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Self-Centered Is Self-Sabotage

Let me begin this week’s post with a mundane activity that often gets overlooked, but that, personally, gives me a great deal of satisfaction: a proper highway merge. They happen every day — a car signals their intent, enters the on-ramp, accelerates to the proper speed for the surrounding traffic, and smoothly moves into the available open space in the lane. Do it correctly, and traffic keeps moving without any problem. Do it poorly, and traffic is disrupted. Now take it one step further: the on-ramp is actually an entry/exit combo, where there’s an extra lane so that entering traffic can merge onto the freeway and exiting traffic can make their way off. It seems simple, but I find it very cool when I’m in such a merge, another driver and I both signal our intentions correctly, then we essentially switch places in the merge lane and head our separate ways. It’s a little thing, but I love it. So satisfying.

Why is it satisfying? Because two complete strangers, each piloting more than a ton of machinery down the highway, manage to 1) follow the rules of the road, 2) pay attention to each other, and 3) complete a cooperative maneuver safely and smoothly. It’s one of those fundamental tasks that serves as evidence of human ability, even without taking into account the technological marvels of the machinery itself or the road we’re driving on. We manage to cooperate without incident at 50 miles per hour or more. It’s the kind of thing that makes you wonder why people struggle so much when the traffic lights go into flashing-red status for a boulevard stop, or why they can’t deal with a school bus coming to a stop to drop off students and halting traffic, or why drivers sometimes cannot figure out how to “zipper” to merge exiting a parking lot or consolidating into a single lane on the road.. Why is it so hard?

There’s a key term in the paragraph above: Cooperate. A compound word literally meaning “work together.” Cooperation is a concept in short supply in current American culture for a variety of reasons. I’m not here to delineate any of those reasons, to decry anything about the U.S., or to discuss political, economic, or broad cultural issues. Maybe sometime in the future. But today, I’m talking about cooperation, or lack of it, in terms of how it impacts our individual lives and the goals we pursue, through the lenses of both my voiceover career and my education career. One of the fundamental problems in both of these worlds is the logical opposite of cooperation, competition, which, at its core, is rooted in individualism. Individualism and self-reliance have their place, but too much of them often gets in the way because you’re too interested in beating someone rather than working with or helping them. In other words, when you’re self-centered, you focus on competing, not cooperating. This produces conflict, and it can actually hinder your career.

Competition is ultimately a self-centered notion. Yes, it is possible to have cooperation in competitive sports, because the members of one team have to cooperate among themselves to succeed against the opponent. But that’s the beauty of team sports: in order to compete, you have to cooperate first. It’s also one of the things I have always loved about being involved in band. Talk about the “3 Cs” of success: Collaboration, Communication, and Cooperation, all in service to learning to perform with musical excellence, both on the marching field and the concert stage. And yes, band can be a competitive venture, but ensembles that may not score at the top of a given recap sheet can still build success because they >>ta-da<< work and grow together. Ask any band member — or a member of a successful athletic or other team — and their memories usually don’t focus on a particular trophy, but rather the other people with whom they worked and sweated and cried and cheered and busted their tails trying to reach their goals. Sure, championships groups will always hold on to that achievement, but what truly makes it special are the people with whom you achieved.

Along the way, the most infuriating people you encounter are the ones who refuse to cooperate. Who won’t commit to the goals of the group. Who focus more on themselves than the team. Honestly, it’s why the concept of “cooperative learning” gave me proverbial hives as both a student and a teacher — place me in a group of 4-5 people, and I guarantee that I will work hard on the task at hand, even if it’s a little silly (I’m wired that way), but I also guarantee that at least one of the people in the group will NOT work hard, will not pull their own weight, and will be essentially an empty seat. I’ll bet you, dear reader, can remember a time or two when you had a deadbeat group member, which is why you, too, hated “group work” in school. Because there’s always someone who’s self-centered, selfish, or otherwise in conflict with the intended purpose of the given group. Maybe this person is competitive, or maybe they’re just naturally contrary. But they disrupt the collective efforts of everyone else. The concept doesn’t just stay isolated in school environments. Somewhere, there’s a company whose employees are expected to work together on projects, and there’s also that one person who just doesn’t step up and deliver for the group. Somewhere, there’s a professional athletic team with a player who is more concerned with his/her own statistics than with the performance of the team. And yes, somewhere there just might be a voiceover talent who places more emphasis on his/her “artistic concerns” than on the needs of the very people who hired him/her. And yes, somewhere there might be a teacher who isn’t helpful to colleagues, particularly new ones, and creates an unproductive competitive environment between him/herself and the other teachers “on the team.”

You might suspect that I experienced that last one, and you would be correct. I mentioned in a previous post about how the first five years of my education career were rough, and one of the fundamental reasons was my so-called “mentor teacher.” As I mentioned previously, I was initially hired to teach government and economics, and I was handed a class of each consisting 100% of special education students…because, as the established government and economics teachers said, “we just can handle working with them.” This pair of teachers were the only teachers of these classes prior to my hiring, and as they put it, “we consider our classes a rite of passage for seniors.” Obviously, there was a fair amount of arrogance from the outset, and my assigned mentor — the government teacher — carried most of it. He was that teacher who considered his little classroom in the portable building to be his own little fiefdom where he had total control, and his materials and assignments were proprietary to the highest degree. Before the year started, he handed me his “lesson plans” from the previous year (printed on a dot matrix printer — hello, 1994), and that was essentially my guide to, I don’t know…how to teach government? That was the extent of sharing and collegiality from this individual. I quickly came to realize that A) he printed those plans for administration but didn’t actually follow them, and B) I was on my own. And I would eventually hear tales of him discussing the differences between “the two government classes” with his own classes as my students and his compared notes and assignments. It became a sort of competitive environment, perhaps even a little toxic. While I don’t think in hindsight that it hindered or sabotaged my career, I know it didn’t help it. And the conflict that persisted those first three years was eventually why I was moved over to world geography in year 4. Mercifully, after that move, I found other teachers with whom to collaborate and from whom to learn and advance my skills. That feeling of cooperation within the world geography team likely saved my teaching career. Had I been consigned to a lonely world filled with competition and resentment, I probably would’ve left the profession completely.

Fortunately, my voiceover career hasn’t been quite so rough, despite the reputation the industry has for being competitive. Sure, there are thousands of “voiceover talents” out there, but one of the things that I and many others notice is that voice actors are very giving and helpful toward one another. In a world that should be ultra-competitive, there is instead an environment of collaboration, transparency, and cooperation, even from the oldest and most established talents toward brand-new talents seeking their own paths. Not everything is free, but information and advice are abundant, and the atmosphere is more welcoming than you might imagine. But one thing that inspired this post came unexpectedly during a voiceover conference I recently attended. The conference was a great experience overall, and I learned a lot from a variety of people, but during a break between sessions, I overheard a conversation between two people who were lamenting their own difficulties in the industry, and the mindset was rather revealing, and little disconcerting given how helpful everyone at the conference was. One woman was discussing her difficulties at getting any traction with auditions and bookings. She recounted to her friend that growing up, she wanted to be famous “like Dolly Parton.” (Ironic given the events of Tuesday. RIP Dolly.) I didn’t really pay attention to any of the further details, but it seemed like the general point of the conversation was basically all about “me, me, me” and “my voice” and the overall view that she didn’t think anyone was giving her a fair chance in the industry. It really bothered me because the attitude was in serious contrast to just about everything I was hearing in sessions and conversations at this conference. I mean, what do you expect? It’s a welcoming industry, but it can also be a grind, so you have to persist and really work at all of it. No one’s going to get “discovered,” but literally look around you and you’ll find many people willing to help you figure out how to get your own career going.

Even before the events of Tuesday and the tributes to Dolly Parton, my initial reaction to what I heard was a mix of surprise and skepticism, because anyone who was a fan of Dolly knew that she worked incredibly hard establishing herself as a country singer and songwriter, and if things weren’t going her way, she never whined about it and just worked harder. And Dolly’s efforts were never about herself, but about writing music that appealed to her fans, doing things that served her community, and just helping others. The tributes starting Tuesday merely cemented those ideas with tales of how graceful and genuine she was as a person. So looking back, hearing another voiceover talent complaining and being self-centered drove home the notion that this person was really missing the point. You want to be famous like Dolly? Work your tail off. Bring something to the table that no one else can. Find an audience to serve, and serve them. And most of all, work well with others. Cooperate. Collaborate. That’s what leads to success. And that brings me back full circle to the point of this post. Individualism, self-centered behavior, greed…they’re forces that can motivate people in a free society, and certainly in a capitalist economy, but they’re not the point or the goal. Capitalism is supposed to reward you when you provide someone else something better than they can themselves. That’s why they pay you; that’s why they say “Thank You.” And you thank them back for the reward that you should have rightfully earned by providing quality. It’s a Win-Win mentality. Self-centered perspective without regard for someone else leads nowhere. Stop worrying about winning a competition or prevailing in a conflict. Stop adopting a Win-Lose mentality. Focus on how you can work with someone else toward a purpose that is mutual, whether that’s as simple as a safe, smooth transition on a freeway, as complex as planning lessons with teaching colleagues, or as creative as a project or event for which you provide a voiceover. Cooperate toward a greater goal, a collective goal. Play a part in a larger story, and serve. It’s satisfying.

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Day 1: Chaos, Excitement, and Hope

Happy First Day of School. I know some of you already experienced that last week (or even earlier), but for my local school district and many nearby, it’s happening today, or at least this week. I consider the First Day of School a little more personal this year because I have a grand-niece who enters Kindergarten today (at the same school her father attended), and my youngest son will experience what I expect to be his final “first day of school” soon as he gets ready to complete his Bachelor’s degree next spring. I suppose grad school might be a possibility, but for now, it’s his last first day. Honestly, once you get to college, the First Day of School means less and less. Or does it? The bottom line for me is that the First Day of School is filled with a myriad of emotions, and that makes it special, uniquely so for each of us.

When I was a student, the First Day of School each year was actually a time of excitement and anticipation more than anxiety and trepidation. That’s in spite of the fact that, on my very first day of First Grade (my parents didn’t want to send me to Kindergarten), I was pretty scared, and I was also literally attacked from behind by a jerk who rubbed soap all over my face and in my eyes. I think that kid actually ended up in prison later in life, but what I remember more than him are the other kids who stopped him, got the teacher, and helped me rinse off and clean up. I never encountered such drama (or trauma) on subsequent first days, but I do remember enjoying the return to classes, seeing my friends again, and the overall novelty of a new school year. There was something cool about new clothes, new school supplies, new books, and new classes and teachers. It was a hopeful time. As I reached high school, the First Day of School was really offset by the first day of Band Camp. By the time we started the school year, I had already spent two or more weeks working in marching band rehearsals. Still, I do recall the First Day each year in high school being somewhere between chaos and outright anarchy. The band hall became a place of refuge, where the people and the routines were more familiar. I suspect the chaos arose from the fact that high school involved changing classes every 55 minutes, to go with schedule changes and, of course, multiple lunch periods (and off-campus lunch for everyone).

Once I got to college, the First Day of School still came after a week of Band Camp (the time for true excitement), but the chaos ramped up a bit thanks to traffic and parking challenges. I was fortunate to be one of those students whose schedule remained stable, and I managed to craft a workable plan to seek out parking every semester. My favorite part of First Day in college was short classes. Why? We would typically only go over the syllabus on the first day, so it was usually a brief overview of what to expect, then send you on your way. No readings, no assignments, nothing special or pressure-packed yet. Not sure it works that way now, in the era of LMS-based content where you can see everything you’ve got to do for the entire semester on one screen and often have at least some discussion post required within a few days. But in those days, the First Day shortened class was glorious. I remember certain professors being very relaxed and straight-forward on that first day, basically laying out how it is and how it’s going to be, and most of all, communicating “how to succeed in this class.” I found that kind of honesty and candor to be hopeful and uplifting, because there was never anything more infuriating to me in education than “guess what’s in my head” games on the part of the teacher.

