Official letter is available here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k3SlU4JBmMG78ONMgTv74-bhwcfo_yIR/view?usp=sharing
April 26, 2022
Dear District 125,
This letter is to regretfully announce my resignation from the district at the end of this school year. I have served proudly and honorably for 23 years. For more than 15 years I was selected for senior awards night as a teacher who made a difference in students’ lives. I have earned three Ambassador Awards from the Board. My Student Voice Survey SEL data has been consistently and substantially above the average for SHS (20+ percentage points). I have appreciated the ways that the district has helped me thrive in my discipline; I was able to serve for ten years as one of only two high school teachers in the nation to be on the American Sociological Association High School Advisory Board. I was able to be a co-author of both the National Standards for High School Sociology and the C3 (Common Core) standards for sociology. I was a pioneer of the Loyola University Chicago Dual Credit Program. And, one of the myriad anecdotal examples of my impact is when two of my former students who met in my class were so inspired by my class that they asked me to be the presider at their wedding. In short, I am very proud of all that I have done for the district and I appreciate the many ways that the district helped me to become a national leader in teaching high school sociology.
However, teaching in the district has become pedagogically and morally untenable for me. My willingness to be a team player and a pedagogical pioneer led me to attempt the Evidence Based Reporting (EBR) assessment practices as early as 2013. I spent countless hours leading my team to research, create and revise this method of assessing. But, as early adopters, we discovered that EBR assessment practices were flawed. I tried to voice concerns about the assessment practices over the years and I have documented evidence of voicing concerns to the SHS administration. Please see this detailed and documented list:
• May 20, 2014 email to the Director of Assessment, Research and Evaluation:
“We need help sorting our students who do not turn in assessment. How do we grade students who are
missing assignments?”
• Jan 23, 2015 email to the Director of Assessment, Research and Evaluation:
“EBR does not have the technology to take into account all of a student’s work. We really want the grade to reflect ALL assignments, not just the mode or dual mode.”
• Jul 23, 2019 email response to the Social Studies Division Director:
[M]e - just in case it comes up with admin, I wanted to explain a few concerns carefully in writing...
[Director]-M and N both run the risk of failure. M can still be turned in by whatever policy the team/assignment has. N means missed the window of time for doing and need to coordinate with teacher (and maybe other support personnel) how the course will proceed because they are now lacking potentially essential evidence from the course.
[Me] - But what happens when this occurs at the end of a semester?
[Director]-Communicating early with parents about any missing assignment would be my suggestion, yes we want to treat them like adults but they are still in HS and have missed an assignment...they are not warranting handling it on their own if they cannot get their work done. If a kid missed things in Feb, include/notify parents and counselor then.
[Me] - I did communicate with parents. I sent home a mid-term grade indicating progress. Additionally, please remember that I had 20+ kids in this situation until the last 3 weeks. This is because kids don't feel there are any consequences to turning in things late.
[Director]-Deadlines will be honored and teacher determines the grade. But the grade should reflect the story the gradebook seems to be telling. And all 3 of these specific kids seem to have a different story. Which is why I am asking for some clarifications on the individual student situations. (See underlined questions in original email.)
[Me] - IMHO, the best way to reflect the whole grade book is to average it together - no? And if the teacher determines the grade, why can't I decide to average? My deadline was May 17. Honestly, I probably never said that "If you miss the deadline, you will fail", but I did say, this is the deadline. I never mentioned failing because I thought that was against SHS policy to fail a kid for missing a deadline. This is still a really confusing area that admin has not provided clarity on.
[Brad]-As for responding during the summer... I appreciate that you responded as you did not have to prior to the end of the summer break. I also told parents/kids that teachers are on break and do not have to respond until the 7th. I was just hoping we could get ahead of this before the 7th and relaying their info to you.
[Me] - I appreciate this, but it begs the question: when is the end? What if a kid gets his report card in June and then emails a revised assignment in July? What if an incoming senior finds me in the halls in August and says, gee my grade was low and I heard you accepted [another student’s] assignment over the summer, can I revise something?
[Director]-Do situations develop where teachers sometimes address incompletes or make-up work over the Summer or coordinate that with Director, sometimes, but those are on case by case basis. But the grades for 99% of the kids should be closed and done at the end of each term.
[Me] -When is the term done? This sounds as though all 3 Fs should stand.[Brad]-I am not sure EBR is the underlying issue, or only issue, here as we have seen these kinds of concerns/situations with students in both EBR and traditional courses over the years, with anecdotal information that during 2nd sem there have been increases in recent years, but is that EBR, stress, earlier calendar, or other factors nobody is certain.
[Me] -EBR is the issue because it has 2 contradictory philosophies that admin has not given direction on.
• October 2019 Pre-observation Form to the Superintendent:
As I mentioned in the first section (1a), the mishmash of expectations in recent years has made defining what should be assessed all the more difficult. This is complicated by the mandate of evidence-based reporting which seems to de-emphasize content knowledge and instead emphasize skills. But this is a difficult road to navigate. Do I ignore the content that is knowledge-based such as the National Standards and the C3 appendix standards? If I am supposed to emphasize skills, which skills are they? And how do I emphasize these skills with a textbook that is based on content knowledge? I have tried to balance these, but it has become increasingly frustrating to balance as I feel more and more constraints on my teaching.
