The+Mustard+Tree

The Mustard Tree 



=== The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches. (Matt 13:31-32) ===

In the enormous jungle of programs gathered under the canopy of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, there are modest, but thriving trees and plants that are endangered by the broad-cutting Congress of 2011. If they don't fall to the ax, they will be sliced and grafted onto the nondescript bush, the Block Grant (Pecunius Humongus). The National Writing Project deserves a better fate.

//. . .when it grows it. . . becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.//

Currently there are 7,000 active teacher consultants disseminating the mustard seeds of "effective practices in the teaching of writing" in the schools they serve and other local districts. These consultants of the National Writing Project reach 92,000 other teachers in a given year and teach 16,000,000 students. All this for less than $25 million in annual direct funding. This is the definition of productivity: 7,000 teachers reach 14 times their number through professional exchanges and reach a thousand-fold students in their classrooms. Along with the teachers, the direct beneficiaries of the NWP grant, are their constituents, the parents and the students of Writing Project teacher consultants. These are the branches of the Mustard Tree: the parents who attend their Family Literacy workshops, the teenagers and children who attend their writing camps, the teacher candidates who visit their classrooms. They are organically connected to the teacher consultants who comprise the trunk of the tree. If the trunk were to decay, the branches would eventually suffer as well.

. . .//Though it is the smallest of all your seeds. . .// The very unassuming NWP seed germinates every summer with a four-week institute for the development of writing teachers and continues with the graduates (called "teacher consultants") developing their skills as writers, consultants, and teacher researchers both as an organic group and as coaches and workshop providers in local schools. Calling the summer institute an "organic group" is not an affectation of school reform. The teachers bond first through sharing their writing, second through sharing their teaching through "demonstrations," and third through collaborative teacher research groups that may sustain them for their professional lifetime. The National Writing Project calls this "continuity." How many federal grants can claim "continuity" over years or decades, in some cases?

//. . . when it grows it is the largest of garden plants. . .// Is the instruction any good? The Local Sites Research Initiative has made eight studies of the writing of students in Writing Project classrooms with the following aggregate results:

were statistically significant (LSRI 3)
By every measure, the seeds of the National Writing Project's investment in teacher leaders have been super-producers, and the production has consistently grown from its modest beginnings in 1974 in Berkeley, California to a 200-site network today. This is the nation's longest enduring professional network, a network that has leveraged federal support for the past twenty years to yield this enduring fruit.

In the weeks that follow, the funding of the National Writing Project will be in jeopardy as Congress swings it reckless budget axe ( or its more subtle grafting knife). It is easy to overlook the brilliant success of the tiny Mustard Tree, overshadowed by the jungle of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Not every plant from that jungle has been productive. Let the axe or the knife pause at this tree and consider the years of growth that could be stunted or destroyed by this thoughtless cut.