An Open Letter to MAs DESE About Switching to PARCC

On Monday night, I attended a forum designed to accept public comment on whether Massachusetts should continue forward on its path towards adopting the PARCC exam or stay with its own MCAS exams.  This year was year two of the PARCC pilot, in which approximately 60% of districts statewide chose to switch over to PARCC for its grades 3-8 math and ELA exams that are required under Race to the Top.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay for the whole night because of a meeting at my own school that I wanted to attend.  It was also clear that because the Dept of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) invited a number of people to speak first and there was so much “public testimony” being heard, that I had little chance of speaking anyway.  

I hope that this, then, will have a chance to pass over the eyes - and minds - of those at DESE.  I can even hope that people in other states and those involved with PARCC give this a read, a level of exposure that wouldn’t happen with merely speaking at the forum, since I couldn’t “live tweet” my own testimony.

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To DESE and all people who have a stake/interest in the possible transition to PARCC testing in Massachusetts and beyond:

Please accept this letter as the testimony I wasn’t able to provide last Monday during your forum at the North Shore Community College.  Although I wish you would hold these as part of your regular work and have them as an outcrop of your own desire to interact with more parents and educators, I’m happy that the governor has prompted you to hold the forums.  I’ll try to stay close to the allotted three minutes.

1) I am currently a K8 assistant principal.  Before this, I have been a high school ELA teacher and assistant principal for fourteen years.  I have worked in school districts in Maine, New York and Massachusetts.  I have seen a wide variety of standardized testing programs - and their effect on schools - before and since No Child Left Behind.  While they have some room to improve, I have always been a strong supporter of the Common Core State Standards.  While they could have great value for teaching and learning if they were designed, administered and utilized correctly, I have always been leery of standardized tests.  

2) You made an interesting point in questioning the representative from the AFT who used the term “high-stakes testing” in his testimony.  At your request, he defined “high stakes” for you as a test on which a student’s high-school graduation rests.  When you asked him why the Kindergarten and other elementary teachers he supposedly spoke to were so anxious about this test if it was a high-school graduation issue, his answer seemed extremely vague and uncertain for my taste.  I assume you know the actual answer and were just toying with him at some level, but I want to help him answer and help you understand why people refer to standardized testing as high-stakes in the era of Race to the Top.  To be clear, schools and teachers are nervous about these tests, and so many teachers and districts are moving to spend so much time teaching to and preparing for these tests because of their role in teacher evaluation plans.  You can say that this doesn’t count, that you will be measuring student growth and achievement, and that it’s going to look different for everyone, but it won’t matter.  Educators are stressed about new types of questions, new lexile levels, computer-based testing, and the overall increased amount of testing in general.  In some cases, the sense of flying blind and unprepared has left educators at an unhealthy level of anxiety.

3) Not all districts are prepared equally.  If you want something to roll out across the state and accurately measure students’ ability, you should be doing much more to ensure that all districts have a viable plan in place for curriculum shifts, materials acquisition and technology integration.  The differences between the few districts we heard from made it clear to me that your measure will be as much - if not more - about the talents of the districts’ central office personnel and building administrations than the students’ abilities.   These concerns will also, of course, drip into financial issues that will only further skew any findings.    

4) The technology alone should have cautioned all of us more than it did.  In addition to some issues the students had (especially the youngest ones) with manipulating the questions, we had an endless array of systemic, access and usage issues.  If I had been you, I would have strongly pushed for a year or two on paper and pencil before bringing in the computers.  Even if everything worked smoothly, PARCC essentially shut down our classroom technology for six weeks as our labs and carts were all taken up by testing.

5) There are some deep issues with the question formatting on PARCC, the answer for which could be a mixed-media exam that has paper essays and long-form math prompts that can still be answered on the screen.

• Students shouldn’t be scrolling up and down to read the questions while answering them.
• Toggling between essays and answer screens is distracting.
• The notes taken while reading the passages ought to still be there as the final essay is written.
• Students should be able to see their entire answer(s), and especially their entire essay(s) as they write.  The small essay boxes and condensed format for some of the fill-in-the-blank questions is unacceptable.  

6) I’m nervous about norming the writing portions nationally.  Knowing that some regions, states and districts have always been achieving at different levels than others, I wonder how long it will be before the playing field is leveled, if ever.  In NY, for example, having a state-wide Regents test for decades hasn’t normalized the achievement level between wealthy and poor districts.  

