What works in schools: Translating research into action.” Hinde reports that Marzano “calculates that there is an average of 200 standards and 3,093 benchmarks in fourteen different content areas that teachers are expected to teach in a school year. He further estimates that teachers need approximately 15,465 hours to address the content articulated in the standards adequately.” The hours referenced are total hours spread over 13 years (Kindergarten through 12th grade). Thus, 15,465 divided by 13 years equals an average of 1,190 per year; divide that by 180 days per school year and you get 6.6 hours of instructional time per day that’s needed just to adequately meet all standards and benchmarks.
Even without the cut in the primary school day, District 150 is not providing 6.6 hours of instructional time per day currently. They provide 6.5 hours of allocated time. Take out lunch and recess and you’re already at less than six hours of instructional time per day. Cut the allocated time by 45 minutes and and actual instructional time is at or near the Illinois state minimum of five hours per day.
3. “Revisiting Curriculum Integration: A Fresh Look at an Old Idea,” by Elizabeth R. Hinde from The Social Studies (May/June 2005)
The bottom line on the research concerning the efficacy of an interdisciplinary approach to curriculum is that when skilled, knowledgeable teachers employ integrated methods, student achievement is equal to, or better than, that of students who are taught in the traditional separate-subject approach…It is clear from the research that student achievement hinges on the teacher’s ability to integrate content across disciplines effectively in meaningful ways. (p. 107)
Elizabeth Hinde is an advocate for beefing up social studies education in the elementary grades. In her article cited above, we see that she is trying to solve the dilemma of getting more social studies education into a school day that is already too short. The solution she comes up with is “to integrate social studies content with those areas that the teachers are already teaching — an integrated or interdisciplinary curriculum.”
Although this article is not about integrating music, fine art, computers, or physical education into other disciplines, I assume the district cites it because it makes general references to research on integrated curricula. In addition to the quote the district pulled out, I think it’s important to recognize the rest of the paragraph from which it was taken:
For integration to be effective, teachers must have adequate knowledge about the content areas they are integrating, and they must have adequate training in integrative techniques. Furthermore, even though integration has proven to be effective in engaging students and increasing their achievement on standardized tests and other measures of achievement, there are some caveats that teachers and curriculum developers must consider.
First, we need to assess whether the primary school teachers have “adequate knowledge about the content areas they are integrating,” namely art, music, computers, and physical education in District 150’s case. Next, we have to ask what “training in integrative techniques” the district will be offering to these teachers and what that training will cost. Finally, it must be acknowledged that there are effective and ineffective ways of curriculum integration. Hinde warns against several pitfalls including “distorting the … content in the name of integration,” “watering down the content in order to integrate by including bits of information from numerous content areas without proper depth in any of the disciplines,” and “having students participate in activities that lack educational value in any content area and busy-work exercises.”
What controls are in place or will be instituted to ensure that integration of music, arts, computers, and physical education will be effective learning experiences for the children? The district did retain “two full time equivalent specialists per school.” This will help ensure adequate knowledge of those specialists’ subject matter. Each school will have to choose which subjects for which to retain specialists, and which subjects they will have to rely on the primary school teachers to cover starting next year. No teacher training plans in these new areas or on integration techniques in general are indicated.
Final Thoughts
The premise of District 150’s actions is best stated by Board of Education President David Gorenz. Here’s what he said in an e-mail to Bill Collier, the City of Peoria and District 150 liaison:
I would readily admit that the proposal to shorten the day by 45 minutes and change the schedule originated as a means to reduce cost. However as it was studied more by administration and the Board it was felt that there were considerable benefits to the schedule change of establishing a common prep period and a more integrated curriculum. So the question that had to be answered was were the benefits of the schedule change sufficient to outweigh the loss of 45 minutes.
Judging from the research, I do not see how the schedule change outweighs the loss of 45 minutes from the primary school day. Professional Learning Communities and integrated curriculum, if done properly, can provide numerous benefits that may improve student achievement; but there doesn’t appear to be a well-defined plan to ensure those methods will be implemented consistent with the research on which they’re based. Even if they were, the loss of 45 minutes from the school day arguably would negate the gains they would produce.
