Archive for the ‘Standards’ Category

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I ♥ “Curriculum Matters”

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

 

I’m not trying to butter up the folks at Ed Week.  Really.  I’ve been meaning to mention for a while how much I love the title of their blog that follows all things curriculum — “Curriculum Matters.”  Obviously, we agree.

Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution deserves the credit for reminding me how much I like it.  Curriculum Matters’s Catherine Gewertz posted a blog about his 2012 Brown Center Report on American Education, released last week.  Loveless addressed a range of topics, including reminding the world that the data suggests a tenuous connection if any between the quality of standards and student achievement.  By extension, Loveless argues that “despite all the money and effort devoted to developing the Common Core State Standards—not to mention the simmering controversy over their adoption in several states—the study foresees little to no impact on student learning.”

That seems like a big jump. We agree that standards aren’t enough.  So what does matter?  Well, curriculum matters.  And what, increasingly, is the task of curriculum-making based on?  STANDARDS, of course.   It seems to me a bit of a silly shell game to walk around talking about how standards don’t matter when every educator knows that quality standards can be a crucial ingredient in improving education. Having bad standards certainly doesn’t help.  And it seems like more than just a shell game, but a real exercise in putting one’s head in the sand, to dismiss the CCSS as unlikely to have impact because they are merely standards.

Are the CCSS perfect?  Of course not — no standards are.  But they are far better than what most states had.  The mere existence of the standards does not guarantee that students will do better.  But their mere existence has created an unprecedented opportunity to enhance the content and improve the quality of instruction in every classroom in 46 states and DC.  The standards have caused districts to look closely at curriculum, professional development, and much else that hasn’t been working and to consider big changes. Could all of this school and district-level focus on improving the content and quality of classroom instruction leverage meaningful improvement on a significant scale?  I hope even the most seasoned DC education wonk would say “yes.”

 

Lynne Munson

 

 

Posted in Curriculum, Standards, Uncategorized, What We're Reading | No Comments »

Dumping History in the Home of Washington and Jefferson

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Earlier this week the Virginia Senate passed a bill that would end state history and science testing in 3rd grade.  The reasons?  You can guess—money.  Dumping the tests would apparently save 920k in fy2013.  And, according to the bill’ sponsor Sen. John Miller, a desire to intensify elementary schools’ focus on reading and math instruction:  “I believe it makes common sense to concentrate on reading and math, and give a good basic foundation in those two core subjects for our students.”

Miller does not understand how children learn to read.  You simply cannot teach reading effectively if you aren’t building students’ academic vocabulary in history, science, and other core subjects. Students’ reading skills will stagnate after 4th grade if they have not been fed, and do not continue to get, a hearty diet of literature, social studies, and the sciences.  So sending the signal—as dropping assessments does more clearly than perhaps anything—to Kindergarten through 3rd grade teachers that history and science are less important than reading and math skills is perilous.

Unfortunately, most other states already have sent this signal.  The home of Washington and Jefferson is among the last holdouts that put a strong emphasis on history testing at the elementary level.  A 2008 report by StandardsWork found that they were one of just six states that that had mandatory social studies testing every year between 3rd and 8th grade. Things have only gotten worse since. And not just at the elementary level.  Last year we wrote about Maryland’s decision to scrub – again, supposedly for budgetary reasons – its high school graduation exam in Civics and Government.  These short-sighted decisions at the state level, along with national level threats such as the recent move to drop required science testing from NCLB, paint a grim picture for the content of public education.  And they do so at an odd and perilous time.

Forty-six states and DC are in the throes of implementing the new Common Core State Standards in ELA and Mathematics.  The full name of the ELA standards is the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (my italics).  These standards are not intended to drive history, science, and other subjects from the curriculum.  In fact, because of the strong emphasis the standards put on the importance of using informational (non-fiction) books, they are a wonderful platform for teaching students MORE about history, science, the arts, etc.  The standards are intended to be implemented in the context of a “well-developed, content-rich curriculum” (a quote from the CCSS’s preface), not in an intensely narrow, skills-only context.

While legislators in Virginia and elsewhere insist that elimination of the tests in no way minimizes their support for the content, we know from studies, including a recently completed study by our organization, that “what gets tested gets taught.”   Ninety-three percent of respondents in Common Core’s recent national survey of school teachers blamed high stakes tests in math and reading for the narrowing of the curriculum they see occurring.

Let’s not treat education like an expendable piece of infrastructure that can be mined for cuts when the budget gets tight.  In the end, narrowing our children’s education is the most costly mistake any state can make.

Lynne Munson with Emily Dodd and Barbara Davidson

Posted in Curriculum, History/Social Studies, Math and Science, Standards | No Comments »

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 »

Hakim on National Science Framework: Not Visionary, Not Exciting

Monday, 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 »

A Critical Review of the New Framework for Science Education

Friday, August 5th, 2011

Two weeks ago, the National Research Council released its Framework for K-12 Science Education. The nonprofit organization, Achieve, will use the framework to draft new science standards that would serve as a model for states. While we haven’t reviewed the final framework closely, we found the draft framework, released over a year ago, to be overly broad and without key specifics.

Yesterday, Ze’ev Wurmam, a technology expert and former Department of Education advisor, offered an in-depth review of the 280-page framework. While Wurman welcomed the release of a science framework and its inclusion of engineering, he had much to criticize.

“This framework does not expect our students to be able to do any science, or to be able to solve any science problem. This framework simply teaches our students science appreciation, rather than science. It expects our students to become good consumers of science and technology, rather than prepare them to be the discoverers of science and creators of technology.”

