Head of School Blog

Thank You!

Fri, 31 May 2013 10:34:26 EST

Next week we will conclude the 2012-2013 school year, and the focus will turn to our graduating seniors as they walk across the stage on June 9th.

At this time, then, let me take a moment to offer my thanks to the Marshall community for the opportunity to serve as your leader the past three years.

Over the course of this blog, I've written more than 110 entries sharing my thoughts on educational trends and Marshall School, as well as offering congratulations to a variety of students and faculty on specific accomplishments.

Marshall School is a wonderful place, filled with inquisitive and hard-working students and passionate faculty. In the day-to-day of our work together, we can sometimes fail to see this specialness -- as we get consumed with pressure of deadlines and the complexity of relationships.

It is refreshing in my role to get to see the school through new eyes on a fairly regular basis.

I hear stories about the welcoming warmth of our student body from new parents, who are anxious about the transition for their children. I hear about the high expectations that we hold in our curriculum from transfer students in almost every grade level. I hear about the intense pride students have in Marshall when I take seniors to lunch each spring.

I get to see Marshall regularly through a different lens when we recruit new faculty. The interview process affords a chance to see how outside professionals view the school. Candidates are impressed with our students, faculty, and programming. All are impressed particularly with the school's mission-driven focus.

Of course, it is one thing to impress a candidate during an interview and quite another to hold that good feeling over the long haul. I absolutely love it when a new faculty member stops by my office, usually towards the end of the first year, and says: "Thanks! Thanks for hiring me. I love my students. I love working here."

This has happened a lot in the last three years, and that positive energy is infectious.

I see Marshall through different eyes when I meet with trustees and community members -- folks who believe passionately in the transformative power of education and the importance of educational choice for a community like Duluth. Our board members hold the school's mission in trust -- valuing the history but focusing on the future. The changes in our science program and the focus on technology reflect a belief about what competencies our students will need in this new world.

It has been my pleasure to serve the school and its students over the past three years.

Marshall School is a special place that will continue to be embraced by new families, new faculty, new administrators, and new trustees. They will be attracted by the school's mission, its belief in innovation and continual improvement, and its focus on building a strong community.

STEM Successes

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:53:59 EST

Two years ago, the Marshall School science department made the bold decision to offer an accelerated curriculum to all our students. As a school, we are convinced that success for our graduates depends on deepening their core competencies in math, science, and technology -- a goal that aligns with our mission to educate global citizens.

Results from our just completed course registrations would indicate that this bet is paying off, as enrollments in higher-level science courses are skyrocketing.

Course	2011-2012	2012-2013	2013-2014
AP Biology	0	17	38
AP Chemistry	6	4	24
Physics (any level)	44	54	69

All Marshall students now take biology in 9th grade and chemistry in 10th grade. This is the normal sequence for science courses in high-performing states like Massachusetts, but it is one year accelerated from the normal sequence in Minnesota public schools. As a result, Marshall students have the opportunity to take physics as well as another higher level science before graduation -- or even double-up and take two AP science courses in one year.

Marshall remains committed to the AP route for its college-level courses, as we believe the program is both challenging and transferrable. A great number of our students look to colleges outside of Minnesota, and the AP remains recognizable to the largest number of schools around the US.

This trend is creating higher expectations among Marshall students about what they can accomplish in high school. That positive peer pressure creates an expectation of academic excellence that is contagious.

Laptop Leaders
Likewise, next year the school is taking another bold step by introducing laptops into the US program. We believe that integration of technology is essential in preparing students to be successful in college and beyond.

To support this initiative, the Marshall technology staff is recruiting students to serve as technology ambassadors next year. Calling themselves the Technology Brigade, we can expect some fabulous things from this new corps of student leaders.

Learn more here: http://www.marshallschool.org/page.cfm?p=1580

Good Enough?

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:26:59 EST

Every year, usually around college admission season, I get a question or two from parents regarding the competitive nature of the college search. The question usually goes like this:

"Why would we want to send our child to a school like Marshall, where they will face more academic competition and harder classes? If they stay in public school, they will get all As. At Marshall, won't they be disadvantaged when it comes to college acceptance?"

I often start my answer with the practical: Colleges understand that not all high school's are created equal. They know Marshall, and they know that a B+ at our school means something different than a B+ at another school. Or an A, for that matter. Colleges like to accept students who have taken the most challenging academic course load possible. They know that not all GPAs are created equal.

From my perspective, however, it is more important to ask: How can my child be prepared to SUCCEED once they are in college?

A new article from the executive director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Talent Youth sounds a warning about the preparation of our so-called "A students."

Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Elaine Tuttle Hansen says that many schools today are doing a huge disservice by not challenging these smart, talented kids. The underlying calculus at many schools is: These kids are doing fine. They don't make any trouble. We've got other worries.

"The truth is that not all of the smartest kids who have jumped through the hoops required for selective college admissions are ready for the demands of college-level work," says Tuttle Hansen.

The research shows that when we don't challenge students throughout middle school and high school, they lose ground. According to a Fordham Institute study, up to half of students who scored in the 90th percentile in elementary school fell backwards when they moved from elementary to middle school or middle school to high school.

"And the focus on low-achieving students in public schools has disproportionately left more smart minority and low-income kids behind, creating a well-documented 'excellence gap.'" writes Tuttle Hansen.

Perhaps the most compelling answer to the question about college preparation comes from David, a college student quoted the Chronicle article:

"By the time I found academic work that challenged me, ... I realized my work ethic and study skills were atrocious, in large part, I believe, because I had never been forced to use them.

"I would like to know the person I would have become had I been engaged as a young learner."

Stopping cyberbullies

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 13:50:46 EST

Great article from Emily Bazelon in the March Atlantic Magazine on the challenges parents face when trying to stop cyberbullies.

Bazelon highlights a story from Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Connecticut, where a girl she calls "Drama Queen" created an anonymous Facebook account to sew discord among her school's 750 students -- 500 of whom at one point followed her page called Let's Start Drama. The site was a way for her and others to pass along cruel gossip and spread rumors without fear of personal consequences. Before long, the site resulted in many broken friendships and an actual fistfight.

Unfortunately, the Let's Start Drama page is not an outlier. Similar Facebook pages and Twitter accounts exist in towns all across America -- Duluth included.

Bazelon wanted to know, however, how you can put a stop to this. When requests to take down the Let's Start Drama page from administrators at Woodrow Wilson Middle School went answered, Brazelon went to Facebook headquarters in California.

She spoke with a manager at Facebook's Hate and Harassment Team, whose job it is to troll through the 2.5 billion pieces of content posted daily and decide what crosses the line. Facebook's policy, she learned, is to accept first-person complaints by victims of harassment.

"If the content is about you, and you're not famous, we don't try to decide whether it's actually mean," Facebook's Dave Willner told Bazelon. "We just take it down."

Third-party reports, such as those made by a school, however, are reviewed on a case-by-case basis (meaning a much longer wait for action).

Facebook's approach seems to be in line with what I have learned about formal reports of harassment made to police. In conversations with the Duluth Police Department last year, we were told that if a student is being bullied online, a school can discipline a student within the context of its code of conduct. If a student is being harassed, however, the school cannot report this to the police for legal action. Instead, the actual report must come from the victim directly.

Unfortunately, in the case of the Let's Start Drama page, despite complaints by individuals and the school, it took more than six months for the site to be taken down by Facebook.

"Someone made a mistake," Willner said to Bazelon in her story. Because of the volume of material the Facebook employess must review, they simply missed coding the complaints correctly. "This profile should have been disabled."

Little consolation to the many students at Woodrow Wilson who were harmed by the page -- and a lesson for parents who are trying to help. Keep at it.

Good grades are contagious

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:36:45 EST

We like to say that it is "cool to be smart" at Marshall School. A new study out this week from research affiliated with the National Science Foundation indicates that this phenomena could be contagious.

The concept that a peer network might influence children, both positively and negatively, makes common sense to parents. The study entitled "Spread of Academic Success in a High School Social Network" concludes that this effect can have a positive impact on grades as well.

In a study of 160 students in a New York high school, researchers determined that students whose friends' average GPA was higher than their own were likely to improve their GPA over time. Likewise, if you had friends with lower GPAs, your grades were more likely to drop.

While the study was too small to draw definitive conclusions, it certainly squares with other patterns that parents see with their children, from the influence on musical tastes to clothing to hobbies.

STEM-ulating conversation

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 17:45:09 EST

Marshall School kicked off a winter STEM Symposium series with a stimulating morning conversation with Dr. Chris Jones, a project manager for Microsoft and the teacher of our AP Computer Science class. Jones works in Seattle and teaches our students virtually. He was in Duluth for the last three days to take his students to the Fargo Microsoft campus to meet with the programmers and discuss career paths in computer science.

Today Dr. Jones (pictured at left) spoke with faculty, administrators, and some special guests on the connection between programming, role playing games, and preparation for STEM-related careers.

By 2018, he said it is projected that there will be 800,000 new high-end computer jobs in the United States. Five of the 10 fasted growing jobs will be in the computing field.

Unfortunately, as Microsoft Great Plains site manager Don Morton told Marshall students Thursday, "We don't know what kind of jobs you'll be doing in the future."

This disconnect -- between the knowledge that the field will need workers but uncertainty about the exact types of jobs that will exist -- is a challenge for people who would like to think of a career path as a linear process.

Jones said that he viewed understanding basic programming as a way to develop core logical thinking skills that can be likened to learning chemistry, biology, and physics. While future jobs might not map clearly to any particular course, the skills learned in computer science will no doubt be useful in areas that are becoming increasingly technological -- such as medicine and engineering.

If he viewed understanding computer science as a logical step to providing base STEM skills, Jones then discussed his own personal emotional lens -- role playing games (RPGs). The skills learned in gaming, he said, are much more applicable to the uncertainty that our students face. Rather than being linear, RPGs are organic and call for user customization. In addition, they demand to be explored and they encourage risk-taking. In many ways, this might mirror the experiences that our students will have as they patch together a quilt of courses, skills and experiences to create their own career paths.

This sparked a lively discussion with the group about motivation and the role of failure in both RPGs and our schools.

The lessons schools could learn from RPGs is a hot topic in educational circles right now. They are explored in a little more depth in this six-minute interview with programmer Jane McGonigal, author of the book Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World.

In the end, Jones said, that the unknown future of STEM jobs will demand the same types skills necessary for success as are needed in role-playing games: self-motivation, life-long learning, and an understanding that failure is an essential component of personal growth.

STEM successes

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 16:36:14 EST

Improving the state of math and science education in the United States has been a top priority for many years. In the past few months, updated reports have been issued that can help us assess our progress. As you might expect, the overall picture involves a few steps forward and a few steps back.

Rankings Stay Stable
The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) report comes from the National Center for Education Statistics. TIMMS began in 1995 and is now administered to 4th and 8th grade students in 54 countries and 20 other educational systems around the world.

While US 8th graders ranked above the global average in mathematics in the recently released 2011 survey, they were behind students in South Korea, Singapore, Taipei, Hong Kong, Japan, Russia, Israel, and Finland. The most recent scores of US 8th graders remained unchanged from the 2007 testing.

The results are similar in science, where US 8th graders scored above the world average but behind students in Singapore, Taipei, South Korea, Japan, Finland, Slovenia, Russia, Hong Kong, and England. Like in math, there was no noticeable improvement in scores in US students from 2007.

In an interesting new development, some US states -- including Minnesota -- were allowed to participate in the survey and to be treated as a stand-alone educational entity (like their own country, if you will). In those tables, participating states did quiet well. Minnesota ranked higher than the US averages in math and science. Massachusetts was the best performing state in the US.

Increasing Rigor
In a separate report, the National Center for Education Statistics released its "Condition of Education 2012" report, which contains a slew of data about educational trends within the US. In one of the most interesting nuggets, the report details the types of math and science courses taken by seniors in 1990 and then nearly 20 years later in 2009.

In every category, the US has seen an uptick in the number of students taking a more challenging course of study. Most notable is the increase in students taking a full year of study all three major science disciplines: biology, chemistry, and physics. Nationally, the number went from 19% of seniors in 1990 to 30% in 2009.

At Marshall, 70% of this year's seniors have taken all three courses, and we expect this number to go even higher when students begin to complete the new science sequence that we introduced last year. Under our new sequence, students are taking biology in 9th grade and chemistry in 10th grade. Most students will then take physics in 11th grade. This sequence is one year advanced from the standard Minnesota curriculum but in alignment with the standard course sequence in top-ranked Massachusetts. It will give students more opportunity to take advanced level work in the junior and senior years.

Value

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 14:08:21 EST

The Council for American Private Education (CAPE) released a report this week with some interesting statistics regarding private schools. CAPE represents both parochial and independent schools, which collectively serve 1 in 10 students in the US.

In fact, one in four schools in the US is private.

Independent schools like Marshall are a smaller sub-set of that bigger group and make up about 1% of the student population in the US.

According to the CAPE report:

Private schools save American taxpayers $50 billion a year.
67% of private school graduates attend four-year colleges vs 40% in public schools.
Private school 8th graders performed, on average, one or two grade levels above public school students in the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress in math and reading.
Private school students take a more rigorous courseload in math and science than their counterparts -- with 75% of students in private schools taking a higher-level math course (above Algebra II).
The 2011 National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) report on school crime and safety reveals that students in public schools are victimized at twice the rate of those in private schools.
A separate NCES report in 2010 indicated that 79% of parents with students in private schools report being very satisfied vs. 52% of parents in public schools.
Finally, a 2012 report called State of Our Nation's Youth reports that private school students are twice as likely than students in general to give their schools an "A."

The world of private schools is varied, and sometimes these top-level statistics can be confusing. However, the report does make a strong case that private schools have an important place in American education and within individual communities. The full report is available as a PDF or as an interactive iBook.

Improving Ethics

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:21:37 EST

If the latest report card on American youth is any indication, student ethics are improving.

For the first time in a decade, the biennial survey on student behavior shows that lying, cheating, and stealing are on the decline. The survey of 23,000 students conducted since 1992 by the Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics covers students at charter, public, and private schools.

"It's a small ray of sunshine through lots of dark clouds," said founder Michael Josephson on the Institute web site.

Some of the highlights:

Students who admitted cheating on an exam dropped to 51% in 2012 from 59% in 2010.
Students who admitted lying to a teacher about something significant dropped to 55% from 61%.
Students who admitted lying to their parents dropped to 76% from 80%.
Students who admitted stealing something from a store in the past year dropped to 20% from 27%.

Within the data set, however, are some troubling gender gaps.

Boys were nearly twice as likely to steal from a friend than girls (19% v. 10%).

Almost half of boys (45%) believe that "a person has to lie and cheat at least occasionally in order to succeed." Only 28% of girls held that same belief.

Boys (20%) were twice as likely as girls (10%) to believe "it is not cheating if everyone is doing it." Interestingly, the answer to this question did not change much if the students were in honors/AP classes or in varsity athletics.

Girls are much more likely to volunteer (70% v. 55%).

Both genders report that "being physically attractive" is important (91% boys and 90% girls), although, interestingly, "being popular" is much more important to boys (65%) than girls (48%).

You can see the full report here.

Credit

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:50:45 EST

The evolution of online learning has been fascinating.

Only a few years ago, online courses were seen as a distant and somewhat odd member of the educational family. Over time, and with the help of a federal study showing its effectiveness, online learning has moved into the mainstream.

The 10% growth in online enrollments in colleges and universities greatly exceeded the traditional enrollment growth of 2% last year -- and, according to the Babson Group, 31% of college students now take at least one course online.

That trend has moved younger, as more and more secondary students are now taking online courses. A new report from the Evergreen Education Group, entitled Keeping Pace 2012, highlights states that have approved fully online K12 schools.

Six states (Alabama, Idaho, Florida, Michigan, and Virginia) have gone so far as to require an online course as a graduation requirement.

The more recent emergence of MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) has complicate the landscape, as individual faculty and/or schools have begun to create free open enrollment courses that are attracting tens of thousands of students.

While things are evolving and a number of high profile universities have joined forces in new consortium (edX or Coursera), a sticking point has been that these courses offer nothing more than a certificate of completion and a pat on the back. No credit or credential to take to an employer.

That is beginning to change. The American Council on Education is now looking at some Coursera offerings from elite schools and may recommend that other colleges grant credit for course completion.

In another development, a new group of colleges has joined together to launch a new online consortium, but one that will charge for classes and offer credit. Formed by universities such as Duke, Northwestern, and the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill, they expect to offer up to 30 courses next fall to their currently enrolled students (and included in their regular tuition) but also to open these courses up to other students who are willing to pay.

It is too early to see how this might play out, but the movement to offer credit is significant. MOOCs and school consortiums offer enormous potential to open educational opportunities for students, but the real growth is being held back by the uncertainty over credentialing.

The evolution is happening rapidly enough that students in high school today should see some significant new opportunities in the next few years.

Participation

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 11:13:02 EST

We've got busy week of athletics at Marshall School, with home sectional playoff games in volleyball and football and a state tournament appearance for our boys' soccer team.

Overall, it has been an exceptional fall for Marshall athletics -- measured not just by overall record but also by participation. This season, 100 boys and 136 girls in grades 7-12 participated in a fall team. That represented 45% of all boys and a whopping 76% of all girls. Many more Marshall students participate in athletics outside of school, through club activities in soccer, hockey, swimming, and skating -- just to name a few.

Participation in athletics and the arts affords significant opportunities for leadership and personal development, and our numbers indicate just how much our students "walk the talk" when it comes to fully participating in their school experience.

In a larger context, the Minnesota State High School League just released overall participation numbers for sports in 2011-2012. The most popular sports statewide, listed in rank order by number of participants, were:

Boys	Girls
Football	Track & Field
Track & Field	Volleyball
Basketball	Basketball
Baseball	Softball
Soccer	Soccer
Wrestling	Tennis
XC Running	XC Running
Golf	Swimming
Hockey	Dance
Tennis	Golf

If you included art or music activities, those lists would look a little different. For example, band would rank as the post popular activity in the state, based on participation, followed by choir, then track & field, basketball, football, and baseball/softball. Speech, a personal favorite, has the same number of participants as boys' hockey or girls' cross country.

Nationally, the list of most popular sports looks similar. The top seven male sports are the same nationally as in Minnesota. Tennis and golf come in at 8 and 9, and swimming replaces hockey in the top 10 list. For the females, basketball swaps with volleyball as number 2 and 3 nationally and tennis swaps with cross country running. Lacrosse makes it into the list nationally, edging out golf for the 10th spot.

No matter where they stack up in the list, providing a wide range of activities for our students is essential. Not every team is going to make it to a state tournament, but every student can benefit from being a part of a team.

Attention

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 14:12:29 EST

At our annual Board Retreat last Friday, the trustees watched a portion of a 2010 presentation by Sir Ken Robinson, which is linked above. The purpose for our conversation was to talk about the ways technology can help change the model of instruction in our classrooms to make learning more engaging for students.

An important larger theme of the Robinson talk, however, is how the structure of our school system as a whole is no longer relevant in the lives of many students. Sir Ken speaks quite a bit about the ramifications, and about midway through his talk he discusses the remarkable increase in the number of ADHD diagnoses and charts the location of the "epidemic."

Interestingly, this theme emerged again just this week in a sobering article in the New York Times about a doctor who has stopped even the pretense of an ADHD diagnosis and is now prescribing Adderall for the sole purpose to help students pay attention in school. "I don't have a lot of choice," says Dr. Michael Anderson in the NYT story. "We've decided as a society that it's too expensive to modify the kid's environment. So we have to modify the kid."

I think about this story amidst the backdrop of the financial debates that are happening in communities today ~ and the sad state of affairs when class sizes are approaching 50 students. Talk about a factory model! There is simply little that teachers can do beyond crowd control. Many students don't complain because they don't know anything different.

Of course, the issue of relevancy is about more than just class size and whether there are enough desks for students. Our curriculum and teaching also need to be relevant and engaging.

Just this morning, I passed through several upper school classrooms and was pleased to see such a wide variety of teaching and learning happening. Chemistry students were in the lab. History students were working in small groups, using laptops, to research and prepare presentations. One teacher was using the Smartboard to toggle between videos, class notes, and discussion. Another was making reference to the online materials she has made available to reinforce and supplement what was going on the classroom. Yet another was combining a traditional lecture with the use of new digital tools to support research and notetaking. Students were engaged in labs, collaborating on projects, and acting out material they had just read.

It was an exciting few hours, and it gave me the greatest pleasure to see our students fully engaged in their learning and supportive of each other and the work of their teachers.

There is more to be done, but I certainly didn't see the world prophesied by Sir Ken. We have a great foundation to build upon.

How cool is that?

