Archive for the ‘Curriculum’ Category

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Who Defines Education and Why It Matters

Thursday, 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

Friday, 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 »

The “Continuous Narrowing” of ESEA

Monday, October 17th, 2011

In September 2009, when reauthorization of ESEA seemed imminent, Secretary Duncan said, “Let us build a law that discourages a narrowing of curriculum and promotes a well-rounded education that draws children into sciences and history, languages and the arts in order to build a society distinguished by both intellectual and economic prowess.”

Now, more than two years later, Sen. Harkin has released a draft ESEA reauthorization proposal. And, in spite of the Department’s significant influence, the draft bill’s support of the “well-rounded education” Duncan touted is, well, almost undetectable.

The document is 860 pages long. Student achievement in “Core Academic Subjects” is referenced a dozen times, but specifics never arise. This tome contains no mentions of chemistry, physics, or biology, for example. Music gets four mentions; art only one. And history and civics just two. How are we going to improve education if no one is willing to talk about the substance of what is being taught?

Meanwhile, the shape, method, and approach to accountability measures continue to be tweaked, tuned, and obsessed over. The big news the draft contains is a reinvention of the current accountability system, scrapping AYP’s strict performance targets in favor of a measure of “continuous improvement” for all students and for particular subgroups.

But “continuous improvement” will do nothing to address ESEA’s intense focus on math and reading at the expense of the rest of the liberal arts. Although the bill would shift testing requirements to include measures for student growth, required tests would continue to measure student achievement in only math, reading and science. And the science test would remain inconsequential to “continuous improvement.” Why not widen the lens of the “continuous improvement” measure to include other subjects? It is an idea that would present many challenges and face many obstacles, but it is at least worth discussing.

Writing about the unintended consequences of NCLB, Diane Ravitch and Checker Finn predicted, “Rich kids will study philosophy and art, music and history, while their poor peers will fill in bubbles on test sheets. The lucky few will spawn the next generation of tycoons, political leaders, inventors, authors, artists and entrepreneurs. The less lucky masses will see narrower opportunities.”

We know that is happening already. And if anything resembling Harkin’s draft becomes law, the problem will only get worse.

Lynne Munson

Posted in Arts, Assessment, Curriculum, English/Language Arts, ESEA, Foreign Language, History/Social Studies, Math and Science | No Comments »

Good Technology Won’t Cover for Bad Curriculum

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Even in the midst of budget cuts, education leaders are investing billions of dollars in technology. School leaders, education reformers, and the business world, in particular, herald digital devises that “let students learn at their own pace, teach skills needed in a modern economy and hold the attention of a generation weaned on gadgets” as education’s next savior.

But the technological emphasis is largely untested and, when available, data shows moderate if any student achievement gains. Fordham’s Peter Meyer offers insight:

“[I]t would seem … as happened to the charter school movement, which spent lots of time and energy debating the chartering process and defending it in the face of frequent lackluster performance numbers, the technological classroom is late to an appreciation of the essential elements of education; mainly, the importance of knowledge.  What should our kids know?  David Cohen of the University of Michigan told a gathering of education journalists last May (see my Digital Divide post) that all the technology in the world won’t help if you don’t get the curriculum right.  (And speaking of charters, I once asked KIPP co-founder David Levin how important curriculum was to KIPP’s success. ‘Very,’ he said.)”

Read more, here.

Posted in Curriculum, Technology | No Comments »

Cut and Pasted!

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

Our disagreement with the skills-centric movement in education, particularly our criticism of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), is no secret. We’ve criticized P21 again and again for their evidence-free rhetoric, shallow curricular models, and “cut-and-paste” approach to subject matter knowledge (Why learn things when you can just find them on the Internet?). So we’re chagrined to find ourselves the victim of a P21 “cut-and-paste.”

P21 has included an unrepresentative excerpt of one of our curriculum Maps in its new Common Core Toolkit (see page 18). They’ve done this in a manner which reveals, once again, their deep misunderstanding of the key role that subject matter knowledge plays in learning.

P21 cut and pasted the overview of our Grade 8, Unit 4 unit on “Authors and Artists” into their document:

In this unit, students step back and consider the motivations of authors and artists alike: What inspires artists? Are their inspirations similar or different? How is the process of creating a painting or sculpture similar to and different from the process of writing a story or poem? Students read books written about artists and study artwork found in museums across America. Students work with classmates to discern the unspoken meaning in literature and art. Students also discuss illustrations and other forms of commercial art, looking for differences and similarities in fine and commercial art, in terms of both its motivation and its presentation. They write an informative/explanatory essay about an artist of interest. The unit ends with an informative/explanatory essay in response to the essential question: How are artists and authors similar?