7) Finally, there are just too many testing days here.  Standardized tests can provide data for schools to use, but we shouldn’t be foolish enough to think they’re a good format for covering everything.  I couldn’t believe how much time was taken by the testing days themselves, the practice students needed to get used to the formatting, the PD for teachers around becoming prepared, the up-front set up by administration, and the day or two after the testing that teachers needed to get their classes back on track.  I know that PARCC said they are combining PBA and EOY and reducing the amount of units, but I would like to see a full reconsideration of the amount of time needed for administration.  This is especially true at a K8 school like mine, since we’re giving PARCC to 5 grade levels.  It’s just a lot of time and disruption to the school psyche.  

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Yes, I believe Massachusetts ought to evolve beyond the original MCAS tests, but it ought to have been done more carefully, with a better review of test questions, a shorter initial trial period and a time to see the test before adding on the technology issues.  Please consider continuing this conversation.  You can always join #EdChatMA or #Mssaachat as ways to be in touch.  Please feel to reach out and let me know how I can help.  

Sincerely,

Dave Hochheiser

@DavidHochheiser, #EdChatMA

Advice to Applicants

I’m neither a researcher nor an HR professional, but because of the Great Recession, I’ve had the opportunity to apply for a new professional position for six of the past seven years.  While I was at it, through a variety of positions I’ve held, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing and hiring dozens of wonderful professionals.  Applying for new jobs to be the most time consuming and emotionally taxing work I’ve ever done.  Interviewing and hiring new employees, on the other hand, has always been something I’ve found to be so thoroughly rewarding.  This topic is so huge that I’m not sure where to begin with advice, but I think I want to share some mistakes that are easy for each side to make and how to avoid them.

If you’re applying, it’s far too easy to:

• Limit your search: We all know that the days of searching in the newspaper for job postings are over, or are they? Truth is that some people still use the newspaper, exclusively.  What I know for sure is gone is a time when a searcher can keep his/her eyes on any single source. If you’re running a wide search, you’ll find that districts are all over the place with postings, and if you’re not checking on multiple job boards, you’re likely to miss a lot postings.  

Here’s another truth, you need to connect yourself with as many people as possible if you really want to be hired.  Applying isn’t going to be enough when so many available positions are gathering anywhere from 75-300 applications each these days.  You are much better off if you have people on the inside working to get you into the interview pool than if you aren’t.  If the people to be interviewed aren’t already chosen when the position is posted, most hiring people just don’t have the time to sift through that many application packets, so they’ll turn to people they know and ask if they know anyone who’s applied.   

• What did I do about this?  I looked everywhere for postings and began noting those places not using standard listing sites.  I also became deeply connected with local educators through Twitter, LinkedIn, and EdCamps, and then asked to meet face to face with anyone nearby.  I was always overwhelmingly humble and gracious to the dozens of people who either didn’t hire me or didn’t even interview me.

   

• Blow your “paperwork”
• Although I promise that I know people who have been hired regardless of spelling and grammatical mistakes on their paperwork, this is really something that ought to be avoided, especially on your resume.  It’s becoming tougher to do in the age of on-line application systems with those pesky little boxes, but it’s still a truth that most, if not all, hiring people say that they just toss submissions with mistakes.   
• Never lie in your paperwork, but also be careful to not undersell your work.  Humility comes across as a lack of effort when it’s on paper.  
• Be sure your cover letter speaks to the position and the school to which you’re applying.  Nothing too much, but you should let them know why they’d want to meet you.  How would you make their school better?
• Consider having a pro help you write your resume.  At bare minimum, have a colleague read it.  They can help with formatting, wording, keeping it to under two pages (a must) and listing your work with verbs and in terms of tangible accomplishments. The truth, I’d even be willing to read it over.  Message me.  
• Those essays.  Arrrgggghhh.  I know.  In my next post, which will be “Advice to districts,” I’ll write a bit more about the need to end this practice, but for immediate reality, applicants need to write these things.  Just remember four bits about them and you’ll be fine. 1) These are rarely - if ever - actually designed to get the nitty gritty about your approaches, so write from the heart instead of the textbook; it’ll tell them they’re going to hire a person. 2) Tell stories about examples of your work with faculties and students (no names) 3) Unless the prompt is specifically about your dreams for the far future, don’t present ideas that are too far beyond what you know the school is currently doing.  4) Proofread it.  Have others read it.  If your application journey is anything like the ones I’ve been on, you’re writing too much and are in a rush.  Be careful, though.