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 14:35:55 EST

Image linked from the New York Times

It was fun to open the New York Times this morning and read about an innovative project started by Microsoft engineer Kevin Wang to increase access to computer science courses in schools -- and realize that he was on our very campus just yesterday.

Kevin was at Marshall in his role as the director of the not-for-profit Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS) program. He was here to meet with the Marshall students who are taking Advanced Placement computer science from another engineer at Microsoft this school year.

According to the Times article, there will be more than 150,000 computer science jobs opening up each year through the year 2020 -- a demand that is far greater than 40,000 students who earned a computer science BA in 2010.

If finding qualified computer scientists is hard, imagine the challenge finding good computer science teachers. Enter Microsoft -- and at Marshall, enter Chris Jones.

Dr. Jones is an electrical engineer who has been working at Microsoft since 2009. He has always had an interest in teaching, so last year he began the rigorous training program to join TEALS. He volunteers with Marshall students before his work day starts, joining the class virtually -- projecting himself via video in the classroom and using a digital platform to communicate live with students. Video cameras on all the computers in the lab allow students to communicate with Dr. Jones directly as well. Supporting the work of Dr. Jones is Marshall technology integration specialist Adam Brisk and parent volunteer Sherri Ohnsted, who act as co-teachers in the classroom. This team approach allows for a blending of the hi-tech skills of Dr. Jones and the high-touch skills of Mr. Brisk and Ms. Ohnsted.

Students in the class report that the technology runs smoothly and that they appreciate "having an expert in all things computer science" leading their exploration of the material.

Marshall is only one of a handful of schools in the program outside of the Seattle area. This initiative was made possible through the connections of former Marshall student Scott Carrasca, who now works for Microsoft remotely from his home base here in Duluth.

Technology Rich Programming
The TEALS program is just one way that Marshall is experimenting with new ways to offer relevant and rigorous programming to our students.

Last year we began a partnership with the Virtual High School Collaborative that has continued to grow. This year there are 39 Marshall students taking at least one of their courses online. These electives allow students to explore content area not available at the school. This year, our students are taking subjects that include:

Perspectives in Health
Psychology
Engineering Principles
Forensic Science
Personal Finance
International Business
Latin 1
AP Economics
AP Statistics

While exposure to this content is exciting, students are also picking up new skills in communication, collaboration, and time management that will serve them well in college and beyond.

Founders' Day

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 11:08:03 EST

As part of Homecoming Week, yesterday we held our annual Founders' Day assembly. This is one of my favorite times of the year because we get a chance to hear about the history of the school and connect a common thread between generations of Hilltoppers.

In one portion of the presentation, I shared with students some writing about the purpose and values of a Cathedral/Marshall education over the years. Here are three slides from various generations:

While we always have a lot of fun in the Founders' Day assembly looking at old pictures and recognizing how much time has changed, it is equally remarkable how much has stayed the same when it comes to the purpose and mission of this school.

Regardless of the time, generations of Hilltoppers have always had to make a deliberate decision to join this school -- to opt for something different and purposeful in their education.

Today, we are very proud to carry on the traditions of those who came before us. Of course, it is always nice to start new traditions -- and one of the favorites in the last few years has been the distribution of black and gold donuts during morning snack!

Motivation

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 12:28:26 EST

During our professional days prior to the start of school, visiting scholar Dr. Scott McLeod was on campus to work with our faculty on the integration of technology into our curriculum.

Appropriately, the conversation was more focused on how we learn rather than the tools we use to learn.

To get the group started, Dr. McLeod showed an interesting clip from a presentation by Daniel Pink, who was talking about his book Drive.

In that book, Pink discusses the science of motivation -- a very appropriate topic at the start of a new school year. He argues that the carrot-and-stick approach most often used in schools and the workplace is actually counter productive. He suggests replacing external motivators with ones built on the concepts of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Understanding motivation is important, Pink says, as expectations at school and the workplace shift from predominately routine, rule-based tasks to more creative and conceptual work.

The video above lasts about 10 minutes, but it is a nice primer for understanding the conversations that are taking place at Marshall -- as we think about new approaches to learning and the most appropriate uses of technologies at our disposal.

Senior Ice Cream Social

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 20:18:27 EST

The weather cooperated for a lovely ice cream social at the Head of School's home this afternoon. The warm weather made for quick-melting treats, but the water-ballon volleyball was a great distraction.

Back to School Night for everybody Monday. School starts Wednesday!

Global Citizens

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 18:02:54 EST

This weekend our visiting Indian faculty arrived from the American School of Bombay. Still tired from two 12-hour flights and a three-hour shuttle run from the Twin Cities, the group got a quick tour of the school before heading to their hotel. Joining us (from left to right) is:

Gizelle Rodrigues in the library,
Minal Sawant in our international programs office,
Resmha Shethia in our nurses' office. With Reshma is her 8-year-old son, Meet, who will be attending classes in our 4th grade,
and Deepa Thadani in the 4th and 5th grades.

The group will be staying until October 6th. Later in the year, a number of Marshall faculty will visit ASB in a return exchange.

Disruptive Innovation Series

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 11:33:53 EST

Last spring I wrote a number of blog entries on the theme of technology and education. Those have now been pulled together from beginning to end in an easier to read format -- PDF (non-working links) and WORD (working links).

Hilltopper gets iBook treatment

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 11:26:00 EST

Special news for all you iPad owners out there. Marshall has just published its spring Hilltopper magazine in iBook format.

You can access the free magazine through the Bookstore on your iPad by searching for Hilltopper. You can also click on this link in your iPad browser to load the book directly.

Just-in-Time Teaching

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 13:52:02 EST

The final area that is having an impact on the education landscape involves a term that is most often associated with manufacturing. Called "just-in-time teaching," it is a strategy that involves web- or technology-based assignments given just prior to the classroom instruction. Feedback from those assignments are then given to the teacher, who adjusts the lesson according to the readiness of the students in the class.

Maria Terell, a professor of mathematics at Cornell University, has experimented with this strategy as part of her GoodQuestions project. The goal of the project has been to develop a more active learning environment in the classroom by having a better sense of where students are at prior to entering class. Such an approach has promise for increasing interest and mastery.

At Marshall, we have been experimenting with a different technological approach in our mathematics classes, but the underlying concept is similar ... use out of class time to better assess where students are at and deliver instruction that is most appropriate to their level.

Our tool has been something called ALEKS.

In the 1920s, psychologist Lev Vygotsky termed this particular space the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), defined as the difference between an individual's ability to solve a problem alone or under the guidance of an adult or peers. By pitching instruction right at the edge of this zone, students would be guided, ever increasingly, towards more and more independent learning. One metaphor that emerged from this theory was the concept of "scaffolded learning." Over time, a skilled instructor adjusts her lessons to fit the changing performance of the student.

ALEKS was developed in the early 1990s through funding from the National Science Foundation as a result of ground-breaking research in mathematical cognitive science from professors at New York University, the University of California-Irvine, and the University of Brussels.

This mathematical software uses complex Knowledge Space Theory to efficiently and accurately assess a student's current knowledge and adapt the program's questions to fit the exact topics or areas that a student is ready to master next.

The program is currently being used by millions of students ranging in ages from the elementary years to the college level.

At Marshall, our 6th grade math teacher has had all students assessed using ALEKS and has been presented with a detailed inventory of her individual students' readiness. This powerful new tool enables her to individualize math instruction. Rather than presenting the same lesson to all students (when some have already mastered the topic), she can take the opportunity to present a lesson to one group of students while allowing the others to continue their work independently in ALEKS. Later in the unit, she then addresses the needs of those higher performing students in small group sessions while providing other more appropriate learning opportunities for the students still mastering the main concepts of the unit.

In addition to maximizing the use of class instructional time, this technology has been proven to greatly increase both individual and overall cohort performance in mathematics. Marshall's 6th grade math teacher notes, "ALEKS is the ultimate math tool for differentiation. Students love it because they can choose what they want to learn and the immediate feedback is rewarding. As a teacher, I feel more confident that all of my students will be challenged at their individual learning level."

The benefits of this tool can show up in test scores as well. At a previous school, I tracked four years of student achievement in our standard Grade 8 math classroom (pre-algebra) on a nationally normed 8^th grade math test. The charts below reflect a class curve, with the left side starting at the 10th percentile (nationally) and the right ending at the 100th percentile.

The first two charts are the top are two consecutive years of testing, using a traditional method of textbook-based instruction. The bottom charts are test results after incorporating ALEKS. As you can see, the students at the lower end of the performance scale virtually disappear. Using ALEKS enabled the teacher to identify and address specific issues for students – and their performance drastically increased.

The Flipped Classroom

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 10:54:26 EST

While 1:1 laptop programs and online classes have been around for a while now – at least in the context of the quick changing landscape of ed tech – the current hotbed of innovation involves something called the "Flipped Classroom."

In a flipped classroom, an instructor will use technology to provide access to instruction, most often in the form of a short video-based lecture or demonstration, for viewing outside of class. In the classroom, students will then use their time to work in groups or with the instructor on projects or getting questions answered.

The most recent fuss over the flipped classroom focuses on the work of Salman Kahn, a former hedge-fund analysis who first recorded a video to help a relative do a school project. Now, the non-profit Kahn Academy has more than 3,000 lessons and 6 million visitors a month.

While the attention given to the Kahn Academy is justified, the concept of flipped instruction goes back at least a decade with research into how schools and instructors may best differentiate instruction for users, switching the focus of the classroom away from the "sage on the stage" to the "guide on the side."

Research does indicate that students in blended courses – using traditional and technological approaches -- outperform their online or face-to-face peers. When done right, flipped classrooms should allow students more time to ask questions and more time to work at their own pace. The ultimate goal of a flipped approach is mastery.

While the Kahn Academy is mostly being used to supplement instruction and provide focused tutoring for students, many schools are trying to capture the instruction of their faculty and provide their own flipped approach. Smartboards already allow for the easy capture of white board notes, and new hardware/software platforms such as Echo 360 and Camtasia are making it increasingly easy for faculty to make a video of their lectures.

Of course, as any teacher will tell you, it is easy to assign homework and somewhat harder to get students to do it. Therefore, assigning the lecture as homework has its challenges if students then come to class not having seen the material ... and with no questions to ask!

Nonetheless, the flipped approach has wonderful potential to offer an avenue for differentiation and individualized instruction. Students who don't understand the material the first time have an opportunity to view it again. Students who are competent at a particular part of the curriculum can speed through a section and focus their time on more demanding work.

Mobile Technology

Sat, 26 May 2012 14:21:49 EST

Laptop projects have been around in schools for quite some time, but it hasn't been until very recently that researchers have been able to gather data on the impact of providing every student with mobile technology.

Interestingly, the results would indicate that laptop projects, sometimes called 1:1 initiatives, have shown to increase not only students' collaborative skills but also in increasing self-directed learning. As we saw earlier, both factors are important to the expectations of Gen Y/Z learners.

Area #2 Mobile Technology

In a meta-study of the laptop initiatives in six states (Florida, Maine, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Texas), researchers at the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at NC State learned:

Laptops increase student engagement. Interestingly, even though many of the technology-rich projects required more time of students, they reported the activities more fun and engaging.
The use of laptops generally had a positive impact on student achievement, writing in particular.
Laptops had a positive impact on creativity and higher-order thinking skills.
Students using laptops improved their communication and collaboration skills.
Researchers observed significant increases in independent inquiry and research with students using laptops.

Laptop or tablet initiatives are costly, and therefore implementation of projects must be thoughtful and well planned. Researchers have learned a great deal of what it takes to successfully implement a 1:1 project. Most importantly, teachers must be excited and willing to make full use of the tools and begin to restructure they way they organize their classroom activities and communicate with students.

As Marshall prepares to implement its 1:1 project, our faculty have formed a 1:1 Steering Committee and several sub-committees to prepare the groundwork. Our Professional Development sub-committee is developing a comprehensive plan to support and inspire faculty as they move forward next year. In addition, this summer several of our teachers will be attending national conferences on laptop programs.

Four Developments

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:15:07 EST

In the final sets of posts on disruptive innovation, I am going to discuss four developments in education that, when combined, have the potential to dramatically impact the way education is delivered over the next decade.

As a leader of an independent school, I am often asked about what I look for most when I am evaluating a teacher or a classroom. I can answer in three words: engagement and mastery.

The best schools will helps students to see themselves as independent learners and inspire them to pursue their passions. While the quality of relationships between students and teachers is a hallmark of an engaging environment, technology has the potential to provide many new ways for student interaction, exploration, and discovery. At the end of the process, however, students must also be able to demonstrate a mastery of the skills necessary to be successful, independent learners at the next level of their education.

Area #1: Online Learning

The first area in which technology can assist with engagement and mastery is in online learning. Generation Z students are often first attracted to online learning options because they provide an opportunity to explore subject areas that might have been previously unavailable. In the first year of our partnership with the Virtual High School Collaborative, 20% of our eligible students signed up to take an online course.

Why?

They were attracted by a list of more than 130 unique course offerings, including 20 Advanced Placement courses. They were excited to have class with students in 35 different states and 43 countries.

Once engaged in online learning, students tell us that they liked having control over their schedules. They have busy lives and online courses allow them much more flexibility and fewer distractions than they find in traditional classes.

As the technology continues to improve, the quality of online courses also improves. The VHS pass rate for Advanced Placement courses is 8% above the national average, and a 2011 Babson Research survey of university chief academic officers revealed that 67% believe that educational outcomes of online courses are as good or better than face-to-face courses.

Online learning at the college level is projected to soar, with 80% of students expected to be taking at least one course online by 2014. One year later, it is projected that there will be as many exclusively online students in college as exclusively face-to-face.

No doubt, "college prep" schools will need to begin offering students not only an opportunity to engage with new material presented in online courses but also to master the tools that will increasingly become the norm in higher education.

Eight Norms

Fri, 11 May 2012 13:54:51 EST

One of the most significant factors portending a coming disruption in education are the students.

Currently in elementary and middle school, our youngest students are the first to be raised in a completely wired world. While it will take generations for brains to be "rewired" by the changes happening with technology today, there are immediate realities that are having a significant impact on how we communicate and interact with each other and information.

Researcher Don Tapscott has been studying this youngest generation for years and developed what he calls the eight norms for the net generation.

A few thoughts on each briefly.

Freedom: The Internet has opened up whole new worlds on how we buy things, where we work, how we communicate. Google encourages their work force to spend 20% of their time on projects of their own choosing. Students get more choice than ever before, and they are coming to expect it from the most unlikely of places (school).

Customization: With digital technology and just-in-time manufacturing, it seems everything is customizable now a days. We Build Our Own Bears, get monogramed M&Ms, and have more personalized web portals than we can keep track of.

Scrutiny: With more access to information, we expect to be able to check facts and get peer reviews on about any topic. Patients arrive for meetings with their doctors having already pre-diagnosed themselves and children have no fear of fact checking anything an adult tells them.

Integrity: Following right on the heels of scrutiny is integrity. Generation Y and Z students are idealistic and have a strong notion of social justice. We have seen service learning become integrated into the curriculums of most independent schools.

Collaboration: While adults may lament the seemingly poor social skills of our youth, behind the scene they are collaborating like never before. More importantly, because of the amount of information available at their fingertips, students today are quick to gather information that used to take hours of time in the library. We may call it plagiarism, but might call it "sampling."

Entertainment: This is probably the most publically lamented aspect of our recent culture. The Daily Show is a fairly sophisticated blend of entertainment and news. While it is fairly easy to recognize Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live as humor, a large number of people report getting their "news" from Jon Stewart.

Speed: We can organize, communicate, and change things faster than ever before. For youth new to the work place, the pace of change in many larger organizations seems glacial.

Innovation: If you pull together some of the above characteristics (customization, collaboration, speed), you can understand how the net generation embraces innovation.

Whether or not you agree with all of Tapscott's eight norms, the reality is that our youngest students are interacting with the world in a way that is fundamentally different than earlier generations. As a result, schools are dealing with both internal and external forces that are pushing for radical change.

In my next set of posts, we'll look at some of the ways schools are embracing these new possibilities.

Teacher Appreciation Week Reflections

Wed, 09 May 2012 15:00:27 EST

Over the last few weeks, I have had an opportunity to sit down with many of the teachers at Marshall to reflect on the school year. These are some of my most enjoyable meetings, because the topics vary depending on the person and their interests.

One overlapping theme is present in all the conversations, though: the passion our faculty show for their work. It is clear they all care deeply about their subject(s), students, and this school.

Teachers who have joined Marshall recently most often talk about what a pleasure it is to come to Marshall and focus on teaching kids who are eager to learn, without the distractions that often plagued them elsewhere. With teachers who have been here longer, we often talk about new projects or ideas that are peculating in the school. I am impressed by the willingness to try new things -- to model the risk taking that we want to see in our students.

As I reflect on our faculty during Teacher Appreciation Week, I realize quite quickly that whatever kudos I might give will pale in comparison to the praise of their students.

So, let me conclude these reflections with some comments from surveys I have been administering for our faculty over the past month. They say it better than I ever could.

Marshall Student Comments from Teacher End-of-Year Surveys

"You can be yourself and not be afraid to laugh at something. I like that my teacher is super nice to everyone and doesn't have a favorite student. And the classroom feels like home. I feel like I get to see her more than I really do. This is fun and exiting."

"He tries to get to know you and tries to see your strengths and weaknesses. He makes it a fun learning environment, such as, fun projects to help you understand the subject more clearly."

"I get as much out of the class as I put into it, she always is on top of what we're doing so it's not too difficult to keep on eye on how I'm doing in it. We are always occupied in class and there's no wasted time, so we cover a good amount of material in an efficient manner."

"I love her enthusiasm. You can tell that she really loves what she is doing, which makes going to class much more enjoyable."

"THERE ARE A LOT OF OPPORTUNITIES TO GET extra help outside of class and the teacher is very good at explaining assignments and helping understand topics better. I also like how we have a chance to ask about homework in class to ensure full understanding."

"[The teacher] promotes my enthusiasm with her own passion and academic interest. I find that not only does this class come easy for me, but I enjoy ever minute of every hour. The subject material isn't dry or lacking in depth."

"The lesson plan is always organized and pre-planned. Everything is centrally focused on the topic of study."

"She takes pride in her work and will not let us settle for less than our best."

On behalf of our 470 students: "Thank You" to the Marshall faculty.

From Above and Below

Sat, 05 May 2012 10:06:37 EST

What a difference a week makes.

Over the past month, as I've been writing about disruptive innovation in education and the particular impact of online technologies, the higher education landscape continues to evolve rapidly. Just last week, Harvard and MIT entered the fray with their announcement of a $60 million venture called edX.

This has prompted a flurry of commentary about the future of the university, and promoted New York Times columnist David Brooks to liken the coming changes to those that have gripped the newspaper industry. His metaphor of choice: tsunami.

Will the waves hit secondary education? Yes.

While we can expect the technologies and business models used by colleges to flow down to the secondary market, equally important are the changing expectations of students swelling from below. Simply put ... if there is an innovation tsunami coming from above, there is a user volcano bubbling from below. (I promise, no more natural disaster metaphors.)

In a recent show, Jon Stewart made a humorous reference to the aging and somewhat out of touch Generation X, using a picture of a woman in large shoulder pads as the punch line.

Those Generation Xers, once the source of so much handwringing in the media for being the self-absorbed offspring of the Baby Boomers, are now parents themselves. Their children are most often referred to as Generation Z – the first fully digital generation. Generally born after the millennium, those students are now in elementary and middle school. They have only known a world with car seats, bike helmets, and organized recess. They have only known a political world with one superpower and have no direct memory of 9/11. They communicate via text messages rather than email and have not known a world before Google.

These students interact with each other and their world in vastly different ways than their Gen X parents, and therefore they have significantly different expectations (even if they are unable to articulate them) for how they should learn.

One of the leading researchers into Gen late Y and early Z social expectations and learning theory is Don Tapscott. In my next post, we'll look at his "Eight Norms" for the new generations.

New Markets

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 13:05:33 EST

The third technological disrupter for the education industry will be economics. The theory of disruptive innovation says that for a new innovation to be "disruptive" it must create a new market for that product or service – not simply displace companies that fall behind in adopting new technologies. The mass production of automobiles is often cited as an example of disruptive innovation, because that innovation lowered the cost enough to make the car affordable to a population that would not have been able to afford it before the price changes.

In education, we are seeing tremendous price pressures. College tuition has increased beyond the rate of inflation for years. Prior to the global financial crisis, increases were averaging 6% and since they've been in the mid-4% range.

With the total cost for a year at a private four-year college approaching $43,000 in 2011, it is no wonder the cost of college and the availability of college loans has become such a significant political issue.

