Turning high-poverty schools into high performing school part 1

William H. Parrett and Kathleen M. Budge's book, Turning High-Poverty Schools into High-Performing Schools, had me think about what specific steps we can and do enact to support our children living in poverty. I just finished Ed Week's report that identified 40% of American children as living in poverty. Many communities have far higher numbers than that. The one I work in has a 65% rate.

Their chart on pages 160-1 details practices that address the needs of underachieving students living in poverty. I have reproduced the first two columns and added my thought in the third.

Effective  practice	Examples	My world
Create a bond between students and school Foster a sense of belonging	Class meetings Advisories Athletics and clubs	Restorative justice circles work toward community building. In many places clubs and sports are only activities for a few. The participators are involved, but large swaths of the student body are not. Bussing, home commitments, and expense are impediments for many
Teach, model and provide experiences that develop creative and critical thinking skills	Higher order questions Socratic seminars Multidisciplinary units	In NY our regents exams (graduation requirements) are full of application level questions so the good teachers use them when they teach these courses, but the students resist them and perform poorly. Multidisciplinary units are decreasingly common as students go up the grades as subjects become increasingly siloed. This is good teaching, but often many challenges abound.
Provide opportunities to build short-term working memory	Mnemonic devices Multisensory instruction	We just finished our semester with midterms last week. In a community circle I threw out the question- hony w many students studied outside of school. I received many curious glances as only two students in the group of 35 said yes. They don’t see the need or know how. These kids would bomb college if they went now. We need to generate knowledge of how to do it and motivation for why to do it.
Provide specific opportunities for the development of social skills.	Cooperative learning Peer tutoring mentoring	The mother of a child of a child with ASD in me says how about direct instruction. My child and others like him need direct  support in how to function in society. SEL (social emotional learning) is all the rage now. I do not understand why more schools do not have more programs. Restorative justice processes involve teaching these skills as do PBIS focused programs. English class however offers a fantastic opportunity to discuss social skills through literature- no student or specific event is the target so it is less charged and they are more cold when they examine behavior and  use perspective.
Access and build on prior knowledge to expand knowledge	Brainstorming, Semantic mapping Autobiographical activities Advance organizers	I go back to my pre-service instruction when we visit an urban school. We were going to work in the classrooms, but first had an intro to the building by the principal. She lived 45 minutes away in a rural community. She introduced the idea that some of her students had never seen stars. She would bring kids to her home to see farm animals, stars and campfires. Teachers assume kids know these ideas, and many do, but some do not. Brainstorming alone does not build on prior knowledge, we need to find ways to link where we are going to their lives. Some teachers I have worked with are geniuses at this. KWL charts capitalize on this idea. Nonfiction videos, field trips and picture books- even for our high school kids- help build the knowledge we need for academic success.
Mediate and scaffold learning experiences	Reciprocal teaching Think alouds Visual organizers Guided instruction	In  some ways this is so strange that it needs to be said. Marie Clay’s direct instruction could be highlighted here. These ideas have been around for decades, we just rename them and send them out again.
Personalize based upon diverse learning needs	Learning styles, multiple intelligences Differentiated instruction RTI	The research does not really support the first two as ways to improve achievement. Differentiated instruction is useful, but requires time to implement. We run into resource challenges- time, staff and expertise- to do these things well. Personalized learning is a current catch phrase. Much of the research around it does not support its use. This is a feel good.
Accelerate and enrich rather than remediate	Talent development College prep for all Arts education	As a parent of a gifted child, this one concerns me. She specifically selected some of her high school classes because the students in them would be decent at playing school and not interfere with the activities of the classroom. Escalante was able to get his kids to pass calculus not just because of the work he did in class, but because they stayed after, came in late and attended on Saturday. Unfortunately many places and people cannot support this level of intensity. In the rural district I work in, the transportation becomes a real impediment. How do we support kids who need to be home to work on the farm chores or child care duties? Scaffolding for success in important, but the many impediments need to be identified and countered.
Actively engage students in learning experiences for authentic, meaningful purposes	Project based learning, authentic assessment	This works better in some areas than others. skillful guiding of a class working on projects to learn both the required content for the state tests art the end of the year and authentic experiences is challenging. Lecture is efficient delivery of instruction. Projects take time. Finding ways to build in authentic choice is challenging for secondary staff trying to prepare for final exams.
Connect physical activity, exercise and motor development to learning	PE Sensory motor labs	Some research suggests that daily activity increases achievement independent of anything else. Other research suggests that for kids with ADHD, daily aerobic activity can help them control their bodies at least as well as medication can. Our kids spend too long sitting and staring at screens. They need to get up, rev up their engines and get the blood to flow to their brains. Boys in particular need exercise and movement embedded in their school day. Just about all kids would benefit from daily exercise.
Provide learning experiences that help students envision their future and foster hope	Service learning Community-based internships mentoring	While these are good ideas, just witnessing them in the short-term does not allow students to see themselves differently. Parents who tell their kids what they have is what they’ll get are hard to counteract. This needs to be a movement in the community, not just school. The community needs to see their children as capable of great things. This has to start with families when they are young. Immigrants who come to this country want a better life for their kids. Our generational poor need that optimism as well.

