Live Long and Prosper...

OUR STUDENTS/SCHOOLS AREN'T FAILING

Using the "failing schools" trope has long been a tactic of school "reformers" to claim that privatizing education is necessary. It was called out again in an article in Hechinger Report where we were told that...

Only a third of American students are reading proficiently at grade level, according to national benchmark tests.

(The article continues by suggesting that the failure to teach phonics is the reason for the poor test scores, but that's a discussion for another time.)

This description of the apparent desperate condition of the nation's readers comes from the NAEP test, the Nation's Report Card. Diane Ravitch, a former member of the National Assessment Governing Board, has frequently reminded her readers that "proficient" on the NAEP is equivalent to "a very high level of academic achievement," like a grade of A, and that a score of "basic" is not terrible.

When I served on NAGB for seven years, the board understood very well that proficient was a high bar, not a pass-fail mark. No member of the board or the staff expected that some day all students would attain “NAEP Proficient.” Yet critics and newspaper consistently use NAEP proficient as an indicator that “all students” should one day reach. This misperception has been magnified by the No Child Left Behind Act, which declared in law that all students should be “proficient” by the year 2014.

...and here, from her 2013 book, Reign of Error...

'Basic," as defined by the NAGB, is "partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at each grade." In my view, the student who scores "basic" is probably a B or C student.

She also stated that the NAEP test does not represent a grade level test.

NAEP does not report grade levels (grade level describes a midpoint on the grading scale where half are aboce and half are below).

Of course we'd like all students in the US to read at an A level, but that's not a reasonable expectation, any more than it's reasonable to expect all major league baseball hitters to bat .300 each year, all NBA basketball players to have a 95% free throw average, or all professional quarterbacks to have a 70% average pass completion percentage.

The truth is that two-thirds to three-fourths of American students were reading at or above basic in 2019. That's not perfect, but it's much better than the implication that two-thirds of American children are failing to learn to read!

A WAY TO IMPROVE READING SCORES

The Hechinger Report described research that reported that more prior knowledge, specifically, more knowledge of history, geography, and civics, can increase reading achievement.

As proof, the authors referred us to a September 2020 quantitative analysis done by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute which suggests that...

...a focus on academic content—not generalized reading skills and strategies—will equip students with the background knowledge they need to comprehend all sorts of texts and make them truly literate.

The analysis found that...

• Elementary school students in the U.S. spend much more time on ELA than on any other subject.
• Increased instructional time in social studies—but not in ELA—is associated with improved reading ability.
• The students who benefit the most from additional social studies time are girls and those from lower-income and/or non-English-speaking homes.

Interruption...
I'm overjoyed that the Fordham Institute, known for its "edu-reformist" and phonics-first tendencies, is promoting the development of students' knowledge base as a way to improve reading (specifically reading comprehension), but I learned about activating prior knowledge as a way to increase reading achievement when I was a student in 1974-1975.
I also learned about activating prior knowledge (aka schema) during my Reading Recovery training and experience beginning in the mid 1990s, and I learned the power of background knowledge during my Reading Recovery Teacher years as a teacher of Amish students. I found that I had to teach additional vocabulary to some of my Amish first graders who were unfamiliar with language associated with cities and the wider world. One student in particular, didn't know what the words "street" or "avenue" meant. He was familiar with words like "road," "lane," and "highway," but he had never heard words associated with cities. Part of this was his age, of course; Reading Recovery targets struggling students who are only six years old and in first grade. As he grew he might have gained wider experience, but in first grade, and coming from a bi-lingual, and exclusively rural culture, he didn't have a clue what those words were.
It's nice that the Fordham Institute is catching up with what experienced educators have known for years.
And now we resume your regularly scheduled blog post

The Hechinger Report article indicated that only social studies instruction had a significant instructional impact on students' reading achievement.

According to the researchers’ calculations, only social studies — among all the subjects — made a positive impact on reading over the long term. Indeed, for every half hour of additional social studies instruction a child received per day, his or her fifth grade reading scores were 0.15 of a standard deviation higher, on average. Standard deviations are statistical units that are hard to translate but this represents a relatively small increase in test scores. Certainly, social studies isn’t a silver bullet to fix reading but the result here suggests that it might help.