While costs for in-state public universities are considerably less, the data shows that only half of students are graduating from college within six years – unfortunately causing many to question the value of the investment altogether.

Cost, accessibility, and debt are some of the reasons why there is such interest in the experimentation with alternative schools that I discussed in the earlier post on The Long Tail.

Interestingly, one source of innovation in the secondary education market can also be traced back to Stanford -- which has recently opened an accredited, degree-granting online high school. This private school is limited to gifted and talented students, but perhaps the most eye-popping feature is its tuition. In a world where brand-name independent school tuition on the East Coast can exceed $40,000 a year, Stanford set its tuition at $15,000. This model is opening up new markets to students from around the world in the same way that Virtual High School courses can offer elective opportunities to students at Marshall that would not be available without the program or the way 40% of US high schools that don't offer AP courses can now offer online options to fill real program shortcomings.

In the public sector, online charter schools have begun to compete for students across the United States. In Minnesota, the Department of Education recognizes 29 online schools. When the Montana Digital Academy opened its virtual doors two years ago, 200 students were taking classes. At the end of this year, it is projected online student enrollment will top 7,000 students. The average virtual school growth rate in the US is between 20% and 45% a year. These changes are coming at a time when 30 states are providing less per-pupil funding to their public schools than four years ago.

There is considerable controversy around the for-profit sector that has been behind many of the new online charter schools, however, with a US Department of Education study showing that online and blended learning can offer a level of quality at par or better than face-to-face instruction, economics will continue to push organizations and states to experiment with these new educational models.

This wraps up our discussion of disruptive innovation and the three areas that will likely most impact education. In my next post, we will begin to look at how the changes in our student population (Generation X parents and their Generation Y/Z children) will accelerate the adoption of new educational models to fit changing cultural norms.

The Long Tail

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:09:32 EST

The second disruptive trend in education is something that has been coined "The Long Tail." The statistical term was re-crafted and popularized in a 2004 Wired article by Chris Anderson in reference to Internet commerce – specifically as a business strategy of selling a few popular items in large quantities as well as a large number of niche items to a smaller customer base.

The Internet allows these strategies to flourish because it allows a company like Amazon to reach a global audience of consumers for their niche products (like the book "Fibromyalgia and Chronic Myofascial Pain: A Survival Manual, 2nd Edition") as well as a few blockbuster items (like the Kindle).

Individuals can also take advantage of The Long Tail. The YouTube sensation "Charlie Bit My Finger" took a simple home movie and allowed it to reach nearly 500,000,000 viewers. Estimates now indicate that Charlie's family has earned $500,000 from the ads that surround the video.

In education, The Long Tail is manifesting itself in two ways:

Providing a large number products to fewer people
Schools can leverage online partnerships to expand their catalogs and provide unique learning opportunities to just a few students. At Marshall, our partnership with the Virtual High School allows us to offer high quality course offerings to our students that are not feasible in another model. One of our teachers offers a course in VHS (in our case, German Language and Culture) and our students have access to 140 courses taught by other teachers in the collaborative. All courses are taught by real teachers, in an interactive online class that is limited to 25 students. This means that if only one of our students wants to take "Folklore and Literature of Myth, Magic and Ritual" they can -- and they'll have class with students from around the US and the world.

Scaling a few products to a huge audience
The Long Tail also allows individual teachers to reach a mass market of students in ways never possible before – even in the biggest universities. Last year Stanford Professor Sebastian Thrun impulsively decided that he'd open up his Artificial Intelligence class to the whole world. In the end, his course enrollment topped 160,000 from more than 190 countries, with more students enrolled in Lithuania than all the students enrolled at Stanford.

The success of this experiment led Thrun and some colleagues to start a new school, called Udacity, where he expects a single course enrollment could top 500,000.

Another experiment hatched in Stanford's computer science department has been called Coursera, and it will offer courses taught by professors at Princeton, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan – all for free.

The business models of these new professor-driven schools is still evolving ... but we've seen how scalability and eyeballs can transform free products into huge moneymakers (see, Google).

Death of Distance

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:22:55 EST

In my last post in the series on educational technology, I described the concept of disruptive innovation – or the impact that technology can have on an industry or specific business.

To illustrate this, I want to explore three ways in which technology is disrupting education, which I will describe as:

The Death of Distance,
The Long Tail,
and the opening of New Markets.

The phrase "The Death of Distance" was first coined in 1995 to describe the impact technology would have on communication. It has since expanded to explain the impact that other technologies are having on sales, marketing, and manufacturing.

To better understand the concept, think about the impact that Amazon has had on retail shopping or the impact that foreign call centers have had on the "help desk" industry. A recent series in the New York Times used Apple to illustrate the how much manufacturing has gone global. While Apple employs 43,000 people in the US and 20,000 people overseas, nearly 700,000 people work for contractors that make the iPhone and iPad – mostly overseas.

The article included a now famous snippet of a conversation between Steve Jobs and President Obama, in which the President asked Jobs what it would take to make the iPhone or iPad in the US. "These jobs are not coming back," Jobs told him flatly.

In education, the explosion of online learning can be use to illustrate the Death of Distance in action.

Studies from the Babson Research Group and Ambient Insight, graphed below, indicate the adoption of online learning will only grow. By 2014, 80% of college students are projected to take at least one course online. Research also predicts that by 2015, there will be the same number of college students in "exclusively online" schools as those in "exclusively face-to-face" schools.

The death of distance for education means that students no longer need to be in the same physical space as their instructors. While independent study and correspondence courses have been around forever, new methods for instruction online are making courses more available, more interactive, and thus more attractive for a much larger population.

In the same way that industry has been irrevocably changed by globalization of the manufacturing process, online learning has moved well beyond the "fad" that it was once called.

In my next posts we'll look at how the Long Tail and opening of New Markets are powering this disruptive trend.

Six vs. Eight

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 17:47:28 EST

A few weeks ago I blogged about some of the differences in instructional time between Marshall and area public schools. In particular, I noted that next year our 9th graders will have the equivalent of 7 weeks more school than their peers.

I've since been asked if there are similar differences in the middle school.

Because our middle school day and school year are both longer, Marshall middle school students will spend about one month more in school each year than their public school counterparts.

While that figure is significant in and of itself, we are also quite proud of how we use that extra instructional time.

Our middle school has 8 periods each day -- versus a 6-period day in the public schools.

In the 7th and 8th grade, we allocate a full block of time for the following subjects:

English
Math
Science
Social Studies
Physical Education/Health
Foreign Language (German, French, or Spanish)
Visual or Performing Arts (Orchestra, Choir, or Band)

That totals 7 periods. Already, you may be asking yourself what gets cut in other schools if they only have 6 periods?

Good question, and one worth asking as you consider educational options for your children.

At Marshall, we don't feel that our students are sufficiently prepared for high school (and life) if they have not had a solid grounding in foreign languages and the arts.

So what about the 8th period?

To help prepare our 7th and 8th grade students for the rigors of high school, we add an additional period of English -- providing students with a total of 80 minutes of instruction in literature and writing every day! This is particularly powerful when you combine it with our small class sizes, because it means that our students do a lot of writing and get a lot of feedback from their teachers.

Time is used slightly differently in our 4th, 5th and 6th grade program, which bridges the gap from upper elementary to middle school. Their core consists of English, social studies, science, math, foreign language, and PE. They then use the extra two periods for a rotation of "workshops" that include:

Visual arts
Performing arts (choir, band, orchestra)
Extended English
Extra science labs
Robotics
Technology

If we chose to cut some of these "extras" out of our program, we could save money. But we believe our students would not receive everything they should out of a liberal arts education.

The Added Value

As a result of our rigorous middle school program, we are particularly proud of how our students are prepared for success in high school:

Nearly all students enter into a Level 2 foreign language,
a majority of our students continue their participation in music and art,
and they have all had a grounding in the study skills necessary to be successful when it counts in high school.

Most importantly, our high school graduates continue to tell us they are very prepared for the rigors of college.

Why is this important?

According to the Washington, DC-based think tank, Complete College America, 41% of students who start college are not ready for the work. Slightly less than half of students who start 4-year colleges finish in six years.

Marshall is expensive, but if students spend six, seven, or eight years in college -- that is not only a large added expense but also a huge source of frustration for students (and their parents).

When you think about the value of a middle school education or a high school diploma, it is important to consider the preparation you receive to be successful in college.

Remember, it is not just about getting in to college -- you've got to get out as well.

Disruptive Innovation

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:51:17 EST

In a series of blog posts, we've begun to discuss how new technologies, coupled with the expectations of our youngest students, are combining to reshape the landscape of K12 education.

To get things started, today we are going to begin to unpack the concept of disruptive innovation.

On January 19, 2012 -- after 131 years as an American icon -- Kodak filed for bankruptcy. Unable to make the transition from traditional to digital film, the company's main asset today is its portfolio of patents.

Of course, even if Kodak had been able to make the change to digital photography fast enough, the market may still have been quicker. The improving quality of camera phones and their ubiquity have made them much more popular than digital cameras, and some speculate that the digital camera market might be dead in five years time.

In a twist of irony, the new "popular kid on the block" Instagram has made its mark by going retro, putting filters on its photographs to make them feel older – harkening back to the glory days of Kodak. Yesterday, the iPhone app company with fewer than 10 employees but 30 million users was sold to Facebook for $1 billion dollars.

(One of the 20-something cofounders of this new media darling is a graduate of my former K-12 school in Brazil, but that is a subject for another post.)

The now popular academic term for this process is: Disruptive Innovation. Coined by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, a disruptive innovation most often leverages technology to create a new market that goes on to disrupt (or often replace) an existing market.

We can stay in the technology market to understand how quickly this can happen.

The chart above is a comparison of the stock prices of Apple and RIMM over the last 12 years. RIMM is blue and Apple is red. RIMM is the maker of the once world-beating Blackberry – so popular that at one point it was called the Crackberry. You can follow that trend to its peak in late 2008.

What happend since then? The iPhone happened. When it was first launched in 2007, the device quickly captured the fancy of consumers, but the Blackberry remained a stalwart for businesses – preferred for its security and enterprise management software. Over time, however, the iPhone began to change the way we used cell phones. They became so essential that the traditional firewall of business vs. consumer use was slowly dismantled. Today, this trend – called Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) – is one of the biggest in business. Just a few days ago, the CIO of IBM pledged to eventually support the personal technology device of every one of its 440,000 worldwide employees.

That's disruptive!

Need more examples of how this works in other industries? Try finding a Blockbuster video rental store. Think of what Amazon did to Borders.

At its heart disruptive innovation is about more than newer and better technology – it is about using technology to think about and do things differently.

In my next post in this series, we'll look at three disruptive concepts that are having a direct impact on education.

8,750 minutes

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:08:07 EST

At our recent Upper School Pops Concert, our choir sang a beautiful song from the play Rent called "Seasons of Love." The first three verses give you a sense of the message:

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?

I was reminded of this song recently when going through the news of some of the cutbacks in the public school programs for next year. Because of the use of some school jargon, such as "Zero Hour," the real implication of these cutbacks can be hard to understand. But like the song from Rent, they are moments that can be measured in minutes.

Here is a quick overview of the new policy in the public schools that 9th graders will not be able to take Zero Hour classes.

While Zero Hour sounds like an extra or something minimal, it really is the 7th period in the school day. Marshall's high school has seven periods, we just call them 1-7 rather than 0-6.

The reduction in the Zero Hour means that all 9th graders can take only six classes. They will have to cut out something -- music, art, foreign languages -- because core classes take up the rest.

The school day will begin at 9:05AM, making Marshall's school day 50 minutes longer. This may not sound like a big deal, until you do the math:

50 times 175 school days = 8,750 minutes of extra instructional time
8,750 minutes / 60 minutes = 146 hours of extra instructional time
146 hours / 6 hours (average school day) = 24 days of extra instruction
24 days / 5 day school week = 5 extra weeks of instruction

Wow.

Now, add in the fact that Marshall School already has 10 extra days (or two weeks) of extra school days built into its annual calendar (175 vs. 165) and you have: 7 weeks of extra instruction for a Marshall 9th grader. That is almost two months of school time, hidden into the confusing description of a "zero hour reduction."

Coming from such a wonderful concert last week, I am saddened that so much continues to be cut from school schedules. The liberal arts means a well-rounded education and an appreciation of what it means to be human.

"You hear students say, `I found out who I was because I was able to explore my identity in the visual arts,'" said Bob Sabol, president of the National Art Education Association in a recent StarTribune article on the nationwide trend to cut arts education. "It validates who they are as individuals."

Eight-thousand, seven-hundred
and fifty minutes,
How do you measure
The education of a child?

Like This?

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 17:37:42 EST

Molly Katchpole isn't the only one "rallying the troops" online. We are living in an era of instant digital feedback. Just this morning, Jan Hoffman wrote in the New York Times about the growing use of "clickers" to provide instant feedback in classrooms, on cruise ships, and even to speed up sorority elections.

Amazon.com pioneered the concept of online customer reviews and rankings of products, a trend that is now being leveraged across nearly every area of consumer life -- for restaurants (Yelp), movies (Rotten Tomatoes), or travel (Trip Advisor).

Even our personal opinions and preferences are subject to rankings via Facebook's ubiquitous Like button, which studies now show can influence buying decisions as well.

Of course, the rise in acceptance and use of online reviews and rankings has inevitably given way to charges of manipulation.

Even things that many feel are "un-rankable" have succumbed to the trend. U.S. News and World Report's controversial but wildly popular college rankings include a healthy dose of "peer reputation" polling in their overall formulas. A few months ago, many New York newspapers caused an uproar when they published individual rankings of New York City teachers.

Behind the scenes, however, students have been ranking their teachers for years on the "Rate My Teachers" web site.

Most adults reading this blog have probably consulted an Amazon.com review to buy a book or used feedback on a travel website to make a decision on where to stay for a weekend. And, I'd bet that most of us probably feel uncomfortable about some of the ways that young people are embracing social media and rankings, including a recent fad for young girls to post videos of themselves with the question "Am I Ugly?"

While some of these trends can cross moral or ethical lines, social and business uses of technology and the impact of peer review or crowd sourcing will no doubt impact the educational landscape in the near future.

In my next post, we'll begin to unpack the concept of "Disruptive Technology" before moving on to examine how the digital lives of our youth will lead to new expectations for our schools.

Generation Z

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:57:04 EST

You may not recognize this woman's face, but you have probably heard about her exploits.

Molly Katchpole is the woman who took on Bank of America -- and won. After a very publicized online petition, Molly helped pressure the bank to drop its proposed $5 debit card fee in 2011.

What you may not know is that one Fortune 500 company wasn't enough for this consumer rights advocate. Just a few months later, Molly took on Verizon wireless and its proposed $2 fee for online bill payments. It took just two hours for Molly to enlist 50,000 people in her cause and only one day to force Verizon to cancel the new fee.

Both protests and subsequent petitions were made possible by social media and the online protest site, change.org.

Sounds exciting, Mike, but what does all of this have to do with school?

Over the course of the next few weeks, I'd like to share some stories about what has been happening at the intersection of technology and social development that is profoundly impacting education.

There is a lot to take in, so in the tradition of the serialized novel I'm planning on blogging about this topic over the course of the next month or so. I hope to introduce everybody to the research of Clayton Christensen and Don Tapscott, two authors who have done a lot of thinking about disruptive technology and the shape of our youth culture. In the end, I'll share some examples of how teachers are adjusting their classrooms to fit the learning styles of "Generation Z" students and the demands of a 21st Century workplace.

Trifecta

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:07:53 EST

Three Marshall seniors have recently accomplished a very special "trifecta" in the world of scholarship: They have qualified for state competitions in three academic or artistic endeavors this year.

By the end of April, David Anderson, Anthony Cotter, and Sam Johnson will have represented Marshall School at state contests in:

Knowledge Bowl,
Math League,
and Music.

Quite a remarkable trifecta for this very remarkable group of young men. We regularly send students off to state with a 'Topper Tunnel -- and these gentlemen have created their own express lane this year. (Four trips for Sam, who also qualified for state in Nordic Skiing.)

All three represent the best of what we hope students get out of Marshall ... an opportunity to pursue interests outside of the normal high school "cliques" that can force students into artificial groups and the freedom to excel in academics, arts, and athletics.

Congratulations!

Chaplain Update

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:11:59 EST

In the fall, we shared the news of the coming retirements of two long-tenured staff members: Chaplain Chico Anderson and Athletic Director Dave Homstad.

These two men have dedicated their careers to Marshall, and we are unbelievably grateful for their service.

In January, we announced the hiring of Kevin Snyder as our next AD -- and we are now closing in on naming a new chaplain.

As part of this process, we've had an opportunity to reflect on the role of religion at Marshall. We then prepared a statement that was designed to be shared with our search committee -- to aid in their screening and recommendations. We have now taken the additional step of posting the statement on the school's web site.

You can read our Statement on Religion and Ethical Studies here.

Our interview committee (comprised of trustees, administrators, faculty, parents, and students) is nearing the end of their work, and we hope that we will have a new chaplain named by the end of March.

Math and MS Students

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 17:33:25 EST

The Marshall community gathered today for an afternoon assembly to celebrate our math league team, which is headed to State next Monday.

A recent survey of 1,000 middle school students turned up some heartening feedback on how students in the US feel about mathematics. Conducted by aerospace contractor Raytheon, the poll was designed to evaluate interest in math and science. Math turned up as the third most popular item when asked: "What is your favorite subject?"

The winner -- to nobody's surprise -- was PE.

An interesting side-element of the research (and displayed in the infographic below) is students' preferences for hands-on or computer-assisted instruction over lectures based on textbooks.

In a separate study, conducted by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, 47% of high school dropouts reported that a major reason was "classes were not interesting" or they were "bored." Unfortunately, 88% of drop outs are passing school when they decide to leave.

Caring Environment

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:34:09 EST

Here at Marshall, we pride ourselves on our strong community. We believe that students learn best in a safe, caring environment where they are encouraged by their peers, parents, and faculty to take risks and stretch themselves.

In our recent ISACS survey, we asked how we are doing. As with earlier responses I shared, the results above reflect strong agreement only. They do not include neutral responses.

We are very pleased to see that parents believe that our community has gotten stronger since 2008. Also, we can see that Marshall parents and students feel our community is more caring than our average peer ISACS school. (ISACS is comprised of nealry 250 private, independent schools in the Midwest.) In the case of students, the positive difference at Marshall is significant (87% vs 78%).

College Credit in HS

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:04:52 EST

A question from a parent I met today over lunch:

"I keep hearing these great stories about how kids graduate and skip a year of college because they've taken so many college credits in high school. Should my child be taking college-level courses in high school? And, if so, how can Marshall help?"

We can, but it is essential to understand the terms of the conversation.

The first thing to remember is a lesson from your grandparents: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

College acceptances today do not follow a formula, and each child/family needs to review their situation individually. This is why we put such an emphasis on a low student-to-counselor ratio. Just because a high school says a course is "college level" does not mean the college will give you credit for that course.

When it comes to taking college-level coursework in high school, there are three options in Minnesota:

Colleges in The School (CITS) programs
Post Secondary Education Options (PSEO)
Advanced Placement courses (AP)

Each offers a very different approach to college-level coursework, and it is important students and families understand the differences.

CITS courses are college-approved courses taught in high schools by high school teachers. Most are based on curriculum developed at Fond du Lac Community College.

PSEO courses are college courses taught on college campuses by college professor. The costs are paid by the state, and any GPA-eligible student can participate. In Duluth, UMD and St. Scholastica participate in the program.

AP courses are nationally-normed and scored courses that are taught by trained high school teachers and recognized by colleges nationally as the equivalent of first-year college courses.

For very deliberate reasons, Marshall offers only two of the these three options: PSEO and AP.

As Glenn Sharfman, vice president and dean for academic affairs at Manchester College in Indiana, wrote in a recent article for Inside Higher Ed: "Colleges feel better about accepting credits when students demonstrate mastery of material on a recognized exam."

Therefore, our focus at Marshall is to offer college-approved courses that are more likely to be recognized by the types of colleges our students want to attend. This year, Marshall students are taking 12 AP courses, more than offered at any other school in the city:

Calculus AB
Calculus BC
Language and Literature
Language and Composition
US History
World History
Government and Politics
Chemistry
Physics
German
French
Spanish

Of course, there are circumstances when PSEO or CITS makes sense. if a student plans on later matriculating to UMD or St. Scholastica, then taking a PSEO from them could be a great way to get a credit out of the way or get some exposure to the campus. If a student has exhausted or topped out of the curriculum at their high school, then they may need to go the PSEO route to get to the next level in a certain subject. That is when we tend to recommend PSEO to Marshall students, although the time issues in traveling to a local university to attend one course can make a mess of a student's schedule. Our preference, whenever possible, is to keep everything on our campus through AP courses.

