It all Starts in Cleveland
A while back I wrote a piece called “Teachers are Guilty”. The post was basically about how it was easier for teachers to close our doors and focus on our students and classrooms than to become involved with the ugliness of educational politics. For fear of offending some colleagues I didn’t publish the piece.
Recently The Cleveland Plain Dealer and StateImpact Ohio pulled a little PR stunt by publishing teachers names and “value-added” scores. They also made an amateurish attempt to mask this unethical report by also pointing out some of the flaws of using the data to evaluate teachers. Then, after saying it was wrong and inaccurate, they published anyway. I guess competent reporting takes a back seat to tabloid-like, website hit generating drama.
The Plain Dealer and StateImpact Ohio focused on Cleveland. Teachers across the state should pay attention because all educational ugliness begins in Cleveland.
The first Charter School Scam legislation was specific to Cleveland. While public education activists across the state tried to get it squashed the message from the charter supporters was “Don’t worry. It’s only an experiment. It’s specific to Cleveland.” And now we have failing charters all across the state.
Last year “The Cleveland Plan” was passed. While those paying attention opposed it the supporters had the same message as with the charters. “It’s specific to Cleveland.” One year later the Ohio House and Senate are trying to implement a similar plan to Columbus Schools and the Cleveland merit-pay system has been called a “statewide model” by Governor Kasich.
Flawed “value-added” scores were recently published just for Cleveland. How much longer until it’s a statewide outcry?
By Kevin Griffin, Dublin Education Association
Value-Added Scores Can Never Complete the Picture of a Teacher’s Work with Students
The following letter was sent to The Plain Dealer by fax to 216-999-6209 and through the Letters to the Editor form at http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/letter-to-editor/.
To the editor:
The Ohio Education Association was not contacted for comment on the Plain Dealer/StateImpact Ohio stories on the value-added scores of individual teachers, despite our expertise, which would have provided desperately needed context and perspective (Plain Dealer and StateImpact Ohio, June 16-17). Your reporters and editors admitted this value-added data was “flawed,” but they chose to surprise us for effect, rather than get our side in a spirit of fairness, balance and accuracy.
Had you called, we would have said this:
We are all accountable for student success – teachers, support professionals, parents, students and elected officials. And the Ohio Education Association is committed to fair teacher evaluation systems that include student performance, among other multiple measures. But listing teachers as effective or ineffective based on narrow tests not designed to be used for this purpose is a disservice to everyone.
Value-added ratings can never paint a complete or objective picture of an individual teacher’s work or performance. Trained educators can use a student’s value-added data, along with other student data, to improve student instruction. But you should never promote a simplistic and inaccurate view of value-added scores as a valid basis for high-stakes decisions on schools, teachers and students – even if Ohio legislators have gone down that misguided road.
Patricia Frost-Brooks, President
Ohio Education Association
Note: The Ohio Education Association is the largest professional education union in Ohio, representing more than 121,000 members working in Ohio schools and colleges.
The Puppet Masters
The education community is getting bombarded with new acronyms all the time: OTES, SLO, SGM, etc. Figuring out what they stand for is difficult. Figuring out their impact on public education in the short and long term is nearly impossible.
However, they are probably missing one very important acronym from their lexicon, one that represents the most influential corporate-funded political force operating in America today, one that has worked to dilute collective bargaining rights and privatize public education. ALEC.
ALEC, which stands for American Legislative Exchange Council, is a conservative organization that develops policies and language that can be used as part of legislation by multiple states across the country.
That probably doesn’t clarify much of anything.
In more concrete terms, ALEC creates legislation for elected officials to introduce in their states as their own brainchildren. ALEC is comprised of legislators and corporate leaders and has been operating in the shadows for about 40 years. They don’t solely focus on public education either. ALEC was the group behind the controversial “Stand your Ground” legislation in Florida, which was at the center of the Trayvon Martin shooting case.
In the documentary “United States of ALEC,” Bill Moyers calls the group “an organization hiding in plain sight, yet one of the most influential and powerful in American politics.”
Moyers’ comment about ALEC is absolutely on point. ALEC is more or less unknown in teacher circles. Teachers, who are focused on their students, generally don’t dabble in the political realm. They have not been interested in knowing or getting to know ALEC, at least until recently.
After the 2010 election — with the assaults to collective bargaining rights, the expansion of voucher programs and education reforms that emphasized testing and “accountability” — teachers in the Midwest got to know ALEC the hard way, though they still probably couldn’t identify it by name.
Think back to those bills that were signed into law in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio in early 2011. Ask yourself, how was it that different state legislatures came up with virtually identical anti-labor bills at the same time? The answer: ALEC. The group crafted the language and legislators waited for the most opportune time to introduce it. In Ohio they found it following the 2010 elections when Republicans took control of the Governor’s office and the legislature.