The glory, honesty, and candor more or less continued during my years running my own classroom. I thoroughly enjoyed the First Day of School from the perspective of a high school teacher. Because I enjoyed the beauty of no assignments on Day 1, I had that approach in my own classroom. “This will be the easiest and toughest day of this class,” I would tell my students. It’s easy because they won’t have anything due at the end of class or the next day, but it’s tough because there’s a lot of information to absorb while only scratching the surface, so they may not know exactly what to expect yet and have many, many questions. I also enjoyed being able to establish at least the beginnings of the classroom culture. My classes were almost exclusively populated with seniors, so I told them “I will treat you like adults, and I expect you to act like adults.” I never wanted to be the teacher who laid out way too many ground rules for the class. My goal was always that we achieved the day’s learning objective(s) in the most efficient, effective way possible. We would have fun at times, but I couldn’t guarantee that every class would be laugh-a-minute or entertaining. I mean, it’s economics, so manage your expectations. I would be as easy-going about the course as I was allowed to be by circumstances. So if it’s tougher content, expect a more serious approach. If there’s something outside this classroom disrupting what we do, we may need to work a little harder to achieve our goals. But above all, as long as students remained focused on getting done what I ask them to do, I could be as laid-back and humorous as I desired, which was generally quite a bit. I will never forget the kid named John who came into my class on the First Day of School ever at Summit High School in Mansfield ISD and told me, “I go by ‘Reggie.’” He was actually making a joke, but let me tell you, he was Reggie in my class from then on, because A) I loved the joke, and B) it was a little humor that was reserved for this course and this class period in my room. It was our thing in that class, and I think anytime we could establish some kind of rapport like that on the First Day, or even during the first week or month, it made the day-to-day grind of school much more interesting. It was an unexpected setting of tone for that particular class, and I was all for it.

Once I moved into administration, the First Day of School took on far less meaning. Technically, the “school year” for administrators goes from July 1 to June 30. Most districts now close during the week of July 4, so the first day of a given school year occurs right after that, in early July, when admin are working on preparations for the new academic year — planning professional development, building the master schedule, hiring new teachers and staff, managing cleanup and improvements of the building, etc. When I worked in central office, the month of July was all about reports based on available test results and other data from the previous school year. We also planned out the specific testing-related events for the coming school year. Once August arrived, we were more focused on impending accountability results than the First Day of School. We essentially stayed out of the campuses’ way since they had enough happening already. Classes still started, but we were largely Under the radar. In a way, I relished that situation, because the First Day belongs to teachers and students more than anyone else. If you’ve read any of my previous posts about teaching, you know that I consider teacher-student interaction to be a nearly sacred part of education. The First Day of School is the first step each year toward establishing that interaction. It never bothered me while I was in central administration that I didn’t get to experience Day 1 anymore, because Day 1 wasn’t about anything I did for the district.

After I moved into campus administration, I wanted to maintain that same level of deference. My goal as a campus administrator on the First Day was simply to help students find their way throughout the building, so I would station myself in one of the common areas and seek out students to assist. “What room are you looking for?” “Can I help you find your next class?” If the teacher-student interaction is so important, then the best service I could provide was to help students find the physical locations of their teachers. What’re more, once students learned that I was the campus testing coordinator, I figured it might be helpful that they associated me more with “that nice man who helped me find my class” than “that jerk who runs all the big tests.” So I did just that; be helpful from Day 1. And the plan worked great until the specter of overzealous local assessment reared its ugly head. Enter MAP Testing. Now, the Measures of Academic Progress assessment (“MAP Growth,” as it’s called in the K-12 education world), provided by NWEA is, itself, an actual quality assessment born of years of experience and development. And the NWEA officials that I’ve worked with in the past were very nice people who were responsive to the concerns of administrators. The problem, as it generally was in my final ISD, was that district assessment decision-makers sought to implement MAP in a manner that was detrimental to the students at my campus. MAP Growth could’ve been administered anytime between August 15 through November 30. Over 3 months to give the test! Yet our district insisted on attempting to test everyone at the absolute beginning of that window, as early as possible. “Welcome to the First Day of School, kids. Now take this multiple choice test!” What are we even doing?!? This approach flies directly in the face of everything I’ve just talked about regarding the First Day of School. Establish culture? Heck No, take this test. Outline expectations? Heck No, take this test. Develop relationships and rapport? Heck No, take this test. As I’ve indicated before, local assessment obsession definitely belongs on the list of reasons why I decided to retire from the profession.

Either way, I still maintain that the First Day of School has the potential to be a positive experience that sets the tone and establishes the foundation for a successful school year. Yes, there will be chaos and confusion. Yes, there may be anxiety. But those emotions should be outweighed by the productive, by the helpful, by the hope and anticipation that Day 1 of this new experience should bring. The old adage says that you only get one chance to make a first impression. Use it wisely. Spend the day engaging in something constructive, something that creates the proper setting, even if it isn’t for a grade, even if it isn’t “rigorous academic work,” even if it’s not specifically tied to the curriculum. Those things come soon enough. Students, I hope you’re just as excited about new things, returning friends, and new teachers and learning as I was in my youth. Teachers, I hope you approach this First Day of School with the same excitement and anticipation for your subject and your new students that I had once upon a time. There is nothing like the impact of a quality teacher-student relationship on the lives of so many. Here’s to building multitudes of them this year. Happy First Day of School, everyone. And may this school year and all those in the future feed your mind and your soul.

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Go Ahead, Waste My Time

The term “convocation” comes from the Latin convocare, which means “to call together.” It’s an assembly, usually of an academic or ecclesiastical nature. Typically, an ecclesiastical convocation might involve church leaders — ordained, lay, sometimes a mix of both. An academic convocation might occur for a many reasons. Technically, all graduations are also convocations, since the school community meets to confer academic diplomas or degrees, but most schools don’t mix the terms. Instead, they refer to graduation as “graduation” or sometimes “commencement.” Today, “convocation” in the academic world is celebrated more as beginning than end. My own alma mater, U.T.-Arlington, hosts an assembly at the beginning of each fall semester that they call “MavsMeet Convocation.” It’s a kickoff to the academic year designed to bring together people from all colleges within the University. It’s basically a pep rally focused on the coming school year, geared toward generating energy, focus, and inspiration for the students. Most local school districts in my area also host convocations, although these gatherings are designed for the staff. We’re talking everyone — administrators, teachers, counselors, nutrition staff, bus drivers, maintenance, security — the whole crew. And I have little doubt that anyone reading this who is or has been in education has already rolled their eyes, rubbed their temples, or placed a palm to the face. Because academic convocation is often a tiresome experience.

During my 31 years in K-12 public education, I attended exactly 30 convocations, all of them in August. (The one I missed was in 2017 when my wife and I visited New York City for my birthday. Ironically, on the day of convocation we attended a taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which was a sharp contrast to your average school district convocation. I’ll offer specifics later.) Honestly, I can only remember about ten of those thirty convocations, and only six of those are for the right reasons. I almost feel bad for the organizers at times, because I know your typical district communications team works very hard to put together a convocation program. They have to work out the transportation logistics of getting everyone to the venue, plan a “pre-activity” to allow for people to enter the space, then figure out how to fill 90-120 minutes with entertainment and information that will be appealing and engaging for that wide audience. It’s definitely a monumental task. And it’s probably gutting to know that A) at least half the audience doesn’t really want to be there, and B) as a result, there’s around a 60-75% chance that the post-convocation sentiment will be negative. And I feel for the organizers; I really do. It’s kind of a thankless annual task, and I’m sure they do their best in spite of the overwhelming chance that it’ll still be a beating. Remember, I worked in testing for almost two decades; “thankless annual tasks” are my specialty.

Despite my sympathy, I still have to say it: School convocations are a waste of time, and money. And we all know it. Yet for some reason, school districts still host them in the name of tradition, or camaraderie, or some imagined district-wide spirit of unity they’re trying to foster. And I get that, too. There’s perhaps a certain anti-climactic quality to a school year that simply begins at your own campus, with only campus meetings and trainings to attend — at least, in the mind of upper administration and the board of trustees, who see the district from a broader perspective and want all parties to feel like they are part of a greater whole. And in all honesty, there is some value in having every single staff member convene in a single venue to send the message that “we value you,” “you’re an important part of a larger team,” and “we wish you a successful school year.” Teachers often lament feeling unimportant, and delivering such a message via e-mail or a Zoom meeting is…well…lame. So yeah, in spite of the time it takes to get everyone to a single place, then seated and settled, it can be nice to have the Superintendent and the School Board President offer some heartfelt messages. That assumes that the Superintendent and School Board President are decent speakers delivering concise, coherent thoughts. I’ve heard some great ones, like Dr. Jim Vaszauskas in Mansfield (who never got enough credit for being funny, direct, and engaging), and I’ve heard some who take themselves way too seriously. I’ve also heard some who perhaps aspire to a career in public speaking after education, but aren’t quite there yet, ifyouknowwhatImean. It can also be nice to have fellow staff members and even students or former students take the stage to offer thanks and encouragement. Depending on your level of experience and connection with others in the district, I think it can also be nice to see people from other campuses and departments, chat about your respective summers, and visit before and after the convocation ceremony. 

Teachers often lament feeling isolated in their specific classroom on their specific campus, and convocation gives them a chance to escape for a couple of hours and connect with others they may not see again until this time next year. Those are good things. Connection, community, and a sense of belonging. You can definitely separate the extroverts from the introverts at convocation, as the extroverts are dancing around and whooping it up while the introverts just want to find their seats and wakemewhenitsover. Districts often pull out the local stops with a variety of students: a marching band, cheerleaders, spirit groups, choirs and other performers on the stage. Sometimes there are staff members who help provide the entertainment, like the great Josh Roberts of Four Day Weekend, but often, we find out why this or that staff member made their way into education instead of entertainment. That’s not a criticism of the staff who don’t quite “have it,” though. We know we’re wasting time today, so let’s at least have fun with it. Give the extroverts a chance to unleash their energy. Give the wannabe performers a chance to perform. And please, at least give everyone a genuine message (not necessarily “this year’s motto”) about how important we consider their contributions to the students about whom this whole upcoming year is supposed to be.

Yet there’s always an apparent expectation of more. More entertainment. More inspiration. More speeches. And that’s where most convocations eventually fly off the rails and lead everyone from “This is fun!” back to “Can I go back to the campus and work in my room now?” Because time starts crawling by, wasting away. I refer, of course, to the “convocation speaker.” Usually an individual, occasionally a group, whose purpose is to offer roughly 45-90 minutes of inspirational stories and words of encouragement that will send everyone off in a fantastic mood ready to conquer their classroom, their curriculum, and everything else this school year. I can say that I’ve heard from excellent convocation speakers in my career. Ron Clark (twice). Kim Bearden (from the Ron Clark Academy). Dr. Adolph Brown (also twice). Riney Jordan. Those are the six convocation speeches that really resonated with me in a memorable way, and if you’ve ever heard any of them speak, you know why. The others? Some speakers were probably good, too, but not in a unique or memorable way. I do remember some of the bad ones. My first convocation in August 1994 was memorable because the speaker kept leaning into the microphone and yelling. Trouble is, her amplified yells actually hurt my right ear. I went to the doctor literally that afternoon and learned I had fluid build-up like I had been too close to a gunshot. No permanent damage, but I did have to protect my ear for a few days. I remember one speaker who was doing a backwoods/country persona, telling nonsensical stories that went nowhere. I think it was comedic, but I’m not sure if it was genuinely funny or just absurd. I do know it was not really topical for this audience, and a colossal waste of time. And I will never forget the overall reaction (or lack of it) to the group that “performed” at my last convocation in August 2024. Each of us were handed a pair of drumsticks on the way into the auditorium, branded with the Grand Prairie ISD logo and that year’s motto, “Elevate.” There were moments where everyone was supposed to tap the sticks together as part of the presentation, but truth be told, I never perceived any point to what we were supposed to be doing, and it was possibly the flattest I’ve ever seen a convocation audience in my career. No one really knew what was happening. I’m not sure the performers really knew their audience; their schtick seemed to be very generic and not properly targeted for this group. This convocation total waste, including any money spent. For a district that was facing shrinking budgets, using money on this was unacceptable. But I kept those drumsticks as a reminder — like administrators will encourage teachers to “Remember Your ‘Why,’” those drumsticks allow me to “Remember My ‘Why I Retired.’” With apologies to the organizers of that convocation, it was, in a word, boring.

The point is really this: If we’re going to waste everyone’s time on a given day prior to the first day of school, then at least bring it. 100% Don’t bore us. I referenced earlier that the one convocation I missed was because I was in New York attending a taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. I can assert that it was far more memorable than any convocation I ever attended. Why? One word: Energy. It was definitely not a ”big” show for them. Robert Pattinson and Niecy Nash were the guests. Nice enough, but clearly just a Wednesday in August. Yet the energy and professionalism of everyone on the Late Show staff was top-tier. Warm-up comic Paul Mecurio was hilarious. Jon Batiste was a veritable freak of nature and a world-class musician leading a band that was insanely good, especially considering the tickets were free. Colbert himself exuded so much enthusiasm in the pre-show banter, and his rapport with Batiste was amazing. All of this activity was designed to raise the level of energy among the audience so that, when the cameras actually rolled, the Ed Sullivan Theater seemed like the greatest place on the planet.

