Say Cheese

Yesterday was our mid-summer picture/schedule pick-up day and I volunteered to work the ID picture line from 8:00 – 10:00, the first shift. The students enter the gym lobby and pick up their class schedule, book list, student handbook, and several handouts. They are then directed to tables in the main gym where they receive a bar-coded form with their name and student ID number. They then stand in one of 5 picture lines to get their ID photo taken.

At the front of the line, the photographer puts their bar-coded form into a slot in the camera and takes their picture. I am not sure how it works, but I think the camera reads their bar-code and stores their photo digitally in a computer. Later the picture can be brought up with the name and year of the student. In the “power school” program each teacher uses to take attendance and record grades during the year, the teacher can call up a picture of the student with their information. ID cards are produced later and distributed the first day of school during homeroom. Teachers and other staff also have their pictures taken, but their forms say “Faculty/Staff” instead of “Student.” Each student, faculty, and staff member has an account with “meal time” that is used to pay for their food in the cafeteria. In fact, the cafeteria does not accept cash for anything.

If a student loses their ID during the school year they can go to the student government office and have a new one printed out on the spot—for a fee of $5.00. These same pictures are used in the yearbook for the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. The seniors have an ID photo taken, but also have an individual session with another photographer for their “senior photos.” The students can bring as many as three different outfits for the photo session, which lasts for about 30 minutes.

Students are required to be in school dress code from the waist up for their ID photo, and my job as picture line monitor is to stop students who are in violation of the code; the shirt must have a collar, no facial hair or side-burns for boys, and no visible cleavage showing for the girls. Like most other male teachers, I am very uncomfortable stopping a girl in line because of her cleavage, so we work in pairs with a female teacher who takes the young lady aside and tells her to button her shirt and “cover-up those things.” Modesty is not what it used to be.

I was able to congratulate many of last year’s years AP Chemistry students who arrived for their photos. The young man I wrote about in the last post who I taunted into a 5 on the exam was there with his friend who also got a 5. Seeing the smile on his face when he came over to brag about the grade was worth the price I will pay for his dinner later.

After my two hour duty I went to my classroom where I was available to work with next year’s AP Chemistry students who were told they could get help from me on their summer homework assignment between 10:00 and noon. I saw about a dozen of them in the picture line earlier, asking each if they had started their homework and if they had found a used book, and five others appeared at my room—two for help and three just to say hello. I finished talking to the last one at about 12:30.

On my way out of the building, I ran into the new president of the school. She is our equivlent of a public school's superintident. She just took office July 1st and I had not yet had the opportunity to meet her. I introduced myself and found her to be most gracious and personable. We spoke for several minutes where she asked me about my history at the school and how I liked it here. She appears to be an extremely likable and positive woman who I look forward to working with.

No Rest for the Wicked

Today I made my weekly trip to school. During the summer, when school is off, I try to go in at least once a week, it being easier to get things done away from all the distractions at home .

I was surprised to find five other science department members also there, more than half the department. My first job was to print out a copy of the chemistry lab book we use. I need to take the copy to an outside graphics company who produces copies of the book for student use. When I arrived I found out that the printer in the lab was recently replaced and I needed to have it installed on my laptop before I could use it. The old printer gave out several weeks ago when a summer school student turned the eyewash water supply on it. According to the teacher, the student was “dicking around” in lab. The student in question ended up failing summer school Chemistry, not because he broke the printer, but because he ended up with a 29% average. Since summer school in Biology and Chemistry is only for students who failed the regular course, he has now failed twice, and will have to take the whole year over again next term.

After printing out the lab book I worked on repainting the tops of the student lab tables in my classroom. There are no desks in my classroom, but two-person lab tables like you see in Biology. The lab tables are about 50 years old, but still in excellent shape. I work diligently after school during the year to make needed repairs. Every 7 or 8 years the tops need to be repainted and I do the job myself, with the permission of the principal. I think that she would prefer maintenance do the job, but realizes that they are under-staffed and over-worked. The whole process; sanding, cleaning, and painting, took all of two hours. I will put a second coat on them Friday when I go in for “schedule pick-up day” when the students get their ID picture taken and pick up their class schedule and book list.

