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Archive for January, 2012

Editorial Recognizes the Good Work We Do

Saturday, January 14, 2012 by:Charles Costello
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While we’re on the topic of great teaching, here’s one of this week’s “Thumbs up” from Wednesday’s Greenwich Time editorial:

Thumbs up to Greenwich High School staff and students for improving performance on the SATs in 2011. Greenwich High students averaged a combined 1,730 in reading, writing and math on the SATs — up from 1,701 in 2010.

That earned the school a seventh-place ranking among the 26 districts in District Reference Groups A and B. GHS ranked 10th in the group in 2010.

All of that is encouraging. Of all the standardized tests students take these days, the SATs are the most important, as they have great influence on where a student is accepted to college. That GHS students are performing well on the test is a good sign, although there always is more work to do — particularly in light of a recent study that found just over half of GHS graduates completing college.

“We were pleased, obviously, that we’ve made improvements both in our own community but relative to others,” said Superintendent of Schools Roger Lulow. “But we still have work to do, and one year doesn’t make a trend.”

That is the right response. Schools must improve, but educators should be encouraged by the positive results as they take on that difficult work.

The Value of a Teacher, Continued….

Saturday, January 14, 2012 by:Charles Costello
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We continue our discussion about just how valuable a good teacher is by taking a look at a recently published study by Harvard’s Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman and Columbia ‘s Jonah E. Rockoff that followed one million students from the fourth grade to adulthood and, according to the Times’ Nicholas Kristof, reached the following conclusions:

Having a good fourth-grade teacher makes a student 1.25 percent more likely to go to college, the research suggests, and 1.25 percent less likely to get pregnant as a teenager. Each of the students will go on as an adult to earn, on average, $25,000 more over a lifetime — or about $700,000 in gains for an average size class — all attributable to that ace teacher back in the fourth grade. That’s right: A great teacher is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to each year’s students, just in the extra income they will earn.

The study, by economists at Harvard and Columbia universities, finds that if a great teacher is leaving, parents should hold bake sales or pass the hat around in hopes of collectively offering the teacher as much as a $100,000 bonus to stay for an extra year. Sure, that’s implausible  — but their children would gain a benefit that far exceeds even that sum.

Conversely, a very poor teacher has the same effect as a pupil missing 40 percent of the school year. We don’t allow that kind of truancy, so it’s not clear why we should put up with such poor teaching. In fact, the study shows that parents should pay a bad teacher $100,000 to retire (assuming the replacement is of average quality) because a weak teacher holds children back so much.

What shone through the study was the variation among teachers. Great teachers not only raised test scores significantly — an effect that mostly faded within a few years — but also left their students with better life outcomes. A great teacher (defined as one better than 84 percent of peers) for a single year between fourth and eighth grades resulted in students earning almost 1 percent more at age 28.

Suppose that the bottom 5 percent of teachers could be replaced by teachers of average quality. The three economists found that each student in the classroom would have extra cumulative lifetime earnings of more than $52,000. That’s more than $1.4 million in gains for the classroom.

Now, how to define, and effectively measure, great teaching.

(Kristof’s column, “The Value of Teachers,” appeared in Thursday’s New York Times.)

More Good News, Courtesy of Greenwich High School

Sunday, January 8, 2012 by:Charles Costello
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Thursday night, an email was sent out containing the latest round of good news: Greenwich High School finished in the top third in its District Reference Group (DRG B) based on participation and performance on SAT and Advanced Placement exams in 2011.

The Greenwich Time provided a breakdown of the results in Saturday’s paper:

- Of the 26 districts in DRG A and B, Greenwich was 7th in average SAT score and 7th in the AP Challenge Index (the number of AP exams administered divided by the number of graduating seniors).

- GHS students averaged a combined 1,730 in reading, writing, and math on the SATs, a 29-point increase from the previous year. The average for DRG B was 1,652. The combined average for DRG A and B was 1,679. Writing was at a six-year high and participation rates increased with 86% of seniors taking the exam.

- GHS’s AP Challenge Index was 2,071, up from 1,848 the previous year. 1,493 students enrolled in AP in 2011 and 1,344 exams were administered. According to the district, that’s “the highest number in at least ten years.”

Teachers and Parents, Working Together

Sunday, January 8, 2012 by:Charles Costello
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I agree with today’s Greenwich Time editorial about the importance of good teachers. The editorial begins with the following: ”There is so much chatter — in the country, in the state, in the town — about improving education that it’s easy to lose sight of the most important component of the learning process while we’re mired in the minutiae of the Education Cost Sharing formula and other “big” issues. That component is the person standing in front of the classroom. Good teachers, well-trained teachers, motivated teachers, are invaluable.”

Take a look at classrooms throughout Greenwich – and elsewhere - and you’ll see the positive effects of good teaching. 

But there’s another component to education that often times is forgotten, or worse, conveniently ignored. In a column on teacher tenure, Chris Powell, the managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, takes a look at another very important component of education: “While tenure doesn’t serve the public interest and more serious evaluation of teachers would, the debate about them will be a distraction from the big problem of Connecticut’s schools. Ordinary as many of them may be, teachers are not the cause of educational failure; the disintegration of the family is. Teachers are only why educational failure costs a bit more. Politicians may demand more of teachers only because they don’t dare demand more parenting from their own constituents.”

Take a look at homes throughout Greenwich – and elsewhere – and you’ll see the positive effects of good parenting.

The conclusion:

Good Teaching + Good Parenting = Good Results

Letter to the Editor – Jan. 6

Saturday, January 7, 2012 by:Charles Costello
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(This is my letter to the editor that was published in Friday’s Greenwich Time.)