Many parents are rightly intrigued by the opportunity to get some college credit out of the way in HS, at a much cheaper price. And it is fabulous that students in the state of Minnesota have so many options for higher-level coursework. However, to avoid any nasty surprises during the college admissions process, it is important to align the type of "college" course a student takes in HS with the type of college they want to attend when the are finished with HS.

Looking Forward

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:55:03 EST

More from our recent ISACS community survey:

The above chart reflects answers to the question:
"What should Marshall focus on most during the next five years?"

There is a clear emphasis on science and technology. This past year we have shared information about the re-sequencing of our science curriculum to add rigor and provide more opportunities for advanced work in biology, chemistry, and physics. We've also increased our middle school Lego robotics program and added a new upper school robotics option as well.

More quietly, our admin team and faculty have been talking about changes we'd like to see within the technology program. That has started this year with the introduction of some online options through the Virtual High School, but we have in mind a much bolder vision for the future use of technology at Marshall: something that impacts all students and has the ability to significantly enhance the ways our faculty teach/coach/mentor students.

Athletics also emerges as an important priority moving forward -- particularly within the student body. I expect that our athletics review committee will help us better understand some specific steps we can take to improve the program.

In other ways, the data can be interesting when looking at differences of opinion between groups. It is clear to see the outsized interest in athletics for students, but also in the higher requests for more extra-curriculars or less emphasis on academic rigor. Parents had different feelings about all those areas.

Importantly, all three groups shared similar interests for more academic offerings within the program.

Finally, it is very good news to see a common interest in increasing the endowment for Marshall, which is a way for the school to provide fiscal stability over time and offer a more robust academic and financial aid program.

If you wish, you can cross-reference all the data from this question with the vision outlined in our strategic plan.

Campus Visitors

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:12:15 EST

Today is the second of our January "Campus Visit" days, where we welcome prospective Hilltoppers to spend the day shadowing current students.

I had the good fortune of interviewing seven of the prospective middle school students this morning. The first thing I noticed was that all seven were coming from different area schools:

Lester Park
North Star Academy
Hermantown Elementary
St. James
Homecroft
Nettelton
Lincoln Park

In addition, the upper school students today were coming from two different schools, Holy Rosary and Woodland -- bringing the total schools represented today to nine.

As you might imagine, when we ask students about what they are worried about, nearly all mention making friends at their new school. Thankfully, most have some connection with a current Marshall student from other community activities. Those that do not usually leave the day feeling much more at ease ... because (gosh darn it) our students are so nice. Bullying was an issue brought up by more than one candidate today as well.

My group of middle school students had diverse interests. Math was the most popular subject, and several were excited about the option to "move up" in math as their skills improved at Marshall. Nearly all played sports, many at a high level already within their local youth leagues. More than one student said they were excited about daily PE at Marshall.

Of course, food also played a big role in many conversations. I was asked questions about the lunch line, condiment choices, and how many microwaves we had in the cafeteria. (I better go double check on that last one for future interviews.)

Program Feedback

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:55:26 EST

In our November ISACS parent survey, we asked for feedback regarding individual academic departments in the school and were able to compare your feedback this year with results from 2008 and also against the feedback from thousands of other ISACS parents at our peer independent schools.

Above is a graph that outlines our performance against those two benchmarks. This year's results are in brown.

We are pleased to see that in every area, parents are feeling better about the program than in 2008. In almost all cases, we also exceed the ISACS norms.

(It is important to note here that these results show the top two responses -- excellent, very good -- from a five-point Likert scale. The other three responses are good, fair, poor. Therefore, it is not accurate to extrapolate that the percentages not listed above are dissatisfied with the program in those areas.)

The data would indicate that our strongest perceived areas are English and mathematics. As you can easily see, technology remains a laggard. What is interesting, however, is that the area also lags within the results of all ISACS schools. This is a hugely important area, and one that the faculty, administration, and trustees are actively discussing.

We are pleased to see the positive responses to some of the changes that we have been making in our science program. There is still a long way to go, but the faculty have been working very, very hard this year on updating curriculum and embedding more lab work into the Upper School program.

Behind the scenes, our history department has been reviewing our offerings and curriculum sequencing. The addition of our 4th grade this year is going to cause a bit of a shift in the courses moving forward, and we have been actively exploring ways to improve and to best prepare our students for high level college work.

I'll continue to share results from this survey over the next few weeks. Our Athletic Review committee will be collecting that survey data and preparing a separate report later in the year.

Application Killers

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:34:28 EST

Today marks the beginning of our second semester, and faculty have just received their "grade verification sheets" to turn in tomorrow morning so that the school can run report cards.

For many of our seniors, these grades will be the last that colleges see before making final admissions decisions. A 2011 Kaplan telephone survey asked 359 college admissions officers from top colleges around the US: "What would you most consider to be an application killer?"

Responses:

53% said "A low high school GPA"
19% said "A low SAT or ACT score"
15% said "Low grades in college prep courses"
10% said "A light course load"
2% said "Weak letters of recommendation"
1% said "Poorly written essays"
0% said "Lack of extracurricular activities"

It would be nice if they would have asked what puts a student over the top when they are on the bubble. To find out, I asked our Director of College Counseling Katie Voller-Berdan. She didn't hesitate: "Commitment," she said. Admissions officers want students to show commitment to the things they do. It is fine to try out new things, but "one-and-done" activities to build a resume don't help in the admissions process. Colleges like to see a student who volunteers with the same service organization over a number of years, stays involved in student council for more than one election, works her way up from C-team to JV to varsity basketball.

For students on the bubble, a good essay helps too, she added.

Groupthink

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:54:00 EST

Interesting op-ed in this weekend's NY Times about creativity and groupthink.

Author Susan Cain gives introverts reason to rejoice when she argues that our intense focus on teamwork and collective wisdom often overlooks the quiet part of the creative process.

Her article links nicely into my recent post on how larger class sizes can dull the motivation of even the more competitive students. "People in groups tend to sit back and let others do the work," she writes, "and, often succumb to peer pressure."

She goes on to highlight one important exception to this rule: electronic brainstorming.

Advocates for the use of online tools in the classroom will often point to the advantages that good online discussions can bring to the learning process. Unburdened from the peer pressure in a normal classroom and given a bit more time to collect their thoughts, most students can find ways to contribute in meaningful ways to online discussions.

"The protection of the screen mitigates many problems of groupwork," Cain writes. "This is why the Internet has yielded such wondrous collective creations."

Survey Says ...

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:53:49 EST

In November, Marshall administered a constituent survey as part of our ongoing program evaluation. In all, 137 parents completed the survey, along with most faculty, staff, trustees, and upper school students.

We used a well-tested instrument designed by the Independent School Association of the Central States (ISACS). One of the values of this tool is our ability to compare current responses with past responses at Marshall as well as with the the average scores among peer independent schools in the Midwest.

Overall Educational Quality
The most important top-level question has to do with how our constituents feel about the overall quality of education at Marshall. We are very proud to see that 90% of our current parents rate the quality of our program as "excellent" or "very good." This rating is on a five-point scale, with the other options being good, fair, or poor. If you add the "good" responses into the total, 98% of our parents would rate the overall quality of a Marshall education as excellent, very good, or good.

As you can see in the chart above, our parent score in 2011 greatly exceeds the view of the program in 2008 and also, happily, the ISACS average. The ISACS score is particularly interesting when you note that the average ISACS school tuition is $19,200.

Student responses also exceed the ISACS average.

Over the next few weeks, I'll share other results from the survey and discuss how we use the data to help guide implementation of our Strategic Plan.

Class size and academic motivation

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:10:27 EST

Last month I wrote about a study linking good teaching with future economic advantages. Today, the New York Times featured that study in a new article titled "Big Study Links Good Teachers to Lasting Gain."

In another interesting study in the area of good teaching and small class sizes, researchers have identified how being a part of a larger group can have a negative impact on your performance -- what they call the "N-Effect."

Stephen Garcia of the University of Michigan and Avishalom Tor of the University of Haifa argue that when we are placed within a larger pool of competitors our motivation decreases. Importantly, they say that just knowing that you are competing against a larger number of people will decrease your motivation, even if your chances of success are constant.

Why?

Garcia and Tor say that "social comparison concerns" are reduced when the group is larger. In plain language, we might say that in a big group students are more likely to blend into the woodwork, even if in other circumstances they might be quite motivated people.

What does this mean for schools?

Garcia and Tor are quite direct how this might impact school policy, writing: "The N-Effect, however, indicates that as the number of students in the classroom increases, the motivation to compete and academic efforts are likely to decrease." Smaller class sizes, they would suggest, lead most students to try harder.

Lifetime Benefits

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 11:11:30 EST

Photo illustration from the New York Times Economix blog.

A recent Harvard study highlights the negative impact that the transition from elementary to middle school can have on student achievement -- and suggests that this transition is more important than the move from middle to high school.

According to a story posted the Education Week web site: "That to me is a really robust finding," said David L. Hough, the managing editor of the Middle Grades Research Journal and a dean emeritus of Missouri State University's college of education, in Springfield. "All these people are focusing on the transition to high school; it looks to me like they need to be focusing on that transition to middle school."

The 2011 Harvard study, done in Florida, matches the results from a similar study done in New York City in 2010 that highlights the negative impact that MS transition can have on student test scores.

This interesting finding comes on the heels of another recent Harvard study that took a new look at the academic impact of class size, going all the way back to Kindergarten. Covered in a provocatively headlined New York Times article -- The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers -- the researches studied the lifetime earnings impact of small class sizes and good teachers.

The basis for the new Harvard study was a well-regarded class-size study done in Tennessee called STAR that determined small class sizes (15-22 students) could increase student achievement by about three additional months a year.

For years, the knock on the STAR research was a perceived "fade effect" -- meaning that test score gains tended to fade by high school. Using new research tools, the Harvard study examined the post-high school lives of the STAR kids to conclude that while test score gains may have faded there was something else going on that was even more important -- quality of life. Through their analysis, the researches were able to conclude that students who had small class sizes and great teachers were more likely to go to college, less likely to become single parents, and saving more money for retirement. The bottom line finding was that these students were earning more.

Preparation for College. For Life.

Share Your Thoughts

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:01:36 EST

Your feedback matters.

As part of our regular self-evaluation process, Marshall is currently seeking feedback from current parents, faculty and staff, and students.

We are using the same instrument that we last used in 2008, as part of our self-evaluation process during accreditation. This is an instrument developed by our accreditation agency, ISACS, to be used by all 200+ member schools.

We sent out an initial invitation earlier in November, but if you have not had a chance to take the survey yet, please take 10 minutes to share your thoughts about our program. Your answers are anonymous.

You can find the survey link for parents here.
(Students are being asked to fill the survey out at school.)

Thank you!

On Grandparents

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:44:23 EST

The first thing I remember are the smells. The wild smells of the North Woods: pine cones, fish scales, and camp fires. The adult smells of formal entertaining: cologne, candles, and coffee.

These are the smells of my grandparents.

Growing up in a suburb of Minneapolis meant visits to grandmother's cabin, at the dead-end of a mile-long dirt driveway. It was a brush with the wild side of life: bearskin rugs, camp fires, and snowmobiling. I will always remember the childhood adrenalin rush that comes from the potent mix of excitement and fear whenever we would visit -- at grandma's you never knew what adventures might unfold.

It was my grandfather who later opened the door for my first taste of adulthood – paid employment. He was in the hospitality business, and visits to his house meant a peek into the adult world of cocktail parties and grown-up conversations. He managed a private supper club and helped me land a job as a bus boy. Most of my tip money went towards my car, a symbol of freedom and maturity among my high school friends.

Remembrances of my grandparents, however, are one-way affairs. They never visited the place where much of my identity was formed: school. I don't recall seeing them on the sidelines of my mostly failed attempts to make my mark as an athlete. They never met my teachers.

Tomorrow is grandparents/grandfriends day at Marshall. For me, it marks one of the best days of the year, where we open our doors and welcome the individuals who have untold influence on the lives of our students. Our students are proud of their school, and it is wonderful when the people they love and admire take an interest in their lives.

As an adult, I now have new smells associated with my grandparents. The medicinal smells of hospitals: rubbing alcohol, air-handling units, and disinfectants. On Thanksgiving our family will head down to the Twin Cities to visit my grandmother at her nursing home. With some small talk, she might remember us. She is as likely to call me by my father's name as my own.

But I will remember her. Krista and I will remind our own children -- her great-grandchildren -- of her proud days serving as a nurse in World War II and the too numerous times that my parents raced me to her house to set a broken arm or ask advice about a cut, cough, or cramp.

To my grandparents, here and gone: Thank you. Thanks for the indiscernible ways you helped me become the person I am today, and a Happy Thanksgiving to the whole Marshall community.

Making a Difference

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 15:40:20 EST

As we head into the holiday season, let me share a few ways in which Marshall students are working to make the world a better place this school year.

Led by senior Claire H, the Marshall Student Leadership Forum (made up of leaders of the upper school's various clubs and activities) held a Penny Wars competition from October 24-28 to raise money for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The contest had our MS and US students pair up by grade level to bring money in to support childhood cancer research.

In total, our students raised $1,187 dollars -- along with awareness of how their individual efforts can be combined to make a bigger difference for the lives of others.

In our 7th grade, the class has chosen the Solvay Hospice House as their service learning project for 2011-2012. They began by touring the facility to learn first-hand about hospice care and how the house functions. Throughout the year, the students will do small projects designed to brighten the seasons and help connect the patients with our community.

In our 10th grade, students in advisory have be researching local organizations and brainstorming ways to support our community. Soon they will make a selection for a year-long service project and then break their advisories into new groupings so they can work together in areas of mutual interest. Hopefully, some students will continue to support these organizations throughout their junior and senior years, even after the official 10th-grade project comes to an end.

This Wednesday, November 16th, Marshall will be kicking off its annual fundraising efforts with our Give to the Max campaign. Our annual fund supports both financial aid and regular school programming. This year, one generous donor has offered to match -- dollar-for-dollar up to $25,000 -- the contributions of new donors to our annual fund. What a fabulous way to leverage your gift and double its impact on our campaign.

Our students are learning the importance of giving of their time and talents to organizations around our community. I hope you'll consider showing them how much you support their school and everything we do to provide the best possible experience for all in our care.

Hilltoppers Forever

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 17:44:49 EST

The first faculty exchange between Marshall School and the American School of Bombay ended Friday with boisterous celebration and tearful goodbyes.

At the farewell assembly, I told our students that the exchange represented more than a chance to get to know somebody from another culture. By having the five guests from India stay at Marshall for an entire quarter, their experience went well beyond a tourist visit or a conference program. They became a part of our community, laughing and learning alongside our students and our faculty.

At the assembly I shared a story from Barry Raut (pictured above in a photo from Kim Kostmatka) that illustrates this point:

At the final football game of the year, Barry traveled on the team bus to Two Harbors to watch the game. Because Barry had been at all the home games running sound, Coach Homstad thought it would be a great experience to have him join the team for the final road game of the regular season.

At one point during the game, Barry received a phone call from a colleague in India.

(Most are not aware that our friends spent considerable amount of time collaborating with colleagues back home while doing their "day jobs" at Marshall -- in part because they held positions that could not completely be turned over to others in their absence and made easier by the nearly 12-hour time change.)

So Barry took the call, but told his Indian colleague: "Hold on just a minute, we are about to score."

"What do you mean, WE are about to score?" his friend said. "What about ASB? Are you telling me you're a Hilltopper now?"

Barry paused. Then he laughed, "I guess I am."

We sometimes use the term "experiential education" to describe active, hands-on, project based learning with students. The exchange program between Marshall School and the American School of Bombay modeled that very thing with our faculty ... going well beyond the drive-by experience that characterizes so much of the professional development in our profession. This program showed the power of building a real learning community among the adults in the building.

After the assembly, a parade of Marshall faculty stopped by my office to share their thanks for the ways in which Barry, Jenny, Chitra, Smitali, and Vijaya enriched the lives of our staff and students over the course of the last 10 weeks.

They became teachers, mentors, colleagues, and friends.

And they will always be Hilltoppers.

The Marshall Melting Pot

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 07:00:23 EST

When Central High School closed last June, many in the community lamented the loss of a school they saw as a link between the eastern and western parts of the city.

We are proud that Marshall has always served to unite a wide variety of students across Duluth and the surrounding areas. When discussing what they like about Marshall, many students will mention the friendships they make with students who live in "far flung" places like China -- and Esko.

The numbers provide a stark illustration of the geographic boundaries of our school. Marshall's 143 new students this year came from 38 different schools, 3 states, and 7 foreign countries. The chart above illustrates the sources of our new students for 2011-2012.

We also work hard to avoid having finances become a barrier to a Marshall education. This year, 40% of Marshall students received some level of financial aid.

As I mentioned during our opening meetings this school year, Marshall's enrollment grew a remarkable 11%. While we have a few openings at select grades, for all intensive purposes Marshall is "full." This is against a challenging economic climate where only 27% of private school heads in the ISACS Midwest region report being at full enrollment.

This reflects positively on the value that our parents place on education during a child's formative years and the important role that Marshall has played in the local educational landscape since 1904.

Targeted Tech

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:11:57 EST

All teachers live for the "ah ha" moment -- that time when we see the spark of connection occur for an individual student.

While the spark may seem spontaneous, teachers know that getting to that particular spot takes a lot of careful thought, planning, and attention. If you push a student too hard or too fast, he will not be able to understand the material in a way that allows for creative or critical connections. If you go too slow or make the connections too explicit, students will lose interest and fall back.

In the 1920s, psychologist Lev Vygotsky termed this particular space the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), defined as the difference between an individual's ability to solve a problem alone or under the guidance of an adult or peers. By pitching instruction right at the edge of this zone, students would be guided, ever increasingly, towards more and more independent learning. One metaphor that emerged from this theory was the concept of "scaffolded learning." Over time, a skilled instructor adjusts her lessons to fit the changing performance of the student.

Technology, having already transformed so much of the way the world operates, continues to give us more ways to individualize and target learning in the ZPD.

At Marshall School this year, every student in the 6th grade is working with a software program called ALEKS to find their own math "zone" and enhance their overall performance.

ALEKS was developed in the early 1990s through funding from the National Science Foundation as a result of ground-breaking research in mathematical cognitive science from professors at New York University, the University of California-Irvine, and the University of Brussels.

This mathematical software uses complex Knowledge Space Theory to efficiently and accurately assess a student's current knowledge and adapt the program's questions to fit the exact topics or areas that a student is ready to master next.

The program is currently being used by millions of students ranging in ages from the elementary years to the college level.

At Marshall, our 6th grade math teacher has had all students assessed using ALEKS and has been presented with a detailed inventory of her individual students' readiness. This powerful new tool enables her to individualize math instruction. Rather than presenting the same lesson to all students (when some have already mastered the topic), she can take the opportunity to present a lesson to one group of students while allowing the others to continue their work independently in ALEKS. Later in the unit, she then addresses the needs of those higher performing students in small group sessions while providing other more appropriate learning opportunities for the students still mastering the main concepts of the unit.

In addition to maximizing the use of class instructional time, this technology has been proven to greatly increase both individual and overall cohort performance in mathematics. Marshall's 6th grade math teacher notes, "ALEKS is the ultimate math tool for differentiation. Students love it because they can choose what they want to learn and the immediate feedback is rewarding. As a teacher, I feel more confident that all of my students will be challenged at their individual learning level."

There is no way that Vygotsky could have imagined how his theories of the 1920s have not only stood the test of time but have been made even more effective through the use of new and more powerful technologies.

Mission and Core Values

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 11:03:29 EST

You may have noticed that this past week we quietly launched an update to the Marshall web site. The most noticeable changes are cosmetic: a brighter, cleaner look with refreshed images throughout.

"Under the Hood," if you will, we are also working through several updates of the content that we hope will provide more information to prospective and current families.

For prospective families, we are particularly excited about our new online admission pages, which give families much greater control and feedback throughout the process.

For current families, you can now find a full copy of our recently updated Strategic Plan. You can read the plan on the site, download your own printable version, or view a more stylized "Prezi" version. Prezi is an online tool for displaying information and giving presentations. It is most often called the "Power Point of the Web."

Importantly, you can also find an updated Mission section of the web site. Here we detail our vision for "global citizenship" at Marshall and provide information about the six core values found in the Marshall mission statement.

As a mission-driven organization, these core values guide much of our work at the school. They provide, what we believe to be the "value added" of a Marshall education.

The Science Behind Grit

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 20:17:57 EST

Two weeks ago, the Education Issue of the New York Times Magazine featured a story titled: "What if the Secret to Success if Failure?" by Paul Tough.