ALEC’s strategy is like the kid’s game of whack a mole. If they were to put out one piece of legislation at a time, education groups and organized labor could easily defeat each one in succession. Instead they toss out a slew of legislation all at once, so there isn’t enough time or resources to educate and mobilize the public. There is no way to effectively beat back all the reforms.
In “How Online Learning Companies Bought America’s Schools“ Lee Fang summed up ALEC’s strategy: “spread the unions thin ‘by playing offense’ with decoy legislation.” Spreading the unions thin has resulted in radical changes to classroom teachers’ everyday lives — changes that were made without the input of local school boards or educators.
As states have expanded voucher systems, schools have had to drastically reduced funding. These programs take money away from traditional public schools and give it to unaccountable and very often less effective private and charter schools. This means larger class sizes for us, less extra help for students and fewer electives.
They have also increased standardized testing, bringing with it the stress that goes along with constantly prepping students for high stakes tests. It’s frustrating because we all know that these tests are not a true indication of students’ progress and understanding. And now teachers are also experiencing the stress of state-mandated teacher evaluations.
These ALEC-induced policy changes have devastated teacher morale and driven many to retirement.
It’s astonishing how much impact one group can have without 95% of the public even knowing it exists.
By Dan Greenberg, Sylvania Education Association
CNN Story on Teacher Pay and Test Scores Misleads Readers
Yesterday CNN’s blog, Schools of Thought, posted a story on teacher evaluations entitled, “Ohio links teacher pay to test scores.“ While not categorically untrue, this blog seriously misleads by simplification.
The writer suggests that teacher evaluation legislation is sudden and the result of Governor Kasich’s efforts, when in fact, the development of a framework and model have been in process for several years under the guidance of the Educator Standards Board (comprised of educators, the majority of whom are public school teachers) and the support of the Ohio Department of Education.
The writer further suggests that teacher compensation will be driven solely by test scores. The truth is that schools are experimenting with systems to compensate teachers differently based on different roles and evaluation results. Such evaluations include observations of teacher performance relative to state teaching standards and evidence of student growth, not simply a raw score.
He also suggests that decisions about promotion, salaries, etc. will be based on test scores. They will instead be determined by policies and agreements designed and collectively bargained to address the local school community’s aspirations and needs.
Finally, while there is a Race to the Top (RttT) influence on policies and agreements in those school districts that chose participation in the federal initiative, RttT itself is not the driving force for change. It is simply a contributing factor. A more significant factor in shaping change is how districts actually decided to participate in RttT. That decision was made jointly by local school boards of education and teacher unions as a mutual commitment to labor-management collaboration to improve teaching and learning. It is also important to note that these commitments were made under the leadership of a different governor, state board of education, and legislature, not the current ones.
Your turn: We invite you to help respond to this article by sharing your thoughts, either in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter.
That Unfortunate Rite of Spring
Seasonal allergies dampen the enjoyment of spring for many people, as they battle runny noses and hay fever throughout March, April and May.
Fortunately for me, I don’t have seasonal allergies. I can enjoy the beautiful spring weather in Ohio, when it’s not snowing or raining. I can put the top down on my Mustang and drive to the park, without the aid of Zyrtec, Claritin or Kleenexes.
Unfortunately, though, my enjoyment of spring is not all that it should be. It’s not reduced by bad weather or a stuffy head. It’s not reduced by something that occurs naturally, like rag weed or pollen.
There’s something unnatural that creeps into my life every spring, ruining my mood on perfectly good spring days. That something is standardized testing.
The crinkling sound of carefully-counted, shrink-wrapped answer documents makes me cringe. The cluster of number 2, non-mechanical pencils makes me wince.
Those who have never had the pleasure of being a part of this standardized testing spring ritual may wonder why I have so strong an aversion to the process. After all, aren’t these tests important to measure student growth? Don’t these tests make public schools accountable?
No.
It would be great if these tests did measure student growth and increase accountability. Instead, these tests disenfranchise students and teachers and disrupt the educational process.
Students take plenty of tests they don’t like, but tests like the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) are particularly loathsome. In the weeks leading up to the tests, teachers often shift the focus from progress through the course curriculum, to OGT test preparation. Teachers are not giving the students the answers to the OGT, but they are giving test-taking strategies, explaining the format and showing practice tests from the ODE website. The lessons can be tedious, and students have a hard time understanding the point behind such lessons. After all, if I am teaching a persuasive writing unit where students compose essays about topics that are relevant to them, they are learning writing skills and are motivated to express their feelings. However, when I am showing them how to pick the correct usage of a semicolon, using grammar rules provided on the OGT test, they are just plain bored.
