Wow! Did Rudolph just use Success Academy as a "prime example" of professional development. Really? Even after reports of how Success Academy teachers are trained? Mountain View, be careful! Stay informed!

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MVWSD gets more reductions with every year.

Professional development will most likely earn these teachers professional credit which will boost their salary. So of course they want the district to pay for it rather than the teachers having to pay, say, for advanced degrees on their own.

The district has always had summer school. Apparently that hasn't been working out to well either.

Here's a novel idea: Give everybody the summer off.

Hmm, who should spend more time at school?

The teachers, who have spent 5 years or so in college getting their degrees and teaching credentials, and who presently participate in several hours and days of the latest curriculum fad in-service training each year?

Or the students, many of whom learned how to sit on a rug, line up at the door, take turns, for some even hold a pencil, etc when they entered kindergarten at age 5? Were never read to in English and who presently only speak English during the 6 hours a day that they are at school?

Isn't it kind of obvious?

Combine the two! New models of professional development involve teachers learning about a skill in PD, implementing it in the classroom in a lesson, seeing how kids respond, and analyzing how to do this better next time. Then they reconvene for another session, reflect together on what worked and didn't work, and learn about a complementary skill. Think of summer school as an opportunity for teachers to do a dry run of new techniques for the fall.

For instance, these free online courses from Stanford use this model: Web Link (Disclosure: I have been involved in logistics on a few of these courses. A few districts have combined the online classes with in-person group sessions.) Interspersing training and authentic opportunities to practice the skills is somewhat like the structure of student teaching. And even veteran teachers have an incentive to learn new techniques with recent changes in the depth of assessments their kids undergo (explain the answer vs. bubble in the answer).

The hours of instruction in summer school might be shorter or more flexible to take make room for this PD.

Also, kids often regress in their school skills over summer vacation, so even if the average achievement change before and after summer school were measured as zero, that would probably still be better than the average change for the kids who did not go (other than those who went to camp, had lessons or tutoring, etc.).

The future of learning will be like Khan's Academy, no teachers, no unions, only learning for the kids. With quick personal responses by teachers waiting online to help out the kids with questions using instant messangers.

You may think that online-only learning is the way to go.

Actually, it isn't. Not by a long shot.

Is there any evidence that teachers who receive professional development money do better than teachers who apply for, but do not receive, professional development money?

It seems reasonable to believe that PD money is popular because it raises the salaries of senior teachers, not because it works to raise student outcomes.

This discussion is a bit perplexing. So, on one side, you have this group that says professional development is silly. Right? These are the people who think that after 5 years of college, that however a teacher learns to teach should be how they teach students for the next 30 years? Really? I don't know of any companies who allow their engineers, or designers, or developers to continue working in the same fashion for more than 30+ years with no additional education or development of any kind. And if they do, I seriously doubt that those companies are thought of as innovative or even successful. Of course teachers should continue to receive professional development for two reasons: first, it makes them feel and perform better at their jobs. Who doesn't want to be better at their job? Being better at your work makes your work slightly easier or at the very least, makes you feel better about the quality of your work. Second, it improves the performance of our students. By nature, if you have a more effective teacher, and certainly a more engaged and effective teacher, you're going to get better results. So, I like the model that boosts professional development. I personally think kids need the summer off. However, kids who take the whole summer off lose a lot of advancement from not being educationally engaged. So, maybe we could create some kind of fun summer program that uses our schools and our teachers (who want to be involved) that serves both purposes. We could charge a small amount (to at least make it cost neutral or even make a small amount of money) that would benefit everyone.

I'm just going to say it and be the elephant in the room.

I know we are concerned about raising the test scores of the lower achievers.

But what about the higher achievers. When my kids come home from school and tell me they read 100 pages in their book because they finished their work and no more was given to them it maddens me. So we're leaving. And people are surprised.

Why is 100% of the focus on the lower achievers? When you lose the top tier (a few from my family, next year- not meaning to sound snobby but I stuck it out as long as I could) your test scores are going to drop even more. Can there be a balance?

Elephant are you pulling your kids out of Monta Loma? I thought one of their strengths was differentiating...
Considering it for a few years down the road.

So when you talked to your child's teacher/administrator about this, what was their response? Is your child receiving any differentiated instruction? Does the school site participate in some form of RTI where your child would be regularly grouped with other high achievers? Did you work with the teacher to increase the challenges for your child? Did the teacher agree that your child is consistantly high performing in quality and quantity of work? Has your child skipped a grade already? Are they advanced socially as well?

What amount of funding should be diverted from helping students struggling to acheive at grade level to help high achieving students such as yours? 1%, 3%, 10%, 20%, etc.?

How broad of an ability range is acceptable for a single classroom before reclassifying a student's grade level?

I would vote to make summer school mandatory for kids who are not achieving at grade level. We no longer hold kids back a grade. This is unfortunate. Having a third grader reading at kindergarten level, in the absence of a learning disability is frankly unacceptable. Yes, we as teachers are taught how to differentiate and do so to the best of our ability, but when a quarter or more of your class is not keeping up, and are not getting extra help at home, the achievement gap widens further. Teachers no longer have teachers aides for use in the entire class. The only teachers aides that are available are in the form of parent volunteers, or 1:1 support for kids with special needs.

It also infuriates me that the high and average achievers are held back by the kids who are not performing at grade level. These kids often share the same characteristics. Their parents are disengaged, they do not have access to age appropriate books, ( yes public libraries are free, but they never go to the library) They make excuses for their child and their own inability to parent their child and help them. " My kid doesn't like to read, and neither did I at her age"

I teach primary grades and many of my kids have not yet learned the art of lying to protect their parents' reputation. They tell me flat out that they play video games at home and don't read or practice their flash cards. If the district pulls out all the stops to give parents resources like help paying for internet, a loaner laptop, books, flashcards and none are being used, then no amount of professional development will change this inherent attitude. Mandatory summer school is the only chance for these kids to have a shot at better achievement.