• Skip the multimedia
• This will be another call you’ll have to make, but it our world, there are a lot of people who are going to expect a level of media savvy that you’ll have to live up to. This ought to start with a professional presence on social media sites like FaceBook, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn but could continue on to include a YouTube channel, blog, and/or any other site that you feel could showcase your professionalism and abilities.  
• You can’t use these as your interview, but you need to make them available.  You can’t expect potential employers to sift through all of it, but some of them just might.  
• The best thing that all of this media can do for you - outside of all of the learning you’ll have access to - is to help with your networking.  You’ll be able to meet acres of people before the interviewing even starts.  That is how you’ll get into the interviews.  
• Obviously be careful about being too controversial here.   

• Become impatient:
• This one’s easy.  Applying and being hired takes a long time.  Schools and districts have things to do besides hire you.  Don’t be in a rush.  Don’t get grumpy when communication takes time.  As an applicant, you need to redefine patience.  
• Once you send in your paperwork and hopefully get to interview, all you can do is wait.  Some places will call that afternoon with an offer for the next step.  Some places will never get back to you.  Some places will call for a next step, but it’ll take weeks or months.  That’s just the way it is.  

• Don’t get prepared
• Many districts these days have a lot of information available.  You need to be aware of what’s going on in the district.
• In the interview, most places will ask if you have any questions.  I’d suggest finding something interesting to ask about.  I’d suggest asking them about what they’re doing instead of questioning their practices.  

• Interview like a robot
• People want to like spending time with you.  Yes, they’re interesting in your professional approach and knowledge, but they have to feel good about talking with you.  
• Be sure you’re speaking with them instead of at them, regardless of the tenor in the room, which can often be distant.

Don't go too far, in the next little while, I'm hoping to put together some advice for districts and administrators.

As always, I'd love to know what you think.

Too Many Teachers are Working Too Hard

I’m not about to approach this typically, meaning that I’m not here to remind - or inform - readers that the teachers I’ve known spend countless hours beyond their “work day” grading, planning, learning, reflecting, etc.  Instead, I want to address the time spent during class and what I’ve seen in far too many classrooms over my years observing teaching and learning.  Teachers - during class time - are working way too hard.  

I’ve seen it time and time again, a teacher’s leading a discussion and/or presenting a lesson, and he/she will own all of the moments’ verbs...speaking, figuring, sharing, connecting, solving, graphing, diagraming, questioning, writing, drawing, thinking, answering...it’s looks exhausting, truthfully.  The other problem, of course, is that all of that work implies that students are on the receiving end of a relationship instead of playing an active and collaborative/participatory role. Quite likely, there’s more “teaching” than learning going on in the room when this happens.  

Thankfully, this is one of the issues in education that’s pretty easily fixed. It doesn’t need funding, consultants, building renovations or an act of congress.  We just need to relinquish some control. It’s all about handing over some of the verbs to our students.  In the model I’ve seen so often, students are listening, copying, and - maybe - potentially answering.  Perhaps they’re even writing if the teacher is good enough to promote note taking during classes. Instead of these, though, let’s promote the evolution that lifts the bar for students and creates an atmosphere in class that has them working hard and owning the learning.  I’m sure there are others, but here are some verbs I’d like to see students engaged in…

Questioning Producing Considering Creating Solving

Proving Evaluating Consuming Validating Debating

Crafting Representing Portraying Discussing Collaborating

Go ahead and pick one, two, or even three of them to try out.  I’d bet that:

1. You wouldn’t have to work so hard.
2. Your students will be more likely to achieve your lessons’ objective(s)
3. Everyone will enjoy being in class more

Finding Compassion - Affect and Education

At the beginning of The Great Gatsby, narrator Nick Fitzgerald, while reflecting on how advice from his father relates to his past summer in New York, writes: “...all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had...Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.”  To paraphrase in three pieces:

• Those of us who live lives we enjoy should all be grateful for the opportunities we’ve been given by the people and the climate(s) we’ve known.
• The first step towards believing in and helping others work towards their full potential is to understand them, empathize with them and believe in who they can become instead of chastising, criticizing, or trying to correct who they are.
• It’s a fundamental, ego-driven flaw to think that behaving the way we do is the right way to behave.  Even if we are in charge of the rules, and can go about dismissing people and/or punitively controlling others, we have to see that this is ego on our part, not actual correctness.  