Students are also disenfranchised when they actually take the standardized tests. Every morning, they come into a classroom test site, where a teacher will drone on, using the OGT script of instructions that must be followed. The students must work in unison, to fill out their testing documents, even though they are well-versed in filling in the bubbles. As the students take the test, they can not have a bottle of water out, to sip through the two to three hours of testing. They can’t work on homework or listen to music if they complete the test early. They can’t even amuse themselves by reading the information on bulletin boards, because the boards are covered, so as not to give away any hints that might be of use on the tests.
My colleagues and I are disenfranchised too. We realize how much weight these tests carry on the district report card and are frustrated by all the things they don’t take into consideration. The test results don’t consider the students who transfer in from another district weeks before the high stakes tests are given. Whether they are proficient or not has little or nothing to do with the instruction they received in my district, but their scores count for my school district’s report card.
We are also disenfranchised as we deal with the upheaval created by the week or two of high stakes testing. At the high school, we change our schedule to dedicate the first two hours of the day to testing and we shorten our classes to about 30 minutes each. We move our classes to different places in the building, so we can have an isolated quiet testing zone for those students requiring extended test taking time. We refrain from giving our standard homework assignments and don’t give tests, as we don’t want to overload the kids and adversely impact their test scores.
The biggest reason that I dislike these tests is that they don’t measure the things that matter most to me and most of my colleagues. While I certainly place emphasis on teaching my students how to write good essays and analyze literature, what’s far more important to me is that my students are emotionally healthy and well-adjusted. I take far more pride knowing that I helped a student through a difficult time in his/her life with sound advice, than I ever would from seeing a student get “accelerated” on his Ohio Graduation Test in Reading.
Thankfully, testing season is over for another year. Like allergy season, unfortunately, it will be back again next year. Allergy sufferers hope that medical breakthroughs will provide them relief. Teachers hope that more accurate and effective ways to measure student achievement will be implemented. Until that time comes, we will do our best to endure the rag weed, pollen and standardized tests that weigh us down on otherwise beautiful spring days.
By Dan Greenberg, Sylvania Education Association
What the latest revelations on test cheating really mean
A year ago, I was one of four academics or test specialists that advised USA Today and its affiliated Gannett newspapers when it conducted a multistate analysis of irregularities in assessment data. These journalists worked with an excellent dataset – it had data at the level of individual students, which allowed us to ensure that erratic patterns reflected changes in the scores of individuals, rather than changes in the composition of a school (due to changes in enrollment at a school, for instance). The USA Today dataset also allowed the reporters and analysts to reveal erratic patterns in test scores and erasures rates from year to year.
The resulting USA Today story was therefore able to present a thorough and comprehensive analysis that resulted in the identification of relatively few schools at which there was a very high likelihood that systematic cheating was taking place. The journalists responsible for this story were later recognized with the Philip Meyer Award for investigative journalism. The series of articles resulting from this study prompted a federal Department of Education investigation into the testing practices at District of Columbia schools and it also resulted in a tightening of security around testing.
Given my past role in reviewing data and methods used for detecting systematic cheating, I was delighted to have the opportunity a week ago to review Ohio assessment data that was being used as part of a national study released today by The Atlanta Constitution-Journal and affiliated Cox newspapers. My review, however, yielded serious concerns about the data used, the methods of analysis employed, and the conclusions drawn. I shared these concerns with journalists at the Dayton Daily News, which is one of the Cox affiliates involved in this story.
To be clear, the Cox analysis may accurately detect irregularities in assessment results from year to year. But my own analysis of the data suggests that these irregularities are less likely due to actual cheating than due to mobility in student population (recall the lack of student-level data). Although the Cox news articles on this study offer a disclaimer that their analysis does not actually prove cheating, this disclaimer should be expanded considerably.
In short, here are some of my concerns about the methods:
- As noted, the analysis is based on school-level data and not individual student-level data. Accordingly, it was not possible to ensure that the same students were in the group in both years.
- The analysis of irregular jumps in test scores should have been coupled with irregularities in erasure data where this data was available.
- The analysis by Cox generates predicted values for schools, but this does not incorporate demographic characteristics of the student population.
- The limited details available on the study methods made it impossible to replicate and verify what the journalists were doing. Further, the rationale was unclear for some of the steps they took.
Yes, there may in fact have been cheating in some of the schools and districts flagged in the report. But it seems likely to me that most of those flagged were not in fact engaged in cheating. If a more thorough and rigorous analysis had been conducted, the number of flagged schools and districts would have declined substantially. With a more focused list of schools and districts, the journalists could have then contacted the schools to see if there were reasonable explanations for irregularities detected.
The resulting news story appears to be intended to be alarmist, implying that cheating is rampant in our schools. It is fortunate that the journalists in Ohio at least have restrained from reporting the names of the specific schools flagged, since suspicions would have been unfairly cast on hundreds of improperly flagged schools. The irregularities in such schools likely arose simply because there was a large change in the actual students taking the test from year to year.
