What we’re reading…

January 20th, 2012

Kathleen Porter-Magee at the Fordham Institute has written excellent blog post in which she highlights an important difference between two schools of thought in the education reform movement.  Those that advocate for big picture “structural reform” in schools- essentially changing the way a school, district, or state education system is run, and the more detailed and nuanced “classroom level” reforms that involve what students learn, and how they are taught.  In her post she reviews a new book titled The Tyranny of the Textbook: An Insider Exposes How Educational Materials Undermine Reform by Beverly Jobrack, who argues that the latter approach is being overlooked, to the detriment of student performance and school improvement efforts.  Porter-Magee effectively conveys the merits, and challenges of this policy position.

The essential premise of the book- that the most important component of school reform that will drive student achievement is the choice of curriculum that they are taught- is one that Common Core supports and is working actively to promote.  Indeed, Porter-Magee astutely articulates this position in her post when she writes “standards alone will do little to drive student achievement if they are not implemented via, among other things, a thoughtfully designed curriculum.”  Though this solution is neither quick, nor easy, Common Core believes that an internal approach to school reform that focuses on the content students are taught, the methods and practices teachers use, and the effective implementation of this content is what truly effects student achievement, and ultimately creates better schools.

Posted in Curriculum, Standards, Teacher Perspective, Teacher Preparation, What We're Reading | No Comments »

Money, Money

January 10th, 2012

We aren’t normally the type to complain about money. We don’t think money is the solution to fixing education in America (using good curricula is!), so we’re not big budget-watchers. But we do realize that an organization’s budget typically reflects its priorities. That’s why we were disappointed to see that the final budget compromise for the Department of Education zeroed out funds for key history, civics, and foreign language programs. Teaching American History, which supplies professional development to K-12 on the subject of history (a very rare commodity these days) is gone. So is the Foreign Language Assistance program. Martha Abbott of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages told Education Week: “Now there is no funding for foreign language K-12 programs from the U.S. Department of Education in an era when our nation’s language capacity is so greatly in need of strengthening.” And $1.2 million for civic education was also zeroed out. The administration is not the only one to blame here–there’s plenty to share among education committee leadership in the House and Senate. None of these parties appears to value the study of any subject aside from literacy (where most of this funding has shifted to) and math. The literacy and math skills obsession started with No Child Left Behind but appears now to be realigning most policies and resources dedicated to K-12 education. It is an obsession that data shows, at best, can only lead to short-term bumps in test scores. No other nation focuses so intently on math and reading skills alone. It is a losing obsession for students, for schools, and for our nation.

Lynne Munson

Posted in Curriculum, Foreign Language, History/Social Studies, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Jefferson, His Library, and Our Schools

December 29th, 2011

Since I moved to DC five months ago friends and strangers have inundated me with recommendations of places to visit, and activities to do.  With my “to do” list continuing to grow, I decided recently to visit the Library of Congress, possibly the most oft recommended stop of all.

Touted by my tour guide as the “most beautiful building in Washington,” the Library is an intricate, meticulously designed shrine to knowledge and learning.  Upon its walls are inscribed reverent phrases from Wordsworth, Tennyson, Keats, and Shakespeare on the quest for enlightenment.  Every way I turned I saw floor-to-ceiling panels or sculptures or architectural elements promoting poetry, law, commerce, history, art, science, or religion.  Covering one wall of the entrance to the famed reading room in the east corridor of the Jefferson Building, there is a large mosaic of Minerva, the Roman god of wisdom.  She is portrayed gazing at an unfurling scroll which displays an extensive list of fields of learning, including architecture, law, statistics, sociology, botany, biography, mechanics, philosophy, zoology, etc.  I was struck by the variety of topics the library’s designers took care to highlight and extol, and by the ideal they subscribe to in their work; that each subject should be celebrated as representative of human wisdom, and given equal value, esteem, and attention.

