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The Illusion of Learning: State and Local Assessment

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Above Audio Recorded Using:

  • Microphone – Sennheiser MKH-416
  • Interface – cEntrance PASport VO
  • Hardware – MacBook Air M3 13″
  • Software – TwistedWave
  • Additional Software Treatment — AU HiPass, AUGraphicEQ, LoudMax, iZotope RX11 Mouth De-Click

Recorded in my Home Studio

I admit that I have experienced a fair amount of self-loathing for the role I held in education the last 12 years of my career. The first 19 years, when I was teaching, were the most fulfilling. I got to work with some fantastic students. Even the unremarkable students were teenagers, after all, and I like to think that they all figured things out over time and became contributing members of society. I don’t remember having any students who I thought were actually terrible humans. I had some truly gratifying moments in my teaching years, because instruction – the teacher-student rapport that you build over a semester, a year, or even multiple years in some courses – is the literal backbone of education. To me, it’s sacred. As I moved into campus-level assessment, I actually experienced the best of both worlds. For 5 years, I still got to teach one class per day, plus I had the pleasure of supporting my colleagues as we navigated the nonsense of state & local assessment. And make no mistake: it is largely nonsense. These tests provide an illusion that we’re tracking student learning, but mostly we’re just adding a bunch of extraneous activities that intrude upon actual instruction and slowly drive teachers insane. My focal point on the administrative side of things was simple – my job is to help you keep your sanity.

I maintained that same mentality throughout the final 12 years of my career after I moved 100% into the realm of assessment. Whether we’re talking about the old TAAS or TAKS system, the current STAAR, or whatever TEA concocts in the future, the state assessment system in Texas is basically insane. We’re talking about a system where we give your son or daughter a single test each spring that is longer than anything they’ve encountered in an authentic classroom setting (also longer than nationally accepted standardized tests), from which we intend to measure whether that child has “learned” the content based on our arbitrary scale, and from which we also intend to determine whether that child has made adequate “progress” from the previous grade level. In multiple subjects. Then we’ll do it all again a year from now, even though the curriculum for those courses may be vastly different. Wow, for the system to work, that had better be one incredibly sophisticated set of multiple choice questions.

“Oh, but it’s not all multiple-choice anymore.” Yeah, sure. You can add in the choose-all-that-apply items, drag-and-drop, short and long “constructed response” items, but that doesn’t really make the test comprehensive. Those item types are ultimately window-dressing designed to suppress the notion that a given student has a probability of getting 20-25% correct simply by guessing. Any teacher can tell you a truly sophisticated gauge of student progress would track it class-by-class, if possible, on an authentic level based on the content. Instant, regular, consistent feedback is the most reliable. But fewer, infrequent tests with a greater number of items on each are always less valuable in tracking student learning and facilitating better instruction. Always. Regardless of the item types. While nationally accepted standardized tests, like SAT and ACT, are infrequent and extended, they are intended to capture a snapshot of a given student’s academic readiness for college, and schools consider them as part of a broader picture of the student’s profile because they know the tests aren’t perfect. No university in the world puts all of the proverbial student eggs in the testing basket.

And yet, somehow we do exactly this in the United States from grade 3 through high school. The current system has the federal government requiring states to use high-stakes, flawed assessments to answer the question, “Is our children learning?” Agencies like TEA spend millions consulting with testing firms to create these tests, which are then used for all the purposes already mentioned, and whose results then determine the majority of each campus’ and district’s accountability rating for the year (it will take a series of posts or podcasts to deconstruct what a mess the accountability system in Texas is). Now, I realize that certain statisticians or psychometricians may argue for the validity and reliability of STAAR, but this post isn’t arguing those issues, nor am I exploring the notion that the tests are inherently biased against certain demographic groups. For me, the bottom line is that the system as presently constituted is, on its face, detrimental to students and the teachers attempting to educate them because the very notion of an annual test for children simply cannot be considered the end-all-be-all in determining whether they are learning, whether they are making sufficient academic progress, or whether the campus and its teachers are meeting any practical standard of performance.