Given that the methods used were much more likely to identify schools with high mobility, it comes as no surprise that charter schools are highly represented in the flagged schools and that the Houston Public Schools also garnered considerable attention. Recall that Houston was heavily impacted by the influx of students relocating there after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which is the starting year for the Cox analysis.
We all need to be concerned about cheating and its implications. At the same time, we need to be leery of sensational attempts to secure headlines with weak and incomplete analyses.
The increasing focus and reliance on standardized tests to evaluate schools and teachers is resulting in cheating. That’s probably inevitable. But it’s also probably minimal. The bigger problem is a more serious type of cheating – one that’s perfectly legal and apparently acceptable. Students are being cheated of a broader education that emphasizes a balance of creativity, extracurricular activities, foreign languages, higher math and science skills and other opportunities due to the over-emphasis on testing for basic math and reading. In this sense, a fixation on testing cheats not only our students but also their communities and the future employers who will depend on their creativity and can-do problem-solving. And our democracy is certainly cheated when our youth are unprepared for healthy civic engagement.
Yes, it is important for reporters and others to seriously pursue stories about schools engaged in wrongful practices. The groundwork done by the Cox reporters is part of that (although I wish they had pursued their investigation further and more carefully before publication). But we as a nation are missing the forest for the trees. No cheating on tests is as serious as the cheating done by the tests.
See the story at http://ow.ly/9RS98
By Gary Miron, professor of education at Western Michigan University who has extensive experience evaluating school reforms and education policies. Over the past two decades he has conducted several studies of school choice programs in Europe and in the United States, including nine state evaluations of charter school reforms. Before coming to Western Michigan University, he worked for 10 years at Stockholm University in Sweden.
Linda Darling-Hammond gets to the heart of education policy problems
“Why is Congress Redlining Our Schools?” is Linda Darling-Hammond’s incisive piece on No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top and the marginalization of our poorest children in the Nation’s most recent issue.
Please read it here or pick up a copy of the magazine. There are many things in the Darling-Hammond piece that surprised me, such as why the U.S. ranks so low in international education rankings – poverty! – and how the Reagan revolution dismantled reforms that really worked in the 1970s.
Today, Darling-Hammond zeroes in on how new federal programs – the proposed Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Race to the Top guidelines – deal with schools in the bottom 5%. Federal policy now formally redlines these schools, she concludes, just as banks have used a red line on a map to exclude some poor and minority communities from any kind of investment, mortgage or commercial loan.
I’m familiar with bank redlining practices as a former financial journalist. In the 1980s, most banks hired minority or community representatives as apologists and made lots of promises to minority groups as part of merger proposals. After the mergers, the banks abandoned branches in poor areas. They canceled inexpensive basic services. As they shut down shop, high-interest paycheck lenders, high-fee check cashing services and pawn shops moved in to victimize the poor.
Darling-Hammond says sanctions like closing public schools in the bottom 5% or turning them into charter schools will yield similar disasters for poor communities.
Here are the problems with sanctions against the bottom 5%:
- Sanctions will reinforce the trend toward “apartheid” and re-segregated schools.
- Sanctions will make communities “even less desirable places to work and live and stimulat[e] the flight of teachers and families who have options.”
- Teachers make a lot more money in affluent districts than they do in high-poverty districts, and teachers dealing with poverty have longer hours, larger class sizes and fewer textbooks.
- Charter schools leave behind students with learning and behavioral problems.
“Blaming teachers for the ills of high-need schools lets policy-makers off the hook and keeps the more fundamental problems of severe poverty, a tattered safety net and inequitable funding under the rug,” Darling-Hammond concludes. This irresponsibility is not just in schools themselves, but in the communities around them. Here’s what’s missing:
- Strategies to stem the rapid slide of families into poverty, homelessness and hunger.
- Ways to equalize the inequitable distribution of state and local funds to schools.
- Plans for improving teaching and learning conditions in underfunded, high-poverty schools.
- Recruiting strategies to stop the revolving door of inexperienced teachers.
- Investments in training on how to teach new English learners and students with disabilities.
- Preschool and wraparound services for more learning time, social services and healthcare.
Will we ever get a match between new common core standards and the common resource standards it will take to compete internationally? “Unlike high-achieving nations that fund their schools centrally and equally, most American states spend three times more on their wealthiest schools than they do on their poorest,” Darling-Hammond says.
In Ohio, Republicans threw away Gov. Ted Strickland’s funding plan, which aimed at equality as a long-term goal. On the national scene, both parties are soon going to preside over budget cuts that will cut as many as 30,000 teachers, NEA says. If you follow Darling-Hammond’s logic, nobody can demand great results from a system of standardized tests and sanctions like the one we’ve been in since No Child Left Behind.