P21 put forward this, along with two (of our eight) CCSS “focus” standards from our unit, as one of eight “Sample ELA Lesson Starters” in its toolkit. It offered no other specifics from our unit, which lists 10 specific student learning objective, recommends more then two dozen readings on figures from Mark Twain to Mary Cassatt, Maya Angelou to Marc Chagall, along with eight paintings, and seventeen student activities illustrating how to meet the new standards while deepening student knowledge of important authors and artists.  Here’s just one example of the kind of activity we recommend:

Examine and discuss the variety of perspectives used by the artists in the artworks (e.g., worm’s-eye view, sitting at the table, far away, or up close). Identify the perspective in each work. How does the perspective affect the viewer’s relationship to the work? For instance, in the works by Caravaggio and Cézanne, does it seem as if there is a spot left for the viewer at the table? How does this differ from the perspective in [Hieronymous] Bosch’s work? What about [Chuck] Close’s? How do these artists use perspective to draw viewers in? Write responses to these questions in your journal and share with a partner prior to class discussion. Discuss how this compares to authors’ use of point of view in the characters they create.

Our Maps are informed by the cognitive science that has demonstrated that in order to think critically about a topic, students must study content directly related to it. As Andy Rotherham and Dan Willingham write, “All content is not equally important to mathematics, or to science, or to literature. To think critically, students need the knowledge that is central to the domain.”

As much as we want to share our work, we do not appreciate P21 cannibalizing our curriculum Maps and do not believe that their appropriation can be helpful to anyone. The teachers who wrote our Maps worked tirelessly to connect the skills identified in the standards with rich texts and works of art, with essential knowledge. And now their work is being further enhanced by the teachers nationwide who are using our Maps to create their own informed and imaginative lessons. We’d prefer P21 not cheapen their work and ours with a sloppy “cut and paste.”

Lynne Munson

 

Posted in 21st Century Skills, Curriculum | 1 Comment »

Teachers and Reform

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

As students across the nation head back to school, their teachers have a bigger than usual lift ahead. They bear the brunt of many recent education reforms: from new standards and assessments to changes in teacher evaluation. Yesterday, we listened to none other than AFT’s Randi Weingarten and AEI’s Rick Hess discuss “When Reform Touches Teachers.” It’s an issue that we, as an organization focused on what gets taught, consider often.

Not shocking to find that Weingarten, a union leader, and Hess, a right-leaning education thinker, find little common ground on the macro issues, such as the role of unions like the AFT. But encouraging to hear them agree on one important issue: Both Weingarten and Hess believe teachers must be deeply involved in decisions about teaching and pedagogy.

As Weingarten puts it: “What are the tools and conditions teachers need to do their jobs?”

With this in mind, we recently surveyed teachers across the country to learn how policies have impacted their classrooms. We asked teachers on the front lines of reform to provide detailed reporting on what they see happening in their classrooms and schools. How are they spending class time? How does state testing affect what they do? Which subjects get more attention and which get less?

The answers augment what was previously only anecdotal evidence: Teachers—for both better and worse—are experiencing a policy-driven shift in how and what they teach.

Look for a full report on our findings, coming this Fall.

Stephanie Porowski

 

Posted in Assessment, Curriculum, Teacher Perspective | 1 Comment »

When Taking the “Right” Courses Isn’t Enough

Friday, August 19th, 2011

ACT reports that a staggering 75% of students are unprepared for college. What’s more, many of these students were unprepared even after taking the ACT-recommended core curriculum.

Of course there’s value in a core curriculum—we’ve said so often. In general, students who took a core curriculum (four years of English and three years of science, math, and social studies) did do better on the ACT:

  • Nearly half of the students who took the ACT-recommended math curriculum passed the ACT college-readiness benchmark; in contrast to only 3% of students who took less than the recommended curriculum.
  • In English, 68% of the students who took the recommended core curriculum achieved the benchmark, while only 40% of those who did not take the recommended core made the cut.

But, disaggregated, ACT’s numbers tell a more complicated story: Barely 4% of African Americans and 11% of Hispanics met ACT benchmarks. This, in spite of the fact that 70% of these students took the recommended core curriculum.

ACT rightly points to the “the inequity of the rigor of the curriculum and of school systems as a whole.” The problem is two-fold: Many students don’t have access to higher-level courses. Nearly half a million students attend public schools that don’t offer Algebra II or equivalent courses.

But, even at schools offering the “right” courses, all-too many Algebra  II—and AP and honors—courses lack real rigor, in spite of high standards like the Common Core State Standards. Teachers cover standards and teach courses with varying depth, expectations and quality of content. As Fordham’s Kathleen Porter-Magee writes, “Blogs about boats may be entertaining but they don’t put you on the track to tackle college-level reading. It’s not fair to students to pretend they do.”