The researchers controlled for students’ socio-economic status, race, home language and many other other student and school characteristics. The boost to reading scores from taking more hours of social studies was true even among students of the same race and family income and who started with the same reading scores in kindergarten. The researchers also checked to see if teachers were giving stronger readers more social studies instruction because they didn’t need as much help with reading but they didn’t find any evidence of that.

Counterintuitively, more minutes of reading instruction were not associated with higher reading scores.

One thing to keep in mind is that all this discussion of student reading achievement is based on standardized test scores.

It's also (or perhaps more) important to help students experience the joy and wonder of reading as well as teaching them the mechanics of decoding. The best way to do this? Read aloud every day to your children and students, and give them the opportunity and time to read for fun.

See also:
Prior Knowledge Improves Reading Comprehension
How Does Students’ Prior Knowledge Affect Their Learning?

NOT JUST FOR PARENTS

Russ Walsh's new book, A Parent's Guide to Education in the 21st Century: Navigating Education Reform to Get the Best Education for My Child, is now available from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

Walsh is a literacy expert, Coordinator of College Reading at Rider University, and blogger at Russ on Reading.

A Parent's Guide to Education in the 21st Century isn't just for parents. It's for anyone who wants to understand the "reform" agenda and what it has done to American public education. Call it "reform" 101. Walsh clearly outlines the ways that the "reform" movement has damaged the nation's public education system and harmed the education of children.

It's not misnamed, however. He includes chapters for parents (of benefit to teachers as well) on identifying a good school, good instruction, and helping children succeed.

The book begins with his Bill of Rights for School Children...which ought to be posted in every public school in the nation...and includes informative chapters on standardized tests, the privatization of public education, and the Common Core. A must read...

For example, from Chapter 3: Readiness For School

It is not your child's job to be ready for school; it is the school's job to be ready for your child, and to meet your child's needs through rich curriculum, highly trained teachers and a system of learning supports.

...and from Chapter 11: School Choice: Charter Schools and Vouchers

In our society we have come to recognize that choice is a good thing as long as it does not interfere with others' choices. What if an inner-city parent's choice is to send a child to a clean, safe, well-resourced, professionally staffed, neighborhood public school? By draining away the limited funds available for public education, charter schools and voucher schemes infringe on that parent's choice. It would be wise to spend our public tax monies on providing good local public schools. In public education, as with smoking and seatbelts and the military, the government must choose to limit our choice in order to provide for, as the Constitution says, "the common good." Public education is a common good that privatization in the form of charters and vouchers will destroy.

PRIVATIZATION: VOUCHERS

Less-than-full disclosure

The distribution of public tax money ought to be under the watchful eye of the public. Elected school boards, no matter what their limitations, are held accountable to the public through elections. Every penny in every public school in Indiana is accounted for. Why, then, is money awarded to private schools through vouchers or to SGOs to award "scholarships" to private schools, with no public oversight whatsoever?

What happened to the $116 million that Indiana spent on privatization in 2014-2015 (and even more for the current year)? Was it used for instruction? If so, how did the students perform? Was the money used for building additions, church steeples, or CEO salaries?

For taxpayers, however, there’s a gaping hole in accountability. Reports are available for public schools, including charters; not for voucher schools. The state awarded almost $116 million to private and parochial schools in 2014-15, but the General Assembly does not require posting and publication of voucher school performance reports.

After 10-year fight, Md. lawmakers vote to fund private-school scholarships

The Democrats in Maryland have abandoned public education in favor of vouchers. Which of the two main political parties do public educators turn to now?

After years of resisting, and over the objections of the state teachers union, Maryland lawmakers have agreed to state-funded private-school scholarships.

The decision to create a $5 million grant program was part of the negotiations on the state’s $42 billion operating budget, which received final approval in the Democratic-controlled General Assembly on Tuesday.

TEACHING READING

Robert Slavin on the Success and Promise of Reading Recovery

I was trained in Reading Recovery in 1999 and taught in the program for seven years. I used the techniques and knowledge I gained even after the program was canceled. I still use the skills I learned as a Reading Recovery teacher in my volunteer work with first graders.

Reading Recovery is a one-on-one tutoring program for at-risk first graders. It works, but because it's a program for individual students, it's expensive. A Reading Recovery teacher can only work with a few students during the school year. Most school systems in my part of the state have stopped using it because of funding shortages.

