Let's Solve Our Educational Problems Together

            Many of us have wondered why the Mt. Abraham Unified School District (MAUSD) would be considering closing elementary schools, and why MAUSD would support consolidating middle and high schools with Addison Northwest (the Vergennes area) and becoming one large uber-district. After all, the financial worries plaguing the MAUSD are the result of declining student enrollment and a state education funding system that was designed when student enrollment in Vermont was stable. Closing (or even threatening to close) town elementary schools; and consolidating (or even threatening to consolidate) middle and high schools with another district, will only make the enrollment decline worse. We are already hearing this concern from local real-estate agents. Why would young families move to our five towns without assurance that town schools will remain open and vibrant, and school bus rides will remain relatively short? 

            If declining student enrollment is part of the cause of the problem, let’s take steps to attract more families to our region. It seems to us that the solution consists of three key parts: 

• Increase the availability of jobs. Supporting the universal broadband efforts now underway across Addison County is one way to help here. Not only will affordable, universal high-speed internet enable many current and future residents to work from home, but it will promote economic development across our towns, creating more jobs and making it much easier for residents to find information that leads to gainful employment. For more information, please visit the Maple Broadband website. 
• Increase the availability of reasonably priced housing. The recent Population and Housing Report from the Addison County Regional Planning Commission suggests some solutions, including repurposing existing housing stock (Repurpose existing housing stock, not schools!). Our local and regional planning commissions have already been doing some great work on this issue. They need our questions and ideas, and they deserve our support in considering steps that will increase housing availability, especially for young families just starting out. There are a number of steps that towns can take, and a number of resource people and organizations that would help our towns with this part of the solution. 
• Increase the availability of early childcare. The scarcity of quality care for very young children is a huge obstacle to employment that discourages young families from settling in our rural towns. There must be ways to increase access to early childcare - including by locating it some of the extra space we currently have in our schools. 

            Wouldn’t it be a more productive and harmonious use of our time and resources to work together on these steps toward solutions, rather than just treating the symptom of the problem with measures (closing schools and further consolidating school governance) that would have so many negative effects on our students and our communities? Imagine MAUSD Board members, the MAUSD administration, and community members from across our five towns, intentionally collaborating to keep our schools open, vibrant, thriving and cost effective. With that kind of effort there’s nothing we couldn’t accomplish. While we’re at it, let’s also collaborate in calling on the Vermont Legislature to make needed changes to the state’s system for funding public schools, so Vermont’s rural communities won’t have to suburbanize our school systems in order to be able to afford them. 

 By Nancy Cornell on behalf of the Starksboro SOS (Save Our Schools) Committee

Please note: This editorial appeared in the December 23, 2021 edition of The Addison Independent.

What Are the Results When Elementary Teachers Specialize?

          In this Annenberg Institute paper, NaYoung Hwang and Brian Kisida (University of Missouri) report on their study of the impact of elementary schools having teachers focus on fewer subjects – for example, one teaches math and science while another teaches ELA and social studies. While the majority of U.S. elementary students learn in self-contained classes, with the homeroom teacher covering all major subjects, a growing number of schools are using a semi-departmentalized structure, with teachers specializing in one or more subjects and working with two or more homerooms. The percent of schools using this model has increased from 5 percent in the mid-1990s to 20 percent by the early 2000s. 

          Over the years, advocates have advanced a number of arguments for elementary specialization:

• Although highly effective teachers in one subject are usually effective in others, there is variation; teachers are more proficient in some subjects than others. 
• This suggests that getting teachers working in their best subject will have a positive effect on student achievement. 
• When teachers specialize, they can more easily hone their skills. 
• Training and PD are streamlined and less time-consuming. 
• Teaching the same lesson two or more times a day improves performance. 
• Having fewer preps reduces teachers’ workload and stress and increases job satisfaction. 

Despite these appealing advantages, specialization has some downsides: 

• Teachers are responsible for at least twice as many students, making it more difficult to know each students’ strengths and weaknesses, needs, and special circumstances. 
• It’s more challenging for students to build trusting relationships with teachers and develop a sense of belonging in the school. 
• That’s concerning since research consistently shows that relationships play an important part in student success, especially in the early grades and for vulnerable students.
• For parents, having to deal with several teachers makes it more challenging to communicate about their children’s development and learning. 

 Hwang and Kisida say these pros and cons of elementary specialization haven’t been adequately researched, despite more than a century of debate. However, two recent studies – one in Houston, the other in North Carolina – cast doubt on the practice, documenting negative effects on student achievement. 

          Hwang and Kisida followed up on those studies by looking at statewide data on fourth and fifth grade teachers in Indiana public schools from 2011 to 2017. The researchers were able to compare data on the same teachers in years when they taught self-contained classes and years when they specialized in one or two areas. The data linked 591,311 students to 15,895 math teachers and 17,101 reading teachers. Here are the conclusions. 

• Teachers performed less well when they specialized than when they taught self-contained classes.
• Students with specialized teachers performed less well in reading and math than students with self-contained homeroom teachers. 
• This was especially true with low-achieving students, English language learners, students with special needs, and those eligible for free and reduced-price meals. 
• Schools implementing specialization saw no improvements in student achievement, attendance, or disciplinary infractions. 
• The researchers found that teachers who specialized tended to be less qualified by Indiana standards and often had a prior track record of lower impact on student achievement. 
• However, the researchers don’t believe this was the reason specialized teachers did less well; that’s because in the North Carolina study, specialized teachers more often had higher effectiveness ratings. 

What explains the negative findings on specialized elementary classrooms? Hwang and Kisida believe it’s because “specialization weakens student-teacher relationships.” They were able to test this hypothesis by looking at schools where students looped with specialist teachers – had the same combination of teachers two years in a row. In these classes, the negative effect of specialization on math achievement was significant lower. These data, say the authors, “show that finding strategies to increase student-teacher familiarity with specialists may improve their effectiveness.” There’s also the option of not specializing. 

 “Spread Too Thin: The Effects of Teacher Specialization on Student Achievement” by NaYoung Hwang and Brian Kisida, Annenberg Institute, October 2021; the authors can be reached at nhwang@missouri.edu and kisidab@missouri.edu.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #915 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.