Thomas Jefferson’s vision for the Library of Congress was that it be a universal resource, where Congress and American citizens could become knowledgeable on any subject.  He was adamant that the Library contain a comprehensive wealth of knowledge on all subjects because he believed that the American legislature needed to a grasp of a wide array of ideas and topics in order to govern effectively.  He wrote in a letter to Congress supporting the inclusion of a diversity of books that there was “no subject to which a Member of Congress may not have occasion to refer.”[1]

Jefferson also believed an educated citizenry would in turn create a powerful and prosperous nation. As interpreted by the Library of Congress, education does not simply mean that citizens should have the skills needed to read, write, calculate, etc., but that they also be able to use these skills to do things like conduct experiments, discuss literature, explore history, debate religion, and ask questions about anything and everything.

The Library of Congress is intended to be the ultimate source of information and knowledge in America. It remains a national reserve of priceless educational treasures where any citizen can come to better themselves through learning. And yet, if you took an average public school class to visit the library today, how many of the students would even know the names and references etched on the walls of the building?  Our schools and curriculums have become so bogged down, and obsessed, with ensuring students have the basic skills they need that the rich and exciting content that makes learning meaningful is being lost.  Students aren’t encouraged to learn because it is their human right and responsibility to become enlightened and informed, instead they are encouraged to learn the skills they need to pass a test.

It is time to reaffirm our national commitment to the pursuit of deep, complex, and comprehensive knowledge, and to recognize the value of all the diverse fields of study that the Library of Congress represents.  As Americans we are so fortunate to live in a country that allows, and encourages, education for all of its citizens; there are so few countries that provide this opportunity, and fewer still with the wealth of publicly available resources to do so.  It is time we made the Library’s mission to “further the progress of knowledge and creativity for the benefit of the American people” a mission that every school, teacher, student, and citizen can embrace and fulfill.

Emily Dodd

You can learn more about the Library of Congress, and its history, here.

 


[1]Jefferson to Samuel H. Smith, September 21, 1814, Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress

Posted in Curriculum, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Had It Right

December 13th, 2011

Bear with me as I walk down memory lane and take a moment to get to my point.

Sometimes a Christmas TV special delivers more wisdom than it intended.  Like millions of other parents I watched “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” this past weekend with my kids.  They absolutely loved it.  My 5-year-old daughter was saddened when the other reindeer teased Rudolph, and touched by Clarice’s affection.  My 3-year-old son shouted “SCARY” when the Abominable Snow Monster growled over the mountaintops and swatted at Cornelius.  Both keep skipping around the house singing “Silver and Gold.”  My kids’ reaction was no different than mine when I first saw the show not long after it debuted in 1964.

What strikes anyone who watches Rudolph today is how basic this stop-motion classic is.  The set for the show appears to be made of little more than felt, foil wrappings, beads, and plastic snow.  The characters are of course puppets, made of wood, wool, faux fur, and vinyl.  If you look real closely you can see the lead wires on the puppets’ hands—and the dirt on Santa’s gloves.  This is low-tech.

Rudolph is one of a handful of 60s-era shows that continue to dominate the Christmastime TV lineup.  The others—you could name them—include  “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “Frosty the Snowman,” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!”  These shows are successful, of course, because they are beautifully crafted interpretations of great stories, either from books or from song.  It is the quality of the storytelling that keeps these tales around.   They not only don’t suffer from their low-tech-ness, but their simplicity helps us to focus on the story and characters.

Even though the broadcast and cable networks generate oodles of new shows every holiday season that they hope will enter this vaunted lineup, none has made it (though Polar Express appears to be making a good run for it.).  Most of these shows are faster-paced than the old stand-byes and, needless to say, far more slick.

My point (yes, I’ve finally gotten there) is that technology is no replacement for quality content.  A great story—no matter how simply told—will still shine through.  And a poor one—no matter how aided by special effects—will still fail.

One can draw a similar parallel between curriculum and education technology.  A curriculum rich in literary, historical, artistic, and scientific knowledge can of course make good use of new technologies, as long as they are smartly used in the service of the content and skills a teacher is trying to teach.  Such a curriculum also can work unaided.  But a weak, content-free curriculum based on vacant ideas such as “reading strategies” and relying on dry, incoherent basals containing “leveled” excerpts will fail, no matter how actively one tries to animate this dead material on a SmartBoard.