Yet here we are. And the fun REALLY begins when district administrators get a hold of some data points, develop an addiction to buzzwords like “data-driven instruction” and “rigor,” and decide they want more, More, MORE in the name of determining whether students are performing throughout the school year. Enter Local Assessment, a veritable obsession for many districts (my last district included) as they embark on a quest for – let’s be honest here – some kind of predictor of their accountability for the current year. Sure, student learning is an objective, but the real goal is the score and letter grade we can trumpet in board meetings, news releases, and social media. And it’s created an entire cottage industry: the “benchmark test” that attempts to imitate STAAR in content, format, and difficulty so that students can literally practice…testing. Not necessarily the skills embedded in the coursework, and certainly not skills that might work across different courses. Nope. Testing practice. Texas law currently limits districts from administering more than two benchmark tests in a given school year. (And, voila!, TEA developed their own “Interim Assessments” – two per year – whose sole purpose is to predict a student’s STAAR performance for the year. More on that sham another time.) But hey, that’s OK – your local school district will simply purchase and/or develop a series of smaller tests and call them something besides “benchmarks” – curriculum assessments (CAs), curriculum-based assessments (CBAs), quarterly assessments (QAs), insert your own title and initials here – these tests are all specifically designed to circumvent Texas law on benchmark testing. Sometimes these tests are actually quite short; other times they may require “shutdown testing,” as my last district called it, so a good portion of an instructional day (or maybe all of it depending on what class you teach) is burned away. Short or long, this testing is administered outside the normal testing that occurs in a classroom, meaning that instructional time is interrupted simply for the sake of district-level testing and data. Teachers and students become pawns for the central office bean-counters.

“That should be acceptable if the data is used to inform teachers about student performance and improve instruction.” Absolutely! As the great Kenan Thompson once said, “I mean…it should be.” And sometimes, it happens. SOMETIMES. When I worked under Dr. Teresa Stegall (see last week’s post), we operated under a mantra where “assessment should inform instruction.” But too often, the data is altogether ignored at the campus level, or worse, it’s used in a punitive fashion. Teachers are punished because of their students’ performance. Principals are called into meetings with lofty names like “Cadence of Accountability,” where they have to present their data on the most recent CBAs, defend their numbers, and lay out a plan of action if those numbers fall below expectations. Often, such meetings are incredibly adversarial, where central administrators are almost hostile toward campus principals. I know this because I used to support these principals as an assessment & accountability coordinator, either preparing them for an upcoming meeting or assisting them in the aftermath. The stories could be brutal and actually changed my perception of certain central administrators. The process often seemed like the old joke about “the beatings will continue until morale improves.” No productive or supportive environment, but plenty of accusations and ridicule to go around.

Do you really think, after suffering through such adversarial garbage, principals then go back to their teachers full of energy and support? Maybe the most noble ones do. But more likely, the message and tone received from central office is passed to teachers through badgering and negativity. Then we wonder why morale is down and teachers look to escape to other districts, or out of the profession entirely. But do we ever consider that “maybe this isn’t working?” Heck, no. “It’s what we’ve always done.” (At least for the past two decades.) This is the cycle that high-stakes assessment has begotten. And even as TEA, or the legislature, or the federal government, promise reforms and simplification, what I like to call the “testing industrial complex” (shout-out to the great President Eisenhower) continues to churn and roll along. And no one will have the actual courage to step up and admit that it’s harmful to students, that more and more testing literally crowds out time for teacher-student rapport, for teacher-teacher collaboration, for…you know, instruction. The politicians at the national, state, and local level would rather point to incremental gains that might be illusory and call them “miracles.” And the companies profiting from the system will be happy with that.

This whole sham lies at the core of whatever self-loathing I’ve experienced for the past dozen years. Yes, I tried to rise above the fray. I used hash tags like #respectinstructionaltime when communicating with teachers. I intentionally used humor to establish rapport with staff, letting them know that, as a so-called assessment professional, I understand how the proverbial “necessary evil” of testing was soul-crushing for them because it was sucking away time from the literal reasons they got into the profession. I even got into minor trouble at times for my humor (yet another story for another time), but I make no apologies, because my job was to help teachers, or principals, or fellow administrators, maintain their sanity. I stick by that. But I also stick by the belief that someone in a position of true authority needs the courage to stop this insanity. In the meantime, I ultimately decided that the grind was a bit too much, and not worth having it crowd out the time I wanted for other things in my life. No apologies there, either. And no apologies for using my voice to call out the system as the illusion that it is now that I am no longer constrained by it.

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On Leadership

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Above Audio Recorded Using:

  • Microphone – Sony C-80
  • Interface – cEntrance PASport VO
  • Hardware – MacBook Air M3 13″
  • Software – TwistedWave
  • Additional Software Treatment — AU HiPass, LoudMax, iZotope RX11 Mouth De-Click

Recorded in my Home Studio

I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership lately. No doubt some of the impetus is reflection on my own personal and professional experience, but I’ve also seen recent news items: one superintendent changing districts, another retiring, a campus principal and long-time friend receiving national recognition for a simple act. I’ve also heard personal stories from several other friends and acquaintances in leadership roles about their life changes. As someone who’s unabashedly and unapologetically philosophical, things like this get my brain going.