One of the constraints that has created more difficulty for teaching is the emphasis on assessing only what students can do. I was an early adopter to evidence-based grading. Tony Reibel and I were meeting as early as 2013. But even before meeting with Tony, (before EBR was created), I personally eliminated the zero penalty in my assessments, used a 1-4 grading scale instead of percentages, and I emphasized applying content as a skill. As I switched completely into the EBR model, I found it difficult to motivate students who are only interested in their grade (and not interested in learning for the sake of learning). These students have trouble with being motivated to do the work necessary to prepare for the graded assessments. For example, I have used readings as a way of assessing whether or not a student can apply a concept from class. The process should be that the student does the reading, then in class I can teach and assess the student how to apply a sociology concept to that reading. However, this is not possible if a student has not done the reading. In the past, a grade (even if it was just for completion) was motivating for the student to do the work.
Additionally, using the modal based scoring of EBR allows students to game the system in a way that renders nearly half of their grades meaningless. Students know that if they have a modal score of 3 then they can get as many 1s as they want as long as it does not change the modal score.
Last June was one example of this and it was also one of the lowest points of my career. I had decided to go all in on EBR. I reinvented my class. I assessed only students' skills. Students had to create their own sociology literature reviews. I gave them time in class to do it. I gave them formative feedback. I worked with them individually and as a group. At the due date however, there were 19 students out of 80 who did not even turn in the assignment. On the last day of the semester, there were still 12 who did not turn it in. On the day of the final exam, there were 9 who did not turn it in. And finally, by the end of the semester (the end of the very last final on the last day of school) there were still three students who had not turned in their work. They turned it in over the summer. This is stressful and disappointing as a teacher, but even worse, it is a disservice to students to lead them to believe that deadlines do not matter.
• January 26, 2022 letter to Principal:
But it is not simply the pedagogy that has gotten me to this point. I am also morally at odds with the EBR practices. It is hard to ignore the book that the administration wrote touting the assessment practices even though none of them taught EBR in the manner which they wrote about. And it is impossible to ignore that the book was published before the vast majority of teachers were actually using EBR. Indeed, I have done professional development with teachers all over the country and I have had more than a few teachers reach out to me to ask if all teachers at SHS were doing the practices in the book and I had to say “No!”I find it reprehensible that SHS administration would focus on the specific events that the letter addresses without being willing to look at the larger context that caused this. I know there are dozens of teachers who feel the same frustration with the new grading mandate and turning a deaf ear to these concerns is hurting teacher morale and student competency.
These are only a fraction of the written communications that I have documenting my attempts to clarify and understand EBR and apply it to the actual classroom. But I have had numerous other interactions that were verbal and so not documented, but multiple people can attest to these. For example, I found it frustrating that at the 2019 pre-observation meeting with the Superintendent (cited in my pre-observation above), he told me that he disagreed with the Principal about whether teachers can grade students’ homework and effort in class. It is very frustrating to be forced to grade in a system that my own principal and superintendent can’t agree on.
The assessment practice has created a student culture and attitude that what a student does in class does not matter; effort does not matter; and turning in assignments does not matter. In 2018, I had numerous students simply not turn in their final paper. Then, in December 2021, I had 20 students not turn in their final assessment! Not only is this bad pedagogy which leads students to poor learning practices, but it is stressful as a teacher who puts his heart and soul into his teaching. I was upset that so many students were simply not turning in work and defiantly flaunting their gamesmanship of the EBR System. However, my frustration with this grading and my pleas for change and fell on deaf ears. Instead of addressing my concerns, the administration chastised me for displaying my frustration. In the meantime, SHS teachers across the school feel the same as I do, but teachers do not feel safe expressing this concern publicly. Students are not trying their best; they don’t feel the need to do homework or give their best effort. I do not think that this is preparing students for the rigors of college or worse yet, the demands of the workplace. This predates the pandemic and has been building for years because of EBR.
Finally, the most egregious violation of moral standard came as I pioneered the Loyola University Chicago Dual Credit Program. Loyola has reached out to me regularly to explicitly state that their program demands that I use their grading scale and that I give students a final exam. But I have been told by SHS administrators to ignore these stipulations. Below is one email I sent explaining that:
• May 4, 2021 email from me to both the Social Studies Division Director and the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction:
I know that in the past we have talked about grading for Loyola's dual credit and from my understanding SHS's position is that I should just translate the EBR grade and be sure it reflects Loyola's understanding of an ABCDF grade scale. Also, Loyola requires a final exam so not sure but assuming that SHS's position is that a final "experience" can count even if it is simply adding additional evidence to an EBR standard.
I wanted to forward the email from Loyola (below) because it makes me uncomfortable that I do not use the prescribed grading scale nor do I give what would be considered a traditional final exam. Obviously, I would never want to do anything that would jeopardize the dual-credit option, but I also don't think that Loyola realizes how far SHS has deviated from traditional assessment practices.
It is morally corrupt to not only ignore these requirements, but to also not give students the college experience that will prepare them for actual college. We are setting these students up for failure.
I am deeply appreciative of my time at SHS and all the ways that SHS helped me thrive. I truly cared for all of my students over the years and I am proud of the work I have done. But I feel let down by the current leadership of SHS in regards to assessment and teaching and learning. These practices have been implemented unilaterally in a top-down manner without regard to teacher concerns. And many faculty and staff throughout the school have the same concerns as me but they continue to remain silent out of fear of retribution by the highest levels of administration which controls the school with an iron-fisted approach from a top-down direction. This is not how a collaborative, professional learning community should work and what’s worse, this is not serving our students.
Regretfully, but sincerely, with these EBR practices still in place, I cannot in good conscience return to SHS next year.
Respectfully and regretfully, I resign.
Christopher Salituro
For questions or further comment, please contact chrissalituro@gmail.com
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