 

Lynne Munson

 

Posted in Curriculum, Technology | 4 Comments »

Not even 10 minutes for Social Studies

November 28th, 2011

You can’t even make this stuff up.  The Dallas Morning News reports that teachers at Field Elementary School in Dallas have been fabricating social studies, science, music, art, and physical education grades for students. Was it because students were doing poorly in those subjects?  No.  It was because Field’s principal simply would not allow teachers to teach those subjects.

According to Field teachers they had to give students phony grades because the principal required them to spend all of their instructional time on math and reading.  A third grade science and math teacher told investigators his request to teach science for 10 minutes twice a week and social studies for 10 minutes once a week was denied.  Field’s principal told the teacher that students would “pick up” science knowledge though math lessons on creating and interpreting graphs.  According to a school counselor:  “I do not know of science being taught in 3rd or 4th grade, and I am unaware of social studies being taught at all.”

Many Field Elementary students also missed out on art, physical education, and music classes because they were pulled out of these “specials” for extra tutoring in math and reading.  A music teacher reported giving students all a grade of 95 because after the first six weeks of school she “never got to see them in music again.”  In one affidavit a math instructional coach reported “90 percent of third graders did not attend specials because of TAKS [Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills] tutoring.”

Field has earned the state’s highest school rating–“exemplary”—the last two years.  That judgment is based significantly on students’ performance on state reading and math tests, of course.

So, is what happened at Field a singular, potentially criminally extreme example of educational negligence?  Perhaps.  But the pressure that spurred Field’s principal is felt by public educators nationwide.  And this is far from the first time we’ve seen folks buckle under that pressure and do the wrong thing.  We’re reminded of the well-documented cheating scandals in DC and Atlanta.

Pressure can be an effective source of motivation.  It can also be used as an excuse to do the wrong thing—and to get others to go along.  As we begin to implement the CCSS and the new assessments to come we need to keep these stories in mind.  With its emphasis on informational text, academic vocabulary, and research, the CCSS in ELA provides an opportunity to fight curriculum narrowing, not an excuse to give in to it.  Social studies, science, and the arts are among a wide array of core subjects that can be taught in powerful ways via the new standards.  They should also continue to be taught in their own right, in part because no student will become a strong reader, writer, or researcher without the key knowledge those subjects impart.  No one should make the mistake Field did—and many other schools are likely doing in less dramatic ways–and set these subjects aside.

Lynne Munson

Posted in Assessment, Curriculum, History/Social Studies, Teacher Perspective, What We're Reading | 1 Comment »

Who Defines Education and Why It Matters

November 10th, 2011

Have you noticed that people increasingly talk about the purpose of education as a driver of the economy and less a delivery system for knowledge and learning?  Apparently our nation’s governors are at least in part to blame for this shift. According to a recent study published by the International Journal on Education Policy and Leadership, governors seldom discuss the topic of education independent of economic growth.

Education Week’s Sean Cavanagh highlights Dick M. Carpenter and Haning Hughes’ analysis of this trend and its effects on policy:

Because governors create policies based on how they define the purpose of education, Carpenter and Hughes contend. The emphasis that governors place on ‘economic efficiency’ is likely to feed states’ overall interest in standards, assessment, and accountability, the authors say.

Even as governors voice concern over college- and career-readiness and high dropout rates in high school and higher education, they continue to champion reforms that have had only minimal impact. Perhaps if governors shifted their educational rhetoric to emphasize the importance of building a knowledgeable and engaged citizenry, their policies would align to encourage education rooted in quality content, with positive impact in the classroom.

Gubernatorial rhetoric rings strikingly similar to that of the skills-centric movement; both find basis in economic rationales for reform. And both have resulted in little to no improvement in the state of our education system, as testified by our students’ test scores. This is because education in skills, without basis in knowledge, leads to minimal learning.

Far too often, those outside of education take it upon themselves to define it. But it is up to the people within education—educators and advocates alike—who understand and live its inner-workings, to call for a better definition.