By Michael Mahoney, OEA Director of Communications
The OGT Is My Michigan Game
One of those countless Friday after-work discussions we have with our teaching colleagues has stuck in my mind for the past year.
“We’re the only profession in the world,” stated a fellow teacher, “where we are judged not by how we perform, but by how other people perform.”
That stopped me in my tracks. Usually I have a snappy comeback to just about anything that’s thrown my way involving education, but I was left speechless, thinking of a response.
“Except for college coaches,” I replied, after much thought. “They’re judged on how well their team does.”
“Maybe,” they said, “I never thought about it that way.”
I’ve continued to think about that exchange in the year since it happened. I’ve come to the conclusion that I was wrong-I think college coaches have it a lot easier than we do as teachers, especially when it comes to state achievement tests.
When I teach my sophomore students at Brookhaven, I use a lot of sports analogies-especially football-it’s in my DNA.
My paternal grandfather’s father was a teacher, principal and later superintendent. It was only natural that after graduating from Denison my grandfather also became an educator, teaching high school social studies and coaching high school football on the side.
He enlisted in the Navy shortly before the attack at Pearl Harbor, seeing the gathering storm clouds of war on the horizon-such was the mettle of his generation. After being honorably discharged, he worked as a head football coach for Denison, Miami, and was hired on at Ohio State after Wes Fesler resigned due to too many losing seasons.
He was hired by Ohio State’s Board of Trustees to achieve one goal- to have a winning season, but especially to beat Michigan each and every year.
I was hired by the Columbus Board of Education to achieve one goal- to help my students graduate, something that cannot happen unless they pass the Social Studies Ohio Graduation Test (OGT).
That is why the Social Studies OGT is my Michigan game.
Building His Team
In his years at Ohio State, my grandfather actively recruited the best talent for his team. He knew who was returning from the previous year and had a total of 88 slots to fill on his team roster.
A select group of Ohio State football loyalists called frontliners helped to funnel talent onto the team. By phoning in the names, scores and stats of prospects from their corner of the state my grandfather knew which houses to go to for a recruiting visit. His tried and true pitch was delivered not to the Ohio State hopefuls, but to their parents over the kitchen table.
“If your son comes to Ohio State,” he would say after eating a home-cooked meal with seconds of the best pie he’d ever had, “he’ll get an education and graduate with a diploma. I’ll make sure of it.” That inevitably cemented the decision of the parents and he would walk out of their home with another slot on his roster filled. He was one player closer to beating Michigan.
There were a few remaining spaces on the squad left open for walk-on hopefuls. Countless college freshmen from every corner of Ohio as well as the nation tried out every year for the few slots before the season began. Many tried out, but few succeeded.
Building My Team
The 150 spaces for my players are filled each year by a computer– I can’t recruit. My players hail from every corner of the district and many come from other countries. Each one of my players are walk-ons, and all succeed in joining my team.
I have no frontliners to tell me the tales of my players’ previous performances, but I do have access to my players’ stats. Every conceivable piece of data on each one of my players, including their scores on state achievement tests, grades, attendance and disciplinary record is just a few mouse clicks away.
Many times my first contact with my players’ parents is over the phone during summer after they’ve decided that their child is attending my school. Usually our first face-to-face meeting is during Open House, and I can’t remember the last time I was invited over for dinner.
My goal is the same as my grandfather’– the players on my team will get an education and graduate with a diploma too, but they have to pass the Social Studies OGT first-it’s their Michigan game as much as it is mine.
Ohio State Practices
My grandfather’s practices were legendary for their frequency, length and intensity. Two-a-days in the summer were a foregone conclusion, as were practices over holidays and breaks during the season. A typical practice lasted for hours, and wasn’t over until he was said it was over.
Daily practice for his team was brutal. New and returning players were expected to memorize the team playbook– it guided his practices. Fundamentals were emphasized from the moment a player joined the Ohio State team. A skill not learned was practiced again, again and again until the player mastered it. His objective was to push his players beyond their limits; he believed that practice should be hard and that the game should be easy.
“If you’re going to fight in the North Atlantic,” my grandfather would say, referencing the hard-hitting preparations his players endured day after day, “you have to practice in the North Atlantic.”
Freshman players were required to attend my grandfather’s mandatory literacy course after practice, Word Power book in hand. He knew it would prepare his players to be victorious off the field. Knowing the word “apathy”, for example, might not help them in the huddle, but it would in a business meeting.
My Practices
My practices are no less brutal than my grandfather’s, but I am limited to just one per day, totaling 5 per week. Instead of lasting hours, my practices last precisely 48 minutes a day. I do not have the luxury of ending them when I truly want to- the bell does that for me.
