Curriculum « Common Core

Archive for the ‘Curriculum’ Category

What we’re reading…

Friday, 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 »

Jefferson, His Library, and Our Schools

Thursday, 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

Tuesday, 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

Monday, 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 3^rd or 4^th 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

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.)”

Cut and Pasted!

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

Our disagreement with the skills-centric movement in education, particularly our criticism of the Partnership for 21^st 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 »

Common Core

Archive for the ‘Curriculum’ Category

What we’re reading…

Jefferson, His Library, and Our Schools

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Had It Right

Who Defines Education and Why It Matters

NAEP: Proof of Education Insanity

Good Technology Won’t Cover for Bad Curriculum

Cut and Pasted!

Archives

Categories