Monday
August 18, 2008
by desertjim
Last week’s TIME magazine (August 23, 2008, page 69) had an interesting article about schools adopting four-day weeks in order to save energy on bus routes, air-conditioning and other costs. I didn’t think too much about it because the laws in Illinois require a minimum number of school days, so such a four-day plan is impossible for most of the readers of this blog.
Today, the Associated Press published an article which expands on the effects that high energy prices are having on schools all over the country. It’s not just school bus fuel that is impacting school costs. Electricity for air conditioning, heating oil, even delivery costs for cafeteria food are going up along with diesel fuel for the buses.
Schools in 17 states have gone to the four-day week. In most cases, this means each school day is longer. We all know the attention span of our students and may well question the usefulness of longer school days. Some schools are adjusting to the shorter school week by cutting electives, thus increasing the percentage of the day spent on reading and writing and test preparation that had already gone up under No Child Left Behind. Needless to say, field trips are disappearing from the curriculum in most locales.
Parents are finding the costs of school supplies and back-to-school clothes has also increased. For some families, this means cutting back on purchases or accepting the idea of increasing credit card debt. Increased costs for school lunches may well lead to a lot more kids brown-bagging it for lunch. (I can actually see some benefits in that - while I was still teaching, I always liked the lunches I packed better than the cafeteria food).
As the school year begins, all of our schools will see long-lasting financial effects from the current energy crunch. How the schools deal with these fiscal problems will certainly affect what happens in the classroom. Will suburban and rural districts have to rethink their bus routes as fuel costs continue to increase? Are longer days really going to result in more learning each day? Will cutting electives to save time result in schools becoming deadly dull test preparation academies? What will your school and district do in response to higher energy costs?
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Monday
August 11, 2008
by desertjim
With the excitement of the Olympic’s opening cermony and the competing news of active warfare between Russia and Georgia both happening on Friday evening, you may not have seen this local story in the Chicago Tribune. The decision was announced on Friday to check the scores of almost one million elementary school math and reading tests from this year’s ISAT program.
The scores on this year’s math and reading tests varied widely from previous results (both higher and lower than in recent years). This was the first year that these particular versions of the reading and math tests were used. The science scores, using an older version did not show the wild fluctuations seen in math and reading. A number of school districts (including Chicago) questioned the preliminary results.
Although such wide variations in scores are new to Illinois, many states have had problems with the high stakes testing demanded under No Child Left Behind. The Baltimore Sun reports that changes in the Maryland State Assessment this year created an unusually large rise in student test scores.
A panel of testing experts concluded that changes in the Maryland test (it is shorter and more questions were written to fit the state standards) contributed to increases in scores. Howeverr, they couldn’t estimate how much of the increase was due to the test changes. If the companies hired to oversee state testing (Harcourt in Maryland, Pearson in Illinois) cannot guarantee consistency from year to year, the tests are not of any use.
NCLB demands accountability in terms of Adequate Yearly Progress. If the tests cannot be trusted to measure students on the same yardstick from year to year, AYP becomes meaningless. Perhaps it is really long past time to demand some accountability for real education reform from the US Department of Education. We need to ask for something other than standardized testing, especially when it is becoming clear that the tests may not be accurately measuring student achievement.
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Friday
August 08, 2008
Google Teacher Academy - Chicago
Chicago, IL
September 24, 2008
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Applications Due: August 24, 2008
for applications, check out this site --------------------------------------------------------
It has just been announced that another round of Google’s FREE training program for K-12 educators is coming to Chicago. Outstanding educators from around the world are encouraged to apply for the Google Teacher Academy taking place on Wednesday, September 24, 2008.
The GTA is an intensive, one-day event (8:30am-7:30pm) where participants get hands-on experience with Google’s free products and other technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, collaborate with exceptional educators, and immerse themselves in an innovative corporate environment. Upon completion, GTA participants become Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local region.
50 outstanding educators from around the world will be selected to attend the GTA based on their passion for teaching, their experience as leaders, and their use of technology in K-12 settings. Each applicant is REQUIRED to produce and submit an original one-minute video on either of the following topics: “Motivation and Learning” or “Classroom Innovation.” Applications for the event in Chicago are due on August 24, 2008. If possible, please use Google Video or YouTube to post these original videos. Participants must provide their own travel, and if necessary, their own lodging. Though we will give preference to K-12 educators within a 90-minute local commute of an Academy event, anyone may apply.
Learn more about the program and the application here
The event coordinators say that the GTAs have been a wonderful experience for everyone involved, with 97% of all attendees rating the GTA as “outstanding.”
They’ve attached a few quotes from GTA participants:
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“The academy was everything I hoped for and more! I can’t wait to plan out ways to use the tools we learned about, to share my experiences with my colleagues and to re-connect with the other academy participants!”
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“The focus on innovation in education, and not just about the tools, was right on target.”
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“I appreciate the opportunity to be connected to a group of educators that are passionate about preparing students for the 21st century. I feel inspired and able to meet the challenges that lie ahead!”
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“Until now, I had never attended a conference where I was so engaged and loving every minute of it.”
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“This was easily the most important professional development experience I have ever had as an educator. World-class tools demonstrated by world-class people at a world-class facility. THANK YOU!”