Now I’ll put it in school language:

• Educators wouldn’t be educators if we hadn’t had at least one person who believed in us help us to find success in schools. I’d even bet that most of us have had multiple people at key moments in our lives take an interest in who we were and what we needed in order to grow.  We have to realize how lucky we are to have had these people and these moments.  We are not necessarily biologically awesome so much as beneficiaries of our environments.
• We always have to believe that our students can become forever increasingly amazing people and students.  
• Judging a student instead of supporting him/her immediately stops the process we’re in school for...becoming educated.  
• Educators have endless amounts of things to learn.  It’s fully flawed and egocentric to believe that we are always right.  The more we’re willing to grow, the more our students will be able to learn.  
• The way we design our schools, classrooms, and curricula isn’t flawless; it would be detrimentally arrogant to think otherwise.  The more we are willing to listen, accommodate and adapt, the more everyone can grow.  
• We can try to be taskmasters who whip (proverbially) schools, teachers, and students into shape, but that is not an atmosphere that’s at all conducive to optimal learning.  

With this on my mind this morning, I watched Alex Shevrin's (@shevtech) video on having unconditional positive regard for students.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtDRVuNCkhU&feature=youtu.be

Yes, we could spend our time saying that her approach is excessive and that we have many more students who’d need that level of support than we can manage.  We could also say that we aren’t social workers and that we just couldn’t engage at that level of wraparound care for our students...and we’d be mostly right.  The logistics of public schools do often keep us from being able to - logistically and financially - meet all of the needs of some of our neediest students in ways that Alex might be able to in her small, alternative school setting.  

What I do know is that not being able to control all of the factors in their lives shouldn’t stop us from respecting the students enough to think carefully about the things that are in our purview.   This is like the failed argument - at least it’s failed in my opinion - that poverty keeps students from being able to learn.  Yes, it makes it tougher at times, but if schools are doing our part, progress happens.  We should be inspired by thoughts like hers instead of just brushing them aside as implausible. Always keep in mind:

• The way we communicate with students - before, during and outside of classroom time - plays a huge role in the way they see their ability to succeed in their classes.
• We must ensure that we ask things of students because they’re good for students, not because it’s the way we like it.  Our students’ variability must push us to be as flexible as possible with our acceptance of their personal journeys to proficiency and mastery.
• We have all worked on plans to help students who struggle with literacy, numeracy, organization and memorization.  Are we ready to modify our rules and regulations to accommodate those who either haven’t yet learned to behave “properly” or who come from a different value system?
• In a world full of research about the failure of programs that include retention, detention, suspension, homework zeroes, punitive summer schools and power struggles, have we moved forward toward newer ideas such as restorative justice and standards-based-grading?

What’s left is now to admit that being patient and flexible isn’t going to help in all situations any more than becoming angry, frustrated, and punitive.   Asking them to change who they are as children and teens isn’t any more realistic than suggesting that their future employers will be willing to put up with their attitudes and defiance.  

If you have thoughts about what works and what doesn’t, please feel free to comment here and/or join #edchatma on Tues, October 7 at 9pm to discussion affective education.

Finding a Home Base

Because my family relocated from NY to Massachusetts to be near family (always has to be our first priority, in my opinion), I’ve been looking for a new position since last Spring, of 2013.  That’s a lot of time spent finding job boards, understanding certification processes, reading job postings, polishing resumes, writing cover letters, substitute teaching, presenting at conferences, and meeting people.  I’ve never written so much and reflected so much and grown so much in my life.   

Meeting people was the toughest, yet most interesting, important and beneficial piece of all of this work. (In case it’s a surprise to anyone out there, I put this in red!)

“Networking” is easy.  I can get on social media for a bit and network by liking things, posting resources and following people, but actually meeting people takes a lot of time and investment.  It means that being “out there” and active in chats, groups, workshops, and it means humbly and sincerely connecting with people with phone calls and emails.  It takes patience, persistence, and a deep recognition of realism (people only have so much time and can only be asked to do so much for strangers and new acquaintances.)    I’m beyond excited and proud to say that I’ve been able to create a network of 1000s, of whom I’ve actually met a large amount.

I’m creating three goals in relation with this experience:

• I’m going to continually be open to meeting new people. There is so much going on in education right now, and I can’t even begin to figure it out on my own, so I want to network, meet, listen and discuss as often as possible, whether it gets to be face to face in my district and at workshops or virtually through social media such as #EdChatMa.  
• I want to “pay it forward” and be a resource for people who need help or advice with things such as networking, blogging, social media, job hunting, resume writing, and cover letters.  
• I’m going to walk into my new position on the shoulders of the giants who’ve supported me and helped me learn throughout my career and over this past year by leveraging their passions, examples, and lessons to benefit my new school.  