Dr. Thom Simpson stated at the May 5 Board of Education meeting that “this proposal does not take time away from the teachers – the student will still spend 315 minutes [5 hours and 15 minutes] each day with the teacher.” This statement is misleading. It is true that students will spend the same amount of time with their home room teacher, but they will be losing 45 minutes of (allocated) time with a specialist in subjects such as art and music.
That is no small loss. According to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies’ publication “Critical Evidence: How the ARTS Benefit Student Achievement,” “No Child Left Behind reaffirms the arts as a ‘core academic subject’ that all schools should teach. It puts the arts on equal footing with the other designated core subjects: English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, history and geography.” The time spent learning these subjects is critical to meeting federal standards. It’s not dead time.
By eliminating the 45 minutes of specialist time, the home room teacher will have to pick up the slack by integrating as much of those subjects as possible into the 5 hours and 15 minutes of classroom time that remains — time that, as we’ve seen, is already too short for meeting all the standards and benchmarks required by federal and state laws.
A better option would be to implement PLCs and subject matter integration without shortening the school day so that the quality and efficiency of the time currently allotted can be improved. The Board of Education then would need to find another way to cut costs, but there are many other options available that would not impact student achievement.
Based upon the definition of PLCs cited above, “educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve”, what will the collective inquiry and action research actually be about?
Since the advent of NCLB/AYP, much has been written about “teaching to the test.” Teachers have been structuring their lesson plans to cover those areas in which the children are tested. In at least one case, #150 has gone so far as to rehire a retired administrator, Aurthur Perkins, at a salary in excess of $133,000 per year, to help the students at Sterling improve their test scores.
In 1997, the State of Illinois adopted the Illinois Learning Standards that define what every student should know in core areas. These standards include goals, descriptors, and classroom-aligned assessments. Illinois public schools are to be teaching to these standards. Additionally, Illinois School Code mandates certain requirements in each academic area.
Will the district’s teachers, with their new, common preps and their integrated curriculum, actually be working toward compliance with the Illinois Learning Standards and the provisions of the Illinois School Code, or will their collective inquiry and action research be used to continue and improve the practice of “teaching to the test”?
… uh… let me think…
Thank you CJ, for this post!!
Did you see Glen Barton’s letter on PJS’s opinion page today?
“We desperately need to lift the geographic restrictions and increase the supply on charter public schools statewide so that students in Peoria have access to these strong-performing schools of choice.”
It says he represents District 150’s Foundation. Help me out here. Is he saying Dist 150 should have a charter school, or is he advocating we open Dunlap, Washington, Metamora etc. to all Peoria area students? If this is the case, who will be left in Peoria?
I have been remiss in keeping up with info regarding charter schools. Where has his voice been in regard to the shorter school day? Who in their right mind would believe you can get a “cutting-edge quality education” by shortening the school days and wiping out all the things that signify quality? (art, music, etc.)
PrairieCelt, I student-taught in those classrooms when those tests were given. Weeks were spent trying to get the “correct” information through the children’s heads before the tests. I agree with the teacher from Garfield, if this is what is expected of the teachers, shorter days is certainly not going to accomplish the goal and to hold teachers responsible is outrageous!
It becomes more and more clear as parents do the work the BOE should have done before the vote that this vote needs to be rescinded!
Educational psychobabble does NOT further education. They aren’t planning the invasion of Normandy for goodness sake. How is it we had quality education for decades and now all of a sudden it cost twice as much to graduate half as many? We need to get back to the basics and ditch all the group-think nonsense that has provided us with too many administrators and not enough teachers.
Very nicely done, C.J. It’s refreshing to read such an analytical and systematic debunking of the District’s reasoning. Hopefully this work can help somehow in the parents’ effort.
ImASwede: Do you have a link to this letter?
Thank you, CJ, for doing the work the Board should have done on their own BEFORE voting this in.