Tough ventures into the oft discussed "talent vs. hard work" debate, most recently tapped by Malcom Gladwell in Outliers and Daniel Coyle in The Talent Code.

Outliers introduces us to the 10,000 hour rule: No matter your natural talent, to be truly great you need to practice for 10,000 hours at something. The Talent Code takes that concept to the next level by arguing that not only do you need to practice for 10,000 hours, but you need to practice better than other people who are also putting in the extra hours.

Through conversations with two educational leaders in New York City and Philadelphia, the New York Times' writer introduces us to the work of professor Angela Duckworth, who ups the ante of practice and better practice with the concept of Grit (defined in her research at the University of Pennsylvania as "perseverance and passion for long-term goals"). Tough calls this a special form of self-control.

Unfortunately, if you were to summarize the NYT's article simply by the headline, you might assume that failure is the magic bullet to high achievement.

Instead, the research indicates that self-discipline is developed through managing emotions and developing stamina. Failure comes in as a natural by-product of working hard on difficult things (but is not, in and of itself, the end goal).

Where the article gets interesting is when it discusses Duckworth's research in relation to the larger concept of character -- which doesn't get attention in public schools that are over-focused on standardized testing (unless they are trying to stop bullying) but is part of the mission of most independent (and some charter) schools.

When considering the research on success, Tough argues, the character conversation matters -- especially if you are talking about what might best be described as "active" character rather than "moral" character. Examples of active character might be self-control and passion whereas examples of moral character might include honesty and goodness.

Some would argue that our conversations about character have been overly focused on moral character rather than active character -- when the research shows that success requires a very healthy dose of the latter.

How school "teach" or nurture character is important and worth further discussion. The Marshall mission statement lists six "core values" for our school -- which contain a mix of both moral and active character traits that are essential for success later in life.

I'd highly recommend reading Tough's article. If you don't have a subscription to the Times, you might not be able to view the link in the first paragraph of this entry. However, if you go to my Twitter feed, you can access the story from my link there.

If you want to see Duckworth (pictured above) speak about her research, check out her TED talk here.

High Flyers Grounded

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:56:14 EST

Great news today with the release of the National Merit Scholarship list. Despite comprising less than 8% of the local high school population, Marshall students represent 50% of Duluth's semi-finalists, who as a group scored in the top 1% in the national exam.

A much more sobering study out today from the Thomas Fordham Institute reports a large decline in performance among elementary and middle school "high achievers" once they reach their next level of education.

Researchers found, for example, that among the 3rd graders who scored above the 90th percentile in math only 57% remained as strong at the end of 8th grade. In a separate analysis, of 6th graders in the top of the reading test, only 52% scored as high as 10th graders.

"If America is to remain internationally competitive, secure, and prosperous," said Fordham President Chester E. Finn in a press release, "we need to maximize the potential of all our children, including those at the top of the class. Today's policy debate largely ignores this 'talented tenth.' This study shows we are paying a heavy price for that neglect, as so many of our high flyers drift downward over the course of their academic careers."

Above chart linked from Education Week.

Athletics Review

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:16:24 EST

Earlier, I reported that 84% of Marshall students in grades 7-12 participated in our athletics program last year. Those numbers are a source of pride, as we believe the benefits of a well-rounded liberal-arts education include participation in both athletics and the arts.

With the launch of a formal review of our athletics program this fall, we are hoping to set the bar even higher.

During the recent Back to School Nights, I explained briefly how this review fits into the recently adopted Strategic Plan. In a nod to the importance of the process, the review will be led by an external facilitator from the Twin Cities, Anne Peterson. Anne works at the Governance Group, which has worked previously with Marshall at our Trustee Annual Retreat in 2010.

The review will answer the following Guiding Questions:

How can the sports program be integrated into the overall strategic direction of the school?
- How is "excellence" defined for our athletic program?
- What is the ideal profile of a Marshall student athlete?
How does Marshall reconcile the two conflicting goals of participation and competitiveness?
Should there be differentiation between the goals of the Middle and High School sports programs?
How many sports teams should Marshall offer, in what sports, and in what format?
What is the school's role in supporting the sports program?

The review work will be coordinated by a small steering committee consisting of parents, students, coaches, faculty, and administrators. In October, they will solicit feedback from the wider community through surveys and focus groups. We will put an all-call out for parents to join in the focus groups, as we want to hear from as many voices as possible in the process.

What better time than Homecoming Week to kick-off this important process of self-reflection and program improvement!

More Rigor, Please

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:09:22 EST

A new study out from the College Board, makers of the SAT exam, provides an interesting perspective on high school education through the lens of the consumer ... graduates of the Class of 2010.

The study, titled One Year Out, explores how a recent graduating class views their high school experience one year into college or the work force.

More Rigor, Please
Among one of the most interesting findings is the very large number of recent graduates who wish that they would have had a more rigorous high school experience. Among the findings:

54% reported that college courses were more difficult than expected,
47% wish they had worked harder in high school,
44% wish they had taken different courses in high school, particularly more math, science, and writing-intensive courses,
37% wish that requirements for graduating high school should be made more difficult.

We are gathering some hard data from recent Marshall graduates, but the anecdotal feedback paints a different picture for our alumni. Most of them tell us that they felt very prepared for college-level work. One parent of a 2011 Marshall graduate told me this past week that her son's college biology book was the same he'd used for his course at Marshall, giving him an early boost of confidence that he will start well prepared for his new classes.

Chart pictured above from Hart Research Associates.

Game Time

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:45:54 EST

In a few minutes, I will walk down the hill to cheer on the Hilltoppers at our first football game of the year. School doesn't start until Wednesday, but all of our fall athletes have been practicing for a few weeks and will have had at least one competition by the time we're all back in class.

Record Athletic Participation
In a survey released by the National Federation of State High School Associations, the number of student athletes has hit an all-time high -- at more than 7.5 million in 2010--2011. In fact, the number of student athletes has grown for 22 years in a row.

Top 10 National High School Sports
by student participation

Male		Female
Sport	#	Sport	#
Football	1.1M	Track&Field	475K
Track&Field	579K	Basketball	438K
Basketball	545K	Volleyball	409K
Baseball	471K	Softball	373K
Soccer	398K	Soccer	361K
Wrestling	273K	Cross Country	204K
Cross Country	246K	Tennis	182K
Tennis	161K	Swimming	160K
Golf	156K	Spirit Squads	96K
Swimming	133K	Lacrosse	74K

In terms of the number of schools that offer sports, basketball is the most popular for both boys and girls, followed by track and field.

Minnesota Sports
According to a report done in 2010 by our athletic director, the most popular sports for boys in Minnesota, in order of popularity, are: football, baseball, track, basketball, soccer, golf, hockey, cross country, tennis, swimming. For girls, they are: volleyball, track, basketball, softball, soccer, tennis, swimming, cross country, high kick dance, and golf.

Here at Marshall, we support 15 different sports and 23 different teams. Last year, track was the most popular by a wide margin.

Marshall Participation Well Above National Average
We are rightfully proud of our reputation as the most academically focused school the region. This does not mean that our students shy away from athletics. In fact, last year 84% of our students participated in at least one sport.

What does that number mean?

Well, nationally, despite a new record this year, only 55% of students participated in HS athletics.

We believe that our students learn a great deal outside of the classroom, and I'm looking forward to a great fall season.

Marshall and the ACT

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:11:54 EST

Marshall student Anthony Cotter has been in the news of late for his perfect ACT score.

While we are rightfully proud of his achievements, we are equally proud of the high quality of work being done all our students, many of whom have gotten perfect scores on sub-tests within the ACT or SAT over the years.

Teaching First
Here at Marshal we don't put the same level of emphasis on testing as you'll find in public schools. We don't test as often, and we don't teach to the test. Instead, we ask our teachers to set high standards for everybody and create a culture of performance in the classroom that will pay dividends not only at test time but later in life as well.

College Prep for All
The results speak for themselves. Culturally, high-performance is a part of the fabric at Marshall. Nearly 100% of our students take the ACT vs. 66% in Duluth public schools. All our students are college bound, and therefore our ACT results reflect the overall college focus at Marshall and the high quality of work being done by every student.

Peers have a tremendous influence on how students approach academics and we believe that in this regard a rising tide does indeed lift all boats.

Marshall's Scores
A few weeks ago the Duluth News Tribune published a report with local ACT scores. They did not contact Marshall. Thankfully, though, all colleges receive the average scores of the school as well as the state, which they take into account in judging the overall quality and rigor of the school's program.

	Marshall	Duluth	Minnesota
Participation	100%	66%	70%
2011 Avg Score	25.8	23.1	22.9
2012 Avg Score	26.4	?	?

The 2011 scores reflect last year's graduating class. The 2012 scores, for this year's seniors, have not been published. A few days ago we did receive news from ACT that ours has risen to 26.4, and this is the score that will be used in this year's School Profile that goes to colleges.

When interpreting the scores, it is important to note that one point makes a big difference in where somebody ranks relative to their peers. A student who scores a 22 would be in the 62nd-percentile (better than 38% of all students). A score of 26 would puts somebody in the 84th-percentile, a full 20% better than a score of 22.

Indian Faculty See Duluth

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 06:47:55 EST

The Ehrhardts took some of our visiting Indian faculty to Canal Point to see the Lift Bridge. The group has been attending professional days with the rest of the Marshall faculty and is eager to meet students when school opens on August 31st.

Wrapping it Up

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:30:12 EST

We are putting the finishing touches on the building ahead of the opening of school August 31st.

If you want to know what is happening to these lockers, we would love to give you a sneak peak at 5:30 p.m. on August 30th. Check this weekend's DNT for the invite to our GRAND OPENING.

Run For It

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:32:34 EST

As our high school student athletes hit the fields, courts, and trails for the fall season, it may seem an odd time to talk about the need to exercise. However, on the eve a new school year a newly published report strongly reinforced the connection between exercise and academic performance.

As reported in last week's Well blog at the New York Times (picture above), the Italian study's researchers concluded that children "who undergo prolonged periods of academic instruction often reduce their attention and concentration." Not surprisingly, the study shows that the ability to concentrate in the classroom is replenished after gym class.

Interestingly, exercise and performance was a big topic at the recently completed Marshall Admin Team Retreat. The summer reading for our leadership team was a wonderful book by John Medina called Brain Rules.

The new study and the research highlighted in Brain Rules only reinforced our current understanding of the importance of exercise. Marshall's schedule deliberately puts daily PE in the schedules of our younger students for this very reason -- bucking the trend of some other schools to reduced PE time and focus more time on standardized test-taking preparation. It turns out that increased time for "drill-and-kill" exercises may in fact be counter-productive.

The first chapter of Medina's book highlights the importance of exercise to boost brain power. He is critical of the direction taken by many schools. He goes so far as to suggest that kids should have not one but two recess periods, writing: "Cutting off physical exercise -- the very activity most likely to promote cognitive performance -- to do better on a test score is like trying to gain wait by starving yourself."

Time to head out for a jog ...

Bullies Hit Performance

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:20:23 EST

We all know the toll that bullying can take on a child's self-esteem. A new study out today quantifies the impact that it can have on test scores.

"Our study suggests that a bullying climate may play an important role in student test performance," said psychologist Dewey Cornell in a HealthDay News story.

The study of 7,300 ninth graders in Virginia showed passing rates on three separate standardized tests were 3 to 6 percent lower at schools where students reported a severe bullying climate. Not surprisingly, the researches say that students at these schools are less engaged in learning.

All schools today are taking serious steps to address bullying, but anti-bullying "programs' have mixed results. Changing school culture, it turns out, is not an easy thing to do.

Virtual Learning Wave

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 11:22:57 EST

The trend towards integration of online learning into K-12 strengthens. According to a report from market research firm Ambient Insight, e-learning in the K-12 market will grow nearly 17% a year through 2015.

While the mentoring that comes from the personal relationship between student and teacher will never be replaced, schools that prepare students for success in college and beyond cannot ignore the importance of using new virtual tools. Technology and virtual education are now a part of what it means to be "college prep."

We're excited about our partnership with the Virtual High School. Almost 20 students will be enrolled in a variety of classes this fall. VHS uses the same platform (D2L) as employed by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (see graphic above). In addition, both Tony Lockart and myself will be teaching "hybrid" courses this year (economic and journalism, respectively) that we hope will test how we can use these new tech tools in our regular courses as well.

Reunion

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 12:10:59 EST

Marshall held its annual all-class reunion this weekend, which featured wonderful opportunities for Hilltoppers of all generations to gather and share stories of their beloved school.

A highlight at this morning's Golden Topper luncheon was meeting with some graduates of the class of 1943, which marked the first year boys and girls graduated as part of a combined school.

Professional Development

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:52:17 EST

Over the past few days, you may have read in your email or on our web site about amount of activity that has been taking place during the "off" time of the year -- be it construction on the building or building up the mind.

Faculty and staff certainly use some time over the break to rest and recharge. In addition, summer is often a time to reflect, learn, collaborate, and plan. In our recent e-letter, we shared some of the things that faculty have been up to this summer in the areas of science, technology, and languages.

Here is the rest of the list:

In mid-June, I hosted a meeting of the heads of school from the Minnesota Association of Independent Schools. The group met over two days at Marshall to hear from our legislative liaison about the Minnesota state budget impasse and to discuss professional development opportunities that could be shared among the 14 different schools. Marshall is the only independent school north of the Twin Cities.

Heather Anderson is attending a workshop on "Meaningful Upper School Advisory" in Wilmington, DE, which focuses on enhancing upper school advisory programs by looking at individual advising, group advising, and advisor development.

Katie Voller-Berdan, College Counselor, attended the Harvard Summer Institute in College Admissions offered jointly by Harvard University and The College Board. She was able to choose from over 40 workshops given by nationally-recognized leaders in college admissions and education.

Wanda Birnbaum, Rojean Flaherty, Jeremy Friese (math & science), Dave Johnson (science), and Scott Kylander-Johnson are spending time this summer working on refining the academic program for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders.

Middle School teachers Julie Ball (English), Wanda Birnbaum (math), Lori Durant (English), Rojean Flaherty (4th/5th grade), Jeremy Friese (4th/5th grade), Nate Harsha (history), Scott Kylander-Johnson and Matthew Whittaker (English) began working with Krista Giddings (English) on implementing the Six-Trait Writing approach in Middle School classrooms in the fall.

Karen Snyder is attending a workshop called, "MFE (Meaningful Faculty Evaluation): Faculty Development and Renewal" in Wilmington, DE that will focus on fostering school cultures that yield maximum achievement for students and faculty.

We plan on enjoying the rest of the summer, but excitement is brewing for the return of your children this fall!

Good news and Worse news

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:37:08 EST

Like most of you, I have been following the saga of the State Shutdown with much interest. It was great news, then, when the governor and legislative leaders announced a compromise yesterday.

Unfortunately, there is great likelihood that the cost of that compromise will come at the expense of our public and charter schools.

Before the shutdown, much was written about the "shift" in aid payments that had been used by past administrations to bridge Minnesota budget deficits. In essence, the state has routinely borrowed money from our public schools by delaying aid payments that the schools need to build buildings, buy textbooks, and pay teacher salaries.

A StarTribune story from a week ago gives some good background. Another story highlights the particular problems this causes for our charter schools.

The news out of this most recent budget agreement is that the state will balance its budget by taking more money from the schools (increasing the shift from 70/30 to 60/40).

Yesterday, the StarTribune updated is coverage and spoke with outgoing executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, Charlie Kyte.

"The shutdown solution -- which shifts state aid payments that schools were counting on to the following year, requiring some districts to borrow money -- 'comes at a big cost to the public schools in Minnesota,' Kyte said, 'even though school superintendents will put the best face on this and tell their parents that we're still doing a great job for your kids.

"'But the reality is that the education that we're providing our children is denigrating itself and isn't going to be as good in the future as it has in the past.'"

On MPR this morning, current state legislators spoke about what happened in the mid-1980s when the state used similar account tricks to balance the budget. At that time, the shift was only 20%, but it took the government 15 years to pay back those funds. Some were predicting yesterday that these current shifts could take 50 years to pay back -- if they get paid back at all.

Too early to tell what this means for students here in Duluth, but it is certain that this year's budget compromise can hardly be described as a win for our students.

Inclusive

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 14:40:01 EST

Last month I wrote about the introduction of Mandarin into our middle school program and how that effort is an extension of our mission to education global citizens.

Of course, global citizens must have more than just facility with foreign languages. To become contributing members of a global society, we believe our students need to have experiences working with others different than themselves.

At Marshall, we strive to create such environments and opportunities in several ways:

By attracting and admitting a diverse racial and socio-economic student population locally.
By attracting and admitting international students who can share the very different cultural experiences they have had globally.
By providing opportunities for our students to experience other cultures through study abroad experiences, both during the school year and over the summer break.

Today, I want to write about the inclusiveness in our student body. Contrary to popular opinion, Marshall students are not all the same. In fact, Marshall is more diverse than our three public school counterparts in Duluth. Last year, the latest in which we have comparable data, 19% of Marshall students (nearly one in five) were a part of a minority group. According to figures provided by the public schools, that compares with 17% of the student body at Central, 14% at Denfeld, and just 7% at East.

Nor are students all from "rich" families. This current year, 23% of Marshall families had combined incomes of less than $50,000 a year.

We are very proud of the ways in which such a diverse group of students quickly learns to look beyond their difference and work toward common goals. The most common goal at Marshall: To succeed academically. What is the best way to tell? All our students see college in their futures.

Speed, Agility, and Strength Camp

Tue, 31 May 2011 14:15:13 EST

At our Athletic Award Banquet last week, AD Dave Homstad announced an exciting new summer training program for Marshall high school athletes.

The Speed, Agility, and Strength camp will run from June 13 through August 4 and help prepare athletes in all sports for the rigors of competition. In the same way we encourage our scholars to keep the academic neurons firing during the summer, this camp is designed to help all Marshall athletes improve during the traditional "off season."

Our male and female camp directors have extensive experience in competitive college athletics as well as degrees in exercise science. They will work with small, gender divided groups capped at 30 athletes. Each daily session (Mon-Thurs) will last for two hours, giving our students time for other important summer experiences, camps, or employment.

Early interest in the camps has been heavy. Sign-up sheets are available in the Athletic Office.

Pathways to Prosperity

Wed, 25 May 2011 12:48:01 EST

http://cew.georgetown.edu/whatsitworth/

As you may have read in a recent news report, Marshall's senior class earned $5M in merit-based scholarships this college-placement season. While we are rightly proud of their accomplishments, a recent report by the Harvard Graduate School of Education paints a drastically different picture for the nation as a whole.

In their "Pathways to Prosperity" report, researchers highlight a litany of sobering statistics:

While 70% of our high school graduates go on to college, only 30% complete a bachelor's degree by age 27;
The United States now has the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world;
Men currently account for 43% of the enrollment in US colleges and only 40% in US graduate schools.

All of this against a backdrop of joblessness that is staggering, with our teen and young adult employment rates as high as those in the Great Depression.

The Harvard report places a good deal of blame on our inability to equip students with the 21st century skills they need to be successful. Citing a survey of hundreds of employers called "Are They Ready to Work?", they say: "The authors were especially scathing regarding high school graduates, concluding that more than half were 'deficient' in such skills as oral and written communication, critical thinking and professionalism."

Despite a decade of efforts to have "no child left behind," the US has made very few gains in international education rankings, with the most recent tests in science and math placing us 17th and 25th respectively.

The Harvard report goes on to ask our educational leaders to back away from the call of "college for everyone" and focus more on preparing students for community college and vocational education. It goes on to ask our business community to support these efforts by opening up more "pathways to prosperity" through job training programs and internships.

College and Beyond
As a graduate of a liberal arts college (Um Yah Yah), I am a firm believer in the value of a broad-based education. However, I also LOVE statistics. So I am a sucker for some of the recent studies that tell us how the choices our students make in college will impact their future careers (and earnings).

One of the more interesting reports comes from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. In one of the widest studies to date, their researchers analyzed the earning power of 171 undergraduate majors. The top "major groups" in earning power were:

Engineering
Computers and Mathematics
Business
Health
Physical Sciences

While these rankings aggregate individual majors into categories, the highest paying single major was Petroleum Engineering at a median salary of $120K and the lowest paying major was Counseling Psychology at $29K. According to the study, the most popular major group is business (25% of all students); second most popular, education (10.6%).

This study can be compared with a different report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that examined 800 jobs across America based on annual salary. According to this survey, nine of the top 10 paying jobs in America are in the health-care industry (with surgeon listed first). The only non-health position to crack the top 10: CEO. (Great work if you can get it!)