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“I love [the Google Certified Teacher community] for the ideas and inspiration that comes flowing to and from it...folks share professional development strategies (technology or otherwise) that have worked. It’s nice to have a variety of ways to assist others and having that variety also provides spice for those of us responsible for doing the providing.”
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Any questions will be answered at this e-mail address
We’re looking forward to another great event! - The GTA Team
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Google Teacher Academy
September 24, 2008
Chicago, IL
Note: Another GTA is currently being planned for New York City in November 2008. Sign up for the Google Teacher Newsletter on the front page of Google for Educators site to receive more detailed information soon.
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Sunday
August 03, 2008
by desertjim
Here in the high desert of southern New Mexico, the kids go back to school on August 11. The local school administrators spent this weekend at their pre-school retreat up in the Sacramento Mountains, and the teachers report to their in-service workshops this week.
My wife and I just got back from buying a bunch of back-to-school clothes for our grand-daughter back in Illinois.We took advantage of New Mexico’s annual sales tax holiday on school supplies, backpacks and clothes.I suppose the UPS shipping fees will equal the tax savings, but our grand-daughter is well worth it. The tax holiday seems like a good idea for other states too. Parents can certainly use a break when getting their children ready for the new school year. Its estimated that New Mexico parents will save a total of four million dollars this year.
Even though I am retired from the classroom, I try to keep my hand in. Several times each year, I present middle-school inquiry science lessons. I also sit on the board of the group that supports 50 retired and active scientists, engineers, mathematicians and teachers that volunteer to do presentations in the schools. Volunteering, however, is not the same as having your own class of students.
About this time of year, I still get that feeling that its time to start getting my lab organized and my opening day lesson plan rewritten. I am getting better at just letting the feeling pass though. I am now able to watch the local kids lining up at the corner for the school bus and appreciate the fact that I can just grab another cup of coffee and the newspaper instead of my seating chart.
I hope that all of TEN’s members and readers have had a relaxing summer. Please take the time you have left before school starts in your area to reenergize yourselves. To help out, here’s a little piece of humor to provide perspective before the start of another year of over-emphasis on high stakes testing .
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Monday
July 28, 2008
by desertjim
Lucy Klocksin wrote eloquently last weeek about the lack of adequate public school funding from the state. I would like to point out that there is a continuing lack of funding for another aspect of public education. In Illinois, the legislature has chronically underfunded the Chicago and downstate teacher retirement funds.
In March, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) sued the state of Illinois, charging that the state had failed to fund Chicago teacher pensions at the same level as the downstate Teacher Retirement System (TRS). Although Chicago teachers constitute 20% of the state’s public school teachers, Chicago received only 5% of the state’s teacher pension funding. Meeting funding requirements cost CPS an additional $131 million (taken from operating funds).
The downstate teacher pension system fares little better.The current unfunded state liability for its five retirement systems was $42 billion at the start of the last legislative session. In 2006, the state had $31 billion in accounts to pay $51 billion in projected pensions. Recent borrowing from the pension funds to cover other state expenses has not imporved the situation. Currently, the state has 63% of the money needed to pay public pensions (nationwide the average is 85%).
It took generations for Illinois legislators to fall so far behind in funding teacher pensions. Teachers need to be aware of the situation, and keep track of legislative actions in the future.
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Thursday
July 24, 2008
Monday
July 21, 2008
by Lucy Klocksin - Golden Apple Fellow
The inequities in school funding in Illinois have haunted me for years. I taught for several years on the north shore and also sent my own children to these well funded schools. For the past 15 years I have taught in the Chicago Public Schools. The differences in what the children of the poor and children of the wealthy are offered in their schools makes me shudder.
All schools are held to the same standards but are expected to meet those standards with dramatically different resources available to them. People are forever explaining to me that “throwing more money at city schools isn’t going to improve them.” No one from a poorly funded school has EVER told me that more money wouldn’t help their school. 80% of students in my city school come from low income homes while my old school in the suburbs had no low income students. More than a third of my current students are Limited English Proficient (LEP) while my old school had an LEP population of about 1%. Still the school that doesn’t have poor or LEP children gets about $10,000 per child per year more money to teach those children.
Illinois legislation needs to be altered dramatically and new ways of funding schools have to be found. While this problem exists in virtually every state, Illinois’ funding inequities are the worst in the nation. Not surprisingly, we also have an achievement gap second to none. While the average state picks up 50% of school expenses, our state pays about 30% (Metropolitan Planning Council, 2006).
It’s no secret that children in well funded schools do better than children in poor schools. That doesn’t happen because those children are all smarter! Well funded schools can attract the best teachers, buy the best equipment, build state of the art buildings and do whatever is needed to help children learn to their fullest potential. I’m glad I got the best for my children but I won’t rest easy until the good education my children got is standard for everybody’s children.
I haven’t done a lot of ranting about school funding recently but I heard some sad news this week that got me thinking. Sharon Voliva died this week. She began fighting for more equitable school funding decades ago, when her children were small. She probably fought that battle harder and longer than anyone in our state. She organized statewide rallies, she talked with legislators, `she started a wonderful organization called Better Funding for Better Schools. She dedicated her life to this cause. Now her grandchildren feel the bite of inequitably funded schools in Illinois. Without Sharon’s selfless determination and wisdom I wonder if this problem ever will be resolved. Is anyone else out there as angry as I am or is there something I am missing that makes it okay to treat children so unfairly?