To me it seems that we do many of these things on a daily basis, so why are we  not more successful. I think the answer to that question lies in the lack of systematic implementation and belief in our kids. If we can more deliberately use more of these ideas perhaps we can better meet the needs of our kids struggling with poverty.

Myths of poverty

The school I am currently working at has a poverty rate of 65%. It is, according to state demographics 87% white and rural. It is also, not unsurprisingly, underperforming. 29 % of the grades 3-8 students are proficient in ELA and 39% in math. It has an 87% graduation rate. Not a stellar school, but also not one of the worst in the state. Because they identify as a high poverty school, I began reading William H. Parrett and Kathleen M. Budge’s book, Turning High Poverty Schools into High Performing Schools.

Part of the beginning is a dispelling of poverty myths. I find it interesting because these ideas are so prevalent in our society today. I have taken the myths identified and looked at them through a more personal lens.

Myth- Poverty is an issue for people of color.

Where I work clearly demonstrates the problem with this idea. I, a white lady, grew up in poverty as the daughter of two college educated people in the suburbs. Poverty is clearly everywhere and affects all.

Myth- Government assistance gets people out of poverty.

My son has ASD. He is Medicaid and SSDI eligible. Consequently, he cannot have over $2000 in assets. He has a car he bought with back payments. When this car goes, how will he buy a new one? He cannot save money he might have left over at the end of the month. (Actually now with the ABLE accounts this is not strictly true, but for years it has been.) He uses his car to go to work (over 50 hours per week at minimum wage), which generates enough money that he receives no SSDI. We have put in place a system that encourages him to spend his entire income rather than save. When his car dies, how will he replace it and go to work? There are no buses where we live. The assistance is not helping him get out of poverty, it is helping maintain his poverty. Other people get caught in the I have to work, but do not earn enough to pay for childcare, so I do not work cycle. Our system consistently puts people in a no win cycle, rather than helping them out of the pit where they are.

Myth- People in poverty abuse drugs and alcohol at a higher rate than others.

Alcohol abuse is 10% higher in employed people than unemployed people. Prescription opioid abuse in higher in lower income brackets. Overall rates are the same; the drug of choice is different. (https://willingway.com/income-drug-alcohol-abuse/)

Myth- Poor people have a poor work ethic.

Again, my son is an excellent case in point. He works over 50 hours per week to earn a living: two part time jobs, neither of which provide any benefits. He rarely takes a day off. He has a good work ethic, just like many other working poor. Data suggests the working poor actually work more hours than their wealthier counterparts.

Myth- Education, which brings people out of poverty, is equally available.