I thought to shout out a bunch of specific people here, but realize that my list would always be incomplete, so I’ll just say that I’m lucky to have the family, friends and PLN that I do and grateful to have the opportunity to live up to the needs of the school and the students with whom I’m now learning.   My hope is to know you all for a very long time.  

A Healthy 2014-2015

It feels really good but a bit awkward to be writing about something outside of my norm, but this isn’t going to be about ed policy, classroom practice or technology.  There won’t be anything about literacy or systems thinking.  The only thing on my mind this morning is health.  My health and the health of educators.  Today I want to move beyond all of those unhealthy years I’ve spent in schools, tell you that I’ve found a path forward, and see if anyone wants to join a new kind of team.  

It’s important for me to share this story because I’ve always been a “big guy,” both of my parents passed away young (57 and 61), I have two wonderful kids (6 and 9), and because my life as an educator - for many reasons - has often been in conflict with my physical health.  This past year has added the “final straws” for me. First, my father-in-law passed away, which both left my kids with only one Grandparent and prompted me to leave my position in a Bronx, NY high school and move to Massachusetts.  Family first...period.  Finally, I’ve been out of work this past year while getting set up here, so there has been the type of unforeseen set of anxieties and stressors in my family’s life that are always brought about by change.  

Doing something about my health has afforded me a fantastic level of optimism and agency in my life.  We aren’t always in control of situations, so I believe in embracing the facets of life in which my choices will directly impact the outcome.  

I’ve lost 40 pounds since April vacation and have another 30 to go.  

Along the way, here’s what I’ve come to know about our modern culture (feel free to join me in admitting taking part):

- We eat too much food.  Whether we are super-sizing, socializing or sitting around the house, it’s just too much.   

-  We use food to mark any and all special occasions.  The irony being that we’ll celebrate birthdays with junk food, calling it a treat, where it’s not a present for our bodies.

- Like so many products out there, food is marketed to give us emotional responses to it.  We, in kind, tend to think food will help us emotionally.  Bacon cheeseburgers and Bloomin’ Onions to don’t solve life’s struggles.  We don’t respect ourselves, become adventurous or get along with our family because of what we eat.  These things happen because of the way we feel about ourselves and those around us.

- We are too high-strung and don’t sleep nearly enough.

As an educator, my lifestyle always exacerbated these issues:

- I always stood throughout my classes, but far too much of my overall day was spent at a desk, either with student work, at meetings, or with content to review.  Before my children were born, I’d be at the gym by 5 so that I could make school by 6:30, but that wasn’t happening anymore.  I also tended to eat when I was sitting.  

- I barely slept.  Lots of people don’t get their 6-8 hours a night.  I rarely got more than 5.

- The stress.  I felt not only the weight, urgency, and overall responsibility for the students’ education, but also the struggles against public opinion, unwise political reforms, and painfully shrinking budgets with which to work.

- The parties.  Everyday was cupcakes this, pasta tray that, bagel mornings and Friday social hours.

- Time. I was always eating something quick, which can mean unhealthy. The schools I have been in usually allotted 25 minutes for lunch.  Not healthy.  

I’m looking to start a team!!

Take Shape for Life is an organization with the research, people, mindset and resources that I’ve needed.  It’s first and foremost about leveraging the strength of their organization and the personal nature of a “health coach” to understand, focus and maintain a healthy state of mind, but it also has components that are helping drop my weight fast.  Eventually, because they depend on word of mouth and therefore spend very little on traditional advertising, there are also built-in opportunities for a level of financial health with which everyone can get involved.

Like everything in life, I think this works better for people with a support team, so I’m writing this because I’m proud of what’s going on in this corner of my world, I’m excited about how it’s happening, and I’m hoping to find some people who are looking to make a change in their lives.  

You can find me to tell me about your experiences and talk about what I've learned through Take Shape for Life right here in the comments, at a new email I’ve set aside for this, dhoch.tsfl@gmail.com or on either of my Twitter accts @TSFLNewEng  or @DavidHochheiser

You can read about TSFL all over the news, watch a few videos on YouTube from a wide range of people, see how it’s presented by the founder and a number of top coaches or read through the official website.

If you want to feel better throughout this school year and beyond and/or you know someone else who might, I’d love to hear your stories and team up to move forward.  

