LeaderTalk

Homework - Are you talking about this in your school?

Considering the audience for the LeaderTalk blog, I am sure that some of you read the article in Greater Good entitled, "The End of Childhood?"  The article begin with the following two paragraphs:

• My daughter does her homework at our kitchen table at 5:30 p.m. while I cleanse lettuce leaves and roast asparagus for dinner. There are tears, very occasionally, and, more often, annoyed rants at social studies worksheets. She's lucky if she gets an hour of play in the backyard.
  
  Today children are overburdened and overscheduled, and so they are, in effect, losing the freedom to be kids—that is to say, losing unstructured time to run around and play. In four books published over the past year, we see that the calls for reducing homework and increasing playtime are reaching a crescendo. But these books also remind us that we as a society are still very far from bringing our day–to–day lives in line with these lofty goals.

The author of this  article is Mary Anne Abramowitz, Ph.D. (a pseudonym for a freelance writer) but it could have been my wife.  We have two daughters (first grade and second grade) who are fortunate to attend a wonderful elementary school. Yes, their school makes AYP and receives an “A” on the Florida School Report Card every year.  Their teachers are talented and creative and my daughters love school, except for one thing – homework.

As a former elementary teacher and administrator, and now as an educational administration professor, I know the issues around over scheduling young children’s lives and I know that play=learning.   We are committed to ensuring that my daughters have free-play time every day, even with Girl Scouts, choir, piano lessons and soccer.

The one activity that we do not have control over is homework.  There are days that my second grade daughter will have 2-3 hours of homework (spelling words, vocabulary, daily oral language, reading response journal, math problems, FCAT test prep worksheets).  This comes after a full day of learning and being on task at school.  She still loves school, but recently she said, “I hate Thursdays”.  She said this because there are so many assignments she has to complete to prepare for all of her tests on Fridays. She is 8 years old.  I didn’t have that much homework when I was in high school.  I am scared that her innate love of learning is going to be smothered by homework.

My daughters long to play outside, run around with our puppy, play make-believe, and do all of the things that we had time to do when we were in elementary school.  But, there are many days that all they have time for is homework, dinner and bed (hopefully with a bedtime story from me).

This is not meant as a condemnation of teachers, principals and schools.  I know the extreme demands that have been placed on schools from federal, state and local authorities.  I also know that schools that have been successful feel enormous pressure to maintain that success.  As a result, many teachers feel that they have to assign extensive homework to supplement the learning that occurs in school.  However, as noted in this article and extensive research,

• "widespread assumptions about the benefits of homework—higher achievement and the promotion of such virtues as self–discipline and responsibility—aren't substantiated by the available evidence" (Kohn, 2006).

As school leaders, are you having these discussions in your school with students, parents and teachers?  Do you have guidelines for acceptable and appropriate homework assignments?  Do you have suggestions for school leaders who are struggling with these issues?

Moral Leadership in a High Stakes World

After reading the posts and responses on the newly famous LeaderTalk blog, I feel like a neophyte among professional bloggers.  My previous blogging experience has been limited to a post on Dangerously Irrelevant.  I am excited to see practicing administrators blogging and talking about blogging as this is a small yet powerful indication that some in our field (educational leadership) are trying to catch up with the millennials.

I titled this blog "Moral leadership in a high stakes world" not as a prelude to an academic response, but more as an indication of what is on my mind.  In a student's doctoral exams, a few weeks ago, the issue of moral leadership and testing dominated our discussion.  Students and educators in Florida are in the middle of FCAT testing right now (Feb. 26 – March 9).  For those of you in states that test in April and May, imagine trying to get a year’s worth of growth by late February.

Scholars, educators and students are consumed by this metastasizing culture of testing that is spreading across our country.  I am not an accountability basher and I do believe that many of the tenets of NCLB are sound, however, when are we going to realize that we have gone too far.  As we approach discussions around the reauthorization of NCLB, there has been a burgeoning call for a rational testing policy.  Most of us acknowledge the need for a common statewide assessment and I am an advocate of frequent formative assessments. But are we teaching our kids to think, be creative, and appreciate the arts?

This is the moral dilemma that we face.  It is the rare superintendent or principal that publicly condemns high stakes testing.  If they do, they risk undermining their own ability to lead their schools to meet AYP and state-mandated achievement targets.  It is surreal talking with groups of school administrators whose voices espouse moral leadership against the culture of testing, but then as a group decry their inability to speak out publicly.

I find myself facing my own moral dilemma. I am teaching an eight-week web-based class on data-driven decision making that started yesterday.  I have 73 graduate students enrolled from across the state of Florida, and most of these are aspiring teacher leaders.  I truly believe that data-driven decision making is critical to student success, but that success has to be more than an FCAT score.  I know that the knowledge and skills that my students will learn will help them be more successful teachers and leaders.  I teach that it is critical to have a holistic perspective on data, including perceptions, processes and other sources, in addition to test data.  However, I wonder if even well intentioned, I am exacerbating this culture of testing.

I write this as a professor, former school administrator and teacher, and more importantly as a father of a two girls who have a love of learning that I never want to see diminished by an overemphasis on testing.