Archive for March, 2010

The AFT’s P21 Roundup

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

The new issue of the AFT’s American Educator (circulation ~910,000) is out, and it offers a thorough overview of the debate over 21st century skills.

Common Core’s own Lynne Munson and Laura Bornfreund contrast what high-performing countries are doing in their classrooms with what the Partnership for 21st Century Skills would like teachers to do in American classrooms. For example, the high school exit exam in British Columbia asks students to spend 25 minutes “discuss[ing] the parallels between the father-child relationship found both in these passages [from King Lear] and elsewhere in the play,” while P21 would like 12th-graders to “translate a piece of dialog from a Shakespearean play into a text message exchange.” 7th- and 8th-graders in New Zealand “learn to explain how the interaction between ecological factors and natural selection leads to genetic changes within populations,” and also “investigate physical phenomena (in the areas of mechanics, electricity, electromagnetism, light and waves, and atomic and nuclear physics), and produce qualitative and quantitative explanations for a variety of complex situations.” P21 would like 8th-graders to “view video samples from a variety of sources of people speaking about a science-related topic” and “rate the videos on the degree to which the person sounded scientific, then identify characteristics of speech pattern, word choice, level of detail, and other factors that influenced their perceptions.”

Munson and Bornfreund conclude that P21 can do better and highlight three lesson plans endorsed by P21 that could be worthy of classroom use. The lessons “have the potential to extend students’ content knowledge while also developing their higher-order skills.” The lessons are significant because they’re outliers; according to Munson and Bornfreund “what makes these examples stand out from the rest of P21′s lesson ideas is that they suggest interesting ways to go deeper into core academic subjects.”

The issue also includes commentary from Diane Ravitch on the history of education reform fads (Diane insists that 21st century skills are a mirage, and that while “pedagogues, policymakers, thought leaders, facilitators, and elected officials are rushing to get aboard the 21st-century-skills express train” there is, in fact, “nothing new in the proposals of the 21st-century-skills movement.”), Dan Willingham and Andy Rotherham on what it will take to rehabilitate the 21st century skills movement (they say that “educators and policymakers must ensure that content is not shortchanged for an ephemeral pursuit of skills”), and Diana Senechal on why emphasizing the content of what is taught is the most daring education reform idea floating around today. Senechal writes that reformers should “pursue perfection in curriculum and pedagogy” through a conversation about “the meaning and purposes of education,” which includes “dar[ing] to specify what we will teach: the disciplines, works, ideas, and historical periods; the things to be mastered, grasped, and pondered.” As Russ Whitehurst put it: don’t forget curriculum.

James Elias

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

CCSSI’s K-12 Standards Earn An A-

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

The Common Core State Standards Initiative’s K-12 standards have far exceeded the expectations of those of us who want to return content to the center of our children’s education.  Remarkably they have done this while still being skill-based standards.  By which I mean they do not lay out what children need to know at each grade, but rather describe what they need to be able to do.  They describe skill development, not knowledge mastery.  That said, unlike most skill standards (and nearly all standards are skill standards these days), the CCSSI standards lay out skills in a manner that is not only friendly to content but actually requires the mastery of content.

Let me explain.  In the reading standards for literature for grades 3-5 students are required to “compare and contrast thematically similar tales, myths, and accounts of events from various cultures” and “compare the treatment of similar ideas and themes (e.g., opposition of good and evil) as well as character types and patterns of events in myths and other traditional literature from different cultures.”  This cannot be done without reading and deeply comprehending mythological stories.

In the same grade 3-5 reading standards there is this:

“Explain major differences between poems and prose, and refer to the structural elements of poems (e.g., stanza, verse, rhythm, meter) when writing or speaking about specific poems.”

And this:

“Explain major differences between drama and prose stories, and refer to the structural elements of drama (e.g. casts of characters, setting descriptions, dialogue, stage directions, acts, scenes) when writing or speaking about specific works of dramatic literature.”

Again, students must read texts closely in order to meet these standards.  The standards do an excellent job covering the list of textual features one should become knowledgeable of—(e.g., poetic and dramatic structure).  They are less effective at describing what students should do with these tools—use them to appreciate the beauty inherent in great works.  And that is in part because these are skill standards, not content standards, and hence they avoid absolutely requiring students to contend with great works.

Though they certainly push schools, teachers, and students hard in the direction of reading the best of the best.  And do actually require students to read some very important works in the “informational text” sections of the standards.  Again, let me explain.