Keeping Students' Full 360 in Mind

Please note: This post also appears as part of Edutopia's community page. http://bit.ly/UkYIkq

The biggest tragedy I’ve read about in modern schools has to be the increasingly myopic ways schools are addressing foundational needs of literacy and numeracy.  Yes, I get that reading, writing, and arithmetic form the basis of most everything that’s done, so I get why they’ve always been prioritized. What doesn’t sit well with me - or for our students - is that places are cutting so many other pieces of students’ education - e.g. arts, history, sciences, recess - and replacing them with more reading, writing, and mathematics worksheets, videos, and computer testing applications.  Yuck.  There are four tremendous issues with this approach:

1) These decisions are almost always based on scores from standardized testing, which means that even if reading, writing, and math were the only things that a school ought to be teaching, moves like these are only looking at a very limited perspective on them.  I’ve never, for instance, heard of a school changing the schedule and shortening or even cancelling recess because students were taking a long time to choose an independent reading book or craft a blog post.  It’s such a limited way to look at education.  In truth, if students are struggling, schools need to be excessively creative in broadening the scope of topics, ideas, and courses to which students are being exposed.  We have to fight to engage them and help them see that we are interested in them as people.  Then, they’ll be more likely to follow our example and dig into the foundation lessons when it’s time.

2) The pieces being dropped have been proven to be essential to the development of great academic programs.  Art, music, playtime, and science and history courses have all been proven to elevate students’ overall achievement, self-perception, and - yes - test scores.  Too many teachers, schools and districts are just choosing to ignore this research.  This , this , and this are all articles that speak to the need to develop the “360 child,” which I’ll get to in a second when I address the idea of “summer slide.”

3) What schools really need to do is ensure the quality of their Tier 1 teaching.  Subjecting students to more weak instruction or sitting them in front of a computer as a means of “remediation” is not a strategy I’m buying into.  Yes, sometimes, more is more, and practicing helps (think: McDowell’s 20,000 hour theory), and yes, there is software out there that can be appropriately used to support struggling students, but all of this has to be part of a purposeful program that ought to be founded on the best instructional practices we know about.  

I’m thinking about this in mid-July because of this article (http://bit.ly/Wez1Dy) I just read on how to prevent the “summer slide.” At the fully polar opposite end of the spectrum from the other articles, this one speaks to setting aside time during the summer for family activities that sound a lot like test prep to me.  So let me offer some alternatives, things I believe take a 360 in helping students who struggle, things that could very likely also be part of schools’ curricula, things that come to mind when I stop long enough to ask questions like these: http://t.co/5OA9uFAdmf.

- Adults need to be walking with children, taking them places.  They can then write letters and postcards, with photos and art work, telling relatives and friends where they’ve been and what they’ve seen.

- Research the historical significance of places they’ve seen and/or heard about.  Invite them to journal and/or teach someone something about it.

- All kids, by the way, should have a special journal.  If you think money can’t help education, think about how powerful giving all students a nice notebook of sorts to write or draw in over the summer could be.

- Kids and libraries are such a natural mix.  Not only can they get all sort of books to borrow for free, but there are also often great programs going on.  Surround kids in the chance to choose books as much as possible.  Invite them to tell you about what they’re choosing.

- If you’re going to the store, bring your children and have them help figure out the costs.  Have them ask people where things are and check the change at the register.  Social skills and math all wrapped up together :)

- If you or your kids are sports fans, the potential to work on geometry and statistics are bottomless.  

- Find paper maps of wherever you’re going with the kids and have them navigate.

- Try food from another country and learn about the place of origin while you’re at it. Music and art great components of culture studies.  

- Speaking of music and art, can you get to a museum and or a concert?  Summer is a great time for free, outdoor music and many museum and zoos have free days.  

- Model and share:  Kids should know that even though all of these are great, adults still like to sit down and read during their days.  (If you’re not a reader, by the way, having kids is a great excuse to become one.)  Find some time to relax and read something, be it a book, magazine or otherwise.  Share with your kids what it is that’s interesting to you about what you’re reading.  Invite them to do the same.  Reading books together is also great.  

The reason ELA and math have become the focal points for education is that they are found everywhere, in everything.  It’s a miss on the part of adults, then, when the opportunities we give kids to master them are exponentially skewed to the pieces that are easiest to measure and photocopy.  Even my daughter, who in her own nerdy way actually loves workbooks, gets much more excited when I ask her to tell me a story about or take a picture of something that interests her.