CJ-
Great post- obviously you spent a great deal of time pulling it together. I completely agree with your conclusion stated in your final paragraph. I read the material and went to the PLC website and, by using the provided filters; I discovered impressive results in many schools including an elementary school in Champaign, Illinois. Click to view the results here: http://www.allthingsplc.info/evidence/gardenhillselementaryschool/index.php
When I ran for the school board seat in 2007 I listed on my website several examples of approaches and solutions currently deployed around the country with impressive outcomes. I linked to an excellent PBS series hosted by correspondent Hedrick Smith for other examples of great results in communities with similar demographics. http://www.pbs.org/makingschoolswork/index.html
I suggested the school district might also want to consider the strategies used at Whittier through the leadership of Dr. Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat.
If there is ample evidence certain methods of pedagogy are being used effectively in some schools in Peoria and in other cities- what prevents District 150, taken as a whole, from becoming a success story?
My husband and I moved to Peoria in 1985. I remember people with school aged children complaining about how bad the schools were and being told not to buy a house in certain areas because of the schools. Yet in the twenty plus years we have been here the system is worse. Could it be that for too long the community has said they want to “fix” District 150 schools, but they prefer to sit on the side lines and wait for others to do the work?
I have news clippings that show the Peoria Journal Star has brought these trends to the public’s attention for years. Incidentally, as I was going through my files, I found an article from eight years ago suggesting we get on with finding alternative fuel sources and an editorial about the need to reduce sprawl. Today I heard gasoline is selling for $5.00 a gallon in some places in Nevada. The information and evidence is there to solve many of our problems -we just aren’t listening (or reading).
The Harvard change model is written C=D x M x P. Change is a function of (D) dissatisfaction with the status quo, (M) a clear, accepted model for the future, and (P) a well-designed plan of implementation. You can see that if any of the variables are zero you will get no change. Complacency (the appearance of zero dissatisfaction) allows the status quo to continue.
Maybe this issue of the shortened school day ,thanks to Diane Vespa and others, will be the tipping point that raises the community’s level of dissatisfaction high enough to finally drive real change- not just for this issue, as it is only a symptom, but for systemic change in District 150.
CJ You are right on target. I too have scrutinized the research presented by the administration. I just received the book On common ground:The power of professional learning communities yesterday. It is not new research and many points have been part of the district’s professional development for the last 8 years. It is all spelled out in the Strategic Plan for which current administrators were hired to implement. The problem is that for the last four years no one has been monitoring or implementing the Strategic Plan. Taking 45 minutes of instruction from a selected 6,000 of our bright, gifted elementary students will not increase student achievement or all the sudden create these Professional Learning Communities. It is impossible to do in a 45 minute period without intense professional development for adminstrators, teachers, and support staff. Any professional development for teachers will be very expensive….every teacher will receive at least $24.00/hour.
The other point I want to make is that if these Professional Learning Communities were so earth shattering why aren’t we doing it for all schools and all students. Why just enough schools to save the blundering mistake made in misuse of Title I funds. The amount being around $645,00.
If this were not all about money, they would have presented to the board an implementation strategy as part of a Master Plan. I have contacted board members and some administrators. No one has been able to produce the plan.
CJ you and I know more about the research than the board members or administration. The administration has totally taken parts of the research out of context.
Michael: The answer is simpler than you might think.
When did we have quality education? (Our “greatest generation” averaged an 8th grade education.)
Great post C.J., and you to Beth. Beth, I would have to say I disagree with your statement that, “Yet in the twenty plus years we have been here the system is worse.” I think the performance of students is worse, but I am not sure it is entirely the fault of the “system,” if you are referring to educational instruction.
Our family moved to Peoria in 2002 and at that time the PJS reported that 60% of students at District 150 were at poverty level. Now, six years later the figure being reported is 70%. My children attended Kellar Primary from “02” to “05” and what I observed during that period was a gradual decline in the overall caliber of students in attendance and the level of commitment and involvement of parents. The staff during that period changed very little. I found all the teachers my children encountered to be devoted, trained professionals. I found a significant percentage of children unprepared to learn, making it difficult for the classroom teacher to meet the needs of such a diverse group of students.