The standards are accompanied by a lengthy appendix listing dozens upon dozens of specific works that the CCSSI is putting forward as exemplars of texts of appropriate rigor at each grade.  There are few selections here that cannot be described as excellent.  And we hope that teachers will use these.  But that will depend primarily on the quality of curricula schools adopt once these standards come in to use.

In the informational text section the standards-writers have all but removed any doubt that a few key works will be taught.  In grades 9-10 they require students to “analyze documents of historical and literary significance including foundational U.S. documents (e.g., the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights) for their premises, purposes, and structure.”  And in grades 11-12:  “Analyze how various authors express different points of view on similar events or issues, assessing the authors’ assumptions, use of evidence, and reasoning, including analyzing seminal U.S. documents (e.g., The Federalist, landmark U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions and dissents).”  In essence, these standards do provide a short required reading list of key American historical documents.

The CCSSI standards create a space for truly excellent curricula and teaching materials to be used, and for serious, content-rich teacher professional development to occur.  We hope that organizations with the expertise to create those materials will seize this rare opportunity and do so.

Lynne Munson

Posted in Curriculum, Standards | 2 Comments »

Impressive Start

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

We are always interested in hearing about what’s important to teachers. So the Gates Foundation and Scholastic deserve major kudos for their new report out today. Primary Sources: America’s Teachers on America’s Schools collects the results of a survey of 40,000 American teachers and provides a useful snapshot of teacher opinion on a number of topics, including merit pay, teacher retention, and raising student achievement.

Gates and Scholastic say that the survey’s goal is to “plac[e] teachers’ voices at the center of the discourse around education reform.” The survey makes clear that teachers believe that curriculum – the content of what’s transmitted to students – needs to be at the center of that conversation.

From the report: “Regardless of their views on the single most likely reason for their students’ lack of preparedness, teachers are largely united in their views on the in-classroom resources necessary to sustain academic success. Nearly 9 in 10 teachers agree that a high-quality curriculum ensures academic success for their students (88%). Ninety-three percent agree that digital resources like classroom technology and Web-based programs help academic achievement, with a similar percentage (91%) agreeing that classroom magazines and books other than textbooks do the same.”

Teachers were equally certain of a content-rich curriculum’s role in retaining good teachers. “Access to a high-quality curriculum and teaching resources” was ranked as “absolutely essential” in retaining good teachers by 49% of survey respondents, “very important” by 41%, and “somewhat important” by 10%. When asked to choose only the top two most important factors for retaining good teachers, 26% of respondents chose “access to high-quality curriculum and teaching resources” as one of the top two, just below supportive leadership (52%), higher salaries (45%), and time for teachers to collaborate (28%), and ahead of professional development, work environment, and working conditions.

Disappointingly, the survey does not ask teachers about how test-based accountability affects their classroom practices or their management of time in the classroom. These are questions that deserves close scrutiny. The Gates report is a good start.

James Elias

Posted in Curriculum, Teacher Perspective | No Comments »

It’s the Curriculum, Stupid

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Common Core board co-chair Diane Ravitch has written a trailblazing new book about education reform. In The Death and Life of the Great American School System (Basic, 2010) she indicts, well, almost everyone associated with school reform (particularly foundations that have invested heavily in this area) with mistakenly trying to reshape schools in the image of business and setting them back even further. NCLB takes a big hit, largely for the effects the law has had on narrowing the curriculum, as Common Core also has pointed out. But skills-based accountability is at the top of a long hit list that includes choice, charter schools, and merit pay.

We take an interest in all of this but call it to your attention because the liberal arts and sciences comprise the spine of the solution Diane recommends. She believes our schools need a national curriculum clearly describing what American students should be expected to know. Coupled with this would be a series of short, grade-by-grade reading lists putting forth which great works all students should be taught. Here are a few entries on her lists: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Henry David Thoreau, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, W.E.B. DuBois, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Shakespeare, John Milton, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Lewis Carroll.

Together, the curriculum and reading lists would ensure that all students receive at very least the basics of a broad liberal arts and sciences education. Which is a great deal more than most students are getting now.

Threaded through all of this is a series of stories taken from Diane’s own work in ed reform — from her grad student days working at Carnegie to today. The whole thing amounts to an absolute must-read certainly for anyone who frequents Common Core’s blog. Keep a lookout for an interview we plan to publish with her soon.

Lynne Munson

Posted in Curriculum, English/Language Arts, History/Social Studies | No Comments »