If the fact that your zip code is a better determinant of your chance of academic success than anything else, nothing can persuade you. Schools in poorer areas tend to have higher staff turn over and  student absenteeism and lower access to health care. Our poorer students do not need an equal amount spent on them; they might need substantially more. In the town I grew up in (middle class suburb), graphing calculators were on the school supply list. In the school I work, they are in the math classrooms. Students do not have this tool to do homework outside of school the way they do in more affluent areas. The 20% staff turnover rate far exceeds the state average of 11%. When you constantly have an influx of new staff, results are not as good. I remember talking to students from a NYC school who talked about not having pencils or paper because neither the school nor the families could afford to provide them. For everyone who whines about not having a 1:1 device program (a program with highly variable results when looking at impact on achievement), think about those of us who struggle to lay our hands on devices to share between classes and those in other places who do not have wi-fi at all. All schools are not created equal.

 

Myth- Parents of students in poverty are uninvolved in education because they do not value it.

As a PTA leader, I have talked to many, many parents. They want a good education for their children. There are cultural groups that do not expect to have parent involvement in school- that is the purview of the teachers. Some parents had truly awful school experiences and cannot face the idea of going into a school. Many more, however, find the school schedule a challenge. If you work between 8 and 3, you are in direct conflict with school time. Banks finally caved on bank hours and are open late at least one afternoon and one weekend day per week. Imagine not being able to take a phone call. One of my son’s employers forbids cell phones on employee bodies during work hours. He cannot take a call or respond. During his breaks he can, but they are short and strictly regulated blocks of time. He is hourly. If he were to take off for something, he would not be paid. Many parents are in the same boat. Unpaid time means unpaid bills.

Few of my children’s teachers ever called after hours. Messages were often left for me to respond to at some point. Often I responded by email because that would be a way teachers could respond when they were able. Many teachers will email afterhours, but fewer will make that evening phone call. Although we think of high speed internet as ubiquitous, I have many families without it at their homes. Email is not a great way to communicate if you cannot retrieve the messages.

Many parents just do not know what role we expect them to play in educating their child. Do we want them to supervise homework, ensure it is correct and help the kids complete it? Do we want them to read to and with their kids every day? 14% of adults have a below basic literacy level. Many parents do not have the skills to support content area as kids approach high school. Do we want them to come in and share a party or special event or to volunteer at an activity? How are we facilitating that? One principal I knew about wanted parents to come in and volunteer but resisted providing a safe place for their belongs like coats and purses while in the building or convenient parking at the program. Do we allow them to park near the door they can use to enter the building or must they walk all around the building in the rain or sleet or snow to volunteer or attend a meeting? Do we offer things at various times to accommodate schedules? Do we have plans for transporting families to school for activities? Do we have plans for what to do with kids while parents are “involved?”  I worked in one school for students with significant disabilities. These kids could not be left alone, even if they were over 12. Most babysitters will not work with special needs populations, especially large teenage boys who need physical supports or interventions. How are they to come to the meeting or program? Parents of students living in poverty may not be able to afford child care for a meeting or school event. Are we going to look funny at my son who shouts at the end of a performance earlier announced to be about an hour, “Your time is up. You need to be done now.” even though he was thoroughly enjoying the activity? (True story) Do we put catches with things? If you come to open house and get your card stamped by your child’s classroom teacher you can have a free cookie, dinner, or raffle ticket. Is the notice sent out in a language that the parent understands? Just because the family speaks a different language at home does not mean they can read it fluently. 

We need to examine how we welcome parents and families, what our expectations are and what we do to communicate those expectations to our families. Otherwise, we are the ones with barriers to entrance. As the ones who want the cooperation, we need to make the most. A major point of the text is that each community must evaluate their needs profile. Problems in one area are not the problems of all geographies. With an open mind we need to identify our beliefs and how they support barriers so that we can tear down those walls.

