What to do on MLK Day

As we take time today to honor Martin Luther King Junior, it is important that we do not fall victim to celebrating a hollow caricature of the actual man that lived and died for the cause of civil rights.  If you are serious about reflecting on King’s life and legacy, here are some things I would recommend:

1. Read “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”  Sadly, the most people know of King are excerpts from his “I Have a Dream” speech.  Letter is much more nuanced, and raises some interesting questions.  In it, he blames white moderates more than overt racists (like the Klan) for the problems facing African Americans.  I am asking you to read it to challenge both your personal beliefs and your individual conception of the history of the civil rights movement.
2. Find the time to watch or read a couple of King’s speeches beyond “I Have a Dream.”  Personally, the most profound speech he gave was his last – usually dubbed his “Mountaintop” speech. 
3. Reflect on how we view King now versus how he was viewed in his lifetime.  In 1963, 60% of Americans thought the March on Washington was a bad idea.  In 1964, 63% of Americans thought the Civil Rights movement pushed too fast.  58% said they were violent.  And in 1966, 72% of white Americans had an unfavorable view of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (all of these were shared again today by the Southern Poverty Law Center).  Ask yourself: why has this changed?  Have we recognized – with the benefit of hindsight – the value of his tactics and what he was fighting for?  Or have we forgotten some of the elements of King’s philosophy and actions?
4. Expand your understanding of King and other Civil Rights Reformers.  Read about the Poor People’s Campaign, King’s fight against the Vietnam conflict, or why King felt that the mobs he saw in Chicago were more hateful than anything he experienced in Mississippi or Alabama. 

This should rightfully be a day of service – but since the weather really is not allowing that – let it be a day of self-reflection.  Expand your understanding of the Civil Rights Movement that King was a part of, and ask yourself: how well would he be received if he was active today rather than fifty years ago?  How welcome would his message be?  And how do we continue his mission to make our country a more welcome and tolerant place?

   

The Day After The Election

Dear Students,

I am of the profound belief that as your teacher, I must remove my own beliefs from how I present politics in the classroom.  You are at a time in your life where you are at or near voting age, starting to figure out where you stand on the issues, and the last thing I would want to do is influence your beliefs in any way.  Having a student vote like me because of me is an idea I abhor.  I will always prefer a world where you develop your own political ideas independently that stand opposite of mine than believe what I do simply because I believe them. 

So for the past several months, as I have encouraged students to get engaged, watch the debates, attend candidate forums, make electoral map predictions, I have done so with the intent of remaining politically neutral.  I hope I made good on that promise.

But I feel that there is one message I have to get out there.  I have said this in all of my classes today, but I want to share it digitally as well.  In this day after the election – a historic, unprecedented, divisive election – everyone needs to take a step back and attempt to understand the real perspectives that are out there.  Since 7:30 this morning, I have spent basically every non instructional minute of my day talking to students who are legitimately scared and worried about what the outcome of the race means for them.  I'm guessing few are surprised that most of these students are young women and/or minorities.  This should not surprise you – a candidate that was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan and is being accused of sexual assault by multiple people just became President of the United States.   Please, if someone shares these concerns … don’t argue with them.  Their perspective is their own, and valid, and they should feel safe to share it.  I have heard well intended students today try and argue with them about their fears – not out of being rude but in many cases to try and reassure them (for example, I heard a student point out that Trump disavowed David Duke and the KKK).   That is not what these kids need right now.  If you really think their fears about the status of women, members of the LGBTQ community, and minorities are unfounded, keep that to yourself.   You need to understand some of your peers feel genuinely unsafe.  And being a kind, decent human being means that you are willing to be there for them and willing to listen even if you aren’t necessarily on the same page.  Telling them how they should think is the last thing to do at this point.  Because even IF your point is true (to use the earlier example, Trump has disavowed the support of white supremacists), their point is EQUALLY true (that racists have used the Trump campaign as an excuse to verbally and physically harass minorities). 

I am sure that some will see this as an anti-Trump post.  Sorry, it’s not.  If anything, this is post is anti-winner.  If the opposite situation came to pass and Clinton had defeated Trump, and I had students coming to me panicked about some kind of repercussion, I would do everything in my power to reassure them too and to encourage others to reassure them.  I think this message of understanding and reassurance is important because above all else, even above the content I teach, my number one concern is that my students feel safe and supported.  Some might read this and claim I am overstretching my responsibilities as a teacher, but if you saw the genuine fear in the eyes of some of my students today, you would not be maintaining that position.  I would not be fit to be at the front of the classroom if I didn’t do everything I could to reassure those kids today.