I happen to love leadership. Not from the standpoint of having the illusion of power or the ability to make decisions. I just love stepping up and helping a group get things done. Throughout my academic career, I gravitated toward leadership roles, from being on the old Safety Patrol in elementary school to serving as president of Kappa Kappa Psi, my honorary band fraternity, in college. When I was in high school, I became a drum major of the marching band, something I did through college. 7 years total as a drum major, plus 16 years teaching drum major/leadership camps to high school students. Those 16 years as an instructor are really why I pursued a career as a teacher, because I enjoyed the learning process so much as I helped students discover their own abilities as leaders. It’s fair to say leadership as a pursuit has helped shape my life.

When I moved to central administration, I pursued a Master of Education degree in Educational Leadership (naturally). I actually had never previously anticipated getting a Master’s degree. I saw myself remaining a classroom teacher for roughly 30-40 years, then walking away. I didn’t want the disciplinary and other hassles that came with being an Assistant Principal, nor the politics that came with almost every position higher than that. But even as a classroom teacher, I was always willing to step up as a campus leader, so when the opportunity to split my work 50/50 as a teacher/data specialist arose, I took it. Campus Data Specialist meant I managed the state and local assessments for the campus. Not a lofty title, but it was leadership — getting things done, and helping teachers and students deal with a thankless but required task. Eventually, I moved up to District Testing Coordinator at central office — also a leadership role, now getting things done by helping campus administrators manage their own thankless but required tasks. And hence, the desire for an M.Ed. to help me fulfill the role better, and maybe move up the ranks if that was in the cards.

“Are you about to segue into a blathering list of all the things that are important qualities of a leader?”

No, you can find that kind of stuff with a simple web search and get all the leadership info your heart desires. What I can offer are a few simple guidelines about what good leadership is, based on my background and experience, along with some examples, good and bad, that I’ve encountered in my career.

So, the rules:

  1. Leadership boils down to two things: Inspiration and Influence. The leader inspires others toward the organization or group’s goals based on their conduct and character. The leader influences others sometimes by directing people to do specific things, but mostly by setting an example and doing those same things themselves.
  2. The central purpose of the leader is to get the appropriate things done for the group or organization and its members. That often means delegating to others who answer the proverbial call, but sometimes that may mean doing certain things yourself, and you’d better be willing to do it. There’s really only one question at the center of the leader’s focus regarding decisions, actions, directives, or behavior: “Does this benefit the group or organization and its members?”
  3. If there’s an essential quality of leaders that should reign above all others, it is Humility. Once you’ve convinced yourself that you know all, or you’re above certain tasks or rules, or you should be the sole arbiter of everything, you’re lost. That’s not leadership; it’s power. Humble yourself and recognize the value of everyone in the group or organization.
  4. There are multiple “right” ways to do everything. Flexibility is essential for leaders. If you’re not willing to change things up, then you’re not learning. And if you’re not learning, you’re stagnant. Organizations are like rivers: the water’s going to flow as long as there’s a sufficient source. The leader’s role is really to elicit the flow from the source and guide it in the proper direction. But just like a river, the organization can meander over time as needed because of different approaches toward the goal. That’s not dysfunction, it’s progress.
  5. There’s really no such thing as a “servant leader” distinct from “other” leaders. ALL leaders, if they’re doing it correctly, are serving the group or organization and its members. The term “servant leader” is just virtue-signaling lingo based on the notion that leadership is about power, so somehow the “servant leader” differentiates themselves. It’s a little disingenuous because it assumes the worst of people in leadership roles.

Having made those observations from my own experience, I am happy to say that the majority of the supervisors for whom I served were more good than bad as leaders. My first principal was a flawed individual, but his heart was in the right place, he meant well, and he was generally flexible about how to run the campus and made adjustments over time. My second principal was opening a new high school and was very much the picture of inspiration and influence. She thought more big-picture and allowed others to hammer out the details, and that collaborative approach helped establish a strong culture for the campus. Principals 3 and 4 were similar to my first principal in that they were good-hearted and flexible, and both were remarkably free from serious flaws. So yeah, I experienced a relatively charmed professional life at my first two campus stops.

Normally, I don’t identify my specific campuses, districts, or any individuals in my posts because this blog is not about clearing air or grinding axes; it’s about sharing insights and experiences. But I will occasionally break this rule to call out particularly positive individuals for their contributions to the education profession in general and to me, personally. Today I’ll break the rule three times. Here’s the first one: Dr. Teresa Stegall. She was my first boss in central administration as the Director of Research, Assessment, and Accountability, in which I served as Coordinator. In a word, Impeccable. She embodied every one of the five rules I listed above. The picture of grace and humility. I suspect she maintained such a great attitude because she had literally fulfilled every duty in the department by herself at one time or another in the past, and she had empathy not just for the department members, but for people across the entire district. She knew my own strengths and played to them, including making use of my interest in voiceover. She was also willing to do the work herself, as well, like the time she asked me to take an online course in Microsoft Access to enhance my skills, and then took the course herself along with me because she knew she could also benefit from it. Her character was, and is, unimpeachable, and she remains both a friend and mentor to this day.