How to fail at almost everything and still win big

Many people are familiar with Scott Adams' Dilbert cartoons. His nonfiction works cover business topics with the same humor as his cartoons. I listened to his audiobook, How to Succeed at almost Everything and Still Win Big. He tells anecdotes from his life to highlight his ideas. His overarching theme is to focus on systems not goals. Systems include mindsets and processes rather than a focus on the big picture.

The overall system for achieving success is to focus on diet first and then exercise because this will provide you with the energy to be creative, productive, positive, socially desirable and able to handle life's little bumps. He describes how focusing on positive health behaviors helps put you in a position to move forward in other areas. Part of his idea of focusing on health issues is to know yourself and set your life up to maximize your personal self.

He believes in luck as the determining factor in life, but sees personal choices as increasing or decreasing the  odds of luck finding you. In order to improve your odds he suggests learning multiple skills, controlling your ego, developing persistence. and avoiding dead end jobs. I find his focus on learning skills to be fundamental. He thinks of learning one skill doubles the odds of success. We do not need to become experts with our skills, but proficient with them. He identifies key skills as: public speaking, business writing, understanding the psychology of persuasion and technical concepts, social skills, good grammar and accounting. Interestingly, while most people would agree on the importance of these skills, few of them are taught in school. Public speaking are a component of the Common Core skills, but since it is not tested, it is rarely focused on and even more rarely explicitly taught. Some English teachers might think they teach business writing, but do they teach how to composes a succinct email, a formal business letter, or a formal proposal? Some would say but we teach powerpoint- the presentation skill of business, but in business, the focus is on content, error-free slides not pretty slides, on brevity not sentences,  on truly understanding your information not including every detail. Those same English teachers would also argue that persuasion is taught- they teach a persuasive essay. We teach a small number of technical concepts- coding hour is in place because it is rare. We might teach word processing, but the aesthetic details are less important than being error free. Social skills are poorly taught if at all. We have limited our grammar instruction to be mostly worksheets (useless) or poorly sequenced, in context grammar. Accounting is understood by few outside of business teachers. We rarely teach kids about interest rates and the practical implementation of them. We graduate students who cannot balance a checkbook much less read a balance sheet. Perhaps these are some areas to think about when we look at preparing students for college and career.

This book is entertaining and informative. I would recommend it for people hoping to maximize their potential.

He sees the ultimate goal as happiness. For most people this means being good to others. We achieve happiness by having good health, having resources and skills, and having a flexible schedule. I think for most people these three things would bring them happiness.

Checklist Manifesto

I just finished the audiobook of The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande.  Atul is a surgeon who worked with WHO to develop a method to reduce surgical complications and death. His solution, borrowed from the aviation industry is a checklist. He tells his story through numerous in depth anecdotes. It is very readable (or listenable). He despairs that people will not jump on the highly effective wagon of checklists but will spend millions or even billions on the latest and greatest technology, even if it only slightly increases effectiveness.

The correlations to teaching may not be readily apparent, but they exist. He describes effective checklists as those that are short, only hitting key factors that make a difference rather than those that have a plan for every eventuality. Here is one place where I see the field of education having gone seriously awry. When Race to the Top monies became available they came with the string of more stringent teacher evaluations. Many schools, districts and states embraced Danielson's Framework for Teaching as the tool they would use for annual reviews of teacher success. It includes 76 elements from four major clusters. The Danielson Group sees the framework as  "the foundation for professional conversations among practitioners as they seek to enhance their skill in the complex task of teaching." It is evidence based in that the various elements have all been shown to improve academic results of students. As a whole, however, the complete package lacks research to demonstrate that teachers that adhere to the rubric will be better. It does provide useful definitions for researchers to use when examining the topic. That being said, she resists the idea that a checklist be completed during an observation to evaluate teachers.