My players don’t have a playbook-I do. Mine is a three-ring binder labeled “Curriculum Guide” and it sequences my practices everyday. I emphasize fundamentals for my players as well. They practice skills again and again until I am satisfied they have mastered them.
I push my players to their limits so that their practices are hard and their Michigan game-the OGT-is easy.
“If you’re to pass the Social Studies OGT and graduate,” I tell my players, “you’re going to take every quiz and test in my room under the same conditions of the OGT. That means no talking during the quiz or test, and I can’t help you on questions you don’t understand-you’ll have to figure it out on your own.”
My players need word power, but I don’t use a book with that title. Literacy strategies are embedded within my players’ practices. Knowing the difference between the word “Legislator” and the word “Legislative” could spell the difference between a victory and a loss for my players.
Ohio State’s Season Begins
My grandfather knew well in advance of the regular season what the schedule was for his players. His season would consist of games where his players would regularly face off against the Boilermakers, Spartans, and of course the Wolverines. Some games were played in the familiar setting of the Horseshoe; others were played on the road, in an unfamiliar town and a foreign stadium.
Armchair quarterbacks and analysts throughout the state awaited the first game of the season between the Buckeyes and their non-conference opponents. My grandfather was oblivious; he saw the first game of the season as the first of many tests for his players. For him, it assessed how they applied the lessons they had learned throughout summer practice, their endurance, and ultimately their will to win.
The first game of the season was always played during the sweltering heat on a Saturday in late summer, and the visiting team knew they were cannon fodder for a group of Buckeye players who wanted nothing more than to win.
At the first game of the season, tens of thousands of fans fit themselves into the Horseshoe’s then 80,000 stadium seats to see the Buckeyes win. The noise level in the stadium was always deafening- sometimes my grandfather’s team could barely hear the play that was being called for the next down. At the end of the first game, my grandfather’s players would go to the locker room. The media was always there, clamoring to interview the players and their coach.
My grandfather would stay late into the night at his office deep in the bowels of the stadium after the Buckeyes’ first matchup, reviewing game films to assess how his players performed. His assistants would always be present, and by the end of the long night, my grandfather had pinpointed mistakes made by individual players and the team as a whole. His players would learn from their mistakes in the coming practices until they got it right for the next game.
My Players’ Season Begins
I know what the season’s schedule is for my players as well, though unlike my grandfather, I have the luxury of being able to reschedule a game if I think my players aren’t ready. My season consists of games where my players regularly face off against the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, Imperialism and types of economic systems, to name a few. Almost all of my games are home games, played in the same stadium-my room.
My first game is played in the sweltering heat of a September weekday, and it is always a test for my players-the literal kind, not figurative. Some of my players believe they are cannon fodder for a test that wants them to do nothing more than fail. For me, their first game assesses how they apply the lessons they have learned throughout our practices and their will to win.
My players fit themselves into the thirty five desks in my stadium during their first game; I am the only fan allowed in. The noise level in my room is non-existent and my players can always hear a pin drop during their game. At the end of the game, my players are dismissed by a bell-no reporters are there to conduct interviews.
I, too, review my players’ films-their results from the first game. Usually I am up late that night assessing their performance as well. I have no assistants, but I am able to pinpoint mistakes made by my individual players and my teams as a whole. My players will learn from their mistakes in the coming practices until they get it right for the next game.
Countdown to His Michigan Game
After each game, my grandfather would continue to prepare his assistants and his players for the next match up, the impending game with Michigan drawing closer with each practice. It was always in the front of his mind-and his players’. My grandfather knew that each player’s performance on the field for the game must be perfect, and that his team had to rely on each other to claim a victory in their upcoming battle.
He reviewed every film of every game Michigan had played against their opponents in current and past seasons, memorizing the intricacies of each. He would be up at night and early in the morning in front of the projector screen, rewinding and fast forwarding to catch the mistakes the Michigan team on the field and exploit it for the success of his players in their upcoming battle. To do this, he spent hours devising a counter to every play and strategy Michigan employed on the field against their opponents, and made his players practice it to perfection.
In the week of the Michigan game, my grandfather would run extended practices. He had his players run through every play that would be used against Michigan, insisting on perfection from his players. Failing to prepare his team to beat Michigan was out of the question for him. Losing this crucial battle could have cost him his job during some of his years at Ohio State if his players didn’t perform.
My grandfather started an Ohio State football tradition the week of the Michigan game-the senior tackle. Seniors that would graduate in the spring would get to drive the tackling sled a few yards as the official send-off before their final regular season game. It was his way of thanking the players for their hard work and focusing them on the task that lay ahead.
The night before the Michigan game, my grandfather always sequestered his players in a hotel to keep them focused on the game to be won the next day. Lights were out at 11 P.M., and there were no outside distractions.