Granted, that’s the point of any late night TV talk show, because that aura helps keep the viewer at home engaged. It goes with the territory. We shouldn’t have high expectations of our convocations, though, should we? I’m saying here and now, absolutely we should. I know that The Late Show catered to a live audience of around 400+, and many school districts have at least 10 times that number of employees. I know that district communications staff have a multitude of tasks beyond simply the annual convocation. But here’s the thing: Even though a convocation is technically about 2-3 hours, it actually burns half a day, morning or afternoon. That’s a morning or afternoon during which teachers could be preparing for the year, working in their rooms, planning lessons, collaborating with each other. There is stuff to do to get ready for the school year, by every staff member, and this exercise interferes with that. Yet that’s fine, keep up the tradition of convocation. Waste everyone’s time. Spend some money on a speaker. But if you’re going to insist on holding this event, please do it right. Plan some entertainment, plan some speeches, but don’t allow them to be boring. Make the extra phone call and put in the extra work to ensure that the entertainment actually entertains and that the speeches actually inspire. And for goodness’ sake, if you’re hiring a contract speaker/presenter, vet them properly. Just because the superintendent saw them at a conference and thought they were pretty good isn’t enough, especially when spending taxpayer dollars within a tight budget. Check reviews, check references, and work with the presenter to ensure they understand who the audience is and what the point of this presentation is. It’s one thing for district officials to gather staff to tell them how important they are, but the event itself, and the work that goes into it, shows them. So sure, go ahead and waste my time. Just don’t bore me.

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The Serenity and Insanity of Summer

Ah, summer. Evenings by the lake. Trips to exotic lands, or national parks, or simply to visit family and friends. Baseball. The French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open. This year, the World Cup. Sleeping in. Idyllic times spent simply enjoying. For teachers and students, it’s all about the chance to relax, refresh, and regroup between one school year and the next. Phineas and Ferb know all about it. One of the greatest things about any school year is that it ends, as I wrote recently. The general nature of each school year is not unlike anything with a seasonal approach: The “in-season” time is filled with intensity and activity, and at times it may seem like things are teetering (perhaps on the brink of something?) and unstable. And yet, despite any adversity or tension found at given times in the previous ten months, the end always arrives. Summer is at hand.

Sure, astronomical summer isn’t officially here until the Summer Solstice later this month, and that’s fine. Frankly, those remaining 3 weeks of astronomical spring actually improve the phenomenon, because it allows everyone a chance to appreciate the days as they continue to lengthen. Stay out later, soak in the sun as it extends to its latest point, setting at nearly 9:00pm. If your life has been consumed by school for the past 10 months, whether as a student or as a teacher, right now, it’s not. Get out there and live. Do all the things for which you don’t have time during the school year. Read something you genuinely want to read, perhaps on a beach, or maybe at the park or even in your backyard. Listen to music. Play music. Play a sport. Just play, and stop worrying so much about what you have to do — assignments, grading, planning. Immerse yourself in things you enjoy. Therein lies the beauty of summer, particularly for teachers who’ve been on-edge for around 250 of the past 280 days (allowing for holidays). After the relative fervor of a given school year, the release of simply existing — no commute, no lessons, no activities, no updating Canvas, no meetings, no e-mails — can be downright cathartic.

Before you say, “Teachers have it easy; I’m at my job every day in the summer and only get 2 weeks of vacation each year,” step back a second and realize that your job is probably not nearly like teaching. Everyone that works 50 weeks a year without a week off for Thanksgiving, two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s, and a week for Spring Break also isn’t having to deal with the pressure of the school year, the deadlines, the children, or the parents. Anyone who goes into teaching does so with an interest in helping children of various ages, but even for someone who “loves kids,” 36 or more calendar weeks of working with them — and dealing their parents — can be exhausting. You have to keep them safe and engaged while trying to impart some knowledge, wisdom, critical thinking skills, and content that you hope will last in their brains beyond the next 72 hours. Tack on test prep, extracurricular activities, and general well-being, and we’re talking a whole different demand on your psyche than the average 9-to-5 job.

And don’t even start with the nonsense of “summers off,” or the even more insulting “3 Reasons for Teaching: June, July, August.” Take August completely off the table, because teachers will already be gearing up for and starting the new school year during that month. Technically, the teachers at your kid’s school are currently unemployed (officially termed off-contract) even though most have received what’s called a “letter of reasonable assurance” that they will be employed again when they are asked to report for the coming school year. “They’re getting paid to sit around all summer.” FALSE. Teacher contracts are based on a daily rate multiplied by the number of workdays, usually the instructional days plus five (for “staff development” prior to the beginning of the year). Daily Rate x Duty Days = Total Salary, which is divided by 12 to determine the monthly paycheck. So the teacher “sitting around” as you read this is receiving deferred payment during the months of June, July, and August. They will report this coming August but will not actually be paid for the time worked in August 2026 until after September 1. So spare me the notion that your tax dollars are paying them for nothing. They’re simply patient enough to accept the payment after it’s remained in the public coffers for an extra month or two. Beyond that, teachers are also expected to seek out and earn “professional development” (PD) time on their own during the summer. Sometimes districts host their own conferences during the summer to allow these requirements to be fulfilled, but the bottom line is that teachers have to seek out their opportunities, at their own expense.

Having said that, I still consider summer to be a wonderful respite for teachers…at least through June and July. Sure, they’ve got to earn their PD time, but they actually get to choose where and how to earn them. It’s not always a matter of heading to a district venue for 2 days of “death by PowerPoint.” When I was a classroom teacher, I used to attend a 2-day conference offered by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Two days heading into downtown Dallas (and learning to appreciate my own short commute to campus), featuring excellent food and knowledgeable speakers while communing with my colleagues from other places. I always enjoyed listening to speakers from the world of economic research talking content, as opposed to educators talking pedagogy or classroom management. Honestly, it hardly felt like work, so I never felt like my summer was interrupted; this was simply part of the summertime release for me. Even during years when I spent an entire week at TCU or UTA attending a Summer AP Institute, I still felt like I was recharging myself personally and professionally. The serenity of summer remained.

It actually wasn’t until I moved into administration that I realized that summer also holds a fair level of insanity for some educators. It turns out, some districts don’t offer much freedom for their teachers when deciding how to earn PD hours. Some districts require teachers to participate in their district-led PD conference. For someone who was used to enjoying my little high-tone events at the Dallas Fed, this realization was jarring. Are we really expecting teachers to spend an additional two days listening to the same central administrators who cannot keep their attention at PD meetings during the school year? “Oh, we’ll have guest speakers.” I suppose that’s true, but the guest speakers are often central administrators from other districts…who also cannot keep their teachers’ attention at PD meetings during the school year. (Many of these people have no clue about the principles I outlined in my post about presentation skills last year.) Sometimes, the guest speakers are independent consultants, but that can be a very mixed bag. For every guest consultant who’s engaging, there are at least three that are either still “finding their voice” or are just not very good. You get what you pay for, especially when it comes to guest speakers on topics like curriculum, teaching strategies, and lesson planning. Good Luck. And yet, some districts still schedule these sessions and require them of their teachers. Insane.

Want to ramp up the insanity even more? Let’s talk about administrators, who get paid a higher annual salary, yes, but often only because their contracts include more days than those of teachers. A teacher may work 180 days (175 instructional + 5 extra). An administrator might be contracted to work 210 days, or maybe even 226 or more. So your typical assistant principal, or someone in central office, is NOT off work right now; they’re on-campus literally as you read this. What are they doing? Excellent question. Often, they’re working on things that weren’t quite finished during the school year itself — cleaning up records, managing files, day-to-day office duties. They may be working on projects related to the physical status of the building that are best handled without students and teachers roaming the halls all day. Many administrators are working on the campus master schedule for the coming year, processing new enrollments, planning for August staff development sessions, and similar activities. Still…are there days when a given school administrator is essentially staring at the ceiling waiting for the day to end? No one likes to admit it openly, but everyone knows it happens. “Well, they should be fired for wasting my tax dollars.” Calm down. It’s the nature of nearly all work that is compensated on clock hours, whether in public school or at a store inside your local mall. Sometimes time simply passes without massive productivity. When you consider that some of these administrators are actually making a lower daily rate than some teachers and only have a higher salary due to the extra days, it shouldn’t surprise or anger you. Also, factor in all the extra duties and sh** these administrators contend with during the school year. Having said that, the requirements of many of these contracts is still insane.

But the supreme insanity of summer is found in a place you probably already expect, if you’ve previously read my blog: Testing. Yes, Virginia, the State of Texas requires student assessment every summer. The good news is that the old Student Success Initiative (SSI) for elementary and junior high/middle school students has now been retired for 5 years. There was a time when students in Grades 5 and 8 would be required to pass all their STAAR tests for automatic promotion to Grades 6 and 9. So they would test in April, again in May if unsuccessful, then again in June if still unsuccessful. The campus would be required to jump through hoops…“provide accelerated instruction” between test administrations. If a student failed for a third time in June, a Grade Placement Committee would be convened (to maintain the illusion of standards), and nearly every time, the student would still be promoted. TEA suspended SSI in Summer 2016 due to problems with unreliable results from the vendor, then discontinued it altogether in 2021. Hooray! Trouble is, the specter of June STAAR still looms thanks to End-Of-Course (EOC).

I’ve railed about EOC twice before. December EOCs are a pain for campuses during what should be a happier time. Spring EOCs are a necessary evil, I suppose, although they beget IGCs. But June EOCs? If you thought administrator summer days are a waste, wait until you consider June EOCs. The theory behind June EOCs actually sounds positive on its face: Offer students an additional opportunity to fulfill EOC graduation requirements (i.e., pass the test at the minimum standard), so they get three chances a year instead of just two. The June test administration is strictly optional; students can opt to wait until December for the next chance. It sounds easy enough, but the reality is that offering the test again in June leads to consumption of additional resources. Campuses have to arrange for rooms to be open and air-conditioned for student testing. Because teachers are off-contract, they have to be hired at an hourly rate to administer the test, which is untimed, so that can add up immensely. Because students are coming to the building, the campus has to arrange transportation for those who need it, as well as meals. Since students who failed a STAAR test probably require remedial instruction, most districts arrange some kind of summer tutorials, which require rooms, and A/C, and staff, and transportation, and meals, as well. In the midst of what should be the serenity of summer, a veritable cottage industry of instruction and testing sprouts during the early weeks of June, siphoning off funds that might’ve been used elsewhere, and culminating in a STAAR EOC administration that will yield minimal gains, if any, for the campus. 

I know all of this first-hand, because I’ve administered a June EOC, I’ve supervised administration of the test, and I’ve analyzed the results from June EOCs at a district and campus level. I’ve served as the District Testing Coordinator in the past and supported each campus as they determine the best method for planning and administering the test for their students and staff. I’ve also worked as a Campus Testing Coordinator where the district insisted on consolidating retesters from several campuses and testing them all in a single building, despite the additional logistical headaches it created. I’ve collaborated with other administrators in planning and administration of testing, trying to respect their time and efforts while knowing they don’t really want to do this, but they’re on-contract and basically required to be there. I’ve spent time working with teachers in attendance at district-mandated training and during the test, as they question their life choices despite knowing they’re getting paid extra to do this. I’ve sent e-mails, placed phone calls, and processed countless students through the test management system du jour to schedule their tests and testing rooms. I’ve compiled and printed more testing-related documents than I care to recall. I’ve even worked with special needs students and their parents, along with specialized staff, to arrange specific testing locations and accommodations for students who qualify. Through all of it, I can tell you, without question, the entire process, especially during the summer is insane. A waste of time and energy.

