Go inside a classroom teacher’s typical day

Governor Gregoire is ready to sign a bill that uses improvement in student test scores as a factor in hiring and firing teachers. It’s easy to look at a school from the outside and agree all teachers should be held to high standards. But what is it like inside a classroom today?

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Margaret Paulk’s 5th grade class at Adams Elementary in Seattle looks a lot like the classroom you went to. Desks are in clusters, world maps and cursive alphabet letters are still on the wall.

What you can’t see is how different each of her 28 students are.

“I’ve got one student who is doing an independent Algebra 1 high school math course and I have other kids who have a really tough time with basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division,” Paulk says.

“I’ve got kids who are reading well into high school and I have other kids who are not and a lot of it is based on exposure, experience and practice.”

A lot of what happens during a teacher’s day is determined by what’s going on in students’ homes. Some students at the school are homeless, others have parents who are fighting, they’re living with relatives, maybe mom or dad lost their job.

“If you have a family where mom and dad work ’till midnight and you’re not getting to bed on time and breakfast is dry cereal and you’re ten minutes late, you’re not as ready as the kid who is able to get to bed at eight and wake up at seven and have a warm breakfast and is rested,” she says. “I want to believe that all kids want to learn.”

Mrs. Paulk believes all her children will gain knowledge and skills in her class. Will they be able to show the improvement the state wants?

“You don’t have 28 people who finish in a marathon in the same place, do we? No, we have one. Catching everybody up to a fifth grade level is a daunting task,” Paulk says.

Student test scores determine how well teachers perform their tasks. The tests are standardized – science test, math test, reading test, writing test – but the students are all so different.

“Absolutely. Absolutely,” she says with a knowing smile.

While one little girl volunteers to read her report about what was happening in the United States in 1776, another girl wearing a hot pink shirt is folding pieces of paper as Mrs. Paulk walks over to a boy, slumped down in his chair, firing rubber bands across his desk. Another boy has a running commentary going on what he did last night. A boy with a dinosaur shirt on is drawing on a piece of paper. All of this within five minutes of their social studies class.

Their social studies books, incidentally, are more like history books. Bill Clinton is still president in the Seattle School District’s most updated elementary text book.

Paulk says teachers should be held to high standards and should be judged by student performance, but educators need to have a fair chance.

“I would like to have current curriculum. I would like smaller class size. Twenty-eight is big. It’s hard to get to everyone. Twenty or 24 would be nice. I’d love technology that works,” she says.

While lawmakers and school administrators figure all that out, Mrs. Paulk will continue doing what she loves, encouraging students to think.

In one hour of her social studies class, she took the children from a discussion about what they were seeing in an American revolution painting to a conversation about civil rights and freedom of speech, while calmly weaving in words “shh,” “hold on,” “stay on task,” and “just a second.” She said things like that 14 times in an hour.

Under a bill the Governor is expected to sign, evaluation results would be used as a factor in human resource decisions starting in the 2015-16 school year. Senate Bill 5895 also sets some new guidelines for principals, including a requirement to use teacher feedback in principal evaluations.