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Saturday
July 19, 2008
by desertjim
The NY Times recently interviewed Randi Weingarten, the probable next president of the American Federation of Teachers, who wants to replace NCLB’s standardized testing with a vision of public schools as community centers.
Ms. Weingarten imagined in the interview. “A federal law that promoted community schools — schools that serve the neediest children by bringing together under one roof all the services and activities they and their families need?” She would like a federal education law, “...that promoted community schools — schools that serve the neediest children by bringing together under one roof all the services and activities they and their families need...Schools that include dental, medical and counseling clinics.”
Public schools historically had a much narrower mission - to create educated citizens. My parents immigrated as children from German occupied Poland before WWI. They were both taught to read and speak English in the Chicago Public Schools. Society saw that as sufficient and it seemed to be; my immigrant father eventually ran his own business. The four children in our family were also educated in the Chicago public schools in the 1940s and 50s. Three of us earned college degrees (two on partial scholarships the third using military benefits) based on our solid public school educations. The public schools of the first half of the 20th century seem to have served us all very well.
Now, at the start of the 21st century, we are looking for ways to reform, upgrade and “make more relevant” our public schools. Perhaps even turn them into the community centers suggested by Randi Weingarten.
In a commentary on his blog Going to the Mat, Matt Johnston questions the effectiveness of such an approach. Johnston points out that ever since the “War on Poverty” we have been asking schools to provide more and more social services to the students. “We ask schools to provide psychological services, counseling, and other non-educational services under the rubric of ‘it will help the student learn.’” I think this all ties in to a June post on this site in which a teacher stated his opinion that he is not a social worker.
Is it realistic to expect such expansion from schools and teacehrs that are already stretched thin just trying to teach reading, math and the other traditonal school subjects? Can (or should) our public schools become all things to all people?
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Thursday
July 17, 2008
Friday
July 11, 2008
by desertjim
Last week I asked what the priorities should be for federal aid to education. The first priority that came out of that discussion was the need to upgrade the teaching profession and improve teacher training. This gives me a new question for this week. Cool - this is just like my favorite kind of inquiry driven science class.
The various paths to the classroom all seem to produce not only excellent but also average and sub-par teachers. How are we to decide which method is best? A recent article (cited in the Carnival of Education this week) speaks very disparagingly of the short-term alternative certification route offered by Teach for America. Yet a June 25, 2008 article in the Chicago Tribune (Chicago schools make gains in hiring better grade of teachers) includes the hiring of 1,200 alternatively certified teachers as one factor in improving teacher quality.
That same Tribune article says that teacher quality in Chicago Public Schools is improving. This improvement was measured by checking scores on the ACT, the Illinois Basic Skills Test and by performance in college. (I know - there needs to be another discussion about whether those criteria actually tell us anything about teacher quality - maybe next week.)
What is the best way to increase the quality of teachers in the public schools? Are teachers best prepared by becoming subject matter experts first and then taking courses in pedagogy? Should the philosophy of education or courses on classroom management be stressed? Are the relatively short alternative certification programs a better way to develop excellent teachers than the “normal” route taught in what used to be called Normal schools?
So, a new question for our readers - what is the best way to improve teacher quality?
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Wednesday
July 09, 2008
Perhaps the best part of this week’s Carnival of Education is the introduction. All of us who have had to sit through interminable inservice meetings will identify with the author’s attitude. Beyond that though, there are some excellent links. Check out an interesting take on our special education students at this site.
Education Notes Online submitted an essay on types of teacher training that might be of special interest to those of us who have been involved in alternative certification programs. At HorseSense and Nonsense you can find an ongoing discussion on what does or doesn’t constitute teacher insubordination.
All-in-all, another interesting conglomeration of educational topics, all gathered together in one tiny piece of the blogosphere.
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By desertjim
The poll shows that education ranks behind the economy and gas prices as the top issue for Americans. However, the participants said that the quality of the education system has a big impact on the economy.
In addition to responding that the schools are not getting students ready for “real-life”, the poll indicates that the public feels the current stress on testing is a waste of time. I think most educators would agree with the public on that one.
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Sunday
July 06, 2008
by desertjim
Here in the high desert of southern New Mexico it is becoming apparent that the coming election will usher in big political change. Change that may approach the level of 1932 when FDR was elected and fostered the New Deal. This trend seems to surpass the desire for change that elected Ronald Reagan and the Republicans to power in 1980.
If this year turns out to bring a major political change to America, we as educators need to be able to articulate how we want the new Congress and administration to approach public education. Clearly NCLB, the last major education policy change, was a disaster. Public schools have been forced to teach to standardized high-stakes tests and shortchange actual education.
What should be the federal government’s role in public education?
I have my own biases. I think federal aid to education should go predominantly toward funding districts which adopt research supported programs. For example, studies clearly show that inquiry science education and early childhood programs like Headstart are effective.