“It’s certainly not a waste for the students that pass.” Sure, I understand the starfish-on-the-sand philosophy…for a student who actually shows up ready to work and tries hard on the test, going into the next school year without the looming specter of December EOC, or having to miss instruction to take that infernal test, can be its own reward. I get it, and I appreciate it. At the same time, from a wider perspective, I know that the return on total investment in this exercise is desperately low. See, I forgot to mention above that I’ve also admitted students walking up for testing who don’t even know what test(s) they need, let alone have content knowledge related to them, but whose parents essentially forced them to come take the test. I’ve watched a student run to the doors late, having suffered car trouble on the way to the testing campus, only to have the District Testing Coordinator herself tell the student, “Sorry, we don’t allow any late testers.” (That one really disgusted me, because we had open seats the student could’ve taken.) I’ve seen countless students finish English EOC tests designed to last 2-3 hours within 45 minutes because they barely wrote anything for the Essay. Those scores will not be passing, guaranteed. I’ve even seen a student click through the test blindly, randomly picking answers in 10 minutes, then leave, openly stating he’ll just “take it for real” in December. Yet another parent-forced-me-to-be-here situation. Even when I was District Testing Coordinator in a strong, A-rated district with relatively few June EOC retesters, our best campuses typically saw less than 20% of those students succeed in passing a test during the June administration. A waste. Insanity.

Why are we doing this? For that matter, why do some districts say “we’re going to rewrite curriculum / district assessments / scope and sequence / pacing guides / subject-area projects,” etc. with teaching staff during the summer? The fact is, you’ll NEVER get anyone to do their best work in the summer, whether from students or teachers, even if you’re offering “extra duty pay.” I said it earlier in the post: The school year is intense. It’s exhausting enough that the relative repose for teachers and students alike is necessary. Treating June and July as simply unused, unproductive months that beg for further activity is foolhardy. Trying to cram instruction and more testing into them is futile. Expecting anything more than the basic foundations of the coming school year during this time is unwise and irrational. Stop the Insanity. Embrace the Serenity. Let’s run into each other at the ballgame, the pool, the museum, or the park instead.

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Say. My. Name.

Your name is one of the first words you recognize in life. It is critical to your early development, giving you identity, offering you a sense of importance when people take the time to learn it, and especially to use it. You’ll hear it your entire life. It is each individual’s ultimate symbol of recognition. “That’s my name. That’s me.” Learning and using someone’s name establishes a sense of connection. Alternatively, not using it, or saying it incorrectly, creates a sense of estrangement or worse, animosity. Some people who consistently hear their name mispronounced, especially by teachers and other adults over the course of an academic career, might get used to it. They resign themselves to accept that their name will be mildly butchered consistently, and they look forward hopefully toward that day when someone will actually say it right.

That academic career will eventually reach an important benchmark, a life event known as Graduation Day. I think most people have mixed feelings when they ponder Graduation Day. On one level, it represents the culmination of academic achievement; completing 12-13 years of compulsory education, 1-3 years of post-secondary work, or perhaps 4-12 or more years at the collegiate level. Its beauty lies in its status as closure, even though it’s often called commencement, a term that also means “beginning.” On another level, it perfectly encapsulates the notion of “hurry up and wait.” Arrive at the venue 2 or more hours early; proceed into a holding room and sit, or even stand, for 30-60 minutes. March out into the venue or onto the stage, then sit some more and listen to speeches in which you may only Be mildly interested. All of it just so you, your family, and perhaps some friends, can experience the briefest of moments, perhaps as many as 5 seconds, where your name is announced and you begin to walk, after which you shake several hands belonging to people you may or may not know, and you receive an empty diploma cover that will, eventually, contain the single piece of paper for which you have sacrificed and studied. Depending on the age of the participants, Graduation Day elicits a sense of respect, fondness, or even derision from observers. At some point, Kindergarten Graduation became a fairly standard thing at most elementary schools, much to the chagrin of some. At campuses that serve grades K though 8, Eighth Grade Graduation is still common, which makes sense, given that students attended the school for up to 9 years. Then again, we’re living in an era when many public school districts separate into elementary, intermediate, and middle schools, and let’s face it: holding graduations at Kindergarten, Fourth Grade, Sixth Grade, and Eighth Grade is overkill. But they all pale in comparison to High School Graduation.

Some observers actually scoff at High School Graduation, as well, because “It’s not that big of a deal; we all know we’re going to make it out of high school.” We could argue about how that’s actually NOT the case for everyone, since there are still students for whom the endurance needed to complete high school is a challenge, and believe it or not, there are still families where a given student walking the stage this May is the first one in the family to do so. But the worthiness of the achievement isn’t the point. The point is that High School Graduation is a time-honored rite of passage, maybe one of the most important and universal such experiences across countries, cultures, and creeds. It is, as I stated earlier, a life event. A big one. (That’s why multiple graduations at earlier grade levels get so annoying; they dilute the experience.) The High School Graduation is pretty unique and special precisely because it is the culmination of more than a decade of academic work. And at its core is that moment for each individual student when their name is announced, and they cross the stage. It will happen literally millions of times this May and June, so it may be easy to dismiss from a statistical perspective, but from a human perspective, each name is monumentally important, in each moment, to that graduate. And the pressure placed on the individual announcing those names is massive. All eyes are on each student, but all ears are cued in to the name announcer, hoping to hear each one spoken correctly.

For me, as a voiceover talent, Graduation Day approaches nirvana. It is one of the most daunting yet exhilarating Live Announce experiences a VO pro can have. I relish that feeling, I love the gig, and I approach it with the utmost seriousness. 2026 marks the 31st year I will read names at a high school graduation. My first foray into announcing names at graduation came in 1996 at Mansfield High School, when I was actually part of a team of 3 people. Two years later, I was asked to announce all the names, for a reason I will detail later. When Summit High School recognized its first graduating class in 2003, I announced all those names. A decade later, Mansfield ISD hired me to announce all names at all of its graduations, and I continued with that privilege even after I departed the district in 2019. Budget cuts ended that run, but I still announced graduation for Grand Prairie High School during the five years I worked there from 2021 through 2025. Now, after my retirement from K-12 public education, I’ve been fortunate to be hired as Peter Ponce, Voice Talent, by Burleson ISD and Grand Prairie ISD to announce all names for all their ceremonies. I cannot wait to showcase these students.

“Showcase?” you ask. Absolutely. That is what it’s all about. I’ve written before about how PA work is about the event, not the announcer. And for a high school graduation, that rule is more important than ever. It applies not just to the singular event, but to every single student participating. When it comes down to it, everyone in the venue at a high school graduation is there for one thing, but it’s ironically a different thing for nearly everyone. They don’t care about the speeches, hearing the choir sing whatever traditional song the school uses, seeing some kind of special performance, or the accolades the principal will highlight. They don’t care how much scholarship money the class has been offered, or the advice the superintendent or another speaker offers. They want to hear two things: 1) the official Statement of Conferral by the superintendent, wherein the students are actually deemed “graduates,” and 2) the name of the person(s) they’re here to celebrate. And depending on where #2 occurs in the full list of graduates, there will be some restlessness in the room, so get to the end sooner than later, please.

I like to joke with people that I am the only person anyone wants to hear speaking at graduation. And there’s a little bit of truth embedded in the joke. There’s a reason that Mansfield ISD originally hired me to do six ceremonies beginning in 2013. People heard me at the Summit graduation and asked, “Why don’t the other schools get the same kind of professional treatment Summit receives?” There’s a reason I get hired for this gig now. I’m good at it, and I’m experienced, which makes me even better than most. In the past, I’ve announced as many as 800 names in a single ceremony. Just me at the podium for up to an hour or longer, with a list, a microphone, and usually a series of cards handed or shown to me so I know who to announce next. It is its own art form, truly different from the “conversational read” of commercials or even the standard read for more conventional live announce copy. And it boils down to three key elements.

Pronunciation. It should go without saying, but you’d be amazed at how many VO talents literally say “I’m terrible with names.” Hopefully they stay away from live announce gigs of any kind, because names are typically involved in those. I happen to be great with names, and you can imagine why. My name has been mispronounced all my life. The true Spanish pronunciation is “PÔN-seh.” I typically tell people it’s “PON-say.” (Rhymes with Beyonce, if that helps.) But I’ve heard and accepted the single-syllable “PONS” all my life, and I only correct someone when they say the truly infuriating “POUNCE.” (Ain’t no U in my name, people.) I literally approach every graduation job in solidarity with all the individuals out there whose names have been mangled throughout their academic careers. I See You. More importantly, I Hear You, and I hear your name, properly pronounced. One of my favorite things when I’m visiting a campus to speak with students and make phonetic notes for myself is that moment when I read a student’s name correctly the first time and get that ecstatic reaction: “You’re the first person who’s ever said my name right!” That is the job here, after all, and it’s not hyperbole to say it is sacred to me. EVERY name matters in this setting, and every announcement needs to be my absolute best.

A quick story: In 1997, I was part of a 3-person team announcing names for Mansfield High School’s graduation. I had the middle of the alphabet, roughly last names G through P. I had also taught a student that year named Bryan Schenck, whose name was not on my list. Nice kid, good student. Quiet; probably never said more than 10 words to me, even though I saw him 90 minutes every day for 18 weeks as his teacher for both government and economics. I think he made an A in both classes, but he drew very little attention to himself. Just making his way through high school. I hope he’s gone onto a happy, successful life, but like most students, I don’t know that he was going to experience a lot of huge recognition in a public setting wherever life took him. So hear comes Bryan Schenck, quiet and nice student, and the person assigned to read his name says “Bryan Shriiieeenk?” when it came time for him to cross the stage. And the look of quiet defeat in his face when he heard his name A) pronounced wrong, and B) stated with a question mark, is burned in my brain forever. And lo, the very next year I was asked to read ALL the names. And every year, every graduation, I think about Bryan Schenck, and I quietly vow that no student will have that same experience.

Have I achieved a 100% success rate on pronunciations? I have friends who insist so, but I know that statistically, it’s impossible. But I also know that I NEVER say a name with a question mark. And if I have messed up, it’s probably on a particular detail in a syllable here or there, yet the name is still fundamentally correct. That’s because I study and practice. And study and practice. And study and practice. I know that for MOST of these young people, this is the most high-profile public recognition they will ever receive. The only time when they’ll hear their name announced and receive applause, specifically for them. And they deserve the dignity of having a professional voiceover talent read their name correctly, with authority and confidence, in this moment. Yeah, high school graduation may be “no big deal,” but this moment matters for every single student.

Consistency. Again, this should probably go without saying, but you might be amazed at how I’ve heard certain non-professionals approach graduation names. They often fall into a pattern that VO coaches might call “sing-song.” Sing-song is typically frowned upon in VO, anyway. Sometimes talents are coached to vary pitch when listing characteristics or places (what you might call the “NBC Rule”), but when the job involves listing people’s names, you maintain a consistent pitch and volume. I recall a promo coaching session I once had with the great Mark Rider where he noted that the athletes named in a promo for the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc., are all considered equally important to the league, so the performance calls for each one to have similar emphasis. The same principle applies to graduations. Sure, the top graduates in the class, along with the officers for the senior class and student body, are likely to receive some type of extra recognition during the ceremony, but when it comes time to cross the stage, we present the __________ High School Class of 2026, then list the names. They are equally important as individuals within that group, and each name needs to receive the same emphasis. All means All, as they say.

Pace. Here’s the characteristic that perhaps doesn’t go without saying, but it’s possibly the most important, not just for how each student is ultimately presented, but how the ceremony itself proceeds. When I’m announcing a name that is considered “difficult” because it’s of a global origin, or it’s got an unusual combination of syllables, or it’s spelled in an unusual manner, or it has an apostrophe that alters the sound, etc., the trick is not simply pronouncing it correctly from a phonetic perspective. The trick lies in saying it correctly and naturally. I have a list with hundreds of names on it, and I’m supposed to say ALL of them like I just know them. It’s not that different from your average commercial read. When you read commercial copy, you’re not supposed to sound like you’re reading. You’re just speaking. When I announce names for graduation, I cannot sound like I’m sounding them out. That means that when I say “Oluwsean Ajeyi Oguntosin” followed by “Fernando Catalón Orellana Hernandez.” I have to sound like I know those names, I mean what I say, and most of all, I don’t fear what’s on the page. Same emphasis, 3 to 5 seconds apart, without hesitation or trepidation. It is an art form, and it is a gift, and I am privileged to have it and to have cultivated it to the professional level I can achieve.

Pace is also possibly the most critical skill that I have for the organizers of each graduation — the administrators who’ve established the logistics for the ceremony itself and the district officials who scheduled and publicized the event, booked the venue, and work with its operators to get the attendees in and out of the building. Here’s what happens too often: the name announcer(s) take way too long between names, the presentation of diplomas takes forever, the audience gets restless and annoyed, and the exit process is delayed, causing the next ceremony to encounter backlogs and bottlenecks. When that happens, no one’s happy during what should be a celebratory occasion. In contrast, when someone with my skills can deliver the proverbial goods in a timely manner, everyone’s happy because every student is appropriately honored and families can move onto their further celebrations.