Hillary Marder

 

Posted in 21st Century Skills, Curriculum | 2 Comments »

NAEP: Proof of Education Insanity

November 4th, 2011

I challenge anyone to think of a nation that works as hard as we do to find silver linings in its educational failures. On Tuesday morning NAEP reported that, in the course of two years, our nation’s 4th and 8th graders improved a single point (on a 500-point scale) in three of four reading and math assessments, and flatlined on the fourth.  If you look at figures plotting NAEP scores over the last 30 years, any upward slope in the data is nearly undetectable to the naked eye.  Analysts have spent the last few days slicing and dicing this data and making unconvincing arguments that some positive trends can be detected.

But the reality is that these results are appalling — particularly if you consider the massive federal funding increases, intense reform debates, and the incessant promises of new technologies that have dominated the education discussion for nearly two decades. We have spent a great deal and worked very hard but gotten unimpressive results.  And this is in reading and math where, to the detriment of so many other core subjects, we’ve aimed nearly all of our firepower.

Einstein* defined “insanity” as “doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.” Well, my bet is that Einstein would have deemed NAEP data absolute proof of America’s educational insanity.

We’ve spent the last twenty years attempting to make what, on the surface, appears to be a diverse, creative, and wide-ranging series of reforms to public education.  We’ve tried to bring market pressures to bear through charters and choice.  We’ve attempted to set high standards and given high-stakes tests.  We’ve experimented with shrinking school and class sizes. We’ve focused on “21st century skills” and used the latest technologies. We’ve collected and analyzed data on an unprecedented scale.  We’ve experimented with a seemingly endless array of “strategies” for teaching reading and math and have tried to “differentiate” for every imaginable “type” of student. And we’ve paid dearly in tax dollars and in other ways for each of these “reforms.”

Interestingly, all of these reforms have one thing in common (aside from their failure to improve student performance except in isolated instances):  None deals directly with the content of what we teach our students.

Maybe we need to give content a chance.  What I mean by “content” is the actual knowledge that is imbedded in quality curricula.  Knowledge of things like standard algorithms, poetry, America’s past, foreign languages, great painters, chemistry, our form of government, and much more.  There are a few widely used curricula (e.g. International Baccalaureate, Latin schools curricula, Core Knowledge) that effectively incorporate much of this knowledge base. And performance data strongly suggests that these curricula work for ALL students.

So let’s draw on such successes and, sure, conduct more research, do more experiments, and spend more money.  But let’s do it to build a shared understanding what our students need to learn— the content they need to learn.  Then let’s use the best technology available and make the kind of investments we need in professional development to teach that content effectively. In light of the poor results other approaches have yielded, is there any other sane course?

Lynne Munson

 

*Attributed.

Posted in Curriculum, English/Language Arts, Math and Science, NAEP | 2 Comments »

Caution for Digital Literacy Enthusiasts

October 26th, 2011

In a letter to Time, Annie Murphy Paul says “we’re overestimating how much computers will teach our kids” and undervaluing the importance of content knowledge:

“There is no doubt that the students of today, and the workers of tomorrow, will need to innovate, collaborate and evaluate, to name three of the ’21st century skills’ so dear to digital literacy enthusiasts. But such skills can’t be separated from the knowledge that gives rise to them. To innovate, you have to know what came before. To collaborate, you have to contribute knowledge to a joint venture. And to evaluate, you have to compare new information against knowledge you’ve already mastered. Nor is there any reason that these skills must be learned or practiced in the context of technology. Critical thinking is crucial, but English students engage in it whenever they parse a line of poetry or analyze the motives of an unreliable narrator. Collaboration is key, but it can be effectively fostered in glee club or on the athletic field. Whatever is specific to the technological tools we use right now—and these tools are bound to change in any case—is designed to be easy to learn and simple to use.”

Read on, here.

 

Posted in 21st Century Skills, Technology | No Comments »

Hakim on National Science Framework: Not Visionary, Not Exciting

October 24th, 2011

“The average person’s body contains about 100 trillion cells, but only maybe one in 10 is human.”

