Honey-Do List- November
11/17/20 Completed reading of chapters 1 & 2 of "Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy"
11/18/20 Complete this form about interim assessment
Buzzing Along- Important Upcoming Dates
11/18/20 Professional Development Session 1 "Cultivating Genius" 4-6 PM
Pollinating Ideas (This will be a new weekly section)
by Seth Gershenson and Nicholas Papageorge
There are good reasons to assume that teachers’ beliefs and expectations can influence student success—an idea that has been embraced by parents, students, teachers, and policymakers. During graduation season each year, proud valedictorians thank the nurturing adults in their lives for pushing them to do their best. President George W. Bush famously criticized the “soft bigotry of low expectations” in support of his education-reform agenda. More recently, 2015 National Teacher of the Year Shanna Peeples declared, “You have to ignore it when a child says, ‘I don’t want to,’ because what they’re really saying is, ‘I don’t think I can and I need you to believe in me until I can believe in myself.’”
However, despite abundant anecdotes and theories suggesting a causal effect of teachers’ expectations on student outcomes, documenting its presence and size has been challenging. The reason is simple: positive correlations between what teachers expect and what students ultimately accomplish might simply result from teachers being skilled observers. In practice, distinguishing between accurate and biased expectations is difficult, because both teacher expectations and student outcomes are likely influenced by factors that researchers are unable to observe. Anecdotally, we believe that teachers’ expectations are important. But just how important might they be? And could differences in teachers’ expectations of white students and black students help to explain gaps in key outcomes such as college enrollment and completion?
To explore these questions, we analyze the federal Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, which followed a cohort of 10th-grade students for a decade. Among other questions, the students’ teachers were asked whether they expected their students to complete a four-year college degree. We use these responses to first document the presence of racial bias in teachers’ expectations, and then study the effects of differences in teacher expectations on students’ likelihood of completing college.
Our analysis supports the conventional wisdom that teacher expectations matter. College completion rates are systematically higher for students whose teachers had higher expectations for them. More troublingly, we also find that white teachers, who comprise the vast majority of American educators, have far lower expectations for black students than they do for similarly situated white students. This evidence suggests that to raise student attainment, particularly among students of color, elevating teacher expectations, eliminating racial bias, and hiring a more diverse teaching force are worthy goals.
When Expectation Becomes Reality
As a senior at her predominantly low-income Latino high school in south-central Los Angeles, Desiree Martinez told one of her teachers she dreamed of attending UCLA. In an open letter published years later, after she earned her degree, she recalled this response:
“You let out a sigh; I watched as a frown and puzzled look quickly grew on your face. You commented, ‘I don’t know why counselors push students into these schools they’re not ready for.’ My heart fell as you continued, ‘students only get their hearts broken when they don’t get into those schools and the students that do get in come back as dropouts.'”
Martinez then confided in a different teacher, who encouraged her not to let “people like that be the reason to hold you back.” Now the first in her family to graduate from college, Martinez plans to become an educator, and thanked the encouraging teacher for “pushing me when I needed it the most.” The pessimistic teacher was white; the optimistic teacher was Latino.
Teacher expectations are not always so overtly shared. In more common daily scenarios, how might they influence students’ self-perceptions and performance? Students might perceive and emotionally react to low or high teacher expectations, which could benefit or damage the quality of their work. Or, they might actively modify their own expectations and, in turn, their behavior to conform to what they believe teachers expect of them. Alternatively, teachers with expectations for certain types of students may modify how they teach, evaluate, and advise them, and in the case of low expectations, could perhaps shift their attention, time, and effort to other students.
Each of these possibilities creates feedback loops that trigger self-fulfilling prophecies: intentionally or not, teacher expectations cause student outcomes to converge on what were initially incorrect expectations.
Lexia
- I thought that I would share with you the levels that align with grade-level work so that you can gauge how students' level completion is aligning with grade-level standards.
- The vast majority of our students are working asynchronously below nationally normed grade-level standards
- We will continue to award level completion because these students are persevering and completing the work
- I would like to think about how we as a staff can increase our expectations for use so that we are leveraging this tool to its maximum potential.
Level 1: K1
Levels 2-5: K2
Levels 6-9 1st
Levels 10-12 2nd
Levels 13-15 3rd
- 14 K0/K1 Students have completed level 1
- 6 Students have gone on to complete at least 1 level outside of their Grade band
- 9 K2 students have completed a level within their Grade level band there are no students that have completed a level above level 5
- 0 1st grade students have completed a level within their Grade level band there are no students that have completed a level above level 9
- 3 2nd grade students have completed a level within their Grade level band there are no students that have completed a level above level 12
- 0 3rd grade students have completed a level within their Grade level band there are no students that have completed a level above level 15
ST Math
- We need to rethink our weekly goal for STMath to be about puzzle completion vs. time spent.
- ST Math uses puzzle completion as a proxy for students getting through a grade level's standards during the course of a year.
K1: 20 Puzzles/ week
K2-1: 40 Puzzles/week
2-3: 60 Puzzles/week
Student Awards
Here is the link to check out who is receiving awards this week
- We have 136 students enrolled in K2-3
- We have 49 students enrolled in K0-K1
- There are 185 learners enrolled at Lee Academy (This is starting to sound like a math problem)
- 9% of our K2-3 students completed a Level in Lexia this week
- One of our K1 students completed level 3
- 20% of our K0/K1 Students met their Lexia time requirements this week
- Though we are not awarding certificates for time spent on the usage of Lexia 55% of our students met the usage requirements over the last 4 weeks. This is a rate that has been slowly increasing.
- Let's keep the upward trend going!
- 18% of our students met their Puzzle Requirement in STMath
Common Assessments
- We have a common assessment mandate from the district for our students in ELA and math.
- Where we have a choice is in whether we want to give the BPS Assessment or the MAP math assessment
- At first, I defaulted to the district interim because we are familiar with that but then I was thinking the national norming of the MAPGrowth testing might make it more desirable to see how our learners are doing compared to peers nationally.
- We would need to be committed to having every student assessed.
- The low number of students assessed for reading really made the data less useful for us as a learning community
- Both tests would need to be administered remotely
- Please complete this two-question form by 11/18 to let me know which assessment we should go with.
Fraudulent Unemployment Claims
- This happened to me! I received an unemployment benefit packet in the mail today!
- At this time the district is experiencing high volumes of fraudulent unemployment claims. This is a nationwide issue, and the state is working hard to deny all false claims. If you receive a letter in the mail for an unemployment claim that you did not initiate, please complete a form using the link below for the state to investigate.
- The Office of Human Capital (OHC) will begin sending notifications to let employees know when we receive a claim that we believe to be fraudulent. The OHC team managing unemployment claims is responding to the state and flagging all claims with fraud for the state's immediate attention.
- Should you have any questions regarding unemployment claims please contact Jania Bell jbell4@bostonpublicschools.org
- State of Massachusetts Unemployment Fraud Reporting:
- https://www.mass.gov/forms/unemployment-fraud-reporting-form
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