(Geek Alert: Statistical Aside)
And where to find those $120K petroleum engineers from the Georgetown study? Their annual pay listed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics did indeed nearly match ($128K). Why, then, weren't they number one in both studies? The difference, I would expect, is that a larger number of medical professionals and CEOs come from a variety of different majors ... making a direct comparison between career and major difficult. Not true, I would surmise, for petroleum engineering.

No matter what you make of all the individual data, pulling all of these stats and the Harvard report together paints a very different career landscape from when I graduated college (Go Oles!) -- and stresses more now than ever that we need to graduate high school students who are disciplined, creative, and ready to continue their personal and professional development well beyond college.

Mandarin

Sun, 15 May 2011 09:48:15 EST

Image linked from Wikipedia

Early in the school year, our administrative team and foreign language teachers began discussing goals for our foreign language program. We began with two major questions:

What languages should we be offering?
What are our goals for language acquisition at two key transition points: middle school to high school and high school to college?

Marshall currently offers Spanish, French, German and Latin -- a remarkable number of choices for a school our size. A study of local public schools revealed that Spanish and German were the most common languages. A study of Minnesota independent schools revealed that Spanish, French and Chinese were the most common. Nationally, Spanish (73% of enrolled students) and French (15%) remain the top-studied languages K-12.

When we reviewed our language options, though, it became clear that we needed to add the study of Chinese back into our program. According to a study from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), the study of Mandarin has tripled in recent years. Over the next decade, China's importance on the world stage will continue to grow, and our students should be prepared with a better understanding of both Chinese culture and language. As a school with a mission to educate global citizens, China cannot be ignored.

Mandarin coming to the Middle School
Toward that end, next year all students in grade 6 will take Mandarin. We chose 6th grade as a partial response to our second key question: We want our students to be capable of starting high school with the skills necessary to enter a Level 2 HS course. To establish this foundation, it is important that students have two to three solid years of the same language in MS. As Chinese is a tonal language, it requires a more time to master than German, Spanish, and French. Therefore, giving all students exposure to Chinese in 6th grade should give them a leg up if they want to continue their study of Chinese in later years.

Starting in 7th grade, all students will now get a choice of languages to study over the final two years of MS. (Next year, the choices will be French, Spanish, and German. Chinese for 7th graders will be an option in 2012-2013, when we will continue to review how many languages the school can support.) Currently, we offer Latin as a grade 7 language for all students. Next year, Latin will be embedded into a new language arts course that will focus on writing. (Which will be the focus of another, later blog entry.) Latin as a stand-alone language will continue to be an option for study in HS.

While we only require two years of a language in the upper school, by giving all our MS students solid skills in their formative years, they should have the foundation necessary to study a foreign language through Level 5 (Advanced Placement), if they wish. This is not something they can do if they just begin studying a language in high school.

In our community survey at the beginning of the year, Marshall's emphasis on foreign language development was strongly supported by parents, who placed it on par with math, science, writing, and English. This is a strong endorsement of our global mission.

Unfortunately, this type of commitment is not common. While the study Chinese is growing, overall the ACTFL estimates that only 18% of American students are studying ANY second language -- this at a time when our economy is more depended on global connections than ever. The study of a second language has long been the norm in Europe, and ten times more Chinese students are coming to the US to study than visa versa.

Check out this 43-second YouTube clip If you need any other reason to study another language.

Red Quill

Fri, 06 May 2011 11:53:49 EST

By now you may have seen the news that Marshall has earned its 4th consecutive Red Quill Award from the testing service ACT.

Here at Marshall we value our independence and the flexibility we have to offer a curriculum that is not driven by standardized testing. Our teachers embrace a holistic approach to education and we do not teach to any particular test. We trust that excellent teaching and a disciplined approach to studies will prepare students for "come what may" in their educational future. Nonetheless, it is rewarding to see Marshall students consistently outperform peers in the same testing metrics that are driving curriculum in other schools.

Continual Improvement
Of course it is expected that Marshall students will do well. They are smart kids. The Red Quill is special to our school because it is only given to organizations that show continual improvement in their programs. As Galen Johnson, ACTs assistant vice president wrote: "Winning the Red Quill signifies that a school has made significant and measurable efforts to improve student preparation for college and the workforce."

Marshall is only one of six high schools in Minnesota to receive this award.

Because testing doesn't drive our curriculum, we do not talk much about standardized test scores in the earlier grades. However, internally we do monitor our students' progress, and they continue to perform well above national norms on tests we give starting in the 8th grade. These exams lay a foundation for the ACT test used for college admissions. This data is helpful to our teachers and counselors as we measure progress in our programs and develop a picture of a student's profile for their eventual college search.

In a time of the year when we are celebrating a number of individual achievements, it is nice to have an award that is a reflection of our collective work together.

Sugar

Sun, 01 May 2011 16:56:27 EST

photo linked from nytimes.com

I have a pretty well-developed sweet tooth, which has made following the recent news on sugar all the more difficult to swallow.

In case you have missed it, the New York Times Magazine ran a lengthy story recently on the work of Dr. Robert Lustig. The main premise: Too much sugar is toxic.

Not only does he suggest that sugar is the cause of the surge in obesity in the United States, but he also links it to heart disease, hypertension, and cancer. Here is the original YouTube video that started it all.

Dr. David Katz extends the argument in a recent Huffington Post article, sharing his concern that many of the foods labeled "healthy" may have less fat but are then loaded down with excess sugar to make them taste better.

We have always known that anything in excess can be bad for you, but this recent reporting does make you think twice about that extra scoop of ice cream.

Pride in Excellence

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 08:53:14 EST

Monday night Marshall held its annual "Pride in Excellence" event to celebrate academic achievement at Marshall.

Students were vetted for accomplishments in the classroom as well as academic-oriented clubs and activities.

As our Board President Jim Jarocki said in his welcoming comments: It is well understood in Duluth that many choose our school because of its welcoming academic atmosphere. As the saying goes: "It is OK to be smart at Marshall."

In a wider cultural climate that can often celebrate ignorance, this alone can make Marshall worth the price of admission.

However, Monday night we celebrated something larger than just individual accomplishments.

As a group, the Marshall community came together to celebrate excellence. As an organization, we promote a challenging curriculum. We believe in hard work and risk taking. In the past few years alone, our faculty has spent time recalibrating our honors courses to make them even more challenging. This is against a trend, reported even this morning in the New York Times, of a "dumbing down" of honors courses nationally.

Our state and country are facing some challenging times – politically, economically, socially. Any answer, we all know, must involve improvements in education – though many currently doubt that we are up to the challenge:

America in decline. In the most recent (2009) OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, the United States continued to score in the middle of the pack among the world's largest and/or fastest growing economies, bested by Shanghai-China, Korea, Finland, Canada, Japan, and Australia – among others.
Teachers under fire. Seven states are currently mulling bills to strip public school teachers of their collective bargaining rights. The mayor in Providence, Rhode Island recently fired all his city's teachers.
Educational spending slashed. Recent estimates indicate that the latest Minnesota budget bill will cut $1.7M from the Duluth Public Schools over the next two years. Minnesota spending on education, per $1,000 in personal income, had already dropped from 21^st in the country in 1996 to 41^st by 2005.

This comes at exactly the time when future Minnesota jobs will require more education than ever. By 2018, the state will rank 5^th in the nation in the number of jobs that will require at least a Bachelor's degree, this against a backdrop of declining funding for K-12 education.

The importance of Marshall's pride in excellence has never been more important.

In the 2009 Nation's Report Card, only 13% of students across the US completed what was defined as a rigorous high school curriculum – the type of program that the majority of Marshall students take every year. The same study found that students who took a rigorous course load were better prepared for college and beyond.

This was certainly the message of our faculty speaker, Nate Mattson, who spoke passionately Monday night about the friends and teachers in his life who challenged him to try harder and stretch himself -- to see a potential he was not always able to see in himself. This is something he now sees regularly happening for students in the halls and classrooms of our school.

Thankfully, our pride in excellence happens more than just one night a year!

Mindset

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 09:47:13 EST

A former colleague of mine did his doctoral dissertation on the concept of student self-efficacy, which is just one fancy way of saying: confidence.

This is an important concept in education, because the research is pretty clear that students need to feel engaged in school to maximize their ability to learn. Think of the idiom: You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Self-efficacy takes this concept a step further by highlighting the importance of feeing empowered to make a difference and then to succeed in difficult situations. It is an attitude that you develop: Your actions can make a difference in your life and the life of others.

Unfortunately, the state of education today can hardly be characterized as promoting this important concept. In a nationwide survey of students done by the Million Voice Project (pictured above), only 54% of students agreed with the statement: "Teachers care about me as in individual." Even fewer, 34%, agreed with the statement: "Students respect each other."

Some of the outcomes of these types of statistics are well known. Over the past few weeks, there has been a very harrowing series of stories in the Duluth News Tribune on bullying. While Marshall was not included in any of these stories, we too are committed to providing happy and heathy environments for children. It just manifests in different ways.

Our focus goes well beyond just safety. When students have a sense of self-efficacy, they are happier and they learn more. In the right environment, it becomes a virtuous circle. As they feel more empowered, they take on greater challenges and gain more self confidence that their hard work will be worth the effort.

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has spent decades proving just how important this concept is for learning. She calls it "Mindset." When individuals develop a growth mindset, Dweck argues, they believe their abilities and outcomes can be improved through hard work. This allows them to overcome the inevitable setbacks we all face in life and develop the resilience to push through difficult moments.

Perhaps one of the best illustrations of this concept can be found the the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, when the character played by Bill Murray had to relive the same day over and over again. As he faced difficult moments, his first reaction was to blame others or give up, but eventually he started to try to better himself and to figure out ways to improve his situation.

Importantly, developing and nurturing this mindset takes place in relationships with teachers, parents, and peers. The environments we create become essential to helping young people develop the mindset and skills to be successful in school and beyond.

Upper School Leadership

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:43:44 EST

Throughout the course of this school year, I have written about many of the exciting new developments happening in our upper school, such as the revamp of the science curriculum, our partnership with the Virtual High School, and the opening of new foreign exchange opportunities for students.

At the same time, we are successfully expanding the size of the school by opening a fourth grade in 2011-2012, which creates new opportunities for our academic offerings in the MS as well.

These developments, coupled with a remarkable demand for enrollment seen by our admissions office, have created the need for Marshall to expand its leadership team. We must ensure that the programs we are putting into place now (and those being discussed in our Strategic Plan) will be successful -- which requires differentiated and focused oversight at both the middle school and high school levels.

Therefore, after discussion with our faculty and Board of Trustees, we have launched a search for an Upper School Principal, effective as early as 2011-2012. Karen Synder, our current Associate Head of School, will take on the role of MS Principal (while also retaining some all-school responsibilities and her current title).

As our needs in this area are immediate, we have decided to begin a search for the position to start next fall. It is late in the hiring season, and there is a chance that we will not find a suitable candidate this late in the year. If this proves to be the case, we will launch a full search in the fall for the 2012-2013 school year.

You can read a full position description here. We expect that high school parents and students will have an opportunity to meet with finalists candidates in early May.

We are very excited about what a new principal may bring to our school at a very exciting time in our long and proud history.

Did You Know?

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:29:17 EST

With the fund-a-need at next month's auction focusing on our science program, here is an interesting video to put some things in perspective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

It has been out there a while and much of the material is at least a little outdated. However, the overall impression it leaves is still pretty interesting (even if you quibble, like I do, with some of their assumptions).

Minnesota's Educational Future

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:56:34 EST

Yesterday I was interviewed by a local news organization for a story about the educational spending bill currently working its way through the Minnesota Legislature.

The headline of the story that came out was ISD 709 to Lose $1M Under Proposed Legislation.

The reporter wanted my take on a particular item in the bill that would provide for vouchers to be used for students to attend non-public schools.

As Governor Dayton has vowed to veto the bill as it is currently written, it is far to early to speculate on what might happen over the next few months. However, one thing is certain: We all benefit from strong public schools. Underfunded schools are devastating to our kids and harmful to the future of our city, state and country.

Here at Marshall, we take pride in offering a unique and distinctive educational alternative for families. We believe that a variety of educational choices in Duluth signals a healthy and vibrant community -- and the fact that there is choice (call it competition, if you will) keeps us on our toes.

Incidentally, independent schools like Marshall already offer our own version of "vouchers" -- in the form of financial aid. Many alumni and friends of Marshall have given generously over the years to create scholarships that can make Marshall accessible to many who otherwise could not afford the tuition. We believe that socio-economic diversity is one component of a vibrant educational community.

Let's hope that the talk going on in St. Paul ends with a recommitment to the strong educational system that has been a hallmark for Minnesota for so many generations.

Get Ready to Rummage

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:52:55 EST

Get Ready to Rummage!

On Saturday, April 2, the Marshall Athletic Boosters will host the school's 32nd annual Rummage Sale. If this is your first event, you can check out the picture from 2009 above or this slide show to get a sense of what is in store. Doors open at 9 a.m. to the public, but this is a labor of love that is very much a year-long community event.

All fall and winter, parent volunteers have been collecting donations to be stored in a trailer near the tennis courts. Our student athletes will be on hand Tuesday after school to unload the items and bring them in for staging and setup. Dozens of parent volunteers will undertake this task, which takes Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Our AD, Dave Homstad will be on hand Saturday morning to provide an 8 a.m. breakfast for volunteers.

All proceeds from the sale go to support our athletic programs.

A big thanks to all the volunteers, and we hope to see you there.

Tiger Moms?

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 01:45:18 EST

A few months ago, a Yale Law professor by the name of Amy Chua ignited a firestorm with the publication of her book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother." Her essay in the Wall Street Journal, headlined, Why Chinese Mothers are Superior, outlined a tough-as-nails approach to parenting that never allowed for creative projects, playdates, television, or any grade below an A. Chua argues that all parents want what is best for their children, but that while Western parents believe this comes in the form of respecting a child's individuality and encouraging them to pursue their passions, Chinese parents believe that the best way to help their children is to push them as hard as they can to prepare for a rough-and-tumble future.

As you might expect, Chua's book and essay hit a chord, even prompting death threats.

While there is no doubt some significant cultural differences between parenting styles around the world, the complex activity of raising children cannot be put neatly into East and West paradigms. Chua's experiences, in fact, are complicated by the fact that she is a Chinese mother parenting in the United States.

Having just completed a 10-day tour of five Chinese cities and meeting with countless students and their parents, it is clear that there is no one single notion of a "Chinese Way" to raise children. In fact, most of the students I interviewed talked about the joy they had playing the piano or drawing when they were younger. They then lamented that the current Chinese education system has left them no time to pursue those passions. In classes of 50-60 students, they attend school from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and must prepare for rote exams that will dictate whether they can continue their studies at the high school or college level.

In one school that I visited (pictured above), evidence of this state-sponsored competition was apparent by the student ranking system displayed for all to see in the hallways (pictured below). The top students are listed here, with their current scores in all their subjects. In fact, I was told that all students in the city of Shenzhen, population 14 million, were ranked. The students and parents that I met wanted to come to Marshall to escape this intense and stifling pressure. They came to interviews with portfolios of artwork they had done and dreams of participating in an after school club or on the school's golf team.

It was this type of attitude that prompted New York Times columnist David Brooks to write an essay headlined Amy Chua is a Wimp, in which he argued that Chua was in fact coddling her children, "protecting them from the most intellectually demanding activities because she doesn't understand what is cognitively difficult and what isn't." He goes on to argue that it is much more challenging for a 14-year-old girl to navigate a sleepover with her peers than to practice violin for four hours straight. The challenging and emotionally draining group work that is demanded in our best schools (where class sizes aren't 40+ students), is preparing students for the type of work they will need to do in college and beyond.

With China's continued and growing global economic importance, this discussion will no doubt continue. However, the landscape is complex. While American's may sometimes marvel at the high math scores of our incoming Chinese students, those same students are marveling at the way our children are taught to be critical, independent thinkers -- not simply, as one Chinese girl told me, "mark machines."

Math team goes to State

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:43:31 EST

A few weeks ago I spoke briefly at an assembly about how some groups are able to create a "culture of success." This happens when an organization creates an ethos that demands excellence and that individual group members take responsibility to help newcomers understand what is expected and raise their collective "game" accordingly.

I was reminded of this during our all-school assembly today to send our Math Team off to the State Math League tournament next Monday. If you take the time to walk the hallways outside our math classrooms in the high school, you will see rows of plaques recognizing our student's accomplishments over the years, winning the St. Louis County section for most of the past decade. It is an inspiring site.

This year's team has continued that fine tradition. They are currently ranked third in the small school division and 10th overall. This puts Marshall ahead of schools such as Blake, Edina High School, Apple Valley High School, and Duluth East. All schools that dwarf Marshall in size.

A very proud accomplishment indeed. Go Toppers!

Good Company

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 11:09:58 EST

Thank you!

As all of you know, our re-enrollment deadline was the Thursday before our winter break. We moved the deadline much earlier than past years to deal with the very high demand we are seeing for a Marshall education. In short, we wanted to make sure to deal with our current Marshall families first, before considering applications for new students.

We appreciate the effort that went into meeting these deadlines. They are very helpful as we plan budget and class schedules for next year.

New Student Enrollment
The day after your re-enrollment deadline was the priority admissions deadline for new families. We put this deadline in place after new enrollment hit a nine-year high last fall, and not just by a small margin. For example, applications for 2010 were 30% higher than 2004.

So far, as the admissions season unfolded, we have been sharing numbers about demand this year compared to the same time last year. Inquiries, for example, are up 200%. Applications, up more than 600%

Of course, when we start to think about staffing, the year-over-year numbers don't matter and you want to know where you stand for the year. Remarkably, as of March 1, 2011 we have as many applications for 2011-2012 as we had for the entire 2010-2011 admission season -- and we still have four months to go. Last year, we had 47 applications from May-August alone.

The most important element of these earlier deadlines is to help us process the applications in a reasonable way. Getting a handle on applications earlier also helps us plan our staffing accordingly.

Are We Full?
You will rightfully ask: Is Marshall full? The answer: It's complicated. Last year we had to close some grades because the late applications made planning any new sections difficult. By knowing about applications early enough, we have the option of expanding staff to meet the demand (and keep class sizes small), as long as our new applicants are the right fit for Marshall.

Our commitment is -- and always will be -- to provide students individualized attention, the best possible preparation for college, and the ability to participate in the entirety of their school experience rather than get lost in the crowd.

Bottom Line
Thank you for being a part of the Marshall family. We are excited about the present and the future. If you know of folks who are still thinking about Marshall, please encourage them to give us a look. Spots are limited, but there is still time!

Triple "A"

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 19:35:22 EST

I attended a luncheon today sponsored by the Minnesota State High School League to honor all the regional nominees for the Triple "A" awards, which recognizes high school seniors for their accomplishments in the classroom, playing fields, and stage.

Our own Emily Diener (pictured above with mother Nancy and father Tom), was recognized as the winner of the 2011 award for Section 7A. Begun in 1988, the award is now seen as one of the most coveted in the MSHSL, as it recognizes students for their high achievement across academics, athletics, and the arts. Such well-rounded students are poised to do well in college and beyond.

Emily has been a starting member of our girls soccer team throughout high school and qualified for the state track meet. In addition, she's a member of our Chamber Singers and been named to the All State Choir. She is still weighing options for college next year, but is thinking about ways she will be able to continue her passion for soccer and music.

Congratulations, Emily!

International Student Exchange

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 10:00:28 EST

At the core of the Marshall mission is the aspiration "to educate students to become global citizens."

Towards this end, we seek to diversify our student body by admitting students from around the world to participate in the educational program at Marshall ... sharing their global perspective with our students and faculty.

Marshall students have also had long-standing opportunities for summer language exchange programs, most recently in Germany. These are programs we plan on expanding in the summer of 2012 to include Costa Rica and France.

This past week, I shared with our upper school students news about an exciting new opportunity for a semester exchange program with two American international schools -- in India and Brazil. This program will begin next fall.

Some of the program highlights include:

The Schools: Marshall has partnered with The American School of Bombay (700 students in grades K-12) and the American School of Brasilia (500 students in grades K-12) for this unique exchange opportunity. I have personally visited both schools, and have worked closely with their heads of school in the past.

Academics: With the exception of foreign languages, all classes are in English. Both schools are accredited by US agencies and their graduates are accepted at the best colleges in the United States and abroad. Both schools offer the International Baccalaureate program, which is an externally moderated curriculum with similarities to the AP program at Marshall. Students wishing to take AP classes while on the exchange can sign up for an online course through VHS and continue to take that course while studying abroad. All credit earned overseas will be integrated with your Marshall program and flagged accordingly.