Yet, how important is teaching reading to a first grader? How much is it worth? Is it worth the cost of a $2 billion mobile cannon which was never used? Is it worth the tax we ought to be, but aren't, collecting from GE, CBS, or Mattel? Is it worth the money spent to (over)compensate Wall St. Execs who caused the Great Recession?

Would it be worth it if we could pay the salaries (at @ $90,000 salary and benefits) of more than 2,000 Reading Recovery teachers for the next 10 years with the money we spent on the cannon that was never used? My guess is that the city of Flint, Michigan might need some extra help for the next few years.

Instead we're spending billions of dollars on standardized tests, vouchers, and charters...as well as cannons, tax write offs, and exorbitant salaries.

Priorities, America. Priorities.

"...in schools throughout the United States and in other countries, there is a well-defined group of struggling readers that can readily be taught to read. The evidence establishes, beyond any doubt, that nothing about these children means they are doomed to fail in reading.”

...“In a country as wealthy as the United States,” he says, “why should every struggling reader not have access to Reading Recovery or a tutoring program with equal evidence of effectiveness? The reading success of first graders is far too important to leave to chance, yet in this as in many other areas of education reform, vulnerable children are left to chance every day. Why can’t educators use what they know to solve the problems they can solve, while working at the same time to expand their knowledge?"

10 Reading Instruction Non-Negotiables

Here's a second shout-out to Russ Walsh. Along with his Bill of Rights for School Children, this list of non-negotiables for a good reading program ought to be required reading for parents, teachers, and school administrators.

Here he lists components of a true reading program instead of the prepackaged test prep and constant assessment that is strangling the joy of reading in our schools. His list includes things like shared reading, self-selected reading, rereading, and word work, complete with research to back everything up.

Here's what he says about my favorite part of the teaching day, Reading Aloud...

One of the more disturbing aspects of current trends in literacy education is the reports I keep getting from classroom teachers who tell me that reading aloud is being discouraged because it is not "rigorous" enough or because more time needs to be devoted to test prep. So, let me state this as clearly as I possibly can, read aloud is a central part of effective literacy instruction and should be happening daily in every classroom. This is not open for debate. Don't take my word for it, here is a list of 13 scientifically based reasons for reading aloud to children. Among these well researched benefits are exposing students to a greater variety of literature, encouraging students to view reading as a part of their daily life, building background knowledge, providing a model of fluent reading, encouraging student talk about text, increasing vocabulary and helping students view reading as a pleasurable activity. Here is another resource on the importance of reading aloud.

When choosing a read aloud, I would encourage teachers to choose the very best that literature and informational text has to offer, whether that be picture books, novels, histories or scientific texts. When reading aloud, we can aim high because kids listening comprehension outpaces their reading comprehension by about two years and because we can easily scaffold their understanding by "thinking aloud" about the text as we read. Read aloud also provides a great opportunity for teachers to model important comprehension strategies. Just do it.

Need more resources for reading aloud?

• Jim Trelease's Home Page

• Read Aloud dot org

• Reading Aloud from Reading Rockets

BILLIONAIRES ARE NOT EDUCATION EXPERTS

Hillsborough schools to dismantle Gates-funded system that cost millions to develop

When are we going to stop taking education advice from Bill Gates? When are we going to quit letting him experiment with America's students?

Just because Bill Gates is rich doesn't mean he knows anything about the education of children.

[Superintendent] Eakins said he envisions a new program featuring less judgmental "non-evaluative feedback" from colleagues and more "job-embedded professional development," which is training undertaken in the classroom during the teacher work day rather than in special sessions requiring time away from school. He said in his letter that these elements were supported by "the latest research."

PROTECT CHILDREN

Why Finnish school students lead the world on Life Matters

Here's an Australian radio interview with Fulbright Scholar William Doyle about Finnish education. He talks about the strong teaching profession, and the focus on how to help children learn, rather than how to be #1 in educational assessment.

A Finnish teacher quoted by William Doyle

Our job is to protect children from politicians.

If you've been reading this particular series on this blog you'll notice that I've gone from A Lifetime of Elementary Schools -- Part 2, to A Lifetime of Elementary Schools -- Part 6. I hope the reason for the jump will be clear in a moment...


Our oldest daughter entered Harlan Elementary's kindergarten in the fall of 1977. From that date on, someone from our family was attending Harlan as either a student, a teacher or a volunteer for the next 34 years. All three of our children attended Harlan from grades K through 6, my wife and I both volunteered there at one point or another, and I taught there for the last 19 years of my career.