Perhaps you have other priorities. Should the government concentrate on mandates like Title IX or the ADA rules on special education? Should the nation return to programs like the Eisenhower funding that paid for teacher training and adoption of exemplary curricula? Perhaps the National Science Foundation summer workshops for teachers should be reinstated. Would block grants to states be the simplest approach?
I would like to hear other opinions on this issue. What do you think must be done to improve public education using federal dollars? What priorities will you present to your congressional representatives when the education bill comes up for renewal?
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Wednesday
July 02, 2008
This week’s Carnival of Education at An (aspiring) Educator’s Blog features last week’s TEN post on Academic Capital among many others. A few I found particularly interesting:
Bill Ferriter at The Tempered Radical wonders,
How can we, as educators, come to grips with the idea of a job well done, when “a job well done” inevitably includes failures in the form of children who we just
didn’twouldn’tdecided not tocouldn’t reach?
Lorem Ipsum wonders, with tongue in cheek, what would happen if we decided to solve the school budget crunch and silence the critics of teachers by just getting rid of all the teachers.
Firing teachers would solve so many problems. No more problems with kids being given too much homework, no more problems with kids being taught evolution, no more problems with “unfairness” in general.
Right on the Left Coast shares a story of a teacher who taught a book despite being specifically forbidden to teach it and got suspended. Do you agree with his conclusion?
[I]t may not be smart for schools or districts to keep particular books out of classrooms, but it is legal. And since we teachers are public employees and not private contractors, we follow the instructions that are laid out by the elected school boards and implemented through the school administration. I’m sorry this teacher lost her job over this, but she defied specific instructions about curriculum.
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Monday
June 30, 2008
The Illinois Education Research Council is releasing a new study on the “Teacher Academic Capital Gap in Illinois.” (Download the full study or policy brief [pdf])
Teacher academic capital is a measurement combining the mean ACT score of teachers, the percentage of teachers who failed the IL Basic Skills Test on the first attempt, the percentage of teachers who were provisionally or emergency certified, and the mean Barron’s competitiveness ranking of the undergraduate institutions attended by teachers. It represents, according to the IERC, “a collection of intellectual resources and assets that are available to schools through their teachers.”
The study found that between 2001 and 2006, schools with the highest percentage of low-income and minority students made major gains in academic capital. Though Chicago still has a lower average than the rest of the state, it is increasing faster than any other region, and increases in Chicago’s measures are the main driving force behind the statewide increase.
The report points out that Chicago’s huge increases in teacher academic capital are “largely the result of hiring inexperienced teachers with stronger academic backgrounds.”
The found that ISAT scores showed a “positive link between improvements in [academic capital] and achievement gains.” They also found that “[academic capital] gains tend to have a greater positive effect on a school’s student achievement than the negative effect associated with teacher inexperience.”
They specifically warn schools against seeking out experienced teachers as the expense of looking at new teachers with strong academic qualifications. But, to be sure, there are challenges to focusing on academic capital, as the IERC reported last year:
Unfortunately, in a recent study on teacher attrition in Illinois (DeAngelis & Presley, 2007), the IERC found that teachers with the highest ACT scores and degrees from the most competitive institutions are less likely to remain teaching in the lowest-performing schools. If this trend continues, the improvements in the distribution of Illinois’ teacher academic capital in recent years could be eroded. State and district officials need to ensure that all school leaders are implementing effective mentoring and induction support for new teachers, and striving to improve their schools’ teaching and learning climates.
Links to news coverage and related teacher achievement data in New York at This Week in Education.
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Saturday
June 28, 2008
[via Joanne Jacobs]
A Los Angeles teacher talks about class size. It’s not about giving teacher fewer papers to grade or parents to call. It’s about giving teachers and students a fighting chance to fight the entrenched classroom culture that pervades high-need schools.
In Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” invisibility translates to a lack of individuality and signifies how being looked at is not the same as being seen. When one is invisible in any culture, one feels no sense of personal motivation or accountability. Class-size reduction is one very important way to change the culture. Being able to look each student in the eye, to touch each student on the shoulder, to make each student feel responsible for his or her behavior is impossible when the room feels like one huge organism that has devoured individuals and turned them into a monstrous mass. With an environment that allows us the ability to give attention where attention is needed, we can all accomplish more. With an environment that allows us the ability to see one another as individuals, despite the enforced limitations of an obsolete institution like the Los Angeles Unified School District, we might even exceed all our expectations.
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Thursday
June 26, 2008
This week’s Carnival of Education at Where’s the Sun highlights a recent TEN post on standardized test score analysis.
Also worth checking out:
An (aspiring) Eduator’s Blog looks at four different personas taken on by teachers to address race in the classroom: the colorblind champion, the touchy-feely empathizer, the devil’s advocate, and the social justice league. Each has pros and cons. She says,
[A]ll of my teachers have influenced my blackness - from how I see myself as an African American to how I relate with others in and outside of my racial group. Many teachers are not cognizant of the power they have over this domain.
Tween Teacher is talking about how to find a teaching job you love. She’s got detailed steps and potential interview questions. If you’re in the market for a first (or new) teaching job, be sure to take a look! “[Y]ou are entitled to work in a place that ‘gets’ you, and wants what you have to offer.”