During the time my children attended Kellar, I begged the PTA and the Principal to push for enriched and accelerated learning opportunities and to extend the school day so that a foreign language could be included in the curriculum (at least 1/3 of entrants into Washington Gifted come from Kellar) but could garner no enthusiasm. It will be customized offerings in primary and middle schools within the District that will improve its performance and bring more families back to Peoria.
I am “frustrated” that the District seems to make no effort to attract higher performing students into the District, instead of focusing all their resources and attention on schools that are failing. No one should be surprised at the state of District 150. The shortening of the school day and the elimination of specialized teachers for art, P.E., and science will cause the District to fall even further.
I understand your frustration: it seems the district is more concerned with graduating the 70% that are unprepared than encouraging and addressing the needs of the 30% that are. (maybe they aren’t concerning with graduating them, but keeping them on the rolls, for funding purposes)
SO standards go down, requirements become lax, the day gets shorter, and 70% or more of students HATE school and graduate (maybe) and can neither read, nor write, let alone think critically.
link to Glen Barton letter to PJstar
http://www.pjstar.com/opinions/x1878566678/Illinois-should-raise-cap-on-charter-schools
I think Ken Hinton has brought up charter schools and his experience with them at previous school board meetings.
Yes, charter schools are even supposed to brought up in tonight’s meeting. They were on the agenda. Why cut school days when charter schools call for longer days? Simpson must be in on this… How can they advocate charter schools which typically have longer days and a longer school year and then turn around and cut class time for next year? What am I missing?
Did anyone besides me catch the comments Hinton was making about charter schools and taking a trip to Los Angeles? Illlinois has plenty of charter schools that are very successful. Are any of the board members questioning why he and God only knows who else, need to take a trip to California with our money?
http://www.incschools.org/find_a_charter_school.asp
Yep – Roadtrip!!!!
I thought the earlier talk of charter schools somehow involved Science/technology middle school they were pushing – and that they didn’t want to limit such a good school that to people who lived in Peoria.
Also, correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Spangler have kids at Edison? If I have my info correct, didn’t she send them there because she wanted longer days and more teacher/student contact?
A charter school can be started by an entity other than a school district, correct?
I think a charter school for Peoria would be something worth pursuing, however, I would prefer a party other than District 150 leading the charge. To state that the District Administration is scattered as to its mission and focus is an understatement. If you look at the some of the cutting edge programs they have attempted to implement, they appeared sound in concept but the District always seems to fail in its ability to execute. Just look at the recent fiasco in voting in the shortened primary school day. They heck and peck through educational research data, declaring common prep periods the solution to all that ails the District and yet . . . beyond cutting the school day, the District has been very short on details. The research C.J. cited clearly demonstrates that having all the teachers in one room at the same time is just the beginning. Are we to believe that all the strategy, integrated curriculum, etc. that the District wishes to impart during the almighty common prep period will be ready and in place come the beginning of next school year???
PC or OFK — Please help us out — wasn’t Greeley a chartered school in D150? And Greeley is no longer a chartered school, is that correct?
Karrie, it did start as a charter school and funding disappeared. Now it is a “safe” school where kids go who are on the verge of being expelled, I believe. It now holds two “schools.” Anyone in Peoria county in middle school or high school can go there if there is room at the safe school. It also holds Children’s Home children in the basement…..
http://greeley.psd150.org/schoolsite/default.aspx
Greeley was granted Charter School status during the Griffith administration. It would be interesting to FOI the original proposal and see how closely the district is adhering to its guidelines. You might be shocked!!
I would love to see a new charter school proposal. The support last night was awesome. I saw bloggers, parents and families, teachers, retirees, coming together. The support of the NAACP was an important endorsement. My point is that the group gathered last night could formulate what they would like to see in a Charter School. I did not hear Hinton’s last little part last night. He nor his adminstration should be the one trying to get together a Charter School. Milwaukee has phenomenal charter schools, however, it too is controversial but sure worth looking into. We cannot take 45 minutes from selected schools and students, for the sake of the $645,000 error. Let’s contact the state and get the guidelines. You can go to the ISBE website, type in Charter Schools, you can find great info. It does list the Peoria Alternative School. Makes for interesting questions to the school district. All of us needs to tag this website and read it faithfully to keep up with the state mandates.