On June 10, 2011 Harlan students left for summer vacation for the last time. No students will be returning in the fall...no teachers will be coming in during the summer to get things ready or get a head start on their new curriculum. Students will be going to four different locations for the 2011-2012 school year depending on where they live and what grade they're in. Harlan Elementary School, along with 3 others in East Allen County Schools is closing forever because of a budget shortfall of about 8 million of dollars.

I started teaching at Harlan in August 1991. My first assignment at Harlan was 6th grade. Before coming to Harlan I had taught grades K through 4...never students as old as 6th grade. I had difficulty with 6th grade, but with a lot of help from other teachers and the principal (emotional support as well as pedagogical help) I had a successful year. My teaching partner in 6th grade, who retired this year after 34 years at Harlan, was a great help and likely worked as hard helping me adjust to teaching adolescents as he did teaching his own students.

I taught second grade for two years and then moved to a pull out program teaching students who were having difficulty in the general education classroom. My job included helping students with class work, planning programs for students who were not able to keep up, and testing students to see where their strengths and weaknesses were.

In 1998 my job became two jobs. I continued with the pull out program, and began a career as a Reading Recovery teacher. I enjoyed Reading Recovery...it was hard, gratifying work. I taught both my groups of students for seven years, after which the Reading Recovery program was canceled due to funding issues.

In 2005, the year after my Reading Recovery position was cut, I began teaching a half time kindergarten...a grade I had not taught for nearly 30 years. In the intervening years, kindergarten had changed dramatically. Once again the teachers I worked with provided assistance. This time I needed help with curriculum. Ironically, the teacher who helped me the most had been a 6th grade student in another classroom at Harlan the year I struggled in 6th grade.

The half time kindergarten position only lasted one year and I finished my career teaching half time...just the pull out program. I loved working with individuals and small groups. It gave me the opportunity to help students who were struggling in their classrooms, just as I had been when I was a student at Rogers School in Chicago.

As a parent I was more than satisfied with the quality of education my children received at Harlan. The teachers were caring and effective and all made it clear that they were willing to do what needed to be done to provide my children with the support and tools they needed to succeed.

As a teacher this opinion didn't change. Getting to know the staff I was able to see strengths in teachers I hadn't seen before. I was able to recognize the depth of dedication present in the classrooms.

It's hard to say good-bye to a school filled with so many memories of my own children as students, of my classrooms and students, and of staff members, many of whom I now count as close friends. A teaching career is filled with memories like those...as well as laughter, frustrations, successes and failures.

The success of Harlan Elementary was not in its ___location, facilities, playground or classrooms. Those things are important of course...the clean classrooms and rest rooms, the meals in the cafeteria, the safe playground and spacious gymnasium. Those are all important parts of a school and I don't intend to minimize the consequences of not providing a physically safe environment and an atmosphere conducive to learning. Adequate facilities, however, can (and should) be available everywhere a school building is constructed. Harlan's success, however, was built on more than its physical structure. It was built on the hard work and dedication of hundreds of professional educators and staff members who provided a rich, educational atmosphere in which students could grow and learn. It was built on the strength of parents who worked with the staff to provide their children with the education every child deserves. And it was built on the children themselves who brought their hope of a bright future into their classrooms and gave life to a structure of concrete and carpet.

When our oldest was in school each child would go to the office on their birthday and receive a small gift. She often told me that she was happy to get the "birthday pencil" on which was printed:

I've discussed Grade Retention before (See HERE and HERE) and I have a section in the menu to the right devoted to it (which I updated today). It's time to look at it again and see what's changed...if anything.

The quick answer is...nothing's changed. No new research shows that grade retention helps students.

Recent reports tell the same story. Children who are retained don't achieve more than if they were promoted.

In a 2005 study on Kindergarten retention the authors concluded that,

According to our analytic results, the average effect of the kindergarten retention policy, as compared to a policy that banned retention, was null or very small. Nor did we find any evidence that the policy would benefit those children who would be promoted if the policy were adopted. These results cast doubt on the proposition that a policy of grade retention in kindergarten would improve instruction by creating classrooms that are more homogenous in academic ability.

We did find evidence, however, that children who were retained would have learned more had they been promoted. This was true in both reading and math.