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Chicago’s Curie High School Youth Radio project wondered what their teachers do for fun and during the summer. Hear the interview here. Answers included quilting, singing, golfing, gardening, “being a soccer mom,” and moshing at heavy metal concerts.
Everyone’s got their own special summer thing. Hope everyone’s got something relaxing, fun, and/or inspirational planned for this summer. What will you be doing?
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Monday
June 23, 2008
Last week the Fordham Institute release a new study showing that, “while the nation’s lowest achieving youngsters made rapid gains from 2000 to 2007, the performance of top students was languid.” It suggests that NCLB’s focus on “closing the achievement gap” has forced teachers to pay more attention to their lowest performing students, perhaps as the expense of the highest.
The report expresses grave concern about these findings, calling them “one of [NCLB’s] unintended consequences - and one that’s worrisome for America’s future competitiveness.”
There’s something about this that just doesn’t make any sense to me. Never has. Let me see if I can break it down.
Here’s a set of scores reported in the study: in 8th grade math, the average score of those students in the 10th percentile went up 13 points, from 221 to 234, while the average score of the students in the 90th percentile went up only five points, from 320 to 325.
These scores aren’t measuring the performance of individual kids over time. They’re the 8th grade scores each year, so each year it’s a different set of kids.
I might be worried if we were talking about a single group of kids. If in the past we were able to move high achieving kids along at a certain rate over their years in school, and now we’re not because we’ve stopped paying attention to them, that would be worrisome.
But why does it make sense to expect the top scores of 8th graders to increase dramatically each year? Should each class of 8th graders be significantly more successful than the previous year’s class?
Is what we’re saying that we don’t think that 325 is a good score on the NAEP? That to be internationally competitive, 8th graders should be scoring, what, 400? 500? If they got to that score, would we then be contented if their scores stayed stagnant?
It makes me wonder what we’re really measuring. If we had some really well defined standards for what 8th graders should be able to know and do, and some really valid measuring tools, then I think you would not expect the scores of the top students to rise dramatically every year. They would just be high. Stable and high.
It’s not that I don’t think they have a point about teachers in the current test-obessed climate being pressured to pay more attention to their lowest performing students at the expense of enriching the education of the highest performing students. There’s just something really fishy to me about the expectation that all scores - even the very highest - will rise every year. Maybe there’s something I’m missing.
More on the study from Eduwonk and Eduwonkette.
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Sunday
June 22, 2008
In May the American Association of University Women released a report that describes the amazing strides girls have made in educational attainment in the last 35 years. They pointedly argue that this has not been at the expense of boys.
USA Today reporter Richard Whitmire disagrees vehemently, and has a new blog just to explore Why Boys Fail.
Regardless of your point of view on whether there’s a boys crisis or a girls crisis or both or neither in education today, the blog is a great source of interesting links. Check the sidebar on the right for a library of editorials and reports worth checking out if you’re interested in gender and education.
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Friday
June 20, 2008
This week’s Carnival features posts relating to the theme of youth empowerment.
I particularly liked this post from What it’s Like on the Inside, talking about her approach to end of the year assessment:
For example, I had a student who missed a lot of class not that long ago. It turned out that he was skipping school and by the time all that caught up to him, well, he had been gone a lot of days. He served a week of in-school suspension for his truancies. Five of his teachers told his parents that there was no way he could pass their classes---all those zeros in their gradebooks couldn’t be made up due to unexcused absences. It is their right to have such a policy, but I didn’t follow suit. The kid made some bad choices, to be sure. But he had a school applied punishment for that. Why should I kick him with a grade, too? I can’t imagine having to come to school for the last month knowing that nothing you would do would matter...that because of something stupid, others were going to make a mess of your transcript and condemn you to summer school for summers to come. Now, it remains to be seen whether or not he will pass my class. He is still missing several assessments, but he has the choice to show me that he has learned the material. It is definitely one of those “lead a horse to water” sorts of deals; however, in the event that an “F” shows up on his report card for my class, it won’t be because I destined him to fail. I sleep a lot better that way.
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Thursday
June 19, 2008
Last week, in full-page ads [pdf] in the New York Times and Washington Post, a task force commissioned by the Economics Policy Institute released “A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education.” The education internet has been buzzing ever since.
Here is what the report says:
Education policy in this nation has typically been crafted around the expectation that schools alone can offset the full impact of low socioeconomic status on learning. Schools can—and have—ameliorated some of the impact of social and economic disadvantage on achievement. Improving our schools, therefore, continues to be a vitally important strategy for promoting upward mobility and for working toward equal opportunity and overall educational excellence.
Evidence demonstrates, however, that achievement gaps based on socioeconomic status are present before children even begin formal schooling. Despite the impressive academic gains registered by some schools serving disadvantaged students, there is no evidence that school improvement strategies by themselves can close these gaps in a substantial, consistent, and sustainable manner.
The broader, bolder approach includes increased investment in early childhood education; health services like prenatal, dental, and optometric care; and after school and summer services.
Successful programs do not exclusively focus on academic remediation. Rather, they provide disadvantaged children with the cultural, organizational, athletic, and academic enrichment activities that middle-class parents routinely make available to their own children.
Lots of education thought leaders have gotten behind this. You can see the original task force list here, and you can become a cosigner of the statement here.