@Teacher: I could not have formed a better response that is more applicable to my current situation. You are absolutely right and I feel for you. There is no harder demographic to teach than a split one.

@elephant? & elephant too?: I'd like to remain anonymous, so my answer will be somewhat vague. Yes, Monta Loma is good at diversifying for small portions of some days. For example, for language development, students are divided into groups depending on their level of the English language: writing, reading, and speaking it. This breakout is, I believe, 3 days a week for approximately 50 minutes. There is also one weekly advanced math breakout but it is parent run and can only accept ~5 students/classroom due to the number of parent volunteers available to ML (not many), and, again, is only once per week.
If a student needs help with the English language there are vast resources. There are multiple times per day that they can and will be pulled out of class for various smaller groups and classes and special help. This is a remarkable resource. In kindergarten many students (over half) came in not speaking a word of English, and by mid-year were translating basic sentences to their parents. By the end of the year they were fluent in English, both verbal and visual.
I have been a strong advocate for neighborhood schools for years. In kindergarten each of my children had many neighborhood friends as peers and as they have aged, these neighborhood friends have moved or switched to private schools.
Elephant too: my child's teachers are too overwhelmed with the children who need help to find extra work for my children. Refer to the post from "Teacher" above; it explains the issue perfectly.

I also pulled my kids out of the district. The final nail in the coffin may have been the elimination of the (very underutilized and funded) district GATE program. There seemed to be plenty of differentiation and money for kids who were behind, but none for kids who were successful. I feel for teachers, I really do. Their hands are tied. I volunteered in the classroom plenty to know exactly what they were dealing with.

In this article, is Nelson making more sense than our superintendent?!

That's a first.

You can teach the teachers until you (or they) are blue in the face, but like "Teacher" said above, nothing will improve if you have, for example, a third grader reading at kindergarten level in your classroom and half the rest of the class demanding similar attention.

It's impossible to teach two distinctly different groups concurrently. There's no online or in-person training for that. Period.

Summer school is important, and definitely should not be shrunk. However, before we spend lots of $$ on expanding summer school:

Until we get teacher turnover down to much lower levels, professional development will have to be a high priority! All teachers need PD, but new teachers and teachers new to a district need more of it.

We have a fifth grader in MV schools. The experience over the last 5 and a half years has been unimpressive. Yes, the people are all nice and caring and professional, but at most only 50% of what our child has learned was learned in school. The rest has been on us as parents to teach. If we didn't get involved, our son would be reading at a 3rd grade level and still not know fractions or percentages or triple digit math problems. The bottom line is that MV schools are mostly in the business of day care. Good luck when it comes to teaching kids with limited English backgrounds. We've decided on private school from here forward. And even with that move, we still have a lot of catching up to do to get him on pace with her private school peers.

I hope someone from the School Board is reading these comments. I think we have a problem in the district when the higher achieving families are pulling their kids out in frustration. I can attest that this is real. I know several families who are considering doing the same thing, or who have done so recently.

It's not easy to solve the problem of English learners but what would be a relatively achievable way to improve the performance of the district as a whole to focus a TINY BIT of attention on the GATE kids, on the kids who are bored, on the kids who are sitting there reading, waiting for their classmates to catch up.

Doubtful they are, but we could email this link. Do you have the email addresses? One would hope that they'd find some of this to be interesting...fingers crossed.
At least, to the school board or Dr. Rudolph's assistant.

Of course 'we' read this (at least I'd bet $1000 on Ellen). The ELL (English Language Learner) and Economically Disadvantaged students form the bulk of the "Target students" for LCFF (Local Control Funding Formula = more state money). Our particular district gets 20% more in per pupil money from the state, for each Target student! Various people/factions interpret it differently, but the LCAP (Accountability Plan) template requires an explanation of how that extra money is spent on improving services for Target students. (California law & regulation)

Loss of 5th-> 6th grade students is 3X more than for any other grade transition (average is 3% loss). In particular: the 2013-14 Demographics report was extremely clear on that topic. The transition to Middle Schools results in many more MVWSD parents opting out of the local public district (I don't know how many % now go to public charter middle school 6th grade)

I understand most of the subtle differences between "State funded" "community funded" and "revenue limit". In the end - the $ is tax revenue money - and it is the sovereign power of the state to tax and distribute it as the citizens (and/or their elected representative) have determined.

SN is one Trustee of the MVWSD, this is his opinion, if you want to 'directly' influence legislation, run & get elected

Steve,
Are you then saying that MVWSD admits not caring about the top performers in favor of money?

That's quite the pill to swallow for a parent.

Not sure why you're thinking all the comments above are in regards to 5th graders. Mine certainly are not. In fact, my kids are in three grades other than 5th. Leaving the district. Reread the above, please, sir.

@Neighbor - moved, thanks for the PD newer ideas link.
Since this discussion link is about Summer Learning (kids that are below academic standards), summer PD (adult teachers) it did not really start out about GATE. Somewhere I think - on another topic thread, is a good post by someone on how GATE has been funded (minimally) by the last Parcel Tax money. That money is local revenue. If the local measure ballot wording is such - all of a Parcel Tax could go to GATE, or none (say all to Arts and Music).

All of a Parcel Tax could be designated to Summer Camps for GATE students. Or all to K-3 class-size reduction. Read the wording of the proposed replacement Parcel Tax. Please! Before it is voted onto a ballot is the time to have this allocation discussion with the community and the Board.

again, these are SN's own opinions, and not MVWSD Board Public Policy