Hong, G. & Raudenbush, St. (2005). Effects of Kindergarten Retention Policy on Children's Cognitive Growth in Reading and MathematicsEducational Evaluation and Policy Analysis Fall 2005, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 205-224

The result is the same...and the recommendations are the same. Don't retain students. Social promotion doesn't work either, so don't promote failing students. Once more the average classroom teacher is stuck -- retention hurts the student -- or at best does not help -- and promotion doesn't really help either.

The suggestions which are always made are to provide intense intervention for struggling students before they fail. With budget cuts, program and personnel reductions, finding ways to help struggling children is difficult. There's little if any funding for extra help for students.

The big push now is for more accurate referral of students for special education...tightening up the requirements and using a Response to Intervention (RtI) process which provides high quality general education instruction to children who are having trouble. The burden is more likely than not on the classroom teacher. In this time of budget cuts, class sizes are growing...in response to No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, classroom documentation is also growing. Teachers have more to do than ever...with less support.

Intense intervention could be provided using a variety of programs. The US DOE web site, What Works Clearinghouse, has reviewed programs and graded them. Things like Reading Recovery can help, but they cost money.

Stephen Krashen, quoted in Anthony Cody's Living in Dialogue blog has a way to come up with some of the money for these and other programs.

the exit exam costs the state [California] about $600 million per year. Studies of high school exit exams show that they are useless: They do not lead to higher employment, higher earnings, or improved academic achievement. In fact, researchers have yet to discover any benefits of having a high school exit exam.

$600 million a year can buy a lot of Reading Recovery teachers. At an average salary of about $50,000 a year California could afford about 12,000 Reading Recovery teachers. End the standardized testing frenzy and let's go back to teaching.

Monday is over...only nine days left.

For the last 19 years, I've been a Resource Teacher. In most school systems the Resource Room is a Special Education room. Not so in mine. Resource teachers are general education teachers working with students who are struggling. Our job was to help accelerate the students...to analyze their deficiencies and make recommendations for helping them. Sometimes the recommendations included testing to determine placement in special education. I consider myself a reading specialist. I have worked with at-risk students trying to figure out ways to accelerate their academic growth. For 6 of the last 19 years, from 1996-2002, I was also a Reading Recovery teacher.

There are 11 elementary schools in our system...all have a Resource Teacher. At least this year. Next year the position is being eliminated -- which is one of the reasons I decided to go ahead and retire. Only a few of the schools are getting "reading specialists" as replacements. But all of the schools are getting "Instructional Coaches" who will help our teachers implement a new curriculum supposedly designed to heal all academic woes.

Earlier this month the Resource Teachers got together after school for dinner and a last "good-bye" to the program, as well as to those of us who are retiring. I got sick and couldn't make it.

Today, when I got to school I found the gift that the other Resource Teachers had left for me...a clock. What follows is my combination "Thank you note for the kind gift" and "Comments about life in our school system without Resource Teachers."


Hi all,

I'm sorry I missed the Resource party earlier this month...[insert comments about being sick]

Thanks so much for the clock...although once I am retired I'm not sure why I'll need to know what time it is...unless I want to keep track of my naps. :)

Seriously though, I've enjoyed being a Resource Teacher, and proud that I have been part of this group of excellent professional educators. I know that sometimes those who aren't in our shoes don't really know what we're doing...or what the value of our work is...but I really believe that we have all made important contributions to the improvement of our schools and most of all, to the academic growth of our students.

I have some doubts about the decision to remove "reading specialists" (which is what I consider myself) from all but the Title I buildings. I know the administration says that the new curriculum, combined with the RtI process will take care of those students, but even if I accept that, I worry about the transition from where we are now, to this "new, improved" academic place. Nothing works perfectly the first time, and the students I am leaving will have no "safety net" any more. Those of us who have been around a while have seen "great ideas" fizzle. Unfortunately, when that happens, kids suffer. Hopefully, I'm wrong and everything works out fine...we'll find out soon.