Independent of the appropriateness of turning her framework into a checklist, is the concept of having a 76 element checklist at all- especially one that requires not just a yes-no response but a nuanced evaluation of how well it is being completed. Checklist experts will argue that a checklist needs to be short in order to be effective. Even when we create rubrics to evaluate student writing tasks they stay on one page perhaps listing as many as a five by six grid of elements and levels of success. When the rubric is pages long, it is bound to be ineffective. Atul explored longer checklists and found them to hinder rather than support the end goal- for him reduced surgical complications and death. If we want to create a checklist that will support our goal of improved teaching, it needs to be succinct; only including the most essential elements, not every detail that can (and ultimately should be) considered.

Similarly, if we look at applying a checklist to teaching a direct instruction lesson, we need to limit its scope and hone in on the details that are essential to success, and perhaps those that when missing are most likely to cause a lack of learning. Perhaps that might look something like:

• stated learning target
• assess prior knowledge
• model the learning 
• allow students to practice
• close with an assessment of the learning target.

Do we need to do more than those few things? Of course. If we do not do one of those things are we likely to limit student acquisition of skills? Yes. These five things we can quickly check and frame our work around. We can use them in lessons using different structures and with material of different levels of complexity. Could a model like this be used for teacher evaluation? Sure, if it were accompanied by an in depth dialogue to discuss the elements. 

Checklist are highly effective at improving success, but they need to be carefully developed, tested and refined. No one's research based proposal will be satisfactory the first time around. We need to see about how to take a good framework and transform it into a useable tool.

Personalized Reading

My district, like many around me are on a personalized reading kick. In theory, I agree that personalizing education makes sense and today's technology provides many platforms through which to manage this concept. When I grew up in the 70s there was an idea of contract learning that some of my teachers embraced. My fifth grade teacher had the entire language arts curriculum broken down into segments (for example, there-their-they're words or capitalize proper nouns). Each segment or contract had at least two learning activities (i.e. worksheets) and one quiz. Each student was to complete the learning activities, turn them in, complete a quiz and move on- with a reteach worksheet. If they needed to redo something, it was returned with either "redo" or "see me" emblazoned across the top. The teacher ran mini-lessons with individual students who needed them at his desk. Over the course of the year we were supposed to complete a minimum of at least 125 contracts. I raced through the activities and completed the most extra contract, not because I was particularly gifted, but because I was highly competitive. Many papers were returned for me to redo. This system is made easier with technology because you can have video lessons on each section, automatic grading, and games. I know why my teacher used this system- he had put the energy into creating it and he was not going to redo it. Front loaded planning and individualized pacing. Our current incantation of personalized learning captures this idea but takes it step beyond the crate of manila folders of my childhood.

Personalized Learning- Digital Strategies and Tools to Support All Learners by Michele Haiken with L. Robert Furman explores modern platforms to implement personalized learning. Instead of merely adjusting the pace, modern personalized learning talks about changing the content and product as well. Through the book the authors discuss different types of readers and activities to differentiate the classroom activity to meet their individual needs. They rely on the concept of self-direction as a method to motivate students and keep them on task. I am sure that this idea works for many. Choice is a powerful motivator. One of my problems, however, is that I know that not all students care about reading, even when empowered to read what they want, at a level that is accessible to them.

One of the tools that they recommend are a variety of choice boards. This tool has been around for a long time. I remember reading about them in the 90s. Oddly they never caught on. One reason for that, I believe, is that however hard it is to develop challenging and interesting assignments, it is harder to develop multiple ones that explore the same standards. One example that I found on the web about characterization is found here. It has five types of showing what you know/graphic organizers on which students are asked to answer questions about characterization and then they are asked to Frame It!

1. Source – Where did you get this information?(Green) 
2. So What! - What do you now understand about these characters and why is it important?   (Red)
3. POV – is this the author’s POV, the character’s , yours, or all. (Blue) .

This only slightly personalizes the activity. Clearly the whole class is reading the same book. The ultimate goal is a characterization paragraph. The students get to select their graphic organizer alone. The authors envision a much more diverse set of activities going on in a classroom. Teachers would need to have much more time to explore activities and develop tasks.