Dr. Stegall ultimately retired from her position as Director, and after some reorganization by the district (another long tale for another post), the department simply didn’t operate the same. So I left that district after 25 years for potentially greener proverbial pastures. And while the upper administrators in my new district were excited to bring my personality and skills to town, I soon found that the new leader of that department would be the absolute worst leader I encountered in three decades in public education. I won’t call out this individual by name (frankly, it may as well be Voldemort, because we do not speak that name), but I recently ran across my exit letter to district Human Resources upon leaving, and Holy. Cow.

The exit letter was very factual and intended to document as many problems with inconsistent and poor leadership of the department as possible. 9 pages, 5,300 words. (!!!) I won’t bore you with details, but here are a couple of highlights to give you a sense of the issues:

  • I was hired in part because I brought an innovative approach to training and communication, including better layouts for department documents. When I revised a state assessment annual overview to increase its visual appeal, I was told, “Well, the one we had seemed to work just fine for 7 years.” Uh-Huh. Lack of flexibility: check. Lack of humility: check. Lovely. Passive-aggressive, too? Bonus.
  • On another occasion, I requested a testing check-in document from a previous year and was told, “I’m not going to share last year’s because you’ll just change it, anyway.” Wow, throw in some more passive-aggressiveness as the cherry on top.

And where Dr. Stegall appreciated my voiceover aspirations and worked to involve those in my work in the department, Lord Voldemort here seemed to resent them because it meant I wasn’t taking tasks home and working until 9:00pm like they were. What a disaster that year was.

Fortunately, the proverbial skies parted the following year as I returned to a high school campus and served under the next leader who I shall highlight, Laigha Boyle. She was easily the hardest-working principal for whom I ever worked and also embodies the rules I listed earlier. In fact, if there’s a flaw in Mrs. Boyle’s approach to leadership, it’s probably that she was a little too willing to do some things herself at times. But I know as she progresses in her career, she’ll develop more willingness to delegate. I wish her luck, as she has departed Texas public education to continue her career in New Mexico.

But I will save the best for last: Jason Mutterer. You might have heard the name. He is a long-time friend and colleague of mine going back to the late 1990s when we were the only two male World Geography teachers at an isolated ninth-grade campus for a larger high school. We actually entered the profession the same year, 1994. I tapped out after 31 years, but Jason is still going strong. He endured a fair amount of political nonsense on his journey in educational leadership, but he’s now the principal of the high school we both helped open in 2002, and he went viral on a national (and perhaps worldwide) scale this summer. Check it out if here you haven’t watched it. That action on his part – hand-writing a note to every senior for graduation – reveals his character, his commitment to his campus and its students, and his approach to leadership, in general. I’m certain his faculty and staff can tell stories that reflect his commitment specifically to them. I’ve known of his compassion and character for roughly three decades, and it’s been gratifying to see him persevere through hurdles in his own career, and now to see him receive well-deserved recognition for what is ultimately a simple but powerful gesture. It was a few months ago, but it still resonates, and it inspires others. But if you want to see the real reason Jason is such an effective leader, go to the 4:45 and 7:15 marks of the linked video and listen to him. Humility. “There’s a lot of people who could sit in this chair today.” He deflects the focus away from himself and talks about how his entire staff connects with students, how so many educators are doing similar things to serve their students, and we should celebrate them all. He managed to gain a free trip to New York and an appearance on the Today show, and yet he used the platform to showcase and uplift others. That, friends, is a leader.

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Ode to Presentation Skills

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Above Audio Recorded Using:

  • Microphone – Rode NTG 5
  • Interface – AudioSigma MikeHero (Classic)
  • Hardware – iPad Pro 11″ M4
  • Software – TwistedWave for iOS
  • Additional Software Treatment via MacBook Air M2 13″ – AU HiPass, LoudMax, iZotope RX11 Mouth De-Click

Recorded in my Home Studio

Let’s talk Presentation Skills. You should probably get some if you will ever present something to a group of people. Or at least if you intend to do so in the future. Even if you won’t give any formal presentations, there still may be some value in knowing how to present something – a topic, a philosophy, an argument, even your career or life story. You never know when the moment will arise where it’s necessary to convey a message in a coherent, organized manner.

I attended a voiceover conference this past weekend and sat in on several presentations. It was pretty much all “sit-and-get” sessions with opportunities for questions. As you might expect, it was a mixed bag. But then, these were primarily voiceover artists whose profession regularly calls for them to interpret and deliver the words given to them, not necessarily write their own stuff, so I took a forgiving mindset into the presentations. One presenter eschewed any slides on-screen altogether (quiet hallelujah) and just talked through his points and ideas. That was admittedly a risky approach, but he was knowledgeable enough that he could proceed in this way and still help everyone in the room gain useful information. Others committed some proverbial cardinal sins of presentations. Clearly they were not quite polished enough, but that was still fine for this particular conference.