Critics of the statement contend that it is anti-accountability and lets school off the hook for their role in the education crisis.
Here’s a typical critique, from Eduwonk:
I’m all for many of the proposals it champions, better access to health care and other social services, better access to pre-kindergarten education for low-income kids, using time more effectively....those are all vitally important.
But, the conspicuous soft-pedaling of a focus on results and the explicit rejection that perhaps schools are even a substantial part of the educational problem is unsettling. It’s as though the debates and progress of the last 25 years didn’t happen at all.
But when I read it, I didn’t see results getting soft-pedaled at all. Here’s what the report says about accountability and assessment:
The public has a right to hold schools accountable for raising student achievement. However, test scores alone cannot describe a school’s contribution to the full range of student outcomes. New accountability systems should combine appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods, and they will be considerably more expensive than the flawed accountability systems currently in use by the federal and state governments.
I’ve talked about this before: it’s time to focus on figuring out what real accountability would look like. If we want to argue that standard testing is a bad measure of student achievement, we have to offer a real replacement. A scientific, carefully reasoned alternative.
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Saturday
June 14, 2008
Andy Rotherham at Eduwonk is wondering, “what would you do with $5 billion to improve American education?”
Here are some of the ideas from the many comments:
See the idea he picked as his favorite here.
What would you do?
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Friday
June 13, 2008
District 299, Alexander Russo’s blog about Chicago Public Schools asked teachers for their impressions of the big anti-violence-pro-school-funding rally at Soldier Field this week. (He also links to all the newspaper coverage here)
Some impressions gathered from the comments:
While the event wasn’t, according to these witnesses, much good to the students themselves, is it possible it might have some political impact as a showpiece nevertheless? Does that kind of strategy even work to change public or political opinion?
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Thursday
June 12, 2008
This week’s Carnival of Education at Learn Me Good features, among many others, Penny Lundquist’s guest post on TEN on the role of teachers, “I’m not a social worker.”
Also worth checking out:
Reading Coach Online worries that a proposal to add suggested age ranges to all children’s book is at best unnecessary, and at worst could discourage or embarrass kids who are reading out of their publisher-selected age range.
Learning from the Experts shares some advice for teachers from middle school students, including a suggestion that teachers allow students to evaluate them sometimes. Anyone tried this?
What it’s Like on the Inside wonders how to move outside our comfortable habits and stretch ourselves as educators, not to mention helping our students to do the same.
You cannot have innovation, unless you are willing and able to move through the unknown and go from curiosity to wonder. How do you help yourself make that move?
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Tuesday
June 10, 2008
A the blog Teaching in the 408, blogger TMAO is talking about why he’s leaving his teaching job. Here’s one reason:
What does a teacher-promotion look like? Lead teacher/ mentor teacher/ department chair tend to mean very little except occasionally more work. Instructional coach means not teaching. Vice-principal means not teaching. Coordinator of something at the D.O. means not teaching. What does a teacher-promotion look like? We don’t know, not really. What happens when I figure out my job, do it well, occasionally do it more than well? What are my options for professional growth beyond 1) stop doing the job I do well; and 2) continue to do the job I do well, without change, indefinitely?
His post inspired a great discussion about this topic on the dy/dan blog, where Dan asks,
Where, in the vast sphere of education, do you deploy someone like TMAO, someone who is more satisfied by instructional innovation than by instructional implementation? How do you play to that teacher’s strengths? How do you keep him challenged?
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Monday
June 09, 2008
Today’s guest blog post is from Golden Apple’s Director of Professional Development and Golden Apple Fellow Penny Lundquist.
On a recent visit to a far south side Chicago public high school, I observed a well-spoken African-American student linger after class. When the young man left, I commented to his teacher, “he seems to be quite interested in your class. One of your better students?” The teacher replied. “He’s very smart, but he’s failing my class.” When I asked him why, the teacher responded, “I don’t know why. I don’t pry into my students’ personal lives. I’m not a social worker.”
Far too many poor and minority students, students of promise, are also students who are beset by wide-ranging life challenges outside of school that interfere with their ability to succeed in school. Unfortunately, far too many of their teachers view their role as purely academic and are unable or unwilling to reach out to them to build the bridge those students need.
Sarah Karp’s “Teaching Kids to Cope” in the April 08 issue of Catalyst addresses social and emotional learning:
In the first-ever districtwide survey of students last spring, CPS students were asked a number of questions about their own and their peers’ social and emotional development. … The results showed that social and emotional learning is the No. 1 area students identified as needing improvement . . . [However,] Teachers worry that social and emotional lessons will cut into time they have to spend teaching reading or math. Others don’t see the immediate impact.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear, has there been a sound? If a teacher imparts information, “teaches,” to students who are so beset by life challenges that they cannot absorb the teaching, has the teacher really taught?
Vivian Loseth, Executive Director of Youth Guidance, explained it this way in the Catalyst article:
One of the common things you find with bad teachers is that they have not found a way to connect with students. If you can connect with kids and teach them how to manage their own behavior, then it frees up time for math and science.
Should a teachers’ role include “social work?” If so, how can we make sure teachers are getting the training and support to provide this role? What would this training look like?