The authors do present a large number of websites that can be used. One that appealed to me is view now do now. This site's activities presents pictures for students to view carefully and then write a response about. It gets critically looking at images and writing and is good for reluctant and struggling readers and students learning English.

The format of the text is very readable. Each chapter starts with an overview of a type of reader and then moves into digital tools that can be leveraged to meet their needs. They include examples of activities developed for a classroom. The end of each chapter is an "As you go forward" section and a summary of the tools discussed in the chapter. Perhaps a bit Pollyannish in concept- get students to leverage their own learning- but perhaps an admirable goal.

Attack of the Teenage Brain- part 2

John Medina's text, Attack of the Teenage Brain!, is a delightful read whose quest is to better understand the neuroscience behind executive function (EF) and how to improve it and thus improve academic success. He uses humor and a rich composite of cultural references to explain and explore research and how it relates to teenagers. His well-researched book is highly readable. His target audience is teachers, but parents and perhaps some parts teenagers would benefit form this understanding.

Medina organizes his book around how to change education to develop EF in teenagers and thus improve their performance. His three pronged approach includes the following components of changing the learning environment:

• Create night school for parents within the existing school


• Engage certified faculty to design and implement a curriculum around positive, evidence based marital practice


• Work with schools of education to create parenting curriculum and insert it into teacher training


• enlist these newly trained staff to create and implement the curriculum- compensate them appropriately


• Partner with researches to evaluate the success of these curriculum


• Design schools centered around a gym


• implement a physical movement curriculum and encourage universal participation in organized sports


• change start times to be compatible with brain development


• Implement a mandatory SEL program that emphasizes empathy


• designate a mindfulness room painted green


• Use certified instructors to implement a mindfulness program that has been verified by research. 

p.200-201

Much of this advice centers around three components: teach parents, exercise children and produce research to refine programing. In my previous post I talked about the exercise piece.

EF is affectionately described as "the ability to get something done- and not punch someone in the nose while doing it" (p. 13). Medina organizes EF into three components: response inhibition, cognitive flexibility and working memory. It is easy to understand how these three elements underlie much school success. Students who display strong skills in these areas tend to be far more successful in both school and life than those who do not. They represent soft skills that are important to life after school that we often do a poor job teaching because they are not assessed, are difficult to assess objectively and take extensive time to develop in many students but develop very easily and readily in others (much like reading- can you imagine an EF remediation program as wide-reaching as the reading intervention programs we have today?).

Medina highlights three elements that are essential to understand when talking about learning. First, the brain is interested in survival not learning (p. 83). Second, "human learning is primarily a relational proposition" (p. 87). Human survival was based on working together to make us bigger and scarier and more successful than other apex predators. We need each other to survive. Third, the more fear in our lives, the more we focus on mere survival than on relationships. Safety enables learning. Knowing this information allows us to understand how the kids interact in school- demystifying some of the frustrating behaviors that teenagers exhibit.

Medina highlights the idea that parents are the most important element in a child and teenagers life. Thus he sees parental training as important. The most successful parenting style and teaching style is authoritative- places limits on behavior, explains the rationale for the limits, provides defined feedback about performance, imposes consequences for not meeting the expectations and gradually releases control as children grow and develop. This concept is seen repeatedly in the research and is why the author considers parenting classes so important.

Medina addresses the idea of screen time. Screens seem omnipresent in our current lives. Our phones, our 1:1 devices, TVs, video games, tablets, cars, some refrigerators and the list goes on. Is screen time good or bad. Kids spend an average of 9 hours in front of a screen a day (p. 169). Assessing and understanding the impact of this activity on children is important. Research is somewhat inconclusive. Screen time before bed decreases sleep- this is bad. We need to address the screens in the evening even though it is a hard ask. Screen time decrease understanding of non-verbal emotional cues (p. 171), but social media use increased ability of teens empathetic ability (p. 170). Heavy media multitaskers have poorer performance on filtering tasks than light media multitaskers (p. 185). This is one area where Medina does not discuss the challenge of causation- media multitasking decreases filtering and task switching skills or people who are poor at filtering and switching chose to be media multitaskers.