The experience reminded me that I have given hundreds of presentations in my lifetime. I’m actually quite good at it, maybe even great. Last year, one of my colleagues, after a presentation I had made during a faculty meeting, suggested I should become a professional presenter (not sure there is such a thing like that besides maybe emcee work; presenters usually have an area of expertise as a foundation). It’s definitely a skill I’ve cultivated, but I had to get good at it: I taught government and economics for 19 years, classes that were required for graduation but were not exactly at the top of any student’s wish list. When I moved into administration, I specialized in testing for another 12 years. Testing, where the topics really got mind-numbing…I mean, “challenging” — mostly compliance-oriented training on such wildly popular topics as test security & confidentiality, testing irregularities, testing procedures, student accommodations, and so forth. No one was ever busting down my door begging for a presentation. Sometimes I did get requests from specific groups needing specific training on specific topics that I understood and they didn’t. But even then, the topics were still Sahara-desert dry. The point is, I developed strong presentation skills because it was necessary. I knew that if I Ben-Stein-ed my way through it (you know Ben Stein, don’t you? “Anyone…anyone…Bueller?”), my audience is gone almost immediately. I had to be engaging, energetic, and focused on what the takeaway of this nonsense I’m talking about is. Otherwise it’s just boring political and bureaucratic talk, or “the dismal science,” or that awful testing stuff we have to cover every year.

I have also attended hundreds of presentations, many of which were excellent, but most of which, honestly, were somewhere between mediocre and brutally bad. Some even seemed impressive on the surface but were actually terrible, like the time a curriculum supervisor from a suburban ISD was supposed to be talking about her district’s correlation between curriculum development and assessment, but she A) talked so fast and B) spent so much time lavishing praise on her own district and its leadership — and NOT on the topic at hand — that I wondered how anyone was supposed to decipher any kind of point from it, let alone glean ways that their own district could use this information. I found myself just wanting the PowerPoint in PDF format so I could try to figure out anything I could actually use. Just stop talking already and please let me read instead.

Did you see that dreaded word in the previous paragraph? PowerPoint. Insert your own shuddering reaction here. Don’t get me wrong – PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, Canva, Prezi – they’re all wonderful, powerful tools capable of enhancing your presentation. But they are tools. At the end of the day, no one cares how impressive the builder’s hammer was; they care about what the builder actually built. And a set of PowerPoint slides is only as effective as the message the presenter delivers with them. Transitions, animations, little GIFs embedded in Canva, etc. – they’re all nerdy and sometimes cool things in the programming, but they don’t make the presentation itself any more interesting. Sometimes they actually distract.

By now, you’re probably asking, “Okay, since you’re such a pro at presentations, what should everyone be doing to be like you, smart guy? HUH?!?” The answers are simpler than you might think. From my experience, a good presentation comes down to 5 core ideas:

  1. The old adage, “Begin with the End in Mind.” Don’t just start making slides or writing down notes to read from. Ask yourself, “what ideas or skills should people attending my presentation gain?” Someone who spends their time listening to you ought to get value out of that time. What value will you provide? Plan the takeaways for the audience before you plan the bullets and graphics and speaking points for yourself. Educators should easily recognize these as “learning objectives,” and you need them before you start deciding what to show and say.
  2. If you’re using slides, keep them limited, relevant, and visually engaging. No one, and I mean NO ONE, enjoys experiencing “Death by PowerPoint,” where the presenter hammers everyone with slide after slide, some of which they don’t even bother to feature. Better to have too few slides than too many. For slides that are primarily text, follow the 6×6 Rule (Maximum 6 lines of text, maximum 6 words per line), but be willing to break it if you need to. Use graphics when possible, but make sure the audience can decipher them and that they actually add to your message.
  • Side Note: I used to know a central administrator who insisted that PowerPoint presentations by administrators, particularly campus principals, should be graphics-only with zero text, because “the audience should be listening to words, not reading them.” This was one of the WORST takes I ever heard in my education career. (I believe the technical term is “horsesh**.”) Obviously, don’t beat people down with overloaded text on a slide, but graphics-only slides are there for effect, not messaging. They are NOT the norm.
  1. PREPARE what you’re going to SAY. DO NOT Read your Slides to your Audience (unless they’re a bunch of toddlers who cannot read yet). Your job is to SPEAK TO the points that appear on-screen. Offer details, tell stories, embellish — these things engage the audience. Reading what everyone can already see is BORING, and it’s brutal for the audience. But I know why you’re reading the slides; I’ve been there. You’re not really prepared to speak. You drew up a slide deck, you don’t really know what to say with it, so you’re just turning your eyes to the screen and reading what’s there. Yes, that is better than fail-smiling to the audience because you’ve got no words, but only by about 0.03%. This is why PowerPoint literally has a Notes field for the Presenter view. If you have to use it, use it. Better to read prepared notes from your laptop at the podium than reading the words on the screen that the audience already sees. But YOU have to PREPARE those notes. If you’re not using slides, then you’d really better be prepared to speak, unless you happen to have the natural ability or the experience to start talking and work your way to a coherent message.
  2. Be Energetic, but Slow Down. There’s a thing in education known as “wait-time,” usually reserved for moments when you pose a question to students and need to pause and allow them to think about an answer. Even in a sit-and-get presentation, wait-time is still essential. People can only process so much auditory and visual stimulation in a given timeframe. If that means you have to cut slides and speech for time, so be it. Edit yourself. Your content isn’t so important that 100% of it is absolutely critical and necessary. Figure it out. Speeding through things just to get through all your slides is poor presenting.
  3. Know your Technology. Use your Technology. If you’re personally managing the slides, know how to advance and reverse them ahead of time. It’s frustrating for your audience when you keep saying “Whoops” and struggling to find the correct frame. And USE THE MICROPHONE. You know that person who says, “I’m loud and ya’ll can probably hear me, so I’m not going to use this.” While it may be true that you’re loud, I’ve already stopped listening now, because you’re an idiot. They gave you a microphone so we can hear you better. Please use it. And if it’s a lavalier (the little clip-on with a transmitter box), please clip it to your shirt and belt like it’s designed. Holding a tiny lavalier microphone at your chin is NOT how it was designed, and you’re causing distortion. We cannot understand you. Ask for help before the presentation, lest you look like an amateur or worse. Figure it out.