My AP scores came in this week and they were awesome! Over 60% of the students got a 4 or 5 and over 80% got a 3 or better. I don’t know what the statistics are for this year, but the national average for 3 or above is around 60%. The success of these students is a tribute to their intelligence and hard work more than my expertise as a teacher. The student I wrote about before who the principal let in, even though she didn’t meet the requirements got a 3. As I wrote before, she worked hard and improved tremendously during the year and the 3, while not exceptional, indicates that she will be successful in the Pharmacy program she will enter next year at a university.

One of the students who got a 5 was a young man who was my problem child last year. He never took notes in class or did his homework on time, and asked off-the-wall questions in class. On exams he could get an A+ or an F depending on his mood. He is highly intelligent—probably gifted. Every year I take all the AP chem. students who scored a 3, 4, or 5 on last year’s exam out to dinner at a fairly nice restaurant. The 2006-2007 class had 12 of 14 students score a 3 or better, but only 8 were able to make dinner (play and sports practice). I told this year’s class about our evening in order to motivate them to work hard the last quarter in order to be invited next year. The young man I spoke of got really excited and said he couldn’t wait to make me pay for an expensive dinner. I responded that there was little danger of that happening, seeing that his performance was less than inspiring.

Many of you might be thinking that that was a terribly insensitive and demoralizing thing to say to a student, and you would be correct for many students. During my 30+ years of teaching I have learned to distinguish between students who will be deflated by such a comment and those that will take it as a personal challenge that must be answered. The boy vowed to “get a 5” and make me “buy him dinner” and he did. He thinks I will be mad about it, but I did it on purpose to give him a “kick in the ass”, and I couldn’t be more pleased. I will have to buy dinner for 22 students this time, assumming they all can attend.

Just before I was about to leave, the teacher in charge of the greenhouse showed up to water her plants. She teaches Biology, Chemistry, Botany, and Forensic Science. She had a cheating incident on her final exam that she reported to me as her Department Chair. At the time that school ended she was still working with the Dean to uncover what happened. Apparently she did something very unwise; letting a student empty her paper recycling container the last week of the year. The box contained a copy of her final exam and the key which the student found. It appears that he made copies and gave them to several of his friends. They were caught because some other students found out and turned them in. All the boys were confronted and all confessed. She is a very good teacher who made a mistake—something many of us have done in our career. She gave each boy a zero on the exam which counted for 20% of their final grade for the semester. There are two forms of the final exam and one of the boys, by chance, got the other form to take. Realizing this, he had to take the exam without help from the cheat-sheet he had made with the answers and got a D- on it. His father went to the principal and argued that since the boy did not use the answers he really didn’t cheat and shouldn’t receive a zero on the exam.

Thoughts on a Mid-Summer Day

It has been almost a month since I wrote anything for the blog. School being out for the summer, I haven’t had much to write about.

During the summer I go into school about once a week. During the first weeks off I organized my classroom and did a complete edit of the lab book we use in chemistry. The next time in I will print out a copy of it to bring to the printer. I still need to repaint the student tables in my classroom. I attended an AP Conference which allowed me to live in a college dorm for the week—I will have something to say about my experience in the next post. It was a busy week and I came home with several new ideas.

The final exam in Honors Chemistry went well and I had no calls concerning final grades, but the AP Biology teacher did contact me the second week of summer break about a student still trying to get into her class for next year. I wrote before about the young lady who requested AP Bio, but was denied admittance because she did not meet the qualifications in terms of previous background (The Permission Dilemma, 2/13/08). The teacher informed me that the girl has been persistent in her request to be added to the class list, pleading her case to anyone who would listen (principal, president, director of guidance). In her latest written request to be admitted she announced that she had taken the ACT test and scored a 29—this would put her in the top 5% of all students in the nation. I was not moved by her first argument and agreed with the teacher that she should be rejected, but this new information made me think more deeply about it.