I felt compelled to post this because this election was without a doubt an incredibly personal one, and so it has affected people in deep, personal ways.  What everyone can do is try stop and try and figure out each other’s perspectives.  Why did you see Clinton as a corrupt Washington elite that needed to go, when your friend saw her as a strong advocate for children’s rights that would help improve the conditions of the working poor?  Why did you see Trump as a racist misogynist when someone else saw him as an anti-establishment candidate that would help improve the conditions of the working poor?

If you are a Trump supporter, enjoy this stunning victory that literally no one (not even the Trump campaign) predicted.  It is historic – he is the 5^th President to win the office WITHOUT the most votes by virtue of winning the Electoral College, and it will force pollsters to basically start from scratch in how they try and measure public opinion.  If you are a Clinton supporter and upset – channel that energy into the 2018 midterm election.  Get involved.  Vote.  Make a difference.  Everyone needs to, because here’s one thing EVERYONE can be sad about: that less than 50% of eligible voters actually voted in this election.  You ALL need to make your voice heard.  We will talk elections again in 2 years.

And remember, if you need someone to talk to, you’ve always got someone willing to listen up in room 203.

-Mr. Royers

We Have Three Weeks: Make School Funding An Election Issue

The election is only three weeks away, and despite how long the campaign cycle has been and how much it has dominated the news and social media, we have barely heard a thing about education.  It certainly was not brought up in the presidential or vice presidential debates (although it was nice to see the first town hall question get asked by a teacher!).  The only way this can change is if we demand that education get the attention it deserves.

Down-ballot races certainly do spend much more time discussing education.  There, you will find a refreshing level of discussion on a variety of education topics.  The League of Women Voters in Omaha puts out videos each election of candidates responding to various questions.  Here are the two candidates for the Nebraska Unicameral in my legislative district, Rick Kolowski and Ian Swanson:

They talk about embedding mental health programs within school districts, the need for charter schools, and developing educational opportunities that help keep the next generation of Nebraskans in Nebraska.  The State Board of Education candidates (their video can be found here) bring up the importance of early childhood education, reducing the ratio of teachers to students, and competency based education among other ideas.  Still, even in those down ballot races, there is one glaring topic that is missing:

How will we fund our schools?

Our schools are underfunded.  There are fewer teachers in Nebraska now than there were ten years ago, despite the fact that there are more students.  Districts have attritioned out positions, cut their budgets, and eliminated as many peripheral programs as they can to try and keep the impact of being chronically underfunded as far from the classroom as possible.  Candidates for elected office will often speak passionately about education initiatives they would like to see get implemented, but almost NEVER discuss how those will be funded.  Yes. We absolutely should have a comprehensive preschool program available for our young kids.  How are we paying for that when districts are already cash strapped now (my district, Millard, increased its budget by less than one percent this year)?  Yes, having more time for one on one instruction will undoubtedly help students – but how will you pay for the additional FTEs necessary to make that happen?

We need to hold elected officials accountable. For too long we have let them get away with speaking about how much they value strong schools, and how much they care about teachers while at the same time demanding cuts in funding sources for the very same system they claim to value so highly.  It is an absolute tragedy that teachers are being told that their district can either put money into salary and benefits or maintain current staffing levels to keep class sizes down.  If teachers were truly valued, districts would never be placed in a position where they would have to present teachers with that choice.

Funding is not a panacea.  It has to be used wisely, and with clear intent.  But too often, people have pointed at districts with high per pupil costs and low achievement as proof that funding requests are not needed for schools, but simply wanted.  Those instances are good examples of a break down in oversight, not examples of why we should not fund schools. 

There is nothing wrong with running on a platform to reduce property tax burdens, but we need to challenge candidates to explain how they will make up the lost revenue for schools, because otherwise they are not just in favor of tax cuts, they are also in favor of school cuts.

Often times, wasteful spending will be trotted out as a response to the idea that we need to increase school funding - that if schools simply cut out unnecessary personnel or a program that does not directly benefit learning, then they would free up the needed funds.  The problem is that cutting “waste” has rapidly diminishing returns.  If I spring clean my house from top to bottom over a weekend, I can brag about how much dirt and grime I got out of my house.  If I vow to do the same thing the next week, I would remove a lot less dirt and grime the second time because I just cleaned my house like crazy only a week ago.  Cutting “waste” is a one off solution at best, and then we are right back to the issue of a funding shortfall.