When it’s all said and done, your presentation comes down to credibility. You as a presenter at least need to look like you know what you’re doing. Even if you enter the room as an expert in your field, if the audience cannot hear or understand you, if you talk too fast, if you’re just reading the slides, if you have too many slides, or if there seems to be no point to what you’re showing and/or saying, it all falls flat. The ability to maintain coherence and competence with the presentation itself builds credibility for you and ultimately strengthens your message so that people remember the information and are perhaps inspired to use it for their own benefit. And that’s the whole purpose of taking the time to make, and attend, a presentation.

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No Loyalty, No Problem

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Above Audio Recorded Using:

  • Microphone – Roswell Pro Audio Mini K87 High Output
  • Interface – Audient iD4 mkii
  • Hardware – MacBook Air M3 13″
  • Software – TwistedWave for iOS
  • Additional Software Treatment – AU HiPass, LoudMax, iZotope RX11 Mouth De-Click

Recorded in my Home Studio

Let me begin this post with what might sound like a controversial opinion: K-12 public education is just a job. Yes, it can be a deeply fulfilling one because of the lives an educator can impact. But it is not a vocation. It is not a calling. It is not, as a speaker at a conference I attended several years ago said, “driven by a sense of service and altruism.” At least, it shouldn’t be. You may feel called to teach, as a general principle, or to work with a specific age group or type of student, but you were not called specifically to K-12 public education. You were called to instruct, to unlock young minds, to impart knowledge and wisdom – but not to this specific profession or area. It’s simply where you get to practice your craft for an undervalued level of compensation. One of the best pieces of professional advice I ever received: “Just remember, there’s no loyalty in this business.” One of my friends, a teacher and tennis coach, imparted this bit of wisdom when we were colleagues during my first high school gig many years ago.

I don’t remember his exact words, but the general theme of that conversation was this: You are replaceable. They may praise you and call you valuable, but things can turn immediately. They decide they want you out for some reason, or they want someone else in your position, and you’ll find yourself moving on, like it or not. Years later, this person found himself honored by the district in its athletic hall of honor for his work as a coach. He graciously accepted the gesture, but I imagine he still remembered occasions when he may have felt unappreciated. Perhaps time has softened those memories; I don’t know. What I do know is 1) he was absolutely right, and 2) there’s really nothing wrong with a lack of loyalty.

Why do we value professional loyalty in the first place? My theory is that society was conditioned for this during the 20th century: Study hard, sign on with an employer, work hard, and you may well be with that same employer for your entire career. You’ll receive promotions and move up in the company until you reach whatever plateau is your professional destiny. Maybe they’ll relocate you at times, but you’ll be a “company man” (or woman) because you’ve worked so hard and given so much for them, and they reciprocate. The dynamics of job growth and changes occurred within the relatively safe cocoon of a single, long-term employer.

Historically, we view public schools in the same way. Look around at the local elementary schools around you. It’s likely that many of them are named for so-called “pillars” of the district — people who served the local community in the same place, albeit possibly in different roles, over decades, and the district named a campus after this person. We like to reward long-time educators who are our best. We also make it difficult to remove any educator who is mediocre or even bad. Once a given teacher has 3 years of experience, it’s incredibly difficult to fire them —districts have to document problems clearly, set up growth plans, and create a path for dismissal over time to remove a teacher. For administrators, there’s more performance incentive and less protection; they work on a year-by-year basis, so the path to removal is much easier for principals and other admin if they underperform. 