And therein lies the point of the entire exercise, and this post: Graduation Day is a celebration of a milestone achieved, possibly the most public celebration most of these students will ever experience. You might not consider it a noteworthy achievement, but fact is that it’s a rite of passage that retains its importance in society because it allows us to honor and celebrate our children, and our students, even if it was a foregone conclusion that they will reach this marker in life. Sure, it’s a widely achieved, common moment, statistically speaking, but for each individual student, and for their families, it is still a special moment. As a professional voiceover talent and former educator, I comprehend and respect that moment in a way that few human VO talents, and certainly no AI-generated voice, can. I am here for it, and I will be here for it, for as long as schools place enough of a priority on that moment to invest in it by seeking my abilities and experience. If I have ever announced your name at graduation in the past or have the privilege of announcing it in the future, know this: Your Name Matters.

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Commence the Season of Love

Happy Seis de Mayo to all who celebrate. The beginning of May is a time of considerable celebration. There’s May Day in many nations across the globe on May 1. The city of Fort Worth celebrated MayFest for the 54th time in Trinity Park on the weekend of May 1-3. Who can forget Star Wars Day on May the 4th? Or who remembers Cinco de Cuatro from Arrested Development? And of course, let’s all recall everyone’s favorite excuse to eat tacos and drink margaritas, Cinco de Mayo on May 5. Perhaps you cannot recall, depending on how much you indulged. And as a retired educator, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention National Teacher Appreciation Week from May 4-8. I’ve already written about teaching before, but there’s still no time like this week to thank a former teacher of yours, or your child’s teacher, or just about any teacher you know. You can even feel free to apologize to your teacher friends on behalf of all the demagogues out there demonizing teachers in the current political climate. Personally, though, I look at all the festivities occurring at the onset of May and treat them as part of a larger theme I’ve observed this month. Welcome to The Season of Love.

“Wait, isn’t the season of love back in February, during Valentine’s Day?” you might ask. Or perhaps you view the Christmas season as a proverbial “season of love,” given the spirit of the holiday. Ironically, though, for educators, the period of time between the holidays and Spring Break is what I call “the Season of Hate,” as I wrote about recently. It’s cold, it still gets dark early, the school year’s only half-done, teachers and students are tired of each other, plus there’s a bunch of testing no one cares about and everyone hates. Valentine’s Day is essentially an excuse for those in the education world to engage in chocolate therapy and hope that Russell Stover box makes a successful dingy across the sea of anxiety and dread. February is definitely NOT the season of love in the world of education. But May IS, thankfully. The rain from April begins to clear away. The sky is a little brighter, as is everyone’s mood. The testing no one can stand is behind you. Sure, there are AP Exams, but those are tests that students actively chose to register and study for, based on classes they elected to take. There’s actually a true payoff for success, unlike STAAR, SSTAR, STARRR, or whatever TEA calls it in the future. So AP Exams, despite what you might suspect, actually fit fairly neatly into the Season of Love.

Why do I call it that? Because the month of May, in classrooms across the U.S., features a rhythm that is nearly 100% counter to the mood from February. The end is near. Summer approaches. Now that STAAR testing is over, instruction doesn’t have a specter looming over it. Teachers can teach to the curriculum (what’s left of it) and dare I say, offer lessons that students might genuinely enjoy. Because everyone’s T-TESS observations should be over by now, teachers don’t have to fret over classroom visits, creating the proverbial dog-and-pony show designed more to impress administrators than to teach students. Students might even get the opportunity to take field trips — actually learning-based trips, not trips to the park or zoo — and go beyond the Death-by-Canvas approach that has become so prevalent since 2020. (Don’t get me wrong; technology can be a valuable tool for learning when used appropriately…that’ll be a different post someday.) The bottom line for teachers is that they don’t feel compelled in May to “teach to the test,” to put it tritely. They can just teach.

But it’s the Season of Love for students, too, for many of the same reasons. They are now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of another academic year. Many are approaching their final days at their campus. Of course, 12th graders are nearing graduation day. Each day during the month of May truly is counted down across thousands of campuses, and with that countdown comes a release, a weight lifted off the students’ shoulders, little by little. For most of them, that release coincides with a better mood and attitude toward their teachers. They come to love their teachers (again, for some) with appreciation for all the effort expended by teachers throughout the school year. Of course, this love sometimes comes with a couple of caveats. For one thing, there are some students who’ve expended so little effort themselves over the previous 6 weeks, 12 weeks, or even the semester, that their hopes of earning credit for the course are all but gone. These students often find love in their hearts for their teachers in hopes of a quid pro quo, where the teachers might find mutual love, and therefore, pity, and therefore, acceptance of missing work so that the student might pass. This begging-based love isn’t typically dominant in the Season of Love, but it’s certainly present. Similarly, it happens without fail that some of the absolute worst students — the ones who’ve presented behavior problems, poor attitudes, and general belligerence for, I don’t know, 36 weeks? — are the students who magically have love in their hearts for all their teachers in the month of May. Are those terrible students the same ones that are also begging for a last-gasp chance to pass? Sometimes.

And sometimes, teachers will acquiesce to student desires, not out of pity or because they’re “caving in.” My experience is that most teachers will accept late work and offer a bare minimum of credit in hopes that it will allow the student to pass. Anything is better than a score of 0, and actual honest attempts at completing assignments late are better than never doing it at all. Most teachers are compassionate enough to make allowances. Few teachers ever get into the profession with a goal of exercising ultimate power over students or feeling glee at seeing failing grades, and those psychopaths that do eventually exit this career fairly quickly. Teachers are remarkably adept at offering grace to students, probably because they also seek grace from administrators when a lesson doesn’t go well or a classroom is tough to manage on a given day. Cookie-cutter perfection is not typical in an actual school campus, and it’s really not the foundation for effective learning. Learning is often most meaningful when it’s achieved in spite of adversity, even if that adversity is self-inflicted because, you know, children of all ages are immature and sometimes irresponsible. Sometimes the lessons learned through the grace of second, or third, or tenth chances are the ones that resonate for students long after they’ve forgotten the specific learning objectives stated for a given assignment.

When that grace is given, is it truly appreciated? I don’t have an honest answer. I’d like to think it is. Then again, I’d like to think that teachers receiving praise during National Teacher Appreciation Week are getting more than some lip service, a few nice notes, and a donut on Tuesday. The concept of “official” Teacher Appreciation dates back to the 1950s, and the current practice of celebrating National Teacher Appreciation Week during the month of May began in 1984. I honestly barely recall experiencing Teacher Appreciation Week while I was in the classroom. I do remember that central administrators would typically make the rounds to various campuses during the week to provide a nice lunch. But it was never a huge week-long celebration filled with daily activities, dress-up days, or rewards. That aspect of Teacher Appreciation Week wasn’t something I noticed until recently, when I was an administrator at the campus that would be my last stop in K-12 public education. There, Teacher Appreciation Week was a veritable event for which planning commenced basically right after Spring Break, if not before. These days, that appears to be the case at many campuses, as administrators work with local businesses and charitable organizations for sponsorships. They expend great effort to make the week seem truly special. I actually admired the resolve our administrative team showed in securing the variety of foods and gifts offered to teachers each year. And yet, some teachers actually complained about it. I remember one well-known teacher at that campus told an administrator that a particular lunch item was “an insult.” So much for grace, I guess. I understand that sometimes the so-called perks might end up being underwhelming, but I can guarantee it wasn’t for a lack of trying. And I feel sorry for those teachers who work in campuses where there is a lack of effort on the part of administration and community to make the week special, or where there is a lack of resources. Although I still maintain that we could eliminate Teacher Appreciation Week altogether if we simply extended to teachers the compensation and respect they deserve. Obviously, it would still be appropriate to thank teachers for their efforts in such an environment, but society wouldn’t see the need to set aside several days to provide so-called “perks” in an effort to assuage the sting of how poorly educators are treated throughout much of the year.

But the month of May? Regardless of difficulties of the past 8 months, the trinkets offered to teachers this week, the other festivities held throughout this week and month, or anything else, the month of May will forever remain unofficially the Season of Love in schools across the state and nation. Soak it in, show some compassion and grace, release the anxiety, and breathe easy, if only for a short time. One of the greatest things about the rhythm of the school year is that it ends. Most areas of life have a more constant cycle, and that cycle often enhances tension and suppresses love. If you’re enrolled or employed in a school, take some time to imbibe the glorious facets of this time of year.

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The Most Frustrating Time of Year

If you’ve read this blog recently, the title of this post likely perplexes you. I literally wrote just three weeks ago about how Easter is one of my three favorite holidays, including my rationale for why spring is a really great season. Meanwhile, back in February, I talked about the “Season of Hate,” that time of year between the Christmas holidays and Spring Break, when tension between teachers and students heightens, and during which TEA forces upon public schools the test known as TELPAS. Even back in December, I wrote about “The Least Wonderful Time of the Year,” when high school students might be cursed with the bane of STAAR End-Of-Course (EOC) Retests while happier images of the holiday season surround them. Given the backdrop and implications of those three posts, you have to wonder, “How can this time of year be the one you call ‘the most frustrating?’”

As you might guess, it has to do with…testing. STAAR Testing, that is. BTW, if you thought “STAAR” looked stupid on-paper, wait until TEA unveils — and this is not a joke — the “Student Success Tool of Academic Readiness,” or “SSTAR,” in 2027-28. God help us all. The jokes write themselves at this point, from the multiple meanings of the term “tool” to the imagery of Warner Brothers’ Sylvester the Cat saying “Sssufferin’ Ssssucotash, it’s SSTAR ssseason.”

Here’s the thing: We have this wonderful time of the calendar year, with the chance for great weather, with the end of the school year oh-so-close, and with spring fever hitting everyone, teachers and students alike, and what does TEA foist upon public schools? STAAR Testing. Particularly THIS year, in the penultimate throes of STAAR, when it’s a proverbial “lame duck” test that will be replaced by something theoretically better, but possibly far worse, in a mere two years. You’d better believe that juxtaposition is frustrating. April is supposed to be a time for Field Day, and instead it is twisted into a time for field-tested items on a test that has faced so much scrutiny that the Texas Legislature finally decided to go in a different direction. It’s a time when elementary and middle schools still hold “STAAR Pep Rallies” (still an actual thing) and place painful puns like “STAAR Wars” on t-shirts. It’s such a dichotomy for teachers and staff to complain so much about this test, yet at the same time feign enthusiasm in front of the students in an apparent attempt to “spur them on to victory,” I guess? I really can’t fathom it because I think the notion of giving a kid between the ages of 8 and 18 a “pep talk” for a multiple choice test and expecting it to resonate at all is borderline insane. No one “sees the light” about STAAR because the band played “We Will Rock You” or the cheerleaders danced to “Hot To Go.”

At the high school level, STAAR EOC will still rear its ugly head as students who take it for the first time know that they must achieve a passing score — “Approaches Grade Level,” in the parlance of TEA — to remain on-track for graduation requirements. Members of the Class of 2026 and 2027 will still take STAAR, and there’s a good chance that TEA will require STAAR EOC for the class of 2028, 2029, and 2030, as well, since those students will take STAAR EOC for the first time in Grade 9. We could have FOUR YEARS of high schools offering STAAR and SSTAR concurrently. Imagine the sheer agony. Meanwhile, students who have already been unsuccessful on one or more STAAR EOC test will receive one more opportunity to pass each spring. Graduating seniors with more than two tests still remaining will sweat a bit, because they may only graduate using the Individual Graduation Committee provision on up to two tests.

“What’s an Individual Graduation Committee?” you might ask. Honestly, that’s a can of worms you don’t really want to open, but I’ll crack the lid for you slightly. STAAR was conceived in 2007. When it was implemented in the spring of 2012, Texas law required students to pass fifteen (15)— yes, FIFTEEN — EOC tests, five per year from grades 9-11. (Longtime educators may recall that the 2007 law also required each STAAR test to count for 15% of a student’s course average for the corresponding course.) The Texas legislature reduced the required tests to five (5) in 2013, then reduced the actual number of tests students were required to pass to three in 2015, when they created the Individual Graduation Committee. What the law basically says is that if a student does not “approach grade level” (pass) on up to two STAAR EOC tests, that students may complete a district-developed project for the corresponding course and therefore still graduate based on Individual Graduation Committee, commonly called the IGC. So the past 15 years have seen an overly ambitious system whittled down to what amounts to “pass 3 of 5 tests at a minimal level to graduate.” Meanwhile, TEA has tacked on several other requirements for students to be considered “college and career ready.” But that’s a tale for a different post.