I want to be clear that I am saying this as both an educator AND tax payer.  Every bond issue I support, every levy change I advocate – I feel that as a home owner because I live in the district I teach in.  The biggest issue I have found is that even the most vocal supporters of their schools are often late to the party when it comes to political engagement.  Take the budget battle in neighboring Westside School District for example.  Facing a funding shortfall, the district was preparing to cut their elementary music program. The community rallied to the program’s defense, including an appearance at a board meeting by the CEO of the Omaha Symphony.  They clearly care about the programs that are available to their kids.  But here’s the problem – at that point it became a binary choice for the district.  If they save the music program, they have to cut somewhere else (and they did, they eliminated elementary Spanish instead).  Where were those parents when LB959 was proposed in the Unicameral that put spending restrictions on schools?  How many times has the CEO of the Omaha Symphony testified to the Unicameral about the need for more funding for schools?  We need to tap into the countless parents and community members who love and care about their schools and proactively engage lawmakers to realize that we need to fund these schools at adequate levels.

When I graduated from Millard West in 2003, there were around 1700 students.  Now we are at about 2500.  There are the same number of administrators.  The same number of administrators to work with 800 more kids and a much larger faculty.  How can I expect them to evaluate me as effectively as they evaluated their teachers fourteen years ago?  How is it okay that we have kindergarten classrooms in the mid to upper twenties for class size?  How can we even consider implementing a teacher residency model, providing more interventions and other services for high needs schools, increasing plan time, providing more meaningful staff development, giving new teachers better support … all things that have a huge impact on academic achievement … if districts are struggling to finance their existing programs?

This all comes down to engagement.  Lawmakers push tax cuts because that is what they hear from their constituents.  We need more people to tell lawmakers to fund our schools.  And it needs to be done with the intention of informing and sharing perspectives.  If lawmakers sense that this is a community priority, they will advocate for it.  We have three weeks until Election Day.  What will you do to get education funding on the radar of candidates in your area?  What proactive steps will you take to make sure you do not have to stand in front of your school board, pleading with them to not cut a program that positively impacts your child? 

Nebraska is facing a revenue shortfall.  The only thing being discussed right now is what cuts can be made to solve the problem.  Revenue creation is not on the radar.  As it stands, schools will see a reduction in state aid (and remember, Nebraska is already 49th in the country when measuring state dollars as a percent of total school funding).

Three weeks.  Let's get to work.

Welcome to Nebraska: We do things a little differently here.

Nebraska is a great – if somewhat quirky – place to live.  In many ways, we just don't quite fit in with the rest of the United States.   Politically we have a nonpartisan Unicameral and open primaries.  In the Presidential race, our electoral votes are not winner-takes-all, so in 2008 President Obama actually received one electoral vote for the congressional district that covers Omaha and the surrounding area.  While some may not be a fan of living in the middle of fly-over country, Nebraska is a great place to live.  Cost of living is low, and the economic makeup of the state makes us less susceptible to larger national trends.  We may not experience the benefits of an economic boom as much, but we also are relatively insulated from the low points as well.  Omaha fared better than any other city in the country, and the state as a whole did remarkably well during the recession.  Oh – and don’t forget we’re some of the nicest people you’ll meet, and few can match our rabid (but respectful!) love affair with all things sports related (seriously ... we sold out a stadium of over 20,000 people for UFL games).

So I knew going in to my year representing the teaching profession in this state as the 2016 Nebraska Teacher of the Year that Nebraska is a pretty special place to live in.  Now that my time is nearly up and I had the chance to talk to teachers and policy makers across the country, I can say without a doubt that Nebraska is also a pretty special place to teach in.  I learned that many things I considered to be standard across the teaching profession were actually unique to my experiences here in our state.  The more I came to realize this, the more certain I was that I needed to start blogging.  Teachers need to know that their evaluations don’t have to be driven by testing, and that (gasp) students can still succeed without assessments constantly measuring their progress. 

The need to speak up became more apparent to me when I realized just how absent teachers are from the national conversation.  The latest offending piece came from the Atlantic, who did a series recently on education.  Notably absent from the panel they consulted on education issues?  A teacher that is currently in the classroom.  Notably present?  Michelle Rhee, who for some reason we still listen too despite the fact that her efforts in DC have been completely discredited.  But if we don’t take the time to speak up, can we really blame media outlets for not including our perspective?   

