Archive
Who’s Still Here?
I love basketball. I don’t think I should have to prove that statement, but in case you want some evidence, let me introduce you to my children Jordan, Stockton, and Duncan.
Pictured: No actual basketball players
Yes, my very tolerant wife and I named our children after professional basketball players. Two of their namesakes – Michael Jordan and John Stockton – are already in the Hall of Fame. In the mid-90s, when we chose the names, this was a foregone conclusion. When we named our youngest after Tim Duncan, he was in his third year in the league. I guess there were no guarantees he’d be a Hall of Famer, but it looked pretty certain. Besides, we threw out the name Barkley because it was the dog’s name on Sesame Street.
Not that you asked.
I say all of this today, though, because Twitter and Facebook and everything else under the power of social media have been losing their minds with the announcement that Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Kevin Durant has signed with the Golden State Warriors. Here are some of my favorite reactions:
There’s uncontrollable grief…
There’s ridding yourself of reminders…
There’s pragmatism…
There’s the bright side of life…
And then there’s the musings of a politician with a who thinks he has a mandate…
There’s also this – a tweet for which I refuse to transcribe the responses in my head…
There’s also this, from a friend who has held season tickets since … well, pretty much since the franchise moved here from Seattle:
The way I look at it is that Durant weighed all the things that matter in his life – most of which we don’t have any way of knowing – and when he placed them on a scale, leaving made more sense than staying.
KD isn’t dumb. He knows that he’s now a supervillain here. He’s also not a jerk. What he says about how much the city and state mean to him is probably true. Still, this is the path he chose. I can’t know all the reasons why (probably the state’s shriveling support for public education), and I wish he had chosen differently, but life will go on.
I still love basketball, but I only make it to a couple of games a year. That will still be true. The Thunder probably won’t be as good as they were with Durant, but things change. I’ll still root for the team. And I still wish Durant well. He brought a lot of pleasure to the city, and that memory sticks around.
Leaving is a part of life. We can say our words and move on, but moving on means that we embrace and try to thrive with the people who are still here. The Thunder still have (for the time being) Russell Westbrook, Enes Kanter, and Steven Adams – not to mention Josh Huestis.
On the other hand, if Durant had stayed, he could have spent more of his free time schmoozing with the Governor:
“If Kevin Durant thinks about leaving, which I hope he doesn’t — Oklahoma loves Kevin Durant and Kevin Durant loves Oklahoma. But if he’ll stay, I’ll make him a Cabinet person for health and fitness on my Cabinet,” Fallin said.
The announcement drew applause from the room, before Fallin noted that a place among her advisers “might not be as attractive as a couple of million dollars.”
It also might not be as attractive as a vice-presidential nomination. Even though the offer was (probably) tongue-in-cheek, the fact remains that Fallin knows she may have options in a potential Trump presidency. A couple of days after the Durant-to-Cabinet comment, she and other governors met with the presumptive Republican nominee.
Fallin’s name has been mentioned in speculation about the vice presidential selection process, but Trump has not contacted her to talk about being his running mate, said Michael McNutt, a spokesman for the governor.
McNutt said one of the other governors arranged the meeting. He didn’t have the names of the other governors in attendance. Fallin has been active in the Republican Governors Association.
If this comes to pass, should we expect the same response in tears? Rending of clothing? Outrage on Twitter?
No, if the governor were to leave Oklahoma to go back to Washington, we would simply swear in the next guy – Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb – and expect him to handle the job with the same aplomb as his predecessor. That’s all you can do. You work with the people who stay, no matter how you feel about the people who leave.
This has been a mindset in public education in our state for a while. We have people leaving for higher-paying jobs in Texas. We also have the ones who stay in the state but move on for what they perceive as greener pastures.
One of the hardest jobs in education is “turning around” a high-poverty school that fails to live up to state and federal testing metrics. Whether it’s the lame duck A-F Report Cards, the extinct API scores, the Annual Measurable Objectives or other acronyms that we use to rank our schools, there’s no question that high-poverty schools have it tougher. Simply put, there are schools with poverty so low that they’re going to appear at the top of the scale – no matter which scale you lose.
This isn’t an excuse, and it isn’t a reason to quit trying. It’s a fact. It’s a fact that should drive us. I’ve seen principals proud of getting a B or C on the report card because of the growth it showed. I’ve seen teachers driven to help the school reach that perfect API score (prior to 2012) in order for the whole staff to get a bonus (if funds were available – which they usually weren’t).