Culture: The student body in Bombay is 28% American and 13% Indian, with a total of 40 nationalities. In Brasilia, 18% percent are American and 57% are Brazilian. Both schools have extensive experiential education and service learning programs, allowing you to experience the culture of the host country while still having access to a world-class American education.

Living Arrangements: The exchange program will place you with a family at the host school, allowing a smooth connection with the city and the school.

There seems to be some genuine excitement among the student body about opportunities to expand their world view. In the near future, we will be hosting an information night for interested students and their parents to talk more about the program, the application process, and the timeline. Look for more information in our weekly e-letter updates.

College in the Classroom

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 09:37:33 EST

I get asked every now and then why Marshall does not offer the Colleges in The School (CITS) program or promote Post Secondary Education Options (PSEO) for our students. After all, as a college prep school, shouldn't we be promoting opportunities for students to take "college" courses when they are in HS?

I don't know that we should. We're college prep, after all -- not college.

Instead, I think it is best that we provide the best preparation for students to be successful in their best-fit college -- be it here in Duluth, at a fine Minnesota school (say St. Olaf, my alma mater), or at an East Coast Ivy.

That's a broad range of preparation best served with a nationally or internationally normed curriculum such as the Advanced Placement or the International Baccalaureate (rather than a local college course).

As our Director of College Counseling, Katie Voller-Berdan tells families: "The CITS courses at local public schools are taken from curriculum developed by local 2-year colleges. The colleges Marshall students are applying to recognize this and tend not to award students credit. Many of the colleges Marshall students end up enrolling at don't tend to accept the credit, and instead, require students to take placement tests as colleges are finding the entire curriculum they cover wasn't covered in the CITS course."

This is why Marshall is very pleased to be partnering with the nationally recognized VHS program next year to offer 20 AP courses to students, who can study with talented peers located in the US and internationally. Courses on offer include: AP Art History, AP Calculus BC, AP Computer Science, AP Economics, AP Environmental Science, AP European History, AP Government and Politics, AP Music Theory, AP Physics C, AP Psychology, and AP Statistics.

Of course, there are circumstances when PSEO or CITS makes sense. if a student plans on later matriculating to UMD or St. Scholastica, then taking a PSEO from them could be a great way to get a credit out of the way or get some exposure to the campus or the culture. If a student has exhausted or topped out of the curriculum at their high school, then they may need to go the PSEO route to get to the next level in a certain subject. That is when we tend to recommend PSEO to Marshall students, although the time issues in traveling to a local university to attend one course can make a mess of a student's schedule. Our preference, whenever possible, is to keep everything on our campus.

Many parents are rightly intrigued by the opportunity to get some college credit out of the way in HS, at a much cheaper price. However, be careful if that discount comes at the expense of your child's readiness for higher-level college work.

Athletes in the News

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:14:34 EST

A daily double for past and current Marshall athletes in today's News Tribune. If you have not had a chance, please check out the profile of our own Emma Stauber featured as today's Prep Newsmaker (pictured above from the same article). The story naturally touches on her hockey skills, but also discusses her leadership on a young team this year and the dedication it takes to play at a high level on a consistent basis.

Marshall alumni Jack Connolly was also profiled as UMD prepares for a home series against the Gophers this weekend. Despite being last year's leading scorer, the article focuses on some of the intangibles it takes to play at the elite level of college hockey. "He is unselfish and takes pride in being a good team player," linemate Mike Connolly is quoted as saying.

These characteristics continue to define Marshall athletes across all seasons and sports, something that was made very clear this past weekend during a benefit for the Long family held at the Mars Lakeview Arena. At last night's thrilling boy's varsity game against Central, I had a chance to chat with Molly Long about how much it meant when our Hilltoppers surrounded the family with a team huddle during the event (pictured below from our Parent Pass Blog).

I think we are drawn to athletics because of the unscripted drama of good competition and the understanding that behind every effortless pass or record-breaking run is hours and hours of hard work and collaboration -- skills that serve our student athletes in pursuits far beyond the rink, track or playing fields.

Strategic Focus Groups

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:41:04 EST

On Wednesday, February 9, parents are invited to attend one of two brainstorming sessions for an update of the Marshall strategic plan.

Our current plan was approved by the Board of Trustees in late 2009. The plan lays out a broad strategic framework for the school, and our faculty and staff have been busy this year working through ideas for initiatives over the next few years.

We could use your help!

If you join us, you will be asked to contribute to one of five groups. Each group will get a short update from an administrator and then be asked to reflect on a series of guiding questions.

Mission and Vision

What do we do best?
What is our core business?
What kind of image do we want to project in the community?
What needs can we satisfy that other schools cannot?
What do we want to be known for in Duluth?
How can we best serve the needs of students today and in the future?

Global Citizenship

What is "global citizenship?"
What does it mean to educate for "global citizenship?"
What should we be doing differently to prepare students for an interconnected world?
How can international students enhance the experience for all students at Marshall?
How can international experiences for Marshall students enhance their education?

Technology

What is the most appropriate role for technology in today's schools?
How should Marshall students be using technology to prepare for success in college?
What role should online and blended (combination of online and face-to-face) learning have within the Marshall experience?

Service Learning

How does service fit into the Marshall mission?
How can we best provide leadership opportunities for our students through service?
What is the best way to challenge students to find passion and purpose beyond themselves?
What types of connections should Marshall have within the community?

Experiential Learning

How do trips outside the walls of Marshall enhance the mission of the school?
What types of trips should be a part of the Marshall experience in the future?
What role do trips have in furthering the core academic program within a given grade level?

After the meeting, our group leaders will take your ideas to the faculty focus groups ... who will make recommendations to the administration at the end of the school year.

In April, look for the Hilltopper Magazine, where we will publish the broad framework of the Strategic Plan along with some of the plans to keep Marshall in the forefront of educational innovation in the region.

Tough Times

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 12:28:30 EST

The local, regional and national press has featured many recent news stories with a common theme: As cities and states wrestle with unprecedented budget problems, legislators and school districts are being forced to try all sorts of things to save money.

A National Public Radio story focused on the easiest way to cut costs: increase classroom sizes. According to the NPR story, half the nation's districts expect to increase class sizes to help offset some of the coming financial pressures. Former DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee's suggestion is to put more kids into the best teachers' classrooms, therefore at least lessoning the impact on learning.

A recent New York Times article highlighted how some Florida districts are placing students into massive "learning labs" against their will in order to keep class sizes down.

Closer to home, the Star Tribune reports on a recent state legislative proposal to freeze public school teacher pay for two years to deal with the third year in a row of flat state funding ... especially as future increases look unlikely.

Finally, here in Duluth our own DNT printed a Fergus Falls editorial requesting that the state provide funding numbers earlier this year ... to allow districts like Duluth to know their budgets before late summer, when adjustments to staffing are much more difficult for the schools and the individual teachers.

Here at Marshall, we found ourselves in the news this week as the results of our conversations about the cost of our girls hockey cooperative with Proctor and Hermantown. As the numbers of girls playing hockey dwindle at our school, the per-student cost of the program has become prohibitive. With our projection of having only one girl in the program next year, we could not justify paying a third of the overall cost of the program -- as the other much bigger schools are insisting. Despite our offer to run the cooperative in a way similar to Grand Rapids-Greenway, where there is a proportional cost based on participation, the other districts have turned us down.

As much as we've enjoyed our partnership and would love to keep girls hockey at Marshall, everybody today is faced with tough choices.

Risk Taking

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 19:14:44 EST

Friday was a double-header. I went cross-country skiing with our fifth graders immediately followed by a session as the subject for a high school drawing class.

The last time I cross-country skied would have been when I was in middle school, and by a stroke of misfortune (for my ego), our intrepid parent blogger Kim Kosmatka was on hand to witness the event. You can see me in the blue pants below, doing my best not to run over any of the kids.

Thankfully, Kim had her lens trained on the kids when I took my spills, and none of them involved running over the legs of a fifth grader.

As we made our rounds through the Marshall trails, I was impressed with the gumption of the students -- many of whom had never skied before. We'd go around the corner, several would fall. The better skiers would move around them. A few would stop and offer a hand or a suggestion. We'd go down a hill; a few more would hit the snow ... usually face first, legs akimbo. There were a few tears and a lot of "I am awful at this." But nobody quit.

While the drawing class was a bit quieter and a lot warmer, the atmosphere among the kids was surprisingly similar. Many were out of their comfort zone and felt very self-conscious about their skills. They had only 45-minutes to sketch me and were all working hard. Again, I heard a lot of "I am awful at this" -- along with a lot of "Wow, that is good." I've put one sample of a student's work below.

I was a bit nervous about skiing, but I don't think there would be any way I would have been able to sketch a portrait -- unless a Mr. Smiley drawing would count.

As I walked out of the art room Friday, I could not help but reflect on the amount of risk taking our students do everyday -- be it in math, writing, art, or PE. We are continually pushing them to explore new frontiers and to face failure along the way. I don't think they would be nearly as inclined to take those risks had they been worried about mockery from their peers or unrealistic expectations from their teachers. Thankfully, in both cases there was a level of tutoring and encouragement that supported risk taking rather than punished it. Kudos, all.

Through the Middle to the Top

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 20:20:52 EST

This past weekend my wife and I spent time reviewing the academic accomplishments and second semester goals with both of our middle school children. Each discussion lasted about 40 minutes, where our kids reviewed content or projects from each subject area, showed us evidence of their learning, and then discussed what they liked and learned through the process. The meetings ended with a reflection for child and parents alike.

After these "student-led" conferences, I got to thinking about how far they have come from elementary school and just where they will be headed when they get to high school and beyond.

Take a minute and see if you can guess which of the following factor is the best predictor of success in college?

Family background (gender, socio-economic, race ...)
8th-grade achievement in core academic courses
High school coursework
High school GPA

According to a 2009 study by ACT, success in middle school is by far the highest predictor of later academic achievement. In other words, learning how to learn in early grades is fundamental for future success -- no matter how many advantages you may have at birth or how good your high school may be.

Three factors that the study found that were closely linked to being on a solid academic track were: good work habits, orderly conduct, and positive relationships with school personnel.

Many people approach middle school as a holding tank ... herd them into big groups and keep them out of sight until they mature a bit and are ready for the real work of high school. Unfortunately, as the ACT research shows, this approach is the exact opposite of what works for learning.

It was refreshing to hear my children talk intelligently about what they were doing in middle school, especially in light of these crucial findings.

Change and Creativity

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:41:30 EST

A few years ago I had the good fortune of listening to a keynote presentation by Sir Ken Robinson, author of Out Our Minds: Learning to be Creative and The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything.

The focus of that earlier presentation was on the need for changes in our educational system to keep up with the new realities in our national and international economies. One of Sir Ken's major thesis was that our educational system stifles the very creativity that we need to foster in order to compete globally.

Below is a link to a very creative visualization of another Sir Ken presentation. Worth watching for the visual representation alone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U.

Advanced Science

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:09:07 EST

In a recent note home to MS parents, I highlighted some exciting changes in our science program for next school year.

The core class for next year's ninth graders will be biology, rather than physical science. The following year, in 10th grade, those students will take chemistry (rather than biology). The effect of this move will be an acceleration of our science program by one year, making higher level courses more available to both juniors and seniors. Where past juniors would take chemistry, they will now be able to take physics, AP Chem, or AP Bio. Senior year is then open to another AP course or science elective.

This sequence will put Marshall students one year ahead of students in the public schools, and our faculty are working on updates to the curriculum that will help students from other schools transition into a more rigorous program. Science teachers in the MS have already begun altering their curriculum to prepare students for the new sequence.

Why the change?

To put it bluntly: The competition in math and science is intense, and we want our students to be prepared.

The graphic above (from Education Week), highlights the rising popularity of advanced level math and science courses.

A recent study by Harvard professors Philip Sadler and Gerhard Sonnert examined whether students who take more demanding courses in high school have an edge over their peers.

The answer, they found, was: Yes.

After controlling for differences in students' academic backgrounds, students who passed AP science courses did better in their college level science courses than those who did not take AP courses.

Therefore, giving Marshall students an opportunity to take AP courses in their junior and senior years should not only assist in getting into college but also help them succeed once they are there.

College "Counseling"

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:11:22 EST

On November 11, Marshall hosted a "Ready to Launch" event to talk about what to expect out of a high school experience. A good portion of that discussion featured our Director of College Counseling, Katie Voller-Berdan. Katie works with students starting in grade 10, developing a relationship with them that spans several years -- allowing a much more personalized experience senior year. Katie also represents Marshall nationally, serving on several state and national boards for college counselors.

She discussed trends in college admissions with parents at Ready to Launch, information she also shares with other parent groups during evening sessions held throughout the school year. Among the biggest trend, she said, was the rising volume of applications received by competitive colleges. This is made possible (and sometimes encouraged) by the use of the Common Application. This trend means there are more applications for fewer spots, and makes it even more important for students to know themselves and target "the right school."

Katie also shared some tips on how students can increase their chances of getting recognized by their first-choice college.

Minnesota Public Radio did a piece this week on college admissions, featuring a writer at the New York Times and the director of college counseling at the Blake School in Minneapolis. In their conversation, they covered many of the same observations shared by Katie a few weeks ago. Good to know they are on the same page as our expert!

Unfortunately, it seems that for most students the college admissions process is not a good one. In a recent survey done by Public Agenda and reported in a New York Times story last March, it was revealed that most people think poorly of their college counselor, saying that most made them feel "like I was just another face in the crowd." An even larger group, two-thirds, felt that their counselors were unable to help students decide what college was right for them.

I cannot imagine a more apt term than "counseling" to describe what is needed during this very stressful time in a young person's life.

The Marshall Melting Pot

Sat, 11 Dec 2010 11:05:42 EST

In our recent community survey, we wanted to know a little bit more about the background of families that choose a Marshall education for their children. To get at this, we asked parents where they went to high school.

The results surprised us.

As you can see from the graphic above, almost 3/4 of our our parents report going to high school outside of Duluth. Only 11% are alumni of our school and only 16% went to HS in Duluth.

As we think about this data, it becomes clear that Marshall provides a valuable service to families who come to Duluth to work. We hear those stories anecdotally, about the families that finalized their decision to move here when they learned about Marshall, but this is the first hard evidence we have of the real scope of our parents' backgrounds.

Interestingly, the data also holds when we asked our faculty: with 75% reporting going to HS outside of Duluth.

Marshall is a bit of a melting pot, if you will, for our city and region.

We also believe that this diverse set of backgrounds and experiences help to broaden the minds of our students, who are heading into a complex and interconnected world.

Community First

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:52:42 EST

This year's student council themes include school tradition and community. On Friday this week, we will gather to celebrate a selfless individual whose dedication and generosity was an example of the Marshall mission in action.

In the early 1970s, Marshall teacher and coach Frank Napoli (pictured in the mid-1980s) organized the first Teacher Scholarship Spaghetti Dinner. Money raised at these events went to provide scholarship money to students who could not afford tuition. In addition to giving his time, Frank also gave financially to those less fortunate. His son tells stories about having to wear pants that were too small because dad was helping to subsidize tuition for other students.

After Frank's retirement in 1992, the event was renamed the Napoli Scholarship Dinner in honor of Frank's dedication to the school and to countless students over a 26-year career as teacher, coach, and Athletic Director at the school.

We are delighted to continue this event in 2010. We pay tribute to Frank and to the ideals of fellowship, community, and generosity that make Marshall such a special place.

Who would have thought that a plate of pasta could mean so much!

Innovation and College Prep

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 09:57:55 EST

In recent letter to parents of current 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th graders, I discussed Marshall's partnership with the Virtual High School for the 2011-2012 school year. Online learning is exploding in higher education, with the Babson Research Group reporting that the number of college students taking at least one online course grew from 12% to 25% from 2003 to 2008.

As a college preparatory school, the Marshall faculty feel it is essential to help students learn the necessary skills to be successful beyond high school. In the 21st century, this means exposing them to online coursework.

Importantly, we have partnered with the pioneer organization in online learning, VHS, which originally began with a $7M challenge grant from the US Department of Education. They continue to be the gold standard in training teachers to offer collaborative, effective online courses. The CEO of VHS, Liz Pape, was recently interviewed as part of a story on the NBC Nightly News that highlighted the advantages of integrating some online coursework within a traditional HS education.

I have worked with Liz and VHS for almost 10 years now. Last school year I taught an online philosophy course from London, England. Here is what I wrote about the program and those experiences:

"International schools are know for their dynamic student bodies, and we activity seek way to take advantage to the diversity in our classroom. In my Philosophy I course this semester that diversity was quickly evident from the bios posted on each student's homepage: one young woman is half Irish and half Portuguese, planning to go to medical school; another young lady who can code in 12 languages and loves physics and chemistry; a Japanese student who has lived in Korea and Texas; somebody who is reading Ayn Rand's the Fountainhead in his spare time; a senior who left her school to live in South Carolina and ride horses; a Filipino now living in Jersey City; a Dungeons and Dragons buff who is writing her own novel; a nationally competitive swimmer in Virginia; and a young woman who wants to go to college at McGill and study to become a veterinarian.

In the face-to-face environment of our schools, connecting these students is a matter of planning thoughtful activities in our classroom. But what if these students are physically located in Alaska, Kentucky, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Texas, New Jersey, and Virginia?

The is the reality of the Virtual High School, an online consortium of 662 schools around the United States and the world, including 61 international schools. VHS began from a challenge grant from the United States Department of Education and is now a thriving not-for-profit organization specializing in training teachers to develop highly interactive and dynamic online courses. The pedagogical approaches of VHS have been evaluated by the Stanford Research Institute, and the school has recently been accredited by the Middle States Commission on Secondary Education.

Strong student-teacher and student-student relationships are at the heart of any quality school. Fostering these relationships online takes special care, attention, and training. Without that, you are more likely to have an online course that is nothing more than an independent study -- a fresh branding of the old-style correspondence courses that are familiar to many international schools. During my training to teach my philosophy course, my VHS instructor modeled the interactive environment during a 10-week, research-based online course I took with a cohort of other teachers, all preparing their own courses to offer within the consortium. Our coursework included instruction on how to design online questions, model discussion boards, build online community, and collaborate effectively in a virtual environment.

Currently, my students are completing their first group projects, a study of the pre-Socratic philosophers. Later in the course, they will role-play a 'dinner party,' each taking the part of a famous philosopher. The guest of honor: God.

This year, there are more than 336 course sections in VHS. This dynamic offering is what first attracts many international schools. The ability to add philosophy, forensic science, Latin, engineering principles, and psychology to your course catalog is highly enticing. In addition to a wide array of semester-long elective courses, the school also offers a host of AP courses in art history, biology, calculus (AB and BC), computer science, economics, English literature, environmental science, European history, French, physics (B and C), psychology, Spanish, statistics, US history, and world history."

Our partnership with VHS ensures that our students will be in a program that puts quality first. For 2009-2010, students who took AP courses in VHS continued to outperform national averages, with pass rates in some courses above 90%.

Beyond pure online courses, the Marshall faculty are hard at working looking for ways to integrate the best of online tools into their face-to-face classrooms. A small group of faculty are studying the concept of hybrid or "blended" courses this spring. Research shows that this form of technology integration can boost student learning beyond traditional face-to-face classes or pure online classes.

We look forward to sharing more about VHS and our technology initiatives with our students and parents this spring.

Student Athletes

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 14:30:01 EST

With today's blustery snow, what better time to celebrate winter sports season. Tonight we gear up for a double-header of boys hockey and girls basketball here on campus.

Most will have already seen the great news about Marshall's Patrick Sheedy -- named a Duluth New's Tribune prep soccer player of the year. In other Marshall athletic news, you likely have not seen the recent story about Marshall alumni Chris Connolly. After graduating from Marshall, Chris went on to play in the United States Hockey League and has just been named co-captain at Boston University. He is profiled in this article in the BU student-run Daily Free Press.

While both young men rightly have been celebrated for their fine athletic skills, I also appreciated reading the stories behind the story. In Patrick's case, it was wonderful to see the newspaper note his wide range of talents and his strong academic abilities and ambitions. Chris, one learns, has been tapped to be a captain at BU not just for what he can do on the ice but for how he carries himself off the ice. He has been recognized for his strong values and leadership abilities.

In both of these stories, one learns a lot about these fine young men and (we hope) a bit of what Marshall might have helped nurture during their time on the Hill.

Congratulations to both of them, and to all our student athletes who are coming together at the beginning of our winter season.

Digital Lives

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 10:08:08 EST

In a conversation with some grade 8 boys yesterday, I asked them what they were going to do over the long Thanksgiving weekend. I got the usual answers about sports and sleeping in ... along with a heavy dose of "play video games" usually followed by something like "until my eyeballs fall out."