I taught this girl two years ago and found her to be above average, but not outstanding. She is a champion of memorizing and spitting things back out on the exam, but weak in her level of true understanding. She is absent often, especially on test day, and was in the bottom 25% of incoming freshmen three years ago. I verified the girls claim concerning the ACT score with guidance, asking how a student could move from the bottom 25% in the nation to the top 5% in three years. No one has a good answer for this, though I get the impression that a number of people are suspicious of the validity of the latest score. That being said, and having no objective reason to dismiss the new ACT score, the teacher and I decided that she could be admitted into class. I asked the teacher to make it clear to the girl that absences on test day or poor performance would be unacceptable and result in her being dropped from the class. We decided that in the future we would make the student’s ACT score the deciding factor if they did not meet the customary requirements, it being easy to determine the average ACT score of the current class with the help of guidance. Based on my AP Chemistry class this year, a score of 27 should be sufficient to demonstrate you are at par with the other students in the class.

I am still uncertain about how she will do. She may surprise all of us and excel, or at least hold her own, making the opportunity a benefit to her, or fail and learn an important life lesson about getting what you wish for.

Cheater's Proof

The woman in the photo is Christine Pelton, a former Biology teacher at Piper High School in Piper Kansas. Ms. Pelton became the center of an international story in 2002 when she caught 28 sophomore students plagiarizing on a project for her class. The project in question was known as the “leaf project” by the students and was supposed to count for 50% of their semester grade in her class. As a result of getting caught, the 28 “cheaters” were going to fail the class for first semester; the incident occurring in December of 2001. Because of complaints from several parents the Piper School Board modified the teacher’s decision, resulting in 27 of the 28 students passing her class. Ms. Pelton resigned; leaving her position after the School Board rendered their decision.

If you “Google” Christine Pelton you will get more than 70,000 hits, all of the links I saw roundly demonized the school board and criticized the student and parents. Ms. Pelton is portrayed as a Christ-like figure, who was being crucified for sticking to her standards. She gave up her career for the sake of honesty. I guess I am the only one in the world, besides the parents who complained and the School Board, who disagrees.
In the case of the Piper High School cheating scandal the School Board made the correct decision, Ms. Pelton was wrong. By the way, I am not being sarcastic here.

Ms. Pelton is guilty of a common mistake second year teachers make—inappropriately over-weighting an assignment. No single assignment should ever be more than 10% of a semester grade in high school, 20% if it is a comprehensive semester exam. There is no way to justify a weighting of 50% on a “leaf collection” in Biology. It is disturbingly inappropriate and can’t be rationalized in terms of its alignment with the Kansas State Goals in Life Science—go ahead and try to justify it if you like, I dare you!!! I actually looked up the published Kansas Science Standards.

My biggest question is; where was her supervision? How did her principal, department chair, and fellow teachers allow her to implement this policy without at least trying to dissuade her from such a mistake? All of the turmoil; the public scandal, national spotlight, and disturbing drama of her resignation, could have been avoided if anyone had pulled her aside before it was too late and given her some guidance.

Most readers are probably outraged at the idea of letting the little cheaters get away with their crime; in fact, none of them did. As far as I can determine from my research, none of the 28 plagiarists got a passing grade on the project, they all failed it! Contrary to what most have been led to believe by the media circus that resulted, the school board did not change the failing grades on the project to passing. Rather, they changed the weighting of the project from 50% to a more appropriate 12%. The result of this change was that most of the students did not fail the semester while still failing the project. The board never said that plagiarism was OK only that the weighting of the assignment was inappropriate. The media misrepresented the board's decision to make for a better story, and in doing so, wrongly convicted the school board in the court of public opinion.

For those of you who still feel that the school board should have backed her up, teaching the cheaters a lesson, what about this? Suppose her punishment for cheating was having the students paddled? Would you still be arguing that the school board should have let them learn their lesson? If the school board acted to alter the punishment would you argue that they were telling the students that cheating was OK? Of course not, you’re sane. Certainly paddling is different from getting no credit for half the work in a semester—but both are inappropriate. The school board was correct, the cheaters deserved to fail the project (and did), and Ms. Pelton was let down by her supervisors and colleagues who wern't paying attention.

For those of you who feel sorry for Ms. Pelton for loosing her career, Education Week reported that she had signed a movie contract for her story.