It’s not fair to students, but, with so many standards to cover and so much content to teach, it’s easy to graduate students with meaningless diplomas.

Stephanie Porowski and Meagan Estep

Posted in Curriculum | No Comments »

Another Misstep from AP

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

A transcript loaded with course titles boasting “AP” or its equivalent is your student’s ticket into a name-brand college or university. Or is it? According to College Board, last year more than 1.8 million students participated in the program, often at the urging at parents and administrators.

Unfortunately for these students, College Board’s Advanced Placement Program (AP) seems determined to water down its curriculum. To this end, College Board Vice President Trevor Packer, who oversees the AP program, recently announced its membership in the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21):

“The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has been a guiding light for the AP Program as we have thought about the knowledge and skills the AP program should consciously strive to promote. … We are thrilled to formally join this partnership as we roll out a major redesign of the AP science and history programs.”

For those of you new to the debate, P21 falls heavy on skills-promotion and light on content knowledge. With passing reference to the liberal arts, the core of P21’s message is the importance of a set of skills necessary for a 21st century world: critical thinking, problem solving, communication and collaboration, and creativity and innovation. Important skills, yes. But students develop these skills while they acquire knowledge. Cognitive science has proven that skills such as those P21 promotes cannot effectively be learned in isolation.

Even AP’s toughest critics have long lauded the program for its commitment to rich content.  But AP recently revamped its curriculum considerably at the behest of those like P21—who would strip science and history of content and progression in favor of poorly organized and often-trite themes.

An organization calling P21 its “guiding light” begs our doubt.

Lynne Munson and Stephanie Porowski

Posted in 21st Century Skills, Curriculum | 1 Comment »

A Curriculum for Every Social Problem?

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

You got a problem? They’ve got a curriculum to fix it. Or so says Peter Meyer, with insightful commentary on Fordham’s “Flypaper.”

“Just as you don’t stop teaching math to fix a water fountain, so you don’t stop teaching literature, history, and science because a child has an emotional problem. But that is what happens.  I heard a wonderful speech the other day by one of New York  State’s newest Regents, James O. Jackson,  an African-American, who complained that our schools have been ‘turned into social service agencies.’ And he’s right.  Every social problem gets a curriculum.  Drugs – we have anti-drug classes. Character?  Hours of character-building exercises.  Jobs?  We’ll visit employers (forget whether the kid can’t read or write).  Teen pregnancy?  Let’s hand out dolls and condoms and spend hours talking about body plumbing.  Did someone say Dickens?  Names of the fifty states?  Abraham Lincoln?  Who’s got time?

“I’m sorry, dear scholars, but African American children, like most children, would do much better later in life if school taught them how to read and write – and, hopefully, a little history and science, art and math along the way – instead of being served up what has become a steady and distracting and unhealthy diet of paternalism and fries.”

As we clean up our act in the cafeteria,  let’s bring a well-rounded diet to the classroom, too.

Posted in Curriculum | 1 Comment »

“Ready” for College, But Not College Credit

Monday, June 6th, 2011

There’s been a lot of talk lately about whether or not colleges really prepare students for jobs. According to some, in our push to make college more democratic, we’ve set large numbers of students up for failure. A lot of good work is going into holding colleges accountable for students’ abysmal graduation rates. But it’s hard not to place the blame further down the chain―in the hands of the high schools who “prepared” those students for college in the first place.

Only 24 percent of ACT-tested high school graduates were deemed college ready in all four subjects tested — English, math, reading and science. As college becomes an expectation for all students, they hurt from poor preparation. In 2007-2008 an estimated 42 percent of first-year undergraduate students in two-year colleges took at least one remedial course. (Remedial courses are non-credit bearing “courses in reading, writing or mathematics for college-level students lacking those skills necessary to perform college-level work at the level required by the institution”, according to NCES.)

New standards and planned assessments attempt to raise the bar for students. And the developers of these assessments and standards  have engaged higher education intentionally in the process. But better standards and assessments aren’t enough; many high school courses lack college-preparatory content. Honors, and even AP, courses are too-often advanced in name only, and succeeding in “college prep” courses does not guarantee real college preparation. A study by ACT found that even students taking the recommended college-prep curriculum were insufficiently prepared for college-level work. Incredibly, according to one report, most students taking remedial college courses graduated high school with GPA’s over 3.0.

A community college chancellor told the Chicago Sun-Times: “A lot of them don’t even know that they’re going to get tested. They have the high school diploma, they come in and, rightfully so, because nobody told them, they thought they were just going to go into college credit.”

Students who take remedial courses are significantly less likely to graduate college. As we advocate “college for all,” there’s a pressing need to better-align the content of our high school courses with the demands of college.

Stephanie Porowski

 

Posted in Assessment, Curriculum, Standards | 1 Comment »

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