That sentence made the front page of the October 11th Washington Post. And, yes, most of your cells and mine are not the familiar nuclear cells diagramed in textbooks. Rather, they are microbial cells—bacteria and archaea–that pass on their information buddy to buddy, in a process called horizontal gene transfer.

We are just beginning to understand the implications of that process and of the role those 90 trillion microbial cells play in your life drama. “We’re seeing an unprecedented rate of discovery. Everywhere we look, microbes seem to be involved,” says a Colorado University scientist quoted in the Post. Microbiology is today’s revolutionary science; the excitement in the field is palpable. The American Society of Microbiologists now has 38,000 members.

After reading the Post article I decided to see if any of that excitement is conveyed in the National Research Council’s Framework for K-12 science education, a document intended to lead to another, which will frame a common core science curriculum for states. The assumption is that this well-intentioned blue ribbon committee-effort will update and improve science education in this country and make our children able to compete in today’s global economy.

I read the 300 page NRC document to see if that is likely. Does it describe good science? Good pedagogy? No: The science is not challenging enough. The pedagogy it suggests is not likely to be imaginative.

In the section on biology bacteria and viruses are mentioned briefly, but archaea not at all. That’s out of date science. Archaea are one of the three forms of life, known as domains, broadly accepted as the base of the evolutionary bush. (At the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History, even t-shirts for kids now come with the three-branched bush of bacteria, archaea, and eukaryota.)

Something else that’s not mentioned in this document: scientists. You won’t find Darwin, or Newton, or Einstein. The story of science, its history, is not suggested or even hinted at here.

Which leads to the pedagogy.

The report lists endpoints and boundaries for each grade in each subject. Those endpoints are not challenging. Good teachers will see the document as dumbed down; ordinary teachers will be constrained by the boundaries. Yes, for low-performing schools, they will provide guidance and goals. But, overall, this is not visionary science, it is not exciting science. It does present a mostly sound overview of basic concepts. If things go according to plan, 41 already-hired teachers will use this lengthy but undistinguished document as the basis for what will essentially be a set of national science standards. This is really worrisome.

Joy Hakim

Joy Hakim is the author of The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way, Newton at the Center, Einstein Adds A New Dimension, copublished by Smithsonian Books and the National Science Teachers Association. Hakim serves on the board of Common Core.

 

Posted in Math and Science, Standards | 1 Comment »

Reversal of Fortune in California

October 20th, 2011

A new law in California eliminates California’s arts and foreign language high school graduation requirement by allowing students to take a career-technical education (CTE) course instead.

Sound familiar? AB 1330 is nearly identical to a bill vetoed by then-Governor Schwarzenegger last fall at the urging of Common Core, among others.  By signing AB 1330 into law, Governor Brown damages the teaching of the arts and foreign language in his state and guarantees thousands of students will graduate high school unqualified for admission to California’s public universities.

The new law continues a trend in California (and across the nation): With budgets tight, more than three-quarters of California’s school districts have reduced their art and music offerings over the past two years. One quarter of those districts have dropped the classes entirely.

The University of California and California State University systems require high school students to graduate with an education across the liberal arts, including courses in the arts and foreign language. In fact, arts and foreign-language courses are twice as likely as CTE classes to be certified as college-prep courses.  To be considered for admission to California’s public universities, students must complete fifteen year-long UC-approved school courses with a grade C or better:

History and Social Science, 2 years

English, 4 years

Math, 3 years

Lab science, 2 years (3 recommended)

Foreign Language, 2 years (3 recommended)

Arts, 1 year of dance, drama, music or visual art

Elective, 1 year

The law is packaged as dropout prevention. But easing graduation requirements doesn’t lower dropout rates. In fact, rigorous graduation requirements have been found to reduce the dropout rate for high poverty students. The law’s actual effect will be reduced post-high school options for all of California’s more than 6 million public school students. The law also sends the clear message that the arts and foreign language are not as important to the state as the other subjects.

As states, districts, and schools continue to focus more narrowly on reading and math at the expense of subjects like art and foreign language, we’re disappointed to see California follow this trend.

Stephanie Porowski

Posted in Arts, Foreign Language | 2 Comments »

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