The topic of the digital lives of kids has been front and center for a while now, and deservedly so. It most recently made news again with an article in the New York Times headlined "Growing Up Digital, Wired For Distraction." This article focuses on our fears for the digital generation ... their distractedness and short attention spans. It makes for a scary read, and it will no doubt resonate well with many of today's parents.

The individual who coined the phrase "Growing Up Digital" is a fellow named Don Tapscott. Interestingly, he was not called by the NY Times reporter for comment. Tapscott's work is essential for anybody who follows trends in technology and technology education. Most importantly, he is a researcher and not just a storyteller. The picture of technology and youth, it turns out, is not nearly as scary as some would have you believe.

Technology is indeed having an impact on children's brain development -- mostly in positive ways. Research shows that kids today do not think in the "start at the beginning" linear way that we were taught. They jump around and often immerse themselves in an experience first. They wouldn't dream of reading the manual. Video games and the Internet help them learn how process things more quickly. They are more creative and often better at problem solving as well.

It is true, though, that "multitasking" is not necessarily good for you. Deep and creative thought requires extended concentration on a single thing. This is where adults need to help kids by setting limits and forcing extended work on one topic. We need to help them get into a good rhythm for studying. Tapscott's book has several great suggestions on how families can set up realistic expectations or limits for technology use.

For the most part though, the elements that kids pick up from their technology use are a great fit for what we talk about as essential skills for the 21st century: creativity, problem solving, collaboration, speed, and innovation. If you have a moment, it is well worth reading Tapscott's rebuttal to the New York Times. He offers a great summary of the research on this very important topic.

Who knows, it might also be interesting dinner conversation on Thanksgiving.

Procrastination

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 17:12:22 EST

Having just gotten around to reading bits of the October 11 New Yorker, I ran across a fascinating piece on procrastination written by James Surowiecki, which was his review of the book "Thief of Time," a collection of essays edited by Chrisoula Andreou and Mark D. White.

As a parent of adolescents, I find this topic to be very relevant -- whether its arguing about math homework or pushing more piano practice. Therefore, it is very reassuring to read economist George Ainslie describe procrastination as a "basic impulse" -- even as Surowiecki cites evidence that the problem is growing with modern times. According to a professor at the University of Calgary, the percentage of people who admit problems with procrastination quadrupled between 1978 and 2002.

In the growing field of behavioral economics, the study of procrastination is interesting because at its core is the question: Why do people do things that are clearly not in their best interests? A common example is the huge number of people who leave money on the table because they simply don't sign up for their company's matching 401(k) plan. This topic was a popular section in the recent book "Nudge."

Of course, not everything boils down to economics. In the field of ethics, Rushworth Kidder, author of "How Good People Make Tough Choices," calls some issues right vs right dilemmas. In the case of procrastination, it would be balancing between the perceived short-term good and perceived long-term good. In the mind of a kid, that is exactly what is at stake when you ask them to stop texting with a friend and get back to that essay. Short-term: Social relationships are important and my friend needs my advice; if I help them now, my day tomorrow will be better. Long-term: My essay won't write itself, and I need to finish early so I can ask my teacher for feedback so that I can get a good grade when the essay is returned a month from now. With kids, short-term usually wins because near-time is more valuable than far-time.

There is no magic bullet for convincing people to do what might be in their best interests, but Surowiecki does say evidence suggests that with practice we can strengthen the will power necessary to procrastinate less. In research cited in his book "Predictably Irrational" MIT psychologist Dan Ariely describes an experiment that gave college students options on setting essay deadlines in his classroom. Not surprisingly, students did not willingly pick the option that was logically more sound. Thankfully, Ariely found that students would respond positively if he set up systems to "nudge" them toward the better option by explaining clearly why a different path was in their best interest.

For students in secondary schools, teachers know that this often means breaking tasks down into manageable chunks. Concrete, do-able steps can make a big project much more likely to get done on time -- and creates a safety net to determine if something goes wrong along the way. Students often struggle more in higher grades and college when those built-in safety measures begin to go away.

I'm not sure what can be done for us adults.

You Gave to the Max

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:25:45 EST

A huge thanks to the 112 people who contributed to Marshall's Annual Fund during the Give to the Max Day. Amazingly, your generosity put Marshall 21st on the list of Greater Minnesota not-for-profits. Together, you raised $15,703. When combined with a generous, anonymous matching gift, the total raised yesterday was $17,703. Incredible.

More importantly, however, we are delighted to see a growing number of people make Marshall a charity of choice. The per-student cost of a Marshall education far exceeds tuition, and money raised for our annual fund allows us to offer a wide-ranging and comprehensive educational program. Without this additional revenue, many aspects of what makes a Marshall education special would not be possible.

As great as yesterday was, there is more do be done. Currently, a dedicated group of student volunteers is working with our Development Office on our annual phone-a-thon. As you might expect, students are the best ambassadors for what a Marshall education is all about. If they give you a ring, please hear them out.

Of course, while the dollars help us move our program forward, there are other ways we measure the success of our fundraising. The most important metric is participation levels.

Our current parent participation for 2010-2011 is 16% -- matching the level for all of 2009-2010 (and it is only November!). The average percentage participation level for independent schools in the Midwest region is 51%.

Our current alumni level is 2%, compared to the Midwest average of 15% -- however, as Marshall is more than 100 years old, it takes a lot of alumni donations to move this number. Yesterday, 38 alumni gave to the Give to the Max drive, from 23 different classes (Class of '52 all the way to the Class of 2010) and 9 different states. Hilltopper Pride is alive and well.

We are so very grateful to all those who have given -- and if you are still contemplating a gift, we look forward to hearing from you!

Bullying

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:15:23 EST

Dr. Walter Roberts, an anti-bullying expert from Minnesota State University-Mankato, stopped by the office today for a talk with Karen Snyder, Heather Anderson, and myself. He was in town to talk with the Miler-Dwan Foundation, and we were delighted to spend an hour with him sharing information that impacts parents and schools alike. He is the author of "Bullying from Both Sides" and is a frequent speaker at schools across the state.

Dr. Roberts directed our attention to a just released study on national trends that paints a troubling picture of the culture in our nation's schools. Nearly half of the nation's high school students say they were a victim of bullying in the past year. A full 33% say that violence is a big problem at their school and 24% say they do not feel safe.

With a such a bleak landscape, where do you start? While the climate varies greatly at different schools around the city and state, Dr. Roberts said that all organizations need to be open and purposeful about addressing issues of student culture. Too often, he said, school leaders would rather duck the difficult or messy conversation to avoid upsetting students, faculty, or parents. Unfortunately, he said, when you look the other way it can often encourage even more disrespectful or disruptive behavior in the future.

He echoed the same advice for parents. Setting clear expectations for children may involve difficult conversations now, but those boundaries are exactly what kids need (even if they don't know it). Part of their job is to test limits ... so we need to give them something clear and concrete to bump up against. If we do not, then risky behavior can quickly escalate into dangerous behavior.

Our student issues may seem mild in comparison those that make the headlines today, but Dr. Roberts visit helped reiterate the importance of continued conversations about expectations as part of a healthy school culture.

School Size

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:49:54 EST

In a comment on our recent community survey, a parent wrote:

"Truthfully, there is plenty of room for more students at Marshall. A healthy number for Marshall would be 600-700 students."

Historically, the school has been larger. When it first opened on the Rice Lake Road campus in 1963, it had almost 800 students. At that time, the school was Catholic. Since the school became independent in 1972, it has seen enrollment ebb and flow -- but never approach those highs of the 1960s (sorry for the bad pun).

Over the past decade, one way we have evaluated the size of the school is by measuring the percentage of students at Marshall in relation to the number of students in the Duluth public schools. By this account, we have continued to do quite well. In the graph below, you can see that a decade ago the school had 566 students and a 6.78% market share. This year, we opened with 420 students and had a 7% market share. Marshall has indeed gotten smaller, as the overall student population in Duluth has shrunk.

Another metric we might use is the average market share for independent schools. Nationally, the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) says that 1% of US students are enrolled in independent schools. By that measure, our high school enrollment should be 162 students. Instead, we currently have 235 students on the campus. By this metric, we look to be exceeding national standards by a wide margin.

To build on that measurement, we recently compared Marshall to a few other cities in the United States that, like Duluth, have only one independent school. The cities we looked at were Omaha, Nebraska, Boise, Idaho, an Hunstville, Alabama. How big are the independent schools in these areas compared to the average 1% market share?

You can see from the chart above that by this metric, that the demand for a Marshall education is stronger than in all three of our comparison markets. (Even though the size of the school in Hunstville is bigger than Marshall, the overall population is much, much bigger than Duluth.)

We have seen a huge uptick in demand this year, and we are delighted that we have been able to make room for more Hilltoppers.

I don't know if this totally answers the initial question, but it does help us get a handle on the question: "How are we doing on enrollment?" The answer there is: Pretty great.

Class Visits

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:23:47 EST

The best parts of my job are when I am able to get into classrooms and observe the work between students and our faculty. In the last two days I had the opportunity to visit classes in history, Latin, art, math and science. Needless to say, it was a busy but very rewarding few days.

Despite the variety of disciplines and the ages of the students (from sixth-grade to seniors), there were a few common themes I observed. I was particularly impressed with the high level of student engagement in each classroom. In each setting and no matter what was happening, students were eager to participate and excited to share. Of course, this won't matter much if the teacher has not set up an environment that encourages participation, fosters curiosity, and rewards risk taking. In two days, I observed students discussing the rise of the US as a world power, diagraming sentences in Latin, analyzing the symbolism present in artwork about nature, building rollercoasters, and comparing cell structures to human communities.

In each of these cases, our students were being asked to draw connections between material they had been studying and think a bit deeper about how it might relate to something else. Students were eager to share their understandings with the teacher and each other, and everybody's participation was expected.

In one particular moment, I walked by a class of sixth-grade scientists who were building rollercoasters out of foam and duct tape. They have taken over half of the MS commons with their projects stacked on tables and chairs across the great room. It looked like a neat activity, but I wondered if it was more of a craft than a science lab. The kids looked like they were having too much fun to really be learning. To check this out, I stopped and asked one boy what scientific principals he was analyzing with this project. He responded without hesitation: motion, friction, and kinetic energy. His friends nodded.

OK, then.

We like to say that Marshall is a community of achievement-oriented students, where it is "cool to like school" -- and my observations this past few days confirmed how transformative that environment can be when applied across an entire institution.

Mission

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 10:57:50 EST

We are getting ready to close out the community survey that has been running the past few weeks. Thank you to the more than 200 parents who took the time to fill out the questionnaire. Above is an early data point on parents' collective thoughts about the core values in the mission statement. My takeaway: Every word in a mission statement matters, but Marshall's core competency has been and always will be the best academic preparation in the region.

Our faculty are particularly fond on the phrase "intellectual curiosity" and ranked that number one. This phrase highlights our goal to nurture each student's love of learning and provide them with the skills needed to explore and challenge new ideas. In a world where the amount of information doubles every 18 months, learning how to learn (and liking it) is essential for future success.

If those two values serve as the bookends for our list, the pages inside are filled with essential chapters on how to live your life. The values of respect, compassion, integrity, and self-discipline are directly taught in our classrooms and advisories, as well as on our athletic fields and our music classrooms. Author Henry James, talking with his nephew in 1902, once said: "Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind."

So, I guess an apology is in order. Asking you to pick just one word from our mission statement as the most important was not kind.

Parenting Forum

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 07:13:19 EST

We had a good turnout at last night's parent forum: "The Joys and Challenges or Raising a Middle Schooler." Local psychologists ElizaBeth Carver and Rick Gertsema were on hand to lead two breakout sessions, one each focused on raising boys and raising girls. In his talk, Rick outlined the three values that should be behind any family rules: love, respect, and honesty. He described a method for families to create natural consequences for children who break the family rules. Elizabeth's talk was wide ranging, within a general theme of promoting positive family structures. She highlighted how staying engaged during the adolescent years is essential for healthy child development. The two groups came together at the end of the night, where the discussion focused on the appropriate place of technology in the lives of pre-teens and teens. Both emphasized that the adults should not be afraid to set rules for monitoring technology use, within a transparent and caring climate.

Role Models

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:30:55 EST

Even after a restful weekend, I am still buzzing about last week's Homecoming activities. Our Student Council and student body put a tremendous amount of time and energy into building school spirit in fun and creative ways. I have to say the first ever Duct Tape Day was inspired.

My two highlights, though, took place on Friday.

The first was the Stuco-organized Pep Assembly at the end of the day. While the band provided music to match the occasion, our students participated in some old-fashioned school zaniness. It was fun to see the faces of the middle school students as they watched our upperclassmen and participated, full-throated, in the cheering contests. They were literally vibrating as they left the gym.

At the football game afterward, I was struck with a sense of pride as a group of our fifth-grade students approached the seniors, who had parked a "spirit" truck down at the corner of the field. Instead of shooing them away, the seniors welcomed our littlest ones into the fold, giving them fist bumps and even sharing their sodas. It was a gesture that lasted only a few minutes -- but for the fifth graders it was a moment they will remember for a long time. Older kids, their role models, took time to talk and share.

We rightfully work hard to create unique and meaningful experiences within our Middle School and High Schools, but weeks like Spirit Week can show you how each separate group can be positively influenced by each other. These are interactions that just can't take place in a bigger, stand-alone middle or high school.

Worlds Apart?

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:47:46 EST

On Sunday morning I had the opportunity to walk through the Dharavi slum, home to more than one million of Mumbai's estimated 20 million people. Dharavi has the distinction of being Asia's largest slum. It is famous more recently for being the home of some of the actors from the Academy Award winning film, Slumdog Millioinare.

We began our three-hour walk in the recycling section. This is the area where much of the trash in the city goes to be manually broken down, sorted, and repackaged for sale elsewhere. In one small "room," young men squatted in front of piles of plastic, carefully sorting through each piece and placing it in the appropriate bucket. As if to highlight a task worthy of Sisyphus, the young men sat facing piles of plastic-filled burlap sacks that stretched to the top of the 20-foot ceiling. Paid the equivalent of $3 a day to work 12-hour shifts in the windowless room, more than one worker had a cellphone sitting in the dirt at his feet.

Our walk continued through the pottery (pictured above), textile, and leather sections of the slum. In each area, workers were happy to talk to us (through our guide) and explain what they did. We saw women with machetes skinning the hide off goat flesh for manufacture into leather goods, a young man standing over a vat of acid melting plastic into pellets for manufacture into buckets, and young women in the streets rolling dough into papadum that would dry in the warm sun and later be sold to restaurants and shops around the city.

The later part of our tour took us from the manufacturing to the residential hubs of the slum. In this area was a complete city, full of small shops, temples, and homes -- all served with only a few public toilets in the center of each section.

Having been to several parts of India in the past, I was most amazed that by the end of nearly three hours of walking we had not been approached by anybody for money. As we drifted through each section of the slum, it was clear that we were in a living, breathing city all its own -- very much unlike the tourist areas where I recall being besieged by beggars.

Our tour ended in a little dirt courtyard where a group of children were flying kites. After only a few moments, we were approached by a gaggle of young boys. Surely, this was the moment I had been expecting. As they drew near, one boy pulled something out of his pocket. It was a cell phone. "Can I take your picture?" he asked nervously of my friend. Another boy approached the 13-year-old in our group and asked if he could exchange Facebook names. In an area with two public schools for one million residents, he told us he was fortunate enough to have a place in one of the few private schools ... a sacrifice his parents make to the tune of $6 a month. He said he is hoping to become an engineer. The next day, the two had "friended" each other online.

International Baccalaureate

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 06:26:02 EST

The American School in Bombay offers the International Baccalaureate program. The IB is often chosen by schools as an alternative to offering individual Advanced Placement courses. Whereas the AP is a set of exams, the IB is a program of study that contains internal and external assessments. In the IB, some of the work that students do on labs, projects and essays during the school year counts toward their final grade. With the AP, the final grade is a reflection of the score on a single test.

In addition, to receive the IB diploma student must write a compressive research paper, participate in athletics, and complete a minimum number of community service hours. The IB Learner Profile, from the IB web site, is shown above.

While individual students can sign up and take an AP test, even if they have not taken an AP course, schools must be evaluated and approved to offer the IB program. This is a similar process to the accreditation that Marshall receives every seven years from the Independent Schools Association of Central States. There are currently more than 3,000 schools in 139 counties, including more than 1,000 schools in the US.

Colleges and universities view the IB as a solid and sometimes better alternative to the AP: A signal that a student has taken the most challenging, internationally-minded program possible. Click here to read a recent NY Times article on the program.

American School of Bombay

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 18:57:31 EST

I visited the American School of Bombay yesterday. ASB is a school of 700 students, PK-12. They exist to serve expatriate families that come to work in India, and the average stay at the school is 2.6 years. As most of the families who come have slightly younger children, their lower school comprises half the student population. There MS and HS programs are slightly smaller than Marshall, with 40-60 students at each grade level. Americans make up roughly one third of the student body, Indians slightly less, and third-country nationals comprise the rest. The school operates with the International Baccalaureate curriculum within all three divisions of the school, and is accredited in the United States. Most students go to the US for college.

The 700-student body is housed in a 2-acre complex in the city. An "urban campus" if you will. This presents many challenges. For example, the school gym has to double for a theater. However, an outdoor swimming pool greatly enhances their PE program. Space is at a premium in Mumbai, a city of nearly 20 million people. Land prices here are among the most expensive in the world.

I am here to work with the school on the development of their strategic plan. We will be reviewing their core values, mission statement, learning objectives, and strategic objectives. More on that in another post. The mission of the school is: "We inspire all of our students to continues inquiry, empowering them with the skills, courage, optimism, and integrity to pursue their dreams and enhance the lives of others."

The outdoor cafeteria is below:

Security

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 11:33:25 EST

Arrived safe and sound in Mumbai early yesterday morning. Despite an arrival time of 11 p.m., traffic was bumper-to-bumper from the airport to the hotel. While most of the recent global security warnings have been centered on Europe, things remain tight here as well. Four people searched our car (including the undercarriage and the trunk) before letting us to the drop-off at the hotel. All bags have to go through a scanner before they are allowed in the lobby, and all people go through an airport body scanner as well. Most of the precautions went into place after hotels were targeted in November, 2008. Above is a photo from the window of my hotel room. The entire area is an emerging business park.

International Assembly

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:49:16 EST

Monday morning the school gathered to welcome our student visitors from Petrozavodsk, Russia. The city has been a Duluth Sister City since 1987, and Marshall is hosting 11 students and two faculty members for the next two weeks. We also had a chance to formally welcome our 12 Marshall exchange students this year, who join us from Germany, Austria, Ecuador, Brazil, Turkmenistan, Iraq, China, and Korea. A diverse group indeed!

The first phrase in the Marshall mission "is to educate students to become global citizen." Today was a great day to see how that mission comes to life.

Tomorrow I will leave for a weeklong visit to Mumbai, India. I will be doing some strategic planning work with the American School of Bombay (http://www.asbindia.org). I hope to get a few blog entries in on the road.

Here comes the Blog

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 11:03:01 EST

I have to admit that I was quite surprised to read in the New York Times that only 11% of Twitter users are aged between 12-17. The gist of the story was that many of the social media that are currently making headlines are not being adopted by kids but by much older individuals. Rather than tweet or use Facebook, it would appear that the preferred form of communication for kids is the text message. Teens, according to this Pew report are quickly closing the gap on cell phone ownership with their parents … and therefore are perhaps much more hungry to try out their new toys.

It is only fitting, then, that at age 43 I begin a blog on the Marshall web site that is most likely to be read by parents and faculty. If I want to reach the kids, I guess I'll have to text.

Delighted to be at Marshall

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 11:02:14 EST

On behalf of myself and my family, let me say that we all are delighted to be joining the Marshall community. During my campus visits, I was struck immediately by the warm and welcoming atmosphere of the school. While I was well aware of the school's strong academic reputation, I was most impressed with what the students had to say about their experiences at Marshall. They spoke passionately and proudly about their school. They appreciate the small class sizes, the supportive yet challenging atmosphere, and the ability to participate in a wide variety of sports and activities. They were most impressive, however, when asked about their teachers. Without hesitation, they all spoke about the dedication of the Marshall faculty as the school's greatest asset. They all could recall a time when a faculty member or coach went that extra mile to help them through a challenging moment: be it academically, socially, or emotionally.

As a school leader, it is clear to me that Marshall has all the ingredients to be a great place: a bold vision, committed trustees, talented faculty, compassionate students, and a rich tradition serving the community. As a parent, it is clear to me that Marshall is a place where my children can thrive. This is a winning combination, and I look forward to adding my contributions to this special place very shortly.