What's good about today's schools and libraries

Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty.  I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be.  — George Carlin

Anyone can tell you that I am no Pollyanna. Show me a silver lining and I'll look around for a cloud. Each year the curmudgeon in me grows just a little more.

But oddly enough, I can't remember a year where I have felt prouder of our schools. While I have no empirical evidence to support any of these assertions, my observations around our district this year lead me to believe:

• The quality of committed teachers is higher than ever. Early retirement, better teacher training programs, a glut of new teachers coming into the field from which to select, and organized, ongoing staff development (utilizing PLCs working on specific goals) has created the most professional and dedicated staff with which I have ever worked. Our administrators are seeing their roles increasingly as educational leaders, not just supervisors and managers.
• Teachers have better resources, especially those online, and the skills to access those resources. I look for a sea-change as GoogleDocs is used not just to reduce paper in the district, but increase collaborative work between teachers and students and between students and students. In many cases, I predict, students will drive this change - not a bad experience in itself.
• Teachers have more useful data to help them reach more kids. Say what you want about NCLB, but I am convinced that many of least able students are getting help they would not have otherwise received had it not been for the disaggregation of test scores so individual groups could get special attention. (See Exposing Shameful Little Secrets)
• Better home school communications are re-defining the parents' role in their students' education. Our parent portal is now an established tool that helps parents monitor their kids progress, encouraging work completion and discovering any problems in real time rather than at the 9 week parent-teacher conferences. And teachers understand that keeping parents informed is of benefit to all students.
• Increasing consciousness about the need for technology and information literacy skills, leading to a higher profile and more respect for our librarians. We've just revised our K-6 IL/IT curriculum, creating Essential Learner Outcomes (like the other curriculum areas), and re-aligning our elementary progress reports to reflect the new curriculum. We finally have tech standards recognized by the content areas in 7-12 with those standards formally embedded in required classes.
• We have a school that recognizes that test scores are not the only means of defining our success. We maintain great libraries, art programs, music and PE opportunities K-12. Our new schools have beautiful playgrounds. Our secondary schools offer electives in business, art, ed tech, and world languages. While STEM is important, so is drama, orchestra and History Day.
• Oh, we have more and better-used technology throughout the district than ever with projectors, IWBs, VOIP phones and wireless connectivity in all classrooms - and voice amplification systems in a growing number of areas.  And I expect as the costs of personal computing devices (the $139 Android table, anyone?) drop, their use will grow. I am more excited about the next few years of tech changes than I have ever been.

The press will tell you education today is crap. We are supposedly behind every country except Voodoostan in math and science. Teachers are incompetent shirkers and administrators are self-serving know-nothings. And unfortunately there are indeed poor schools, poor teachers, and poor administrators.

But you know - I'll put my school district up against any institution when it comes to effectiveness, common-sense, and caring. We're doing a better job for more kids than we have since I started teaching in 1976, despite a blogosphere, traditional press and government that seems hell bent on convincing the general public differently. And I'm guessing the same holds true for you in your school.

Look for the good this year. You'll find it!