But it’s not the 20th century anymore. Careers in general experience more change over less time. Whichever path an educator chooses, there’s always an exit ramp, and in the 21st century, that ramp is used more frequently. My take on things is that there is nothing wrong with this lack of loyalty, particularly on the part of the educator. Are there situations where a teacher may be “unfairly targeted” by a principal who documents every little thing and makes his/her life miserable for a few years in an effort toward removal? Absolutely. Are these situations rampant? Absolutely not. In my experience, administrators don’t have the time to target anyone capriciously. If you’re a teacher on a growth plan, you’re somewhere between mediocre and a full-on problem, and they’re ready, even desperate, to move on from you.

At the administrative level, things honestly get even crazier. Fact: Anyone with “Superintendent” in his/her title, whether as an Assistant, Associate, Deputy, or the head honcho, is as much a politician as an educator. Lots of other central administrators also have political realities embedded in the job. Politics are fickle; the politics of K-12 public education, even more so. Even the most committed, well-meaning educator moving to upper administration could be unfairly affected by the political shifts in a district. It is cruel, but it is reality. And the best administrators I’ve ever known were all deftly able to navigate the political waters while still maintaining a focus on making educationally sound decisions in their work. It is not any easy balance to achieve.

Fact #2: This proverbial street (Loyalty Lane is a terrible pun, but it works) goes both ways. If you’re a teacher, of course you should care about your students and do your best to serve them. That’s the job. But at the end of the day, week, month, six weeks, semester, or year, you owe them nothing. Your personal loyalty is to the important people in your life – spouse, family, friends, etc. That’s it. If your campus or district is moving in a direction you cannot abide, make no apologies for seeking opportunity elsewhere. If another opportunity arises unexpectedly, do what is best for you and your family. Even if it’s best to leave the profession and you have that chance, take it. No apologies.

What if you’re an administrator? In the “era of accountability,” where your job performance may be dictated and judged by a (stupid) A-F letter grade in a politicized, oversimplified system that is changed every 5 years by law, you have minimal incentive to stay where you are and “fight the good fight” for a campus, district, or community. The politics of educational administration basically require you to preach all the latest buzzwords to teachers, parents, and community alike — about being a “servant leader,” about climate and culture, about academic rigor, about parent and community engagement, about school improvement. Something new will always come along. Preach those words as needed. Heck, believe them, and do your best to fulfill those lofty concepts. But make no apologies for also leveraging those terms and concepts to your next promotion. Your loyalty is to the most important people in your life, not to a campus or district. Beyond doing your best in the here-and-now of your job, you owe them nothing. Maybe you’re content with where you are, and they’re happy with you, but things can turn in what feels like an instant. You could be blindsided and suddenly feel like you’re being forced out.

“Gosh, what a sad perspective on the system.” I am keenly aware of this, but it is a perspective on the system, not the profession. As a naive college student who wanted to teach because he was interested in the learning process itself and in helping students grasp abstract themes and concepts in social studies, I had an idealized view because I did, indeed, view teaching as my true calling. (In many ways, I still do.) I saw myself in the classroom for 30+ years, possibly in the same campus. Then I met with reality, and it was…nuanced. I was moved among different subjects and campuses against my preferences. I dutifully adapted to the changes because that was the job. I also received promises that were ultimately not kept. I dealt with those the best I could. I ultimately learned that I was a proverbial cog in the system, serving the needs of the campus or district when it suited those in control. But I also learned that my calling to teach was simply something that overlapped with the K-12 public education system, though not always 100%. And I learned to take control of my own destiny within that system – switching campuses by choice, going after a promotion, eventually switching districts (twice), and finally, retiring on my own terms. My loyalty remained to myself and my family, and I did what was best for us. Things didn’t always go as planned, and it was never perfect. But I am satisfied with where I am at this moment. At my core, I remain a teacher, but where and how I teach is my choice now. And the 21st century affords me opportunities that are not confined to a bureaucratic system. K-12 public education was my career for 31 years. But in the end, it was just a job.

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Some Funny Things Happened on the Road to Retirement

Listen to this Post

Above Audio Recorded Using:

  • Microphone – Rode Video MicroGo II (USB-C)
  • Hardware – iPad Pro 11″ M4
  • Software – TwistedWave for iOS
  • Additional Software Treatment via MacBook Air M3 13″ – AU HiPass, LoudMax, iZotope RX11 Mouth De-Click

Recorded in my Home Studio

It truly is about time I retired from public education. I’ve actually been planning this for several years now. I came across an old unpublished blog post from January 2021 in which I triumphantly stated that 2021 was “what I intend to be my last year as an educator.” 2021.