Countdown To Their Michigan Game
I continue to prepare my players for each next game of their season, their impending matchup with the OGT drawing closer with each practice. It is always in the front of my mind-and most of my players’.
I have spent hours devising lessons for every potential strategy the 42 members of the Social Studies OGT squad will use against my players. I have reviewed every game played by the OGT, and have memorized the intricacies of each question in the four seasons the state has exchanged game films with the education community.
I have spent late nights and early mornings in front of the computer screen, clicking back and forth, knowing full well that the OGT will perform flawlessly; it will make no mistakes that my players can exploit. My players’ performance must be perfect and they will enter the game as a team of one, and must rely on themselves to claim a victory.
In the week of OGT testing, our class schedule is dramatically altered, and if I see my players, it’s for no more than a half an hour, a far cry from an extended practice. I can’t review for the OGT with my players because failure to abide by the Ohio Department of Education’s rules for testing could cost me my job at Brookhaven.
My players attend an OGT pep rally in the auditorium the Friday afternoon prior to the week of testing. A few released test items are offered on the LCD screen, some of which are old Social Studies questions. Their heads turn towards me during the relative silence as I yell “You better get this one right!”
My players spend the night before the Social Studies OGT at their own homes, in their own beds, and there are plenty of distractions-TV, radio, cell phones, and the internet.
The Day Arrives for His Players: What Could Be?
The morning of the Michigan game, my grandfather would have a breakfast of toast and orange juice with his captains-a tradition at Ohio State. They would talk strategy, of the plays to be called, the situations they could encounter, the unforeseen that they tried to prophesize. When everyone was properly dressed in coats and ties, the players were led by my grandfather to chartered bus. The group arrived at the stadium early, and continued going over plays and diagrams for the battle that was about to ensue.
There was endless media coverage the day of the Michigan game; media representatives from far and wide crowded the stadium. The players were subject to endless media speculation on every aspect of the game that would be played in a few hours. It was always a foregone conclusion that the contest’s results would decide the outcome of the team’s season and their chances at a Bowl Game.
Seniors on my grandfather’s college team desperately hungered for a final victory against Michigan. To lose in the final matchup against their arch-rival would deny them the privilege of bragging for the rest of their lives.
The Day Arrives For My Players: What Must Be.
The morning of the 2009 spring Social Studies OGT, my players had breakfast with each other-every one of them a captain of their team of one. They board their school bus and arrive at their stadium before students who aren’t testing, but there are no last-minute review sessions for their upcoming personal battle.
My players are lucky if there’s a mention of the OGT on the news; no reporters of any kind come anywhere near their stadium. The players on my teams are subject to endless self-speculation; it is state law that the contest’s results will decide the outcome of their own season and their potential chances at a diploma.
The handful of high school seniors on my teams desperately hunger for a final victory against the social studies OGT. To lose in the final matchup against what has become their arch-rival would deny them the privilege of participating in graduation with their peers.
Game Time At The ‘Shoe
When players on my grandfather’s team took the field, they ran at breakneck pace from the locker room to the field, and were met with deafening cheers from the tens of thousands of fans in the stadium. Despite the overwhelming noise, I don’t think my grandfather heard any of it. The millions of armchair quarterbacks throughout the nation that were tuned in to see the pending battle of wills hooted and hollered in front of their television sets too, but he didn’t hear them, either.
Immediately before the game, the PA crackled to life.
“Please join us in singing the national anthem,” a disembodied voice always said. Hats were removed, and the stadium reverberated with tens of thousands of voices singing in unison as the Stars and Stripes were hoisted up the flagpole at the closed end of the stadium.
Throughout the game, my grandfather stood with his squad gathered together, and stalked the sidelines like a caged animal. A chalk-dust line was the only thing separating him from his team on the field, sometimes failing to hold him back. During the game, he received constant updates from his assistant coaches as to the progress of his team. He could and did bark “Robust Fullback Delay” or the other names of plays to his players on the field from the sidelines to influence the course of the game.
If the referee flagged my grandfather’s team on a play for an irregularity on the field, the decision would come quickly and could have been a setback to the team, but would not necessarily cost them the game.
My grandfather always knew who had the ball, and what down it was. If there was any question as to the progress of the game, he could quickly glance over at the scoreboard. Fans and my grandfather alike counted down the last few seconds of the sixty minute game from the scoreboard. The players on my grandfather’s team would know the final score of the season’s most important game as soon as the time ran out.
Fan reaction would vary at the end of my grandfather’s players’ game. If the players won, the thousands of fans would swarm the field, tear down the goalposts and bedlam would ensue. If the players lost, the mass of Ohio State fans would quietly file out of the stadium.
Game Time At The ‘Haven
Shortly before my players take the field, the PA crackles to life.