So in my time so far as Nebraska Teacher of the Year, here is what I have learned about Nebraska that sets us apart.  These are not my observations, all of these things are based on people from other states informing me that what we do is not the norm where they come from.

1) We've avoided most of the educational fads

Common Core?  Nope.  Sure, some components were incorporated in some instances, but since Nebraska has a big emphasis on local district control it was up to each district to make that call.  Hearing about this has been really bizarre because I have no frame of reference for how common core actually impacts my classroom. 

Charters?  Can’t even legally operate them in Nebraska.  Being a public school teacher, and a strong union advocate, I have always been against charter schools.  In January, my stance was challenged with a very important question: “If the public schools are working, why would the demand exist for charters?”  I was reminded by my friend Nate Bowling – Washington’s Teacher of the Year and very vocal advocate on improving education – that we cannot be pro public schools just because they are public.  We have to make sure our system is working. 

We don’t need privately run schools to offer students choice because we already offer choice through public options.  Nebraska has a state wide Option Enrollment program to attend a school in another district.  Here in Omaha, after a protracted legal battle between the urban Omaha Public Schools and the surrounding suburban districts that started as a result of a fight over allocation of state funds for schools, the Learning Community was established.  It created a separate levy to fund critical programs for targeted communities in Omaha like the Early Childhood Program.  They are also piloting programs for teacher mentoring and a Jump Start for Kindergarten Program.   It also lead to the establishment of the Wilson Focus School – an elementary school with no home attendance area so all students can opt in to attend.  The Focus School has matched, or in some cases out performed more affluent suburban elementary schools in recent years. 

All of this are on top of the litany of programs that districts develop in-house.  For example in my district, Millard, students can enroll in the Montessori program, Core Academy, a K-12 IB program, career academies, or an early college program (among others).  These are all distributed across a number of schools in the district to offer a number of options for parents and students.

So why don’t we have charters?  Because parents are already afforded quality choices through our public schools.

Testing?  Stop reading if you want to avoid getting jealous.  Up until this year at the high school level, juniors took a suite of NeSA tests in the typical subjects (e.g. math, science, writing).  But just this past year the Unicameral voted to give the Department of Education authority to use a college admissions test instead (and they just officially made the move to use the ACT not too long ago).  Since more than 80% of Nebraska students take the ACT anyway, why not just use that?  In one fell swoop, we knocked several assessments off the plate.

Evaluations?  In a meeting in May I was asked what my state’s evaluation system was.  I had to answer honestly: we do not have one.  There is no state mandated system of teacher evaluation.  The state is piloting an initiative in several school districts that is based on the Danielson Model, but it is taking its time and making sure they implement it right.

There is nothing wrong with experimenting in education.  We need to experiment and try out new approaches in order for us to better ourselves, improve our quality of instruction, and make sure that what we do with them now as students will have meaning and prepare them for when they are adults.  But when we jump head long into policies that are not necessarily grounded in best practices, then there is a very human cost.  We are disrupting the ability of the next generation to get the education they deserve.  Thankfully, Nebraska has managed to avoid a number of trends that appeared to do more harm than good in other states.

2) All the Players Recognize We Want the Same Thing

Whether they are administrators, school board members, parents, or the union, there is a climate of cooperation in this state when it comes to education.  Without a doubt, there are times where unions and administrations will go at it, but at the end of the day we understand and respect where all sides are coming from.  When a bill was proposed this past year to restrict school funding at the state level (LB959), I decided to testify to the Education Committee on how that would impact teachers.  When I went down to Lincoln that day, I saw representatives from the NSEA conversing with members of think tanks, representatives from school districts, and even Superintendents themselves on how to work together to craft a narrative that would at least change if not stop LB959.  Many of my fellow teachers of the year could not imagine seeing those parties working together on any legislative issue in their home state.

Another great example of this cooperation would be the Educators Health Alliance.  All but four school districts in the state participate in the EHA for their health benefits, and use the size of their member pool to negotiate strong rates for their health plans (the plan is currently run by BlueCross BlueShield).  The board that oversees EHA is composed of representatives of the NSEA (teacher’s union), NASB (school boards), and NCSA (administrators). 

3)  Autonomy, Autonomy, Autonomy

Now, I cannot vouch for how far this extends to other districts in the state.  This is because a heavy emphasis is placed on local autonomy and control and giving communities the ability to make decisions about what is best for the education of their children.  But speaking from my experiences in Millard, I know that I feel supported as a teacher.  And one of the reasons why is because that culture of autonomy extends all the way down to the classroom level. 