According to Wurman, the framework all-but removes analytical mathematics—essential knowledge for future scientists and engineers—from the study of science. He writes:

“Before Lavoisier’s quantitative approach there was no chemistry, only Alchemy. Before Newton’s invention of calculus, physics was more a craft than a science. Mathematics has been inseparable from science for the last 300 years, and has been largely responsible for the world we live in. Yet here we have a ’21st century’ science framework for our students that effectively ignores mathematics.”

Wurman found only one equation in the entire framework. Read more, here.

Meagan Estep

Posted in Math and Science, Standards | No Comments »

Still “Broad and Full of Holes”?

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

That’s how we described the National Research Council’s first attempt at drafting a new “conceptual framework” for K-12 science standards. A year ago.

Since that time the 18 experts who comprise the NRC’s panel have been hard at work refining their original draft. According to Ed Week, their final product will be released next Tuesday. We’re glad they’ve taken their time and will be reading carefully to see if they have filled gaps in the initial draft and taken the entire framework down to a grain size that will allow it to be a meaningful guide for states and for Achieve, which will create a set of national science standards based on the framework. Our bet:  Achieve is going to have its hands full.

Lynne Munson

 

Posted in Math and Science, Standards | 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 »

What Will They Think Critically About?

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Some wonderfully “Deep Questions about ‘Deeper Thought’” … and the Common Core State Standards from Peter Meyer:

“Teachers don’t teach standards; they teach ‘the stuff of knowledge,’ in Ted Sizer’s words. Standards come from that stuff, not the other way around. We get our history standards from—where else—history; more specifically, from the events and facts of history. Our students need to learn it. We get ELA standards from great literature—our children need to read it.”

Read on, here.

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

Next! Social Studies

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

Education Week reports that social studies experts from at least a dozen states are meeting with leaders of content-area groups in Charlotte, NC this week to discuss how to raise the profile of that subject in today’s math and reading-heavy classroom. We share their deep concern about the low priority given to social studies―and in fact will be out soon with some new data on this. We’re glad to see an organized, state-based effort coming together to address the problem.

But this effort’s focus could use some refinement. Kathleen Swan, the University of Kentucky professor who is organizing the discussions, says they are not intended to lead to CCSS-style common standards. That’s fine, indeed preferred, as long as this effort presses states to address the chief weakness shared by almost all current state social studies standards:  a lack of specificity with regard to the knowledge students need.

Unfortunately, the group (unnamed as of yet) seems to be on track to avoid any press for specificity. Evidenced by the fact that their sole product so far is a one-sentence definition of social studies―so concerned with inclusiveness that it contains 11 commas. They are being showered with advice to avoid any mention of specific events, people, or ideas because of the criticism that met the attempt to create national U.S. history standards back in the mid-90s.

But that’s the wrong lesson to learn from that controversy. I should know because, at the time, I was working for those standards’ funder and chief critic―former National Endowment for the Humanities chairman Lynne Cheney. Those standards attracted Cheney’s ire, along with that of countless historians, President Clinton’s secretary of education, and the entire U.S. Senate, not because they were specific but because they got so many of the specifics so horribly, horribly wrong. The authors of those standards were intent on importing a rigid, deeply revisionist version of U.S. history into classrooms nationwide. Recently, new Texas history standards attracted a similar volume of criticism for pushing a different but similarly problematic version of history for use by schools in that state.

The goal of any effort to set history or social studies standards for one state, a consortium of states, or the nation should not be to avoid specifics. It should be to get the specifics right—and to introduce students to informed perspectives on any topic that may remain in dispute. We can agree on 99% of the events, people, and ideas students need to learn about in Kindergarten through 12th grade. We just have to have the courage to acknowledge it. And to deal intelligently with the 1% of topics that present a challenge.

Lynne Munson

 

Posted in History/Social Studies, Standards | 1 Comment »

Let’s Support Our Educators

Friday, May 13th, 2011

As we speak with teachers and education leaders working to implement our Common Core Curriculum Maps in their schools and districts, we’re struck by the magnitude of their task. But more-so by their good faith in the face of budget cuts, backlash, and every-day fear of the unknown.

Back in January, the Center on Education Policy published a report detailing States’ Progress and Challenges in Implementing Common Core State Standards. Interestingly, although most adopting states will require school districts to implement the CCSS, most states do not require districts to make complementary changes to their curricula. While this omission respects district autonomy, it leaves districts with a dilemma: Pay money for changes not required? Or wait out what could very well be the latest education fad?

Yet, we have spoken with districts that are courageously moving forward―of their own volition. As our good friend in Arkansas likes to say, “Change is coming.”

That’s why it’s so angering to see the latest education fads slip their way into standards adoption bills and school libraries. Every textbook series is now “aligned” with the CCSS. California, for one, has a standards-implementation bill on the docket – with language emphasizing the so-called “21st century skills.”

Whatever your thoughts on the common curriculum debate (we don’t take a side), at least one of Fordham’s recommendations in their response to the Common Core “counter-manifesto” is a good one: “And big funders and nonprofits that care about this stuff: Devise a really powerful version of ‘Consumer Reports’ by which to vet curricular materials (commercial and ‘open-source’ alike) that purport to be ‘aligned’ with the Common Core so as to gauge their validity—and whether they’re quality materials worthy of the attention of practicing educators.”

Stephanie Porowski

Posted in Curriculum, Standards | 1 Comment »

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