One thing TEA did in 2024 in an effort to “tighten up” IGC requirements was require a given student to actually pass 3 of 5 EOCs before they could even discuss an IGC and pursue the project. Prior to that, a student could 3-4 IGCs queued up and ready as they retest on 1-2 more EOCs. But no more. Now, any senior still taking 3 or more EOCs this month will NOT be able to graduate in May, since there’s no way they can realistically complete the IGC project, and process, when EOC results come back literally days before most districts hold graduation. So that particular group of students has even less incentive to perform very well at all in April, since they already know that their STAAR EOC status has prevented them from graduating until at least summer. Granted, there’s a decent chance these same students may not have the academic credits needed to graduate, as well, but IGC adds proverbial salt to the wound. And don’t get me started on the bureaucratic nonsense school administrators have to address with IGC documentation. A parade of paperwork. Although some of it may be kept electronically, it’s the required meetings for IGC on top of every other requirement TEA concocts when a student does not pass STAAR that takes a mental and emotional toll on staff who are already being taken to the edge of insanity by bureaucratic details.

Keep in mind, too, that TEA’s calendar extends the STAAR torture across the month of April in the name of “test anxiety mitigation.” In the days of TAKS, testing took place twice: once in April for Reading and Writing on consecutive days, once in May for Math, Science, and Social Studies, also on consecutive days. TEA’s current STAAR calendar allows a two-week “window” each for Reading/English, Science & Social Studies, and Math. The theory is to avoid giving students 3 or more tests over consecutive days. Districts are required to establish a “primary” testing date for the respective tests in each window, with “make-up” testing dates through the rest of the week, and possibly the following week. STAAR testing, therefore, theoretically lasts from April 6 to May 1, nearly a full month. STAAR has no time limit, so a given student could theoretically test all day. At the same time, TEA has specific rules in place wherein campuses are required to consolidate students who are still testing, while releasing students who’ve finished testing to their “normal” class routine, in the name of instruction, I guess? So NOW we’re suddenly taking measures to respect instruction? Does anyone at TEA really believe that normal instruction takes place on STAAR testing days given all the disruption created by a long, untimed test? On a practical and instructional level for a campus, the month of April is lost…LOST…to STAAR. Teachers will, no doubt, attempt their best to instruct their students properly, especially if they teach AP classes, which have their own exams in the month of May. But everyone knows that those efforts are hindered greatly by the specter of STAAR, and everyone feels the frustration. The fact that this series of torturous weeks is the primary food for an albatross of an accountability system that purports to assign an A-F letter grade to the district and campus only adds insult to the injury and irritation.

Thanks to House Bill 8 (2025) and the advent of “SSTAR,” things have to improve, right? Theoretically, yes. Where STAAR is a single, lengthy annual test from which TEA develops a convoluted (and deeply flawed) algorithm to determine whether a student has “met progress” standards from one grade to the next, SSTAR will ostensibly be designed to mimic nationally-normed tests like MAP Growth, which has been offered by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) in Reading and Math for decades. MAP Growth consists of three shorter tests: Beginning of Year (BOY), Middle of Year (MOY), and End of Year (EOY), which are designed to assess a student’s growth in the subject across the current school year, rather than from the previous one. MAP Growth is also an adaptive test, where the first few items are identical for all students, but based on how well the student performs on each item, ensuing items may vary in difficulty. Do well, and the test gets harder; do poorly, and the test gets easier. Adaptive testing allows the test itself to challenge high performing students while reducing difficulty for lower performance, thus developing a more refined evaluation of a student’s academic ability and progress. The BOY test can zero in on how well the student retained the previous year’s learning, while the MOY and EOY tests can focus on the current year’s learning and retention.

Theoretically, it sounds great. Shorter tests, therefore “mitigated test anxiety,” more thorough results, and an overall better experience for teachers and students. Theoretically, such a system is able to integrate more seamlessly into a given school day and the overall school year, because campuses won’t be forced to “shut down” to allow students to complete a lengthy test. HB 8 even requires results to delivered to school districts within two business days after the testing window has closed. So, theoretically, SSTAR will deliver quicker results that can actually inform instruction, particularly after BOY and MOY testing. NWEA has been very successful marketing its product to school systems, and MAP Growth has been adopted across Texas as a growth indicator in Reading and Math while allowing schools to reteach and/or extend content for students as appropriate. Theoretically, SSTAR will essentially replace MAP Growth, and perhaps local benchmarks, because the state’s assessment will, itself, become THE benchmark. Theoretically, that means less testing and more instruction for students and teachers, using the data from a truly fine-tuned assessment instrument to enhance the instructional process.

Theoretically.

TEA has not provided much guidance as to what SSTAR will actually be. To be fair, HB 8 requires TEA to report on its transition plan by February 15, 2027, so there are still several months available for planning. But certain aspects of the legislation, or rather missing aspects, are troubling. HB 8 doesn’t place a specific time or item limit on any of the tests, so it’s theoretically possible that an overambitious TEA could move toward three lengthy, unwieldy tests to replace one. Additionally, TEA has not announced the testing vendor for SSTAR. The current vendor, Cambium Assessment (together with Pearson Education), could win the next contract, or TEA may decide on a return to the previous vendor, Educational Testing Service (ETS). Some parents and educators have already advocated for direct statewide adoption of MAP Growth, because it’s an established adaptive test, many districts already have contracts with NWEA, and staff and students are familiar with the instrument in terms of testing and results. But NWEA doesn’t have a MAP Growth test for every STAAR-assessed subject, so that plan would also require significant time and development. The bottom line is, we don’t know right now. TEA might stick the landing with a simple, intuitive, tightly developed test that is free from technical and content problems and delivers meaningful, actionable results. They might also completely mishandle the process and create genuine chaos in campuses across the state not just in Spring 2028, but THREE TIMES during the 2027-28 school year. Find me one student or educator who says “Triple-Scoop Sh**show? Yes, please!”

What troubled me the most when I was mired in the gunk that is state assessment in Texas, and what troubles me still, now, as a retiree watching the system continue to evolve, is the intellectual arrogance, the unabashed certainty, of those at the top. I’ve seen the Texas Commissioner of Education speak in-person, several times. He’s got this under control; just ask him. The man’s in his eleventh year as commissioner, longer than anyone has ever held the office. Yet he’s never actually been a professional educator at any level. And when he does visit a classroom, it’s typically the proverbial “dog-and-pony show” because everyone wants to impress the commissioner, not show him the realities of day-to-day life in a public school. He will never experience what public educators experience. Never. Yet somehow, our governor continues to entrust him with our students’ future. It’s baffling. Seriously, anyone who thinks public education in Texas has been spinning its wheels, or worse, losing them, over the past decade can point to ONE person who’s been there all along. And please, don’t come at my with the pandemic as an excuse; today’s first graders were literally just born around that time. Old news, illegitimate excuse. I also remember hearing the Director of Student Assessment for TEA speak pre-pandemic, about a decade ago. That guy was even more arrogantly certain than the Commissioner. He’s also gone now, as are many TEA staff members. They’ve apparently had so much turnover that their Staff Directory page is currently dormant. I wonder why. I guess we’re all just supposed to trust that whoever they hire to replace the departed staff will, despite having their hands full with the STAAR-to-SSTAR transition, make their absolute, honest best efforts to craft a more advanced, credible, and useful state assessment system than the one we’re about to leave behind.

Theoretically.

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The Most Infuriating Test of All

Welcome to the week after President’s Day. For many, this week brings many positive signs: Winter may soon cease its hold on the northern hemisphere. Spring is coming. Lent is here, followed by Easter sooner than you think. Baseball spring training is in-progress, so baseball season is approaching, and it’s here at the high school and college levels. The Winter Olympics are reaching their climax. Other sports are ramping up for 2026 – auto racing, tennis, golf. College basketball’s March Madness will be here soon. But for public school teachers, I have always referred to this time of year as the “Season of Hate.” The holidays were over a while ago. Spring Break is still weeks away. There’s not much novelty in classrooms at this time of year, and the end of the school year seems far in the distance. There’s basically just the daily grind of instruction — and because of recent days lost to icy roads, there is much content on which to catch up. There’s also much content to cover before district benchmarks, or before Spring Break, or before state assessments. Teachers are essentially forced to cram in lots of instruction – tons of it – probably more than they normally would, and students hate it. And truthfully, so do the teachers. It’s the toughest time of the school year, a fairly constant face-off and struggle between students and teachers.

On top of all of this hostility-infused activity, the state layers on another federally-mandated test that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. It’s the poster child for “Good Intentions Run Amok.” Texas calls it the Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System, or TELPAS. And everybody hates it — teachers, students, administrators, you name it. Everyone hates TELPAS. You’ll hardly ever hear about it on the news because it’s not the centerpiece of the state accountability system, STAAR. But it can affect state accountability ratings, especially if you’re a campus or district with a high population of EB students.

“What the heck are ‘EB’ students?” Ah-ha, so maybe you don’t know the ins and outs of TELPAS. Here’s a quick synopsis: TELPAS grew out of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 — that law acknowledged that A) the U.S. has a growing population of students whose primary language is not English and B) it’s imperative that public schools help these students develop English language skills over time so that they can succeed in U.S. schools. We used to call these students English as a Second Language (ESL), Limited English Proficient (LEP), and English Language Learners (ELL), but now we call them Emergent Bilingual (EB). The federal government has a requirement for all public schools to track their English Language Proficiency (that’s the ELP in TELPAS). The State of Texas had actually begun such tracking way back in 1999. The test covers four Domains of language: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking.

“Why does everybody hate TELPAS?” I would suggest a big part of it is that TELPAS is yet another intrusion on instruction right smack dab in the middle of the Season of Hate. But beyond that, it’s a challenge precisely because it is NOT required for every single student; it’s only for students designated as EB. The EB designation is already pretty vague, but once it’s attached to the student’s record, it’s also difficult to remove. Which makes TELPAS a pesky requirement, even for EB students who actually know English well. At its inception, TELPAS still affected all students, because the writing portion was required to be “authentic writing from an academic class,” BUT the assignment had to be assigned for every student. So teachers were expected to develop some contrived writing assignment for 100% of their students just so EB students could be evaluated for TELPAS. Then there was the “calibration” process for teachers, where they had to figure out how to evaluate what constituted Beginner vs Intermediate vs Advanced vs Advanced-High proficiency, specifically according to the state’s guidelines. That process, by itself, was at least two weeks of extra work for teachers just for the training. THEN they would have to assign the writing assignments in class , and get students to actually complete them (easier said than done). THEN administrators had to collect the writing samples for the EB students (and that process had a multitude of other requirements). THEN the teachers had to read all the samples and evaluate them. THEN the teachers also had to evaluate the Listening and Speaking proficiency. PLUS the EB students would have to take a basic Reading test online.

“How long would it take to do all that?” Way. Too. Long. Teacher training for TELPAS occurred at the beginning of February (for two weeks), then the “window” for completing TELPAS activities opened right after President’s Day and closed at the end of March (another SIX weeks). That’s EIGHT weeks of TELPAS-related activity, not including the time administrators spent attending trainings and preparing to coordinate all of this stuff. Naturally, campuses would do their best to complete TELPAS in the early part of the window, but there would be struggles to get students to complete the writing assignments (a minimum FIVE samples were required, with other stipulations as to what type of writing was needed). There might be students absent on the scheduled date of the reading test. Or there might be students who were chronic absentees through most of the TELPAS window. Then there was the issue of what to do with new students or students who withdrew from your campus or district during the window. It was a cacophony of never-ending activity, all in service to a test that, while well-meaning, ultimately mattered not one bit to district or, frankly, TEA officials. Students hated it. Teachers hated it. Administrators hated it. Everybody hates TELPAS. As a district testing coordinator, I literally made a joke out of how much people loathed the whole thing.