I discussed Peoria’s charter school in this blog entry about restructuring; it’s about halfway down the post.
At one time, in its early days as a charter school, Greeley served students released from the Dept. of Corrections and children attending as an alternative to suspension/expulsion. The school has changed from its inception and now serves a wider student population.
State questions District 150’s use of federal grant money
Some plans may be put on hold as district must eat $681,000 in costs
PEORIA — Plans for District 150 to purchase as many as 30 buses may be delayed possibly up to a year to make up for what school officials are blaming on greater restrictions to federal grant money.
An audit by the state last year questioned District 150’s allocation of more than $800,000 in federal Title I funds, money directed to the district’s poorest schools, spent in the 2006-07 school year.
A six-month back-and-forth series of inquiries between state and district officials has all but ended with some $681,000 determined as not allowable, leaving District 150 to absorb the costs in the current fiscal year.
“We’ve never had these types of issues before,” said Carla Eman, a business manager for the district. “A majority has to do with (job) positions.”
The state cited the district for commingling approved budget line item expenditures, maintaining excessive cash balances – improperly allowing the district to collect interest income – paying salaries and benefits from grant funds not approved or in some cases reported incorrectly and conflicting reports that teachers were not highly qualified based on available documentation.
In some cases, the district acknowledged errors and that their system for keeping information was not adequate. In other cases, it was a matter of supplying the state with more detailed descriptions of how the money was being spent, documents state.
“We’re calling it our wake-up call,” Eman said. “We cannot just continue doing what we’ve been doing – just because it was OK the past 10 years does not mean it’s OK now.”
She said some jobs may need to be re-evaluated; others will have to find alternate revenue sources if they are to continue as they are.
Title I money is designed to supplement teacher and teacher aide salaries and benefits, supplies and materials – to help low-achieving children meet state standards in core academic subjects – vital in a district where nearly 70 percent of students are considered low income by the state. About 50,000 public schools across the country receive Title I money.
Eman said the majority of the disputed expenditures are associated with early childhood education, specifically costs tied to administrative positions, professional development and community service personnel.
Mary Ann Randle, District 150’s director of community, family and early childhood, said if expenditures do not directly deal with reading, math or science they are not receiving approval for funding.
The Illinois State Board of Education did not return calls for comment.
District 150 receives about $7.7 million annually from the federal government through Title I, with an additional $1 million that’s carried over year to year, Eman said.
Money under the federal program is given to school districts based on the number of students living in poverty. District 150 has 16 designated Title I schools, including the now-closed Loucks-Edison Junior Academy.
District 150 already received the disputed $681,000.
Bookwise, the state will adjust the amount of the 2008-09 Title I grant money the district will receive, Eman said.
Treasurer Guy Cahill said the district is considering deferring the purchase of buses to compensate, pushing the bus replacement schedule from four years to five years.
http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1056106737/State-questions-District-150s-use-of-federal-grant-money
How can seemingly equipment money (money for buses) be used to pay for educational (salary) expenses????
[Eman said the majority of the disputed expenditures are associated with early childhood education, specifically costs tied to administrative positions, professional development and community service personnel.]
Interesting that we have heard nothing about buses until now. I think we have all watched the latest school board meetings. Does anyone remember Cahill talking publicly about busses. A very good smoke screen for the Title I issue. Let’s not forget the dollar amount is the very same figure which caused the shortened school day fiasco. The sad part they almost pulled it off. Now they are saying the shortened school day is more about teacher planning time and what is best for our kids rather than the real reason for the 45 minute debacle. Don’t buy it for a minute. They honestly thought they could get by with the shortened school day. My one last question is where is the Teachers’ Union…..We need to question Scott Schiefling and his officers. Let’s not only e-mail and talk to school board members, administrators, but include the Teachers’ Union.