I acknowledge the weaknesses I carried with me throughout my teaching career. Each year I would try to overcome something in the way I taught which I felt was holding me back...or not allowing me to give my students the opportunities they needed. Sometimes I succeeded...and sometimes I didn't. I believe one mark of a good teacher is the ability to analyze what they are doing, and focus on improving...daily. I think most of the time I was able to improve as I went along. The new "coaching" position, which is going to replace Resource should, in my opinion, help teachers focus on that sort of analysis. That is, "What am I doing?" "How is it working?" and "How can I make it better?" Unfortunately, our school corporation has had some experience with coaches which has not been entirely positive. Hopefully, this time attention will be paid to ways of working with teachers, some who have taught for a long time, which does not intimidate, irritate, patronize or insult them. If the coaches can't do that, then the entire process will be a failure, people will be filled with resentment, and everyone will lose.

In any case, I know that every "former Resource Teacher" will continue to bring excellence to the education of the students under their care.

Best of luck to all of us!! Those who are leaving...as well as those who are staying. Remember...don't save so much stuff (cleaning out after 30+ years is awful!!). Take more pictures. You'll be glad you did when you pack up for the last time.

Stu

It's something you probably never think about. In August, 1976, when I walked into my first classroom at Monroeville Elementary School I gave no thought whatsoever to how much "stuff" I needed to save throughout my teaching career.

We teachers are notorious pack-rats. We save everything...because literally everything can be used to teach something. Sometimes we might save an item for no other reason than, "Wow, I might be able to use that for...um...something."

Most of this stuff I'll pitch or give away to other pack-rat-teachers, but I have an idea for things I don't want to keep, but would like to remember. I'll take digital pictures...and save the images on my computer.

Among the treasures I've found while cleaning out over the last few weeks are:

1. Dice. Not just 6 sided dice, but four sided, 8 sided, 12 sided and 20 sided dice as well...and not just dice with dots on them. I have dice with numerals, functions and pictures. These I'll give away.

2. Dozens of Magnets. One of the greatest inventions known to teachers is the magnetic chalk board (or, to newer teachers, the magnetic white board). At one of the schools I taught at we had floor to ceiling magnetic chalkboards along an entire wall. I put everything up there...schedules, pictures, student work, reminders, photos...and I was always collecting magnets. I'm going to save some of these...give the rest away.

3. Plastic Baskets...for holding books, markers, pencils, scissors, glue...anything that students might use in a small group. Also plastic storage containers of various sizes...dozens of them. Give away.

4. Computer software and equipment for computers which have been gone for years...and, of course, none of it is compatible with today's technology (and even if it was we wouldn't want it!). Yes...I even found an old laptop computer. Throw away/recycle.

5. Books. Old textbooks, favorite read alouds. (NOTE: If you don't read aloud to your students EVERY DAY you're not doing enough. Every elementary teacher...no matter what grade...should read aloud to his/her students each day. see Jim Trelease's Web Site and the Read Aloud Handbook.) I'll save some of these...give them to my children and grandchildren. Others I'll leave for other teachers.

6. Tote bags, briefcases and back packs. Why I needed to save more than a dozen of these things I'll never know. I got one at every Reading Recovery conference I went to...and since the program was cut I've saved them all...in protest. I also still have the Reading Recovery decal on my door window. I'm going to save the decal and put it up on my bulletin board in my office at home. The tote bags I'll give away to other teachers.

7. A change of clothes. When you teach long enough in an elementary school setting you will almost certainly have been exposed to various bodily fluids...sometimes a change of clothes is necessary.

8. Change. It's like my room is a giant easy chair. So far I've found $3.53 to add to my retirement savings...

9. Photos of students and notes from students. Some of them are parents of children in my current school. Some of them are teachers in my school system. Some are dead. Some are in prison. I don't have pictures of all of them...and that's something I regret. Each of my students, even the ones I couldn't reach, meant something to me. I touched each of their lives...and each of them touched mine. We love our children...we laugh with them, play with them, cheer for them, worry about them, puzzle over them and cry for them. Being a teacher is much more than just presenting material...These items are a chronicle of my professional life. They're coming home with me.

10. Miscellaneous other stuff like recipes, plans for activities (some of these are ancient), old posters and pictures, student records, rubber stamps, boxes and boxes of pencils (with dried up erasers) and pens, 3-ring binders, stickers, dried up markers, and more post it notes than you can count. Give away everything that anyone wants...and toss the rest.

Next week I'm going to start working on my file cabinets. I have two of them that haven't been opened for a long time. Who knows what treasures I'll find in there.

Lessons Learned:

Don't save everything.
Take more pictures.