My evaluation is centered around a goal that I get to set based on my needs as an educator.  So last year, my goal dealt with improving my approach to teaching writing in my history classes.  Even when the district has a focus in mind for our goals, we are still given leeway develop it based on our content and what we would like to specifically do.  This January we are rolling at a 1:1 initiative for all of our high schools, so our goals have to deal with utilizing technology in some way.  We still get to develop what the goal looks like in our PLCs and in consultation with our evaluators.  Speaking of evaluators, there was a moment when I was in D.C. this past spring where I had stunned a group of educators while we discussed evaluation.  I had several of the best teachers in the country literally not believe me when I said that my evaluator had been in my classroom eight times that year – including two full period observations.   This year my evaluator has already been in twice.  The first time my students were testing, but he stayed and wanted to see a copy of the test, and even asked about the new style questions that align to the changes in the AP national exam.  I realize now that kind of evaluator engagement is NOT the norm, and I consider myself very lucky.

Yes – of course there are initiatives that get rolled out that I have to be a part of, and there are school or district wide professional development initiatives.  Obviously, I am not completely autonomous as a classroom teacher (nor should I be).  But one of the things that I have heard after speaking with teachers in other states is that there is a greater sense of trust that we will get the job done.  The state has a climate that emphasizes local control, and districts often maintain that climate with their educators. 

4)  It Works

We are a state that does things by our own playbook – heavily emphasizing local control and taking our time steering the educational ship.  Compared to the states that were selected for Race to the Top Grants, Nebraska matched or beat all but one of them on the NAEP.  Massachusetts was the lone Race to the Top state that outperformed Nebraska (no surprise, Massachusetts has been the rockstar state for education for a while now).  Even then, if you compare Omaha Public Schools and its approximately 52,000 students to Boston Public Schools and its 57,000 students – Omaha’s graduation rate of 80.7% looks pretty impressive compared to Boston’s 65.9% (which will be something of a shock for people in the area, since OPS is often crucified as an example of a failed district).

Nebraska’s graduation rate of 89% is one of the highest in the country.  Of the states that have 80% or more of its students take the ACT, Nebraska has the highest composite average.   These stats are important.  We have been given latitude to run our classrooms, to form policies within our district, and to work together to build a great public education system – and it has worked. 

5)  …but we still have issues

Nebraska is a great state for education, but we are not without our issues.  I want to take the time to address these in separate posts, but I feel they should be mentioned here as well.

First, there is a major funding issue brewing in this state.  Nebraska ranks 49th in the country when measuring the percentage of school funding that comes from the state level.  We are overly reliant on property taxes, which not only frustrates voters inside school districts who have high property tax rates, it exacerbates inequality.  At the time where we SHOULD be talking about how we can provide more funding from the state level, there is pressure to actually CUT state funding because of a revenue shortfall that has recently hit Lincoln.  Rather than propose the necessary measures of actually raising revenue, we have fought a series of protracted battles to try and limit cuts to education and fight for what little increases in state funding that we can get.  School districts in our state are strong, but they are running on leaner and leaner budgets.  My district – Millard – has the lowest per pupil cost in the metro area, and even though our enrollment continues to increase, we have actually cut 30 positions in the past 5 years through attrition.  Other nearby districts have RIF’d positions, or frozen pay several times to deal with their tight budget situations.  School funding is going to be a major issue over the next few years.

The other major issue is race.  I am sure that acknowledging this will generate some controversy, but the facts speak for themselves.  Nebraska has one of the highest achievement gaps in the country between white students and students of color.  What gives me hope is the fact that the Nebraska Department of Education is not shying away from this fact.  On the very first page of its “Schools-At-A-Glance” report for the 2016-2017 school year, before it even mentions the major positives of our educational system, the report highlights that we have the 9^th largest achievement gap for 8^th grade math in the country.  Second to last in state funding for schools and one of the worst achievement gaps.  In my mind, those are priority issues we have to address as a state.  I am confident that we have the drive and resources to resolve both of those issues, but we have to raise awareness on both of these topics in order to see things through. 

Even though we do not go with the national flow a lot of times, Nebraska has established itself as a great state for education.  I cannot begin to articulate how proud I have been this past year to talk to people across the country about my experiences teaching here.  I hope to use this platform to promote what we do so well, and also to raise awareness about issues in education and what we can do to be even better.