Archive for April, 2010

RAND, GAO Agree on Narrowing

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

RAND’s report on reauthorizing No Child Left Behind surveys the law’s successes and failures and provides recommendations for improving it.

Unsurprisingly, RAND notes that “the narrow focus of the law on two academic areas and the states’ reliance on similarly narrow student tests have resulted in unintended outcomes, such as the narrowing of schools’ curricula, encouraging teachers to focus on some students at the expense of others, and discouraging the development of higher-thinking and problem-solving skills.” The GAO came to the same conclusion in November.

Additionally, the survey data indicated that “teachers also reported focusing more on students near the proficient cut score (i.e., “bubble kids”) and expressed concerns about negative effects on the learning opportunities given to high-achieving students.” This is congruent with data collected by Fordham for their report on High-Achieving Students in the Era of No Child Left Behind, which showed that 73% of teachers described the “brightest students” as “under-challenged in school” and said that “electives, humanities, and the arts” are being ignored to focus on basic skills. That’s not what high-performing countries do.

Arne Duncan has promised to work toward fixing this. We’re still waiting to hear how he plans to do that.

James Elias

Posted in Curriculum | No Comments »

Talk, Talk

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Recently there’s been a lot of talk from ED officials about the importance of a well-rounded education. In December, we noted Arne Duncan’s promise to make a commitment to the liberal arts a key piece of his revisions to ESEA, and in February we were surprised to hear ED’s Peter Cunningham acknowledge the severity of the curriculum narrowing caused by NCLB. And the Department’s blueprint for ESEA reauthorization argues that “[s]tudents need a well-rounded education to contribute as citizens in our democracy and to thrive in a global economy – from literacy to mathematics, science, and technology to history, civics, foreign languages, the arts, financial literacy, and other subjects.”

Arne Duncan’s speech at the Arts Education Partnership’s National Forum continues this trend of pleasant-sounding rhetoric. Duncan is absolutely right that “[a] well-educated student, in other words, is exposed to a well-rounded curriculum. It is the making of connections, conveyed by a rich core curriculum, which ultimately empowers students to develop convictions and reach their full academic and social potential.” And it’s heartening to hear Duncan tell a national audience that “[t]he case for a well-rounded curriculum begins with a disappointing reality: Many schools today are falling far short of providing an engaging, content-rich curriculum,” a conclusion also reached by the GAO in their November 2009 report on student achievement.

But Duncan’s speech is a disappointment because it lacks specifics. Okay, fine, he’ll be consolidating a bunch of old earmarks into a new, expanded $265 million fund to “strengthen the teaching of arts, foreign languages, civics and government,” and there will be new money set aside for developing assessments in subjects besides ELA and math. But notice who’s excluded from the Department’s “first large-scale survey of school principals, music teachers, and visual arts specialists in ten years”? Dance and theater instructors! Might this be because the 2008 NAEP arts assessment had to drop dance and theater after they couldn’t find enough students who had taken those subjects to assemble a nationally representative sample?

It’s going to take more than pleasant words from the Secretary of Education to reverse the deterioration of liberal arts education.

James Elias

Posted in Arts, Curriculum | No Comments »

Addicted to the 21st Century

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Jay Rockefeller’s 21st Century Skills Incentive Fund Act, which would establish a federal slush fund for states that implement 21st century skills initiatives, is still languishing in the Senate Finance Committee, so the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) appears to be attempting to sneak funding streams for their Strategic Council members into the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

The Trojan horse is the NEA’s recently released Initial Legislative Recommendations for Reauthorization of ESEA. The document calls for funding for the development of standards for 21st century skills (p. 14), new assessments for 21st century skills (p. 14-15), an annual survey of 21st century competency conducted by the U.S. Department of Education (p. 142), and mandatory assessment of 21st century literacy “at least once” in elementary school and “at least once” in secondary school (also p. 142).

Who’s pushing for this? The tell appears on p. 151 of the NEA’s 170-page document. P21 wants ESEA’s Title V, Part B to include “21st Century Skills Grants to States.” From the document:

“Grants to states to develop (educators, business, and other stakeholders) and incorporate a 21st century standards and framework for education, with particular emphasis on high schools. Funds also should be available to review and revise assessments to ensure that students are provided opportunities to demonstrate critical thinking, problem solving and communications skills; to integrate 21st century skills and knowledge, including critical thinking and problem solving skills into the entire curriculum at the high school level; to support 21st century skills planning groups that include teachers and members with a range of backgrounds in business and education; and to provide professional development for educators regarding how to integrate 21st century skills into the entire curriculum. (www.21stcenturyskills.org)”

21stcenturyskills.org is, of course, the Web presence of P21. Keep in mind that when P21 refers to “stakeholders” they are referring to organizations such as Cisco, Dell, and Intel who pay to join the Partnership.

To cap it off, the “Findings = Case for 21st Century Education” outlined on p. 152 is copied practically verbatim from a P21 publication (see p. 5).

Enough proof that the NEA is ghostwriting for P21? Lest we forget: There is no evidence whatsoever that the program put forth by P21 increases student achievement or enhances their education in any way. In fact, according to cognitive scientists, P21′s program does not and cannot work.

James Elias

Posted in 21st Century Skills | 1 Comment »

Still Not Good Enough: For Massachusetts

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

The new Pioneer Institute review of the common standards credits the common standards with “considerable progress” between the January and March drafts, but claims that the standards writers have some work to do before the standards are “at least as good as those in states that have empirical evidence, within the state, nationally, and/or internationally, attesting to the effectiveness of their current standards.” Massachusetts is certainly one of those states; they outperform other American students on TIMSS and earn top marks on NAEP. The Bay State earned straight A’s in Fordham’s most recent State of State Standards, and its ELA framework was praised for its “competency, explicit and unmuddled expectations, and strong vocabulary instruction.” And Pioneer’s review includes many worthy recommendations for improving the standards, such as adding “standard D” from David Conley’s Understanding University Success, which requires students to be “familiar with a range of world literature.”

But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the common standards are better – in some cases, much better – than the standards currently in place in most states. Massachusetts’ high standards are an outlier, and Massachusetts doesn’t have a compelling reason to adopt the common standards except the potential for more money.

James Elias

Posted in Standards | 3 Comments »