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Saturday
June 07, 2008
Joanne Jacobs sums up some of the coverage on the two recently reported incidents of kindergarten teachers acting cruelly toward difficult students in their classes.
In talking to teachers and reading the dozens of comments on my blog posts here and here, I see a pattern.
Teachers complain that more wild and crazy children are coming to school, and that there’s little that teachers are allowed to do to enforce discipline when parents are uncooperative or incompetent…
Teachers also say they’re promised training in dealing with children with disabilities or behavior problems, but they never get it. Or they get it, and it’s not helpful. They’re told special education teachers will co-teach or that aides will work with high-need children, but the extra help never appears or vanishes with the next budget cut.
Her summary of those responses is, for me, a little too close to “teachers say it’s the kids’ fault, the parents’ fault and/or the school system’s fault.” I don’t think that’s really what the teachers meant.
But, I think teachers do often feel really angry and helpless when they have that kid in class. The kid who makes it so difficult for you to teach everyone else. The kid who makes you cry after school because you have no idea how to reach her. And if you have four or five or twelve kids like that, well, then it takes more than just a devotion to your calling to survive a year. It takes strategies.
I bet a few of you had that kid in your class this year. We all know the answer to having an extremely disruptive kid in your class and terribly insufficient support is NOT to have the other kids vote him out of the class!
So, what worked for you?
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Thursday
June 05, 2008
A few highlights from this week’s Carnival, which also includes this post from TEN on interdisciplinary learning.
Lead from the Start shares a study that proves preschoolers do much better on motor skills tasks when they talk to themselves.
Andrea muses on the mixed messages we give kids:
We want you to resist peer pressure and think for yourself. We want you to believe everything we tell you about what are good values.
We want you to be a good team member. Don’t even think of asking the student next to you how they solved the problem; you do your own work.
Be responsible. Only do what we tell you to.
We want you to be compassionate and look out for each other. We want you to turn in your peers to the authorities when they are troubled.
Cooperation is the key to success. There can only be one winner, so you have to beat everyone else.
History is Elementary demands that her fellow content-area teachers “roll up our sleeves and provide more opportunities for students to have more varied literacy experiences and more practice with various reading strategies, so they will not be ‘left behind.’”
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Monday
June 02, 2008
Sometimes, when he’s rereading his favorite Douglas Hofstadter book, my husband tries to get me estimate. How many blocks high is the Sears Tower? How many dumptrucks would it take to haul away Mt. Fuji?
I was thinking of those questions when I read this piece in the New York Times about a new interdisciplinary program at Binghamton University in New York that seeks to break down the never-ending divide between the disciplines:
It’s been some 50 years since the physicist-turned-novelist C.P. Snow delivered his famous “Two Cultures” lecture at the University of Cambridge, in which he decried the “gulf of mutual incomprehension,” the “hostility and dislike” that divided the world’s “natural scientists,” its chemists, engineers, physicists and biologists, from its “literary intellectuals,” a group that, by Snow’s reckoning, included pretty much everyone who wasn’t a scientist.
The estimation problems are an interesting bridge of this gap. I’m more of a “literary intellectual” than a scientist, and I start out frustrated because I think of them as being math problems that I simply don’t have enough information to solve. But they’re not. I have lots of information from things I’ve seen and done and read to start to figure out the answers.
Teachers talk a lot about the importance of interdisciplinary learning. But it takes a lot to figure out ways to authentically connect, say, math and literature. The beauty of it is, once you’ve done it, the “math kids” will be more engaged with the literature and the “reading kids” will be more engaged with the math. The Binghamton prof gives this example:
One goal of the initiative is to demystify science by applying its traditional routines and parlance in nontraditional settings — graphing Jane Austen, as the title of an upcoming book felicitously puts it. “If you do statistics in the context of something you’re interested in and are good at, then it becomes an incremental as opposed to a saltational* jump,” Dr. Wilson said. “You see that the mechanics are not so hard after all, and once you understand why you’re doing the statistics in the first place, it ends up being simple nuts and bolts stuff, nothing more.”
This is a big project for professional development providers and ed schools. Teachers need to learn to bridge between disciplines on their own before they can help their students to do it.
* A term in biology referring to an abrupt jump.
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Saturday
May 31, 2008
Chris Lehmann, the principal of the innovative Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, critiques this glossy video proclaiming the importance of technology in education in his blog Practical Theory.
He worries that the message is too glib:
I’m disturbed by the fascination with connection for connection’s sake that I see in the first few minutes of the video. I remain very, very concerned with the notion that all we have to do is let the kids connect with the world—just like they do on Facebook or MySpace—and the kids will learn...We have to stop just thinking that the introduction of these tools without an incredible amount of planning and forethought will change anything for the better.
He also worries that we risk throwing away the baby with the bathwater:
The technology can be transformative, but only when coupled with a sense of where you are going and why. Let’s not forget the last 100 years of progressive school reform as we look to change schools today. We have to learn from the lessons of the past—we must learn why the progressive school movement lost to the factory model as the dominant educational model in America, if we expect to be successful in whatever the next wave of school reform turns out to be.
Lehmann worries that the video, produced by Pearson, is really just a marketing ploy for its new web-based school products. And he’s probably right.