Medina discusses the benefits of mindfulness and how to develop it through mediation. He showcases how being mindful decreases anxiety and depression. Since as many as a quarter of teenage girls suffer with anxiety, most undiagnosed, identifying ways to address it seem prudent. Meditation is a way to help teens deal with the stress of their lives. While we might hear people say things like, "What's the big deal? When you get older you'll see how trivial that is," to the teen, it is a big deal. Their lives have not given them the big picture yet and they cannot take that perspective.

Understanding how teenage brains work can help us frame programs that can teach them more successfully. We need to reach these youngsters. We cannot keep doing the same thing since we need better results and ever before.

Attack of the Teenage Brain! part 1 exercise

John Medina's text, Attack of the Teenage Brain!, is a delightful read whose quest is to better understand the neuroscience behind executive function (EF) and how to improve it and thus improve academic success. He uses humor and a rich composite of cultural references to explain and explore research and how it relates to teenagers. I know there is lots to digest in this book so I am going to hone in on one area today- exercise.

Exercise has the potential to improve executive function, academic success and emotional health. John points out the research to support these assertions. It reminds me of similar research suggesting that an hour of aerobic exercise per day significantly reduces ADHD related problems. Exercise is also given credit for reducing stress, weight and depression.

First, lets look at strictly the impact of exercise on the body. It increases blood flow. The brain, while only 2-3% of body mass consumes 20% of ingested energy (p. 146). It needs blood to survive. When we increase blood flow, we increase alertness and ability to focus. (ADHD anyone?) Our teenage students who take chronic sleep deprivation to a level of near omnipresence, come to school sleepy. If we get them up and moving, we can sustain their attention better because their brains have enough oxygen to work. If we make them work harder- aerobic activity- that blood flow improvement lasts longer, builds vessels and capacity. Our brains work better with more activity. Students who participate in regular activity actually sleep better than those who do not exercise. Studies have shown that this increases academic achievement to the tune of a letter grade for every 15 minutes of daily activity (p. 137). If we want our kids to do better in school, lets make them work out to activate their brains and prepare them to learn. There will be a side effect of better behavior as students are more able to self-regulate their behavior, increase their focus and engage in the opportunities we present.

The research that John pointed out indicated that cognitively challenging exercise such as organized sports, or, I imagine, watching a new aerobic routine and trying to keep up, increases EF (p. 116). No cognitive challenge, however, was required to improve mood. Since suicide is a leading cause of death for teenagers (and a leading cause of impairment when it goes wrong) and most mental illnesses begin to establish themselves in early teenage years, providing a vehicle for reducing stress and depression seems like an important goal. (Stress does have a significant impact on the brain's ability to learn.) Again our evidence based practice involves activity. Be sure that our middle schoolers still have recess where they can go outside and play. Have PE class available more often. My daughter's school moved from one 80 minute block of PE every 4 days to 2-50 minute blocks every 4 days. The research certainly supports this move to improve academic performance and mental health of our kids. Tight budgets should not keep kids from accessing PE. Our era of intense focus on test performance should not pull PE so that kids can have more time for ELA and math. These things are improved by PE, even if time is taken away from those core areas. A difficult proposition to swallow, but the research supports it.

John's prescription for increasing EF, academic achievement and mental health is exercise. Regular, aerobic and cognitively challenging movements for on a daily basis. While genetics are instrumental is a students' inclination toward EF disorders like ADHD, changing the environmental situation a child is in will improve their situation. It may not take away the problems, but it will offer an avenue for improvement- one that does not involve medication or changing the home living environment. Lets try to change what is in our control to improve student success. Instead of cake, let the mantra be let them eat exercise.