The 2020-21 school year was my 27th year in education, when I hit the “magic number” for retirement in Texas: Age + Years of Service = 80. On August 7, 2021, I turned 53 years old, so from that day onward, I was officially eligible to exit my career. But 20-21 was also only Year 1 in my final district, and you might recall that it was also the school year right after the COVID pandemic. What a strange year – our district began the year with 100% distance learning, then later allowed students who wished to pursue in-person instruction, but only with social distancing. Testing procedures were really odd – students could either choose to test or defer until later – but I learned a lot in that unique environment. By August 7 of 2021, I don’t think I was actually ready to retire, after all, so I committed to Year 2 at that campus and in that district. I did truly enjoy the campus where I worked immensely, learn many new skills, had made new friends, and was able to find fulfillment in my work as the Campus Testing Coordinator. So I pressed on…2021-22, 2022-23, then 2023-24.

Each of those next 3 school years grew progressively more difficult, though. The district kept adding tests and testing responsibilities while simultaneously gaslighting everyone with a message of “we’re actually doing less than in years past.” Right. I suppose, as George Costanza said, “it’s not a lie if you believe it.” The State of Texas was also adding new things at least every odd-numbered year. And I was burning out while yearning for more time to do voiceover work, worrying that I might miss a critical chance, if only from the opportunity cost of time spent with education and not VO. So in June 2024, I actually filed the paperwork. Sent a paper copy off via USPS Certified Mail – I still have the receipt. I informed my principal, who was herself moving onto a revised life and career in New Mexico. Also informed the staff. The timing actually seemed perfect – 30 years, weary, new principal, new superintendent – let’s make a break for it.

Into my office walks a former principal of mine from a previous campus, now a district administrator. “I want you to reconsider,” she says. We talk about the bureaucratic issues within the district, as well as my salary, and she pledges to work on a pay raise for me. I figure if she can make something happen with my pay that is worthwhile, I might dig deep and muster up another 3-5 years of effort. So I cancelled my retirement in anticipation of her delivering. She didn’t. Or, to put it more accurately, she couldn’t. With a new superintendent, she found herself professionally pidgeon-holed (districts like to call it “reassigned”) and therefore had very little leverage to influence my pay, at least to the level I hoped. I received a raise beyond the typical x% given to all employees, but it was nowhere near what I had requested or felt like I deserved, given the scope and quality of work I was doing for the campus. “But you’ll like working with [new principal],” I was told in an effort toward consolation.

And I did. Great guy, hard worker, dedicated. Trouble is, he found himself just trying to stay afloat amidst even more district bureaucratic nonsense. Everyone at our campus did. It became comical, and we joked about it openly. I joked freely about these things in e-mails to campus staff. And of course, that got me in a little hot water. “You sound like you’re pitting the campus against the district,” I was told by a central office administrator. No, the district is destroying our morale, and I’m trying to show empathy with our teachers through humor. (But that’s another story for a later post.)

So after year 31, in the spring of 2025, I filed the paperwork again, this time electronically. Then a central admin position came open in another nearby district – “Director of Assessment & Accountability.” Way back in 2018, this was where I was headed in my first district before the rug was yanked out from under me (Another story for still another post.) I apply. I contact this district’s superintendent, also a former principal of mine. (No, I am NOT above leveraging old professional relationships, and neither should you be.) I get an interview. Probably the best performance I ever had in an interview. The committee lead calls and tells me it was a great interview, the committee was very impressed, and he needs to contact my references next.

Now you might be thinking, “What about voiceover? What about THE DREAM?!? Weren’t you ready to commit full-time?” Yes, but this central office job would’ve been a substantial pay increase and set me up for an even more lucrative retirement situation in just a few years. I owe it to myself to try, at least. And if this job is meant to be, I can cancel my retirement again and stick it out a little longer. And a week after the interview, it’s looking like that shall be the plan. They seem to want to hire me. Then another week goes by. And another. And finally, I get the e-mail saying “we have decided to move forward with another candidate for this role.” I figure it’s probably the guy with an Ed.D.; districts love doctorates among central administrators. (Yet another future post.)

“Oh, no! I’m so sorry.” Please don’t feel sorry for me – no condolences, no regrets. I applied, I put in appropriate effort and performed well, but that other district went a different direction. I like to think they’ll regret not hiring me, but it doesn’t matter. In the end, I know from experience that central office work is just a little soul-crushing (wow, that’s FOUR future posts), so that potential additional pay would’ve likely come with…suffering. And now, I simply have to hustle as a freelance VO talent, keep building my skills, market and find clients, and do the work. If I do it right, I may be able to cover the potential difference in salary from that job, and then some. And because I enjoy VO, there won’t be any soul-crushing or suffering. It truly is about time I retired from public education.