If you were to eliminate all of the inaccuracies in Bob Horton’s column last Friday on weighted grades, you’d be left with little more than a headline and byline. For starters, Horton decided to attack my class — Public Speaking — saying that it was not necessary for Greenwich High School to offer the course since students could learn these skills in community centers.

“It is near impossible to find such courses as AP chemistry or honors math anywhere but school,” he writes. Bob, there’s no community center in America that could provide the instruction, practice, and experience that students get when they take my Public Speaking class at GHS.

Despite his proclamation, Horton doesn’t offer one example of a community center that would provide such services. Similar to how he brings no evidence to the table to support his misguided view of weighted grades, he offers nothing when it comes to his condescending claim about my class.

It was also unfair for Horton to criticize GHS Headmaster Chris Winters, who was away last week and didn’t have the opportunity to respond to the columnist’s questions. Instead of giving Winters the chance to comment — effectively doing what an ethical journalist would do — Horton attacked him, calling into question his track record. As a result, the only thing Horton exposed was his own ignorance.

Unlike Horton, I don’t base my opinions of Greenwich High School on newspaper headlines and country club chatter. I base them on my real experiences working in a high school. I know how much students benefit from taking my Public Speaking class, and I know that the classroom instruction I provide could never be replicated in a community center. Horton is also wrong when he says that weighted grades are “a minor issue that could be fixed with some simple adjustments.” The truth is that at GHS weighted grades are a major issue in need of drastic changes.

Finally, in his criticism of Winters, Horton asks, “Why is it taking him so long to bring a recommendation before the Board of Education?” Because, Bob, he’s doing his homework. One of these days maybe you’ll do yours.

Greenwich Upsets No. 7 Trinity Catholic

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 by:Charles Costello
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You won’t find a better high school basketball coach in the area than Trinity Catholic’s Mike Walsh. His program has been the best in Fairfield County for two decades. The Crusaders are ranked seventh in the state by the New Haven Register, and Connecticut is home to some basketball powerhouses. Trinity Catholic routinely sends star players to big-time college basketball programs like UConn and Duke. This is a program that can compete on a national level, as last week’s win over Archbishop Molloy in the Northeast Christmas Classic at Webster Bank Arena proved.

So forgive me if when I woke up this morning I was surprised to read a text message that said “we beat trinity?” And I was shocked to read Scott Ericson in the Greenwich Time say that the Cardinals had knocked off the Crusaders, 43-41.

“Look, Greenwich deserved to win, we didn’t. No question about it,” Walsh said after the game. “We didn’t play hard, we didn’t play with enthusiasm. They wanted it more and they played harder than us and they deserved it.”

High praise from a guy who when all is said and done will go down as one of the greatest high school basketball coaches of all time. We’re talking about a legendary coach and program. Rashamel Jones, Craig Austrie, and David McClure played on Newfield Avenue before they played on the biggest stages in college sports. This is a program that Jim Calhoun and Mike Krzyzewski pay attention to. A program recognized nationally. 

Credit here goes to Greenwich head coach Bill Brehm, who has his team at 5-1 following one of the biggest upsets – if not the biggest – in school history. I first met Brehm in 1999 during his first stint coaching the Cardinals. I’ve been impressed with the guy since day one. He knows the game, and more importantly, he knows how to coach. Maybe he’ll finally get the recognition he deserves now that the Cardinals will, for one day at least, become a topic of conversation around the state. You don’t upset a team like Trinity Catholic unless your coach devises the right game plan, prepares his team well in practice, and then coaches the heck out of them during the game. Brehm will be the first person to give the credit to his players, and they obviously deserve it. But this is our latest example of how important good coaching – just like good teaching – is. Enjoy this one, Bill. You deserve it.

I don’t root against Trinity Catholic, but if my alma mater is going to fall, I can’t argue with a story like this one. 

Ericson’s game story is here. His blog post about the game is here.

Charles Costello is a contributing writer for Yahoo! Sports. His latest article – on Joe Torre’s return to Yankee Stadium – can be found here.

What GPS Can Learn from President Obama

Tuesday, January 3, 2012 by:Charles Costello
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I never fully understood how President Obama, without issuing a response, could allow his critics to claim that he’s soft on terror (despite the deaths of Osama bin Laden, Anwar Al-Awlaki, and others on his watch), that he’s not religious enough (he’s at Church with his family on Sundays, and he’s constantly invoking God’s name), that’s he’s not patriotic (his story is a great example of how real the American Dream is), or that his economic policies are not good for the country (the stimulus package seemed to help a lot of corporations and workers, and the payroll tax cut he extended was applauded). It was surprising to me that Obama and his administration allowed these attacks to occur without providing a passionate defense.

So it was interesting to read in Sunday’s New York Times about Obama’s new strategy to attack his critics and defend his record. That’s exactly what Greenwich Public Schools needs to do. Enough with letting the handful of critics control the dialogue. That group is wrong about our schools, about our teachers and administrators, and about our practices. And WE are wrong to let them hijack the discussion.

It’s important to note that we have the overwhelming support of the community, most importantly the many parents who send their children to our public schools. They trust and respect us because they see firsthand how qualified, talented, and dedicated we are.

I’ve been suggesting for a year and half now that we promote the heck out of what we do, and fight back when we get knocked. 2012 should be the year we take back control of the discussion.

I expect more because we deserve better.

If You Think You Can Do Better, Then You Should Apply for the Job

Sunday, January 1, 2012 by:Charles Costello
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With help from Teddy, my message to teachers as we begin the new year:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again … who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.”

(Theodore Roosevelt: “Citizenship in a Republic.” Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris. April 23, 1910; Cited in Joe Klein’s December 26 column in Time Magazine)

And borrowing from what Dereck Whittenburg, the former men’s basketball coach at Fordham, reportedly told his detractors, here’s a variation of that for our critics:

If you think you can do better, then you should apply for the job.

Happy New Year!

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