In recent years, the cacophony has quieted ever-so-slightly. For grades 2-12, TEA now offers two online assessments – one for Listening and Speaking, another for Reading and Writing. For all but K-1 teachers, the chaotic days of calibration and writing sample collection are over. But there’s still a logistical challenge, because the Listening/Speaking test requires students to use wired headsets plugged into the computing device. Yes, wired headsets — as in, headphones with a microphone attached. You can get cheap earbud-style headsets on Amazon at $1/item or less by buying in bulk, but if you want decent over-the-ear headsets that can easily be reused, you’re typically talking $10-$20 per headset. If you’re an elementary campus with only a few dozen EB students, it’s easy. But if you’re a 6A high school like where I most recently worked, with 50% EB students (yes, 1,500 students out of 3,000), that’s A LOT of headsets, and a potentially HUGE expense. To reduce the possibility of chronic absenteeism, we used to schedule a “shutdown” day for each test, but we couldn’t schedule more than 15-20 students per testing room because the speaking portion required distance between students. So you can probably imagine that planning roughly 100 testing rooms and distributing 1,500 headsets while relocating another 1,500 students, using a staff of up to 200 adults, was…interesting. And if you can imagine that, you can see why everybody STILL hates TELPAS, even though it’s now 100% online testing. Because you know what? The district and the state still don’t really care about it. Yet here we are.

“So why do they still do it?” Because of what I said earlier – “Good Intentions Run Amok.” Honestly, TELPAS is born of a well-meaning concept. If we’re concerned about the academic performance of ALL students, and academic performance hinges on the literacy rate, then there’s definitely a need for students who come from non-English-speaking households to grasp the English language and establish literacy skills in it. Trouble is, our politicians’ first thought regarding student performance has always been “Let’s have the schools stop everything and test them.” So NCLB mandated it, and ESSA (the Every Student Succeeds Act) renewed the requirement. Thus, TEA has to figure out when they can cram the test into the academic year without intruding on all the other federally-mandated tests. So their testing calendar puts it square in the Season of Hate. Fun!

“Do these EB students show improvements?” Based on my own experience in the classroom and as an administrator, I am confident that most EB students learn English reasonably well by being immersed in English-based instruction IF their teachers offer instruction that properly teaches the vocabulary of the course. (That is a massive “IF.”) That can be said for native and non-native English speakers alike. There are plenty of native English speakers out there who don’t have the first clue about how to use the English language, too. (Seriously, just read online comments for a sampling of the illiteracy problem in the U.S.) But the key to any of this is instruction, not testing. There’s not a single EB student who ever dug down and learned English better because “I’m going to ace that TELPAS test.” Not one. TELPAS is well-intended, but you simply cannot suggest its existence has improved the academic performance of EB students. It’s been around for roughly a quarter-century, but any statistical analysis of TELPAS growth results is flawed at best because of the fluctuation in EB student populations, changes across districts and campuses, changes in the format and content of the tests, and, oh yeah…these are still kids being evaluated every year from K-12. (YES, K through 12; TELPAS doesn’t wait until Grade 3.) I’m sure EB students are improving their English skills overall; I’m also sure it has nothing to do with TELPAS.

“We should get the government to abolish this test!” It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if we got rid of all of the federally-mandated testing requirements — not just TELPAS, but STAAR, the next iteration of testing coming to Texas, and everything else. (And that’s coming from a guy who spent over a decade in the testing world.) Without the mandates, schools would naturally figure out what standardized tests, if any, would generate the data that would actually help them improve instruction and learning. But the reality is that we live in the era of school accountability (another can of worms all its own), and where there is accountability, there is assessment. I don’t know of many politicians with the fortitude to admit that the extra requirements they’ve been adding for the past 30-40 years aren’t working. If anything, they double- and triple-down. Add to the equation all the marketing and lobbying efforts of the big testing firms out there who profit from the system. So it’s probably never going away in our lifetime. The best we can hope for is that the trend recedes a bit over the next decade, and then hope that any reversal gains transaction.

In the meantime, I offer my former colleagues my best wishes as they navigate these waters in the school year. I know you hate TELPAS. I know your students hate TELPAS. Everybody hates TELPAS. Have some solidarity in that knowledge and work through it together, knowing everyone’s in the same boat with similar emotions. “Survive and advance,” as they say. It’s going to suck, but it will end (…okay, just in time for the next round of testing, but still). Do your best to fight through it. If you’re not in education and have never had to deal with this type of stuff, try to have a little empathy for those in the throes of this time of the school year — students, teachers, and administrators alike. If it seems like it’s rough for them, that’s because IT IS. Recognize and appreciate that. But know this: The Season of Hate eventually ends, every year, and is supplanted by the Season of Love. (Don’t worry; I will write about that when the time comes, too, because it’s the best.) Stay strong, and don’t let the frustration consume you. EHT.

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The Least Wonderful Time of the Year

No, this post is NOT about to be 2,600+ words bashing the Christmas season for being too commercialized or sappy or anything else. I’m actually loving the holiday season this year. Anyone who’s read this blog before probably knows why.

What this post IS about is STAAR Testing – specifically, STAAR End-Of-Course (EOC) Retests for those high school students who are cursed with the requirement of taking them. I will also share a personal story about what I now believe was proverbial “Testing Hades,” and how I helped get my staff (and myself) through it using humor.

I have previously confessed on this blog that the final dozen years of my K-12 education career had me wrestling with self-loathing because, as a so-called “assessment professional,” my biggest role was training, implementation, and support of a system that is deeply flawed at best. There are a host of reasons for these flaws, many of which would involve exposition that would truly be agonizing to read. What it comes down to is primarily inconsistency.

STAAR is fundamentally inconsistent as a matter of course because everything about its construction is constantly changing. The state curriculum of Texas public schools, known as the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) is regularly revised. Subject area TEKS are reviewed and adjusted at least once every 10 years on a rotating basis. Schools don’t have to contend with full-scale revisions all at once, but teachers of a given subject know that they will have to adjust planning and teaching within a decade at minimum. While a decade doesn’t seem frequent on its face, the reality in a classroom is that it may take several years after revisions are published to determine the best way to approach certain TEKS standards instructionally. It’s not like anyone can just flip a switch, make a couple of tweaks, and all students magically respond positively to whatever the new TEKS are.

And as you might expect, the process of assessing any new TEKS learning standards can also be messy and flawed over several years. This is why TEA randomly selects districts and campuses for specific field tests every year, usually in February. A typical TEA Field Test is similar to an actual STAAR test, and campuses are required to implement them with the same approach and security protocols that they use for the actual STAAR test in the spring, except there’s no payoff for a field test. Whether students do well or poorly, they will never be rewarded or punished. They will never even know how they scored. Reporting of results is minimal, because the point is literally to test the test items themselves and determine if they’re reliable and valid. If you’re thinking that your children might become lab experiments each February so that psychometricians can analyze results, you would be correct.

This process is also why actual STAAR tests in the spring include “field test items” that may or may not actually be scored. And it’s why TEA will rewrite and revise items continually between STAAR testing cycles, which occur annually each April for Grades 3-8, but every April, June, and December for high school students. There’s a continual item analysis process to seek out a reliable and valid test, and as you might expect, some STAAR tests are more reliable and valid than others. Small comfort to a high school freshman who learns he has to retake an EOC even if the test itself was poorly constructed.

The revision process, combined with the desire of schools to “teach to the test” so that scores improve has created its own cottage industry. A legion of consulting companies have developed with intent of helping schools and their teachers to analyze released items from STAAR tests, connect those items to the TEKS standards being assessed, and determine ways to adjust instruction so that the teachers may better prepare students for what they might see on the STAAR. Is it good instruction? Sometimes. Your mileage may vary, as they say. But “teach to the test” has become scientific (or pseudo-scientific, in many cases), all in the name of accountability points, property values…and, oh yeah, “for the children.”

Speaking of those children – we all want them to excel, right? We want them to score well since it’s evidence that they’re learning, it’s good for self-esteem, yada, yada, yada. But of course, it’s not always so simple. Remember that this is a test that students will see only once per year. (Theoretically three times with upcoming legislative changes.) And when they see the test next year, it’ll be a bit different from last year because Grade 8 is different from Grade 7, which is different from Grade 6, and so on, even if the subject is still Reading or Math. It is no wonder that most schools see drops in Math scores, for instance, from Grade 4 to Grade 5, year after year, even as students change, because Grade 5 Math is typically a bit more challenging than Grade 4 Math. What’s more, the actual passing standard might be adjusted thanks to the magic of the “cut score.”

When you visit TEA’s website, you might run across the STAAR Performance Standards for Grades 3-8 and EOC. You’ll see austere tables listing the Scale Scores required for a given student to reach Approaches, Meets, or Masters Grade Level performance categories as handed down by the gods themselves…er, I mean, by TEA officials. These categories and scale scores are unchanged (thanks to the auspices of either Odin or Ra; I never remember which), but the real sausage is made after students have completed the tests, psychometricians have analyzed the results, and TEA constructs what’s known as a Raw Score Conversion Table. Take Grade 5 Math, for instance, which had 42 items that were scored in 2025. TEA takes every student raw score, from 1 to 42, and links it to a given Scale Score. Those links then determine what raw score a student needed to reach the Approaches / Meets / Masters level from the Performance Standards. It’s all computed AFTER THE FACT, because TEA looks at the distribution of student raw scores statewide before deciding where, in fact, “passing” will be located. In 2025, a Grade 5 student in Math needed to get 17 of 42 items correct for Approaches, 26 for Meets, and 34 for Masters. In 2026 and beyond, those raw scores could change depending on how every student in Texas fared on that year’s test. It’s a moving target every year. It might not move much, but it can move. Is it possible that public relations and political concerns can impact where the cut scores fall? You tell me. It was certainly curious that accountability ratings in 2023 and 2024 went to court, then in 2025 most districts and campuses in the state saw their STAAR scores and ratings increase. I don’t have the time or inclination to lay out a full analysis of the data over those years, but it sure was a curious coincidence.

The bottom line is that passing standards can be, and are, adjusted year-to-year as cut scores are linked to scale scores. “Passing the STAAR” is, itself, an exercise in inconsistency. What’s more, “passing” isn’t always the end for students in high school. Current TEA guidelines require students to reach Approaches Grade Level or higher in all 5 EOC-assessed subjects – English I, English II, Algebra I, Biology, and US History. (I won’t open the Individual Graduation Committee or the Substitute Assessment cans of worms; those are other deep-dive posts.) The students currently taking December EOCs are those who have previously not passed one or more tests, or who were Absent or otherwise missed their opportunities in April and June. When a student finally achieves those scores and passes their classes, graduation is on the horizon. Perhaps college? Not so fast. “Approaches Grade Level” is passing for graduation purposes only. TEA has a whole other set of standards for what is called “College, Career, and Military Readiness” (CCMR). And Approaches on STAAR EOC ain’t one of them. In fact, STAAR scores don’t matter AT ALL for CCMR accountability standards, and they won’t grant students access to Texas public colleges and universities…at least, not without some type of remedial learning. So now, high schools in Texas offer the TSIA2, SAT, and ACT at least once to all their students in an attempt to get as many students as possible to meet CCMR requirements. More testing for our high schoolers! Isn’t it grand? In fact, it’s several grand paid each year by the taxpayers, or by the students themselves.

Lest you think we only torture the high schools and their students, there’s a whole set of other accountability measurements that primarily impact elementary, intermediate, and middle schools and their students – the Progress Measure, brought to you by TEA through each year’s STAAR tests. The intent is actually well-meaning and fairly intuitive: Students should show growth, also called academic progress, in their year-to-year performance on STAAR Reading and Math tests. Easy, right? Of course not! You might think that an intuitive approach to growth would be that a given student should score at or higher than the previous year’s raw or scale score to show progress. Or perhaps there should be a set of score ranges that might overlap so that students wouldn’t be penalized for missing one more item than last year. But you would be wrong in both cases. Instead, TEA determines progress based on the student’s performance among the Approaches / Meets / Masters standards, which we’ve already established may change thanks to cut scores. Essentially, in order for a student to “meet progress” officially, that student must match or exceed the performance category from the previous year. If they reached Approaches last year, they must reach Approaches, Meets, or Masters this year. Here’s the problem: because those performance levels are matched directly to a specific raw score, it’s possible for a student to “not meet growth” based on a single test item. Consider the Grade 5 Math scores referenced earlier, and suppose a 5th grader in 2025 got 34 of 42 items correct in 2025 to reach Masters Grade Level. It just so happens that in 2025, Masters on Grade 6 Math also required a raw score of 34 out of 43 items. BUT, in 2026, IF the Masters Level ends up being raised to 35 items after TEA’s psychometric analysis, AND this same student gets the same raw score, 34 on Grade 6 Math, the student will actually DROP to Meets Grade Level. That might seem fine, BUT this student will be deemed “Did Not Meet” for the progress measure in Math. By a single item. Even though the student passed the test easily, getting 79% of the items correct when it only takes 37% to “pass.” Is this equitable, fair, justifiable, reliable, and/or valid? You tell me.