I’ve also seen the principals who worked three, four, five years to create the climate leading to this change pulled out to open new schools, promoted to central office positions, or recruited to other districts. If they stay, they’re always playing defense to keep their best teachers from other principals who would recruit them.
I’ve seen bitter battles over a fifth grade math teacher that centered on the ideas of loyalty and timing. How could you leave this group of kids? They need you so much! Or, how can you wait until July to make a move like this? I’ve seen teachers lose friends among their colleagues, anger their principals, and start wars between personnel departments. Usually, these personal conflicts settle calmly, out of the eye of the public.
The critical question here, though, is why do they leave in the first place? Why would you leave a faculty that you joined when things were bad and with a new principal, when you believed in her and helped her turn the school around? Maybe your family situation changed. Maybe the principal left. Maybe you were tired because of all the extra work that went into that school’s success. Sometimes, you’re just spent.
Should we resent teachers who leave under these circumstances? I don’t think so, but then again, I can find friends who disagree. Instead, we hire the people we need to hire, and we try to give them what they need to help the kids who come to them.
Maybe Durant looked at Oklahoma City and he didn’t see a long-term contender. The Utah Jazz were great – near the top every year – when John Stockton and Karl Malone were on the roster. Then they weren’t, and the team collapsed. The San Antonio Spurs have been a playoff team for about 20 years straight now. Having Tim Duncan will do that for you. They also prove that a small-market team can be a winner. On the other hand, the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks have been irrelevant for several years.
Schools are hard places to work. Some of our teachers leave the profession altogether. Lately, we’ve been seeing this with our support people too. We conduct exit interviews, and we pay particular attention to the staff who take lateral positions in schools that seem just as challenging as the ones they’re leaving. Why? What can we do differently? Is it the leadership? Is it the kids?
By the way, if it’s the kids you’re abandoning, then good riddance. We’re proud of our kids, so good luck wherever you go next.
We look at the information we can observe. We try to make sense of it. In the end, though, we just move on. We’re trying to improve. We have kids to teach. If you’d rather be somewhere else – for whatever reason – that doesn’t change our mission. The Thunder want to win, no matter who is on their team next year. Schools want to teach, no matter who is on the faculty.
For those who choose to show up, I say thank you. If you’ve left, I don’t have time to think about you anymore. I’m just too busy.
Vision 2020 – Tuesday
Tuesday at Vision 2020 is where the real fun begins. The Cox Center will be chock full of learning opportunities for the 4,500 reported registrants. And according to the multiple emails I received today, parking – in spite of the NBA Finals being across the street for the first time ever – will be in abundance.
Meanwhile, with a quick review of the program, I see several high-quality keynote speakers and breakout sessions. Featured presenters Bill Daggett and Cathy Seely are always worth hearing. Also, our state’s obsession with all things Florida and reading continues. And the K-20 Center is well-represented as always. Three sessions in particular, though, really caught my eye.
At 1:45, you could attend “The Marriage of Mr. Social Studies and Ms. Common Core: Introducing the Newly Adopted Oklahoma C3 Standards for the Social Studies.” Getting past the ridiculous name, this session promises to focus on “the role of citizenship literacy and development” and explain how the standards were designed. If you go to this one, you might want to ask the presenter why Oklahoma participated in the development of national standards for Mathematics and English/Language Arts, but opted out of national standards development for Social Studies and Science. It seems contrary to the narrative that has been woven across the last two administrations about the need to conform to national standards in education.
Another workshop at the same time that makes me smile is “Congratulations! You’re a Grandparent! A Genetic Look at Traits.” Unlike the Social Studies workshop, this one is just funny for the name. The description itself actually sounds like a pretty good lesson plan that would be engaging for students – which is always a good thing.
Not to make your selection even harder, but my other favorite workshop is yet again in the same time slot: “Party Like a ROCKST★R?” This workshop decries the increased use of caffeine by students and promises to give participants “the real bull on Red Bull.” Seriously. That’s what it says. It’s not clear, however, if the presenters will discuss the connection between increased stress caused by new graduation requirements that come with free abdication of privacy for any appellants.
If you aren’t afraid of the Thunder traffic and can stick around long enough to attend the 2:45-4:30 sessions, the workshop presented by two SDE staffers on “Using the New State Grade Card System” might be interesting. If you do, be sure to ask question one from my conference primer. They’ll love that.
Most importantly, enjoy the conference, and try to learn something. This is likely the only significant professional development opportunity the SDE will provide until this time next year.
okeducationtruths 