The video is a symptom, not a cause, of the problems Lehmann is worried about. The video won’t keep anyone from asking the tough questions, but it just might be another indicator that not enough people are asking them yet.
Scott McLeod takes a similar perspective in his blog Dangerously Irrelevant,
Quit offering us wishes. Quit offering us dreams. Quit preaching to us about what is morally right and educationally appropriate. Help us realize, in terms we can understand, what this new thing might actually look like AT SCALE and how we might reasonably get here. Even if we agree with you that this is important, without a vision AND a plan we’re just as stuck as you are.
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Thursday
May 29, 2008
This week’s Carnival of Education features a recent TEN blog post on the perils of ACT preparation, as well as two interesting posts for/about new teachers:
Lead from the Start offers advice to his student teacher, considering taking a full-time teaching job at his high need school. He warns her,
Most of all you have to realize that if you do come to here, you have to buy-in completely to the school and its culture. Don’t do it if you think you need to come because you have to change the way things are done. You will only be disappointed.
Tween Teacher talks about the lessons she learned as a new teacher and defends the role of young, new teachers in difficult classrooms:
It’s not that I don’t agree that more experienced teachers are better for the harder-to-teach class, it’s just that I think that we can’t dismiss the passion and newness and energy that new teachers bring to the table.
Also interesting:
A Voice in the Wilderness offers up even more disturbing examples of product placement in the NY State standardized tests this year. I haven’t heard any complaints about this on Illinois tests. Has anyone seen anything like this here?
Jose Vilson explains why you can’t go on the field trip, even though he thinks you’re an awesome kid.
Dangerously Irrelevent asks a question nobody’s asking:
So what if schools don’t adjust to the demands of the digital, global economy? So what if the schools don’t prepare kids for the 21st century?
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Tuesday
May 27, 2008
The Consortium on Chicago School Research has released the next study in their series on Chicago high schools, this one looking at ACT preparation. The ACT is now a required part of the PSAE, Illinois’ standardized test for high school students.
According to the report summary:
The majority of Chicago Public Schools students are not attaining the ACT scores they are aiming for, which they need to qualify for scholarships and college acceptance… CPS students are highly motivated to do well on the ACT, and they are spending extraordinary amounts of time preparing for it. However, the predominant ways in which students are preparing for the ACT are unlikely to help them do well on the test or to be ready for college-level work. Students are training for the ACT in a last-minute sprint focused on test practice, when the ACT requires years of hard work developing college-level skills.
The full report explores this in fascinating depth, looking at test score data in conjunction with interviews with teachers and students. This really stood out for me:
Most students believe that ACT scores are strongly determined by tenacity and practice. When students were asked in interviews what they were doing to prepare for the test, the most common response was that they were going to try hard… Student perceptions that tenacity, strategies, and practice are what matter most for test scores are reinforced by the large amount of class time spent on practice items, strategies, pep assemblies around the test, and motivational posters… Teachers also tend to believe that ACT scores are predominantly determined by test-taking skills—almost 60 percent believe so. More teachers believe that the ACT reflects testing skills than believe it reflects student learning in their classes.
The belief that tenacity and motivation are the keys to success is one of the most pervasive themes in American rhetoric, and there’s a great power in conveying that sense of self-efficacy to students. It’s also a convenient message for policy-makers and test-prep companies. It’s simple and it sells.
But if schools are serious about getting students ready for college, this report concludes, it’s time to turn the volume down on that message a little bit, and turn the volume way up on the importance of aligning middle school and high school curricula, aligning high school instruction to what colleges are looking for, and generally improving the quality and quantity of instruction in high schools.
More from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times.
Full report here [pdf].
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Saturday
May 24, 2008
[via Schools Matter]
Wired Magazine’s blog draws attention to a new Penn State study that found that one in eight U.S. high school teachers presents creationism or intelligent design as a valid alternative to evolution.
From the study:
When we asked whether an excellent biology course could exist without mentioning Darwin or evolutionary theory at all, 13% of teachers agreed or strongly agreed that such a course could exist…
Of the 25% of teachers who devoted time to creationism or intelligent design, nearly half agreed or strongly agreed that they teach creationism as a “valid scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species.” Nearly the same number agreed or strongly agreed that when they teach creationism or intelligent design they emphasize that “many reputable scientists view these as valid alternatives to Darwinian Theory”…
[O]ur data demonstrate substantial sympathy for the “young earth” creationist position among nearly one in six members of the science teaching profession. The teachers who chose the “young earth” creationist position devoted 35% fewer class hours to evolution than all other teachers.
The study concludes:
These findings strongly suggest that victory in the courts is not enough for the scientific community to ensure that evolution is included in high school science courses. Nor is success in persuading states to adopt rigorous content standards consistent with recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences and other scientific organizations. Scientists concerned about the quality of evolution instruction might have a bigger impact in the classroom by focusing on the certification standards for high school biology teachers. Our study suggests that requiring all teachers to complete a course in evolutionary biology would have a substantial impact on the emphasis on evolution and its centrality in high school biology courses. In the long run, the impact of such a change could have a more far reaching effect than the victories in courts and in state governments.
So, next step, better science teacher preparation programs. Anyone seen an example of a good program at work?
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Thursday
May 22, 2008