Knowledge of such flaws and inequities are just some of the reasons that it became more and more difficult for me to justify continuing to work as an “assessment professional.” It became increasingly difficult to pretend that the system was defensible, let alone worth training teachers how to implement it appropriately. Of course, when it came to the insanity of the system, Grand Prairie ISD said “hold my beer” and added layers of local assessment to this Least Wonderful Time of Year. So began the creation of Testivus.

Here’s how it happened: The high school calendar in GPISD had students attending classes for roughly 3 weeks after Thanksgiving break. Week 1 was mostly instruction; TEA allowed districts to offer December EOCs that week, but GPISD elected to wait. Week 2 was when GPISD offered December EOCs over four days (Tuesday through Friday because TEA at the time did not allow STAAR tests on Mondays). But GPISD also added four (4!!!) additional days of local assessments – “Q2 Summative Assessments,” they were called – and required “shutdown” testing for EOC-assessed courses. What’s more, the US History Q2 Summative HAD to be given on the Friday of Week 3 because of district policy on semester exams, meaning we had to hold both the final day of EOCs AND a major local assessment on the same day. On a Friday, no less. Self-induced torture. Or should I say, district-induced torture. Somewhere in those 8 days, non-core subjects also had to offer Semester 1 Exams. As you might imagine, the schedule was somewhere between confusing and downright comical. As an administrator, it was a death-defying juggling act just to create a coherent schedule, and then we had to communicate it to the staff and students. So I had a choice: either tear out my hair, elevate my blood pressure, and otherwise stress myself out at the holidays trying to make it work, or have fun with it. I decided to have fun and approach it with humor. So Testivus was born.

Testivus, as any good Seinfeld fan would infer, was a riff on Festivus, the fictional holiday “for the rest of us” in response to the rampant commercialism of Christmas. We needed something bizarre to associate with, and yes, resist, the madness, because there was no way to comprehend it without also admitting it was strange and convoluted. I even created a logo for it that I included on documents I gave to the teachers. I made jokes about it in e-mail communication. I was also brutally honest. “This is what happens when district tries to shoehorn more than 8 tests into 8 days. You might argue it’s the counterpoint to the miracle of Hanukkah.” Eventually, my humor got me in mild trouble. It just so happened that the husband of the district’s head of data and accountability worked as the chief security officer on our campus, and he received the mass e-mails I sent to the staff. He would forward said e-mails to his wife. But rather than contact me herself, she asked the district testing coordinator (DTC) to call and badger me about my humor. It so happens that the DTC’s personality is often quite dramatic, dialing any little issue up to 11 (shout-out to Nigel Tufnel) immediately. So I was told, “Senior district administrators are reading your e-mails, and they are not amused. I guess you’re trying to be funny, but to them it sounds like you’re pitting your campus in opposition to the district.” Fine, whatever. I expressed regret to her that she was being asked to deal with it, but the reality was that district was pitting itself against campuses by inundating us with local assessments literally layered on top of state assessments. I make no apologies for calling that out, nor would I apologize for fostering some empathy and camaraderie with my campus colleagues through humor that they genuinely enjoyed. And you know what? In Fall 2025, Grand Prairie ISD nixed those plans, removed “Q2 Summative Assessments” from the calendar entirely, and instead created “Fall District Assessments” on a different week in November. Granted, they still managed to make it awkward (not worth outlining how here), but they changed their approach to local assessments. Maybe the actual message behind Testivus, and my humor, resonated with someone, after all.

So if you’re winding your way through a similar situation, navigating the nonsense passed down from someone who doesn’t realize the negative impact on your students and teachers, I wish you a Happy Testivus. Hang in there, do the best you can under the circumstances, and most of all, laugh about the laughable. Go ahead and roll your eyes at the outlandish. Give yourself permission to have fun with it instead of getting upset. And most of all, realize that none of these things…zero, nada, nenhum, nüt…will matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. Treat your students and your colleagues with dignity, empathy, and kindness in this most blessed of holiday seasons, and let the absurd wallow in its absurdity.

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In Praise of Teamwork

This post, surprisingly enough, connects strongly to voiceover. Back when I started this blog in August, I intentionally and specifically stated that this is not a voiceover blog. And my posts thus far have borne out this statement. Most of them have focused on observations related on some level to my teaching career, including notes about leadership, assessment, and presentation skills. I’ve also posted on topics pertaining to my experiences in band. Naturally, I’ve mentioned my retirement from K-12 public education several times since that’s something that has dominated my life since the end of June, and it’s a major reason why I actually have time for this blog and for my voiceover career.

That career is progressing as we speak. I’ve established some leads, gotten a handful of auditions, and even booked a few jobs. I’m not where I intend to be, but every journey begins with its first steps, as they say. And what I’ve learned along those few steps is a critical lesson – one that I’ve realized applied in my education career far more than I expected, and one that I think applies to voiceover more than many of us appreciate. That lesson is the importance of teamwork – how the individual contributes to the team and how effective teamwork actually helps the individual. It’s an underrated lesson for my friends and colleagues in the voiceover industry.

Back when I began my education career, I didn’t exactly anticipate that teamwork would be terribly important. It wasn’t a clear priority in my education coursework at the collegiate level. We participated in cooperative learning, and we were coached how to use it effectively, but I don’t recall explicit instruction on the importance of teamwork within the profession as a matter of course. It was a more general “collaborate with your colleagues” theme. The trend of Professional Learning Communities (PLC) in education was not in vogue at the time. And if I’m being honest, my so-called “mentor teacher” during my first year was somewhere between ineffective and a total waste. I was teaching government that first year, and all I got from him was literally a printout of his “lesson plans” for the class (dot-matrix printout, no less), which was what he provided for administration but not nearly what he used for his actual class. I suppose it was a start, but it was hardly helpful and certainly not comprehensive. He would occasionally throw me the bone of an odd handout now and then. But this was hardly teamwork, and I was hardly a teammate. This type of thing went on for roughly three years, and I felt nearly alone as a teacher during that time. For three years, I figured things out for myself. Then I was moved to World Geography at what was then the “9th Grade Center,” where I spent two years, and my perspective changed dramatically. World Geography teachers operated as a true team. There were projects that all the teachers assigned. There was collaboration. I was actually valued as a colleague, and I was free to offer my own ideas and create activities to share with my peers just as much as I could borrow and absorb from them.

Those two years altered the trajectory of my teaching career. After three years feeling like a solitary soul marooned on an island, I experienced two incredible years as a valued member of a viable team. When I returned to the senior level teaching government and economics (the old “mentor” had retired), I was assertive and proactive in establishing teamwork, collaborated more, and genuinely improved as an instructor. It helped that there was some turnover in the staff, and the newer teachers were also more willing to engage with each other. And I believe the process helped all of us excel, not just as subject-area teams, but also as a department. By the time I had advanced to teaching AP Macroeconomics, I had established strong rapport with my colleagues who taught AP US Government. We taught these students on an A/B schedule, so they alternated these classes daily, and we as instructors worked so that our teaching connected with each other’s, reinforcing what students were learning in both classes. The result was better learning for all of those AP students in both courses. It was educational teamwork at some of the highest level I ever experienced.

As my career in education continued, the benefits of teamwork were consistently apparent, especially when I worked in central administration. We had a small department in Research & Assessment, but the tasks each of us worked on connected well enough that our team was always moving forward impressively for the district. All in all, I think I experienced a solid 22 straight years of effective teamwork. The actual level of effectiveness varied at times, but it was always there, and I probably took it for granted. Then I left Mansfield ISD for what I thought was a better opportunity, and better salary. A higher salary was nice, but it was not a collaborative environment. Teamwork was replaced by top-down micromanagement, headed up by someone who was simply not equipped or ready to lead effectively. She thought she had all the answers, and the other three of us were basically expected to do her bidding, even if she wasn’t clear what that was. I was not valued for the ideas I brought to my job; I was basically expected to read the mind of my supervisor and maintain the status quo in 100% detail. And when I didn’t, when I had the temerity to show initiative and originality, I was diminished and even demeaned. It was a negative environment, plain and simple, bereft of any teamwork.

So when I interviewed for what would become my final position in education, I had one answer for the question, “What do you hope to accomplish in this role?” My response: “I want to become a viable member of a high-functioning team.” I had experienced that feeling, and I had experienced what it was like to lose it and feel like I was expected to be a mindless, boring cog. I just wanted to contribute to a team again. And fortunately, I got that experience again. Yes, there were issues at the district level that ultimately led me to retire from the profession, but I can honestly and definitively say that my time at Grand Prairie High School was a positive experience as part of a high-functioning, well-managed team. I learned so much from my colleagues, and they learned from me. We collaborated on a multitude of projects, and our students benefited. We had each other’s backs. Maybe it’s coincidence, but I believe many of us became lifelong friends, as well. Quite a team, and I will always look back on that place, and so many of those colleagues, fondly.

So what does this have to do with voiceover? It comes down to how we as VO artists see ourselves. There’s a common idea (and joke) in the industry that we’re all a little strange because we spend all day talking to ourselves in a padded room. And it can definitely feel that way. But my own experience has taught me that this idea really isn’t the case. Granted, my background is primarily Live Announce, so I often find myself in an environment where there are people around me. Many of my gigs throughout the year have people in the stands, and on the field or floor, and I’m even in charge of running all the audio at times. I’m also my own roadie for a lot of jobs. And you know what? It’s exhilarating, and I love it.

As I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post, I had the chance to work NCAA Division I college basketball recently – three games so far at the University of Texas at Arlington (which is also my alma mater). And even though PA folks often see ourselves as “the voice above the crowd,” the truth I’ve gleaned from these experiences is that whoever is on PA is not simply in an environment “with other people around.” No, they are…you guessed it…part of a team. The team consists of everyone involved in the game presentation – production director, production assistants, band, cheerleaders, dance team, on-court entertainment, etc. Two hours before tipoff, we go over the run-of-show, which outlines every activity of the day or night, including pregame, timeouts, halftime, and postgame. There are a variety of PA reads, but there are also a multitude of other happenings, and the objective is to time everything out right down to the second whenever possible. The goal is to provide a high-quality game experience for the fans while at the same time recognizing all the sponsors involved with UTA Athletics, and above all, respecting and featuring the game on the floor. It is its own a machine with video, graphics, live music, recorded music, and a true cast of characters, all layered on top of and designed to support the performance of the team. As the PA guy, I am simply one part of the experience. And I will emphasize again, I love it. And it’s really not about my voice, although I truly think my pipes were made to resonate in a stadium or an arena just as much as others’ were made to feature trucks or food or Disney movies. I love being part of the event, fulfilling my role, and adding to the ambience that’s being created. Being a viable part of a high-functioning team.

For my VO friends, that’s something that I think is critical to your, my, and our success as VO professionals, no matter what genre we’re working in. It is way too easy to record an audition or a job listening solely to our own performance. It is way too enticing to get caught up in our own voices. If you want to understand what creative professionals hear – REALLY hear – you have to imagine yourself in the arena, if you will. You have to hear yourself with other aspects of the entire production in mind: the images and/or video that your voice will be used to enhance, the music and other sounds that will be layered with your voice, the objective(s) and goal underlying what the creative team is trying to accomplish. Get out of your own head and away from your own voice. Listen. Take direction. Take a broader perspective, then figure out how your voice fits it and adds to the larger mix. And contribute.

For my education friends, and for anyone else reading this post, “teamwork makes the dream work.” “Be a team player.” “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’” (Although you can’t spell team without an “m” and an “e.”) <Cue groans> Sorry. Just kidding. That all sounds kind of trite and silly, much like most bumper-sticker philosophy. But teamwork really does make you better. If you’re in an educational leadership role, that means you have to involve your team members. Seek their input. Accept their ideas and figure out how to integrate them into the larger plan whenever possible. Don’t micromanage. You don’t have all the answers, nor should you. If you’re in a rank-and-file team member role, step up! Know what your role is, and do your part. Contribute. At the same time, Speak Up! If you have ideas, state them in an organized and appropriate manner.

The bottom line is that, no matter your industry or profession, life isn’t meant to be lived in isolation. Each of us can grow individually, but we advance further by working with each other, sharing ideas and activities, sometimes disagreeing, but ultimately learning and developing as both individuals and a group. In a world that seems to value individualism and “I’m gonna get mine” greed way too much, the benefits of collaboration and cooperation through teamwork have gained importance. It’s a lesson for educators, for voiceover pros, and for society at large.