“Teachers, please make sure you remove all of the flags from your room before the students arrive to take the Social Studies OGT,” the disembodied voice says.
The directive is well intentioned, but a mistake. In the previous state achievement test given before the OGT, there were questions asked about the significance of the number of stripes and stars on the Flag-none exist on this test. In rooms across the school, teachers hurry to move Flags to rooms where students aren’t testing.
When players on my team get ready to take the field, they walk, calmly and carefully. No fans cheer them on, save one-me. As each passes me by, I give them each a “Deal or No Deal” Howie Mandel “fist bump”, meeting their gaze with mine and saying only three words.
“You got this.”
Throughout my players’ game, they are separated into different rooms-split up, categorized by last name. My players are scrutinized by the silent gazes of two teachers assigned to their room as proctors-referees, not fans. They are the only individuals that will bear witness to the game that my players have been training for over the past six months that is about to play out before them.
I am not even on the field with them-I am assigned to be a hall monitor. I catch glimpses of my players throughout the game as I stalk the halls. During the game, I have no updates regarding the progress of my team. Even if I was on the field with my players, I cannot bark “Constructed Response Delay”, lest I lose my teaching license.
If my players are flagged by the referees in the room for a perceived testing irregularity, the state is the final arbiter. Their decision takes months and could cost one or more of my players their game.
I am intentionally kept in the dark as to the progress of my players’ game-even if I have questions, I cannot find out answers during the game. The two proctors in each one of my students’ stadiums count down the last few minutes of the two and a half hour matchup.
The reaction of the proctors at the end of my players’ matchup is always the same, three short sentences:
“Stop. Put your pencils down. Testing is now over.”
The players on my team won’t be notified by the state of the score of their most important game until nearly two and a half months from when their time ran out.
After His Michigan Game: Everything’s Coming Up Roses
My grandfather’s players prepared for the game as a team and won or lost as a team. For the senior players on the squad, a game-winning score was met with jubilance, smiles, hugs, high-fives, even tears of joy. Seniors who didn’t win their game walked out of the stadium in a somber mood; most were quiet, dejected. Others were visibly angry-some cried. Spring graduation couldn’t come quickly enough for some of them.
Regardless of whether his players won or lost, my grandfather was always besieged by the media to comment on the game, its significance to him, his players, Ohio State’s football program or college athletics in general. If my grandfather did comment, he would always credit the hard work of his players and his assistant coaches.
After My Michigan Game: Is Everything Coming Up Roses?
My players prepared for the game as a team but will win or lose as individuals.
My senior players won’t learn the score of their game until a month before they are supposed to graduate.
My seniors will greet their game-winning score with smiles, sighs of relief, hugs, high-fives, even tears of joy
If there are those who don’t win their game, they too will be somber. Most will be quiet, many will be angry- some may cry. Only a month away, graduation with their class is not a possibility. They must take the OGT again, endure the long wait for their score and graduate in late summer.
No reporters will stay to talk to me when I learn my players’ scores and ask me about the game I didn’t see, its significance to me, my students, Columbus City Schools or the future of urban education. If I were asked, I would credit my players for their hard work and their families for supporting them in the biggest game of their lives.
The Saturday after the OGT, I begin to prepare for the remainder of my players’ year.
What’s Really Important?
In his early years, my grandfather was met by ivory-tower opinion from a handful of Ohio State faculty members about the growing emphasis on the University’s football program over its academic program.
“Football,” they opined privately and publicly, “should always come after academics.”
Education armchair quarterbacks who have never set foot in a classroom like mine question teachers who they think put too much emphasis on their students passing achievement tests alone. In their ivory-tower opinion, “teaching to the test” debases the very point of standardized achievement testing and “dumbs down” the curriculum.
I don’t teach to the test; I teach around it, behind it, through it and over and above it.
My grandfather used football as an analogy and a metaphor for life-the lessons his players learned on the field was more than X’s and O’s, playbooks and statistics. From him, they learned about hard work, about perfection and especially the will to win-lessons that would be used repeatedly throughout their lives.
I use the time I have with my students to get them ready for what lies in wait for them. I want them to learn more about hard work, about perfection and especially the will to win-lessons my students will use repeatedly throughout their lives.
Words of Wisdom
Several of my grandfather’s statements about hard work have gained a life of their own.
“In all my years of coaching,” he would state at his speaking engagements, cleft chin jutting out, “I’ve never seen anyone make a tackle with a smile on their face.” Crowds would nod their approval, murmuring among themselves.
“And,” he would inevitably add at some point later on in the same speech, “you win with people.”
In all my years of teaching, I’ve never seen anyone pass the OGT with a smile on their face either. And you do win with people.
By Phil Hayes, a social studies teacher at Brookhaven High School, Columbus EA, who writes on his own blog, Room 18