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Social Studies Bait & Switch

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

I’m glad I’m not a social studies teacher working in Arkansas, Kentucky, or Wyoming – or any of a number of other states that ponied up whatever CCSSO charged them to participate in a much anticipated effort to craft common social studies standards (“Specialists Weigh Common Social Studies Standards”).

Those efforts have left everyone scratching their heads about what got accomplished.  Most of the states that signed onto this ambitious project have outdated social studies standards that are not very good.  Some tabled scheduled plans to write new standards, hoping this effort would produce a superior document or that, at the very least, the 18-month long labors of the group would provide them with a good start.  Unfortunately, the “framework” released last month (quietly, after much initial fanfare) is far more likely to confuse than clarify what a strong state social studies standards document should include, particularly one developed in the age of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English language arts and mathematics.

The framework, now endorsed by CCSSO, introduces an “inquiry arc” which is described as “a set of interlocking and mutually supportive ideas that frame the way students learn social studies content.”  While we take nothing away from the learning dimensions included (e.g. gathering, evaluating, and using evidence), Common Core believes that critical thinking must rest on a solid base of factual knowledge.  It’s the job of good standards to describe this content – and of good curriculum to provide concrete supports for teaching that content.

Given the emphasis of the CCSS on informational text and the hope of many that such a focus will spawn a privileging of content that we haven’t seen in recent years, it’s all the more shocking and disappointing that the new College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) standards framework is void of any mention whatsoever of the content we expect students to master and demonstrate.

It’ll be interesting to learn, in the days and weeks ahead, how this project strayed so far from what was originally envisioned.  In the meantime, we wish the participating states good luck – and encourage policymakers not to fall for the “spin.”  This framework is NOT a blueprint for writing strong standards.  It’s a 21st-century skills cloak by another name.

Barbara Davidson

Posted in History/Social Studies, Standards | No Comments »

Common Core Mathematics in New York

Monday, August 27th, 2012

Earlier this month Common Core conducted its first professional development workshop in mathematics. Our math team traveled to Albany, New York where we engaged more than 300 educators in a discussion about the math content in Common Core’s forthcoming PK-5 mathematics curriculum, titled “A Story of Units.”

New York’s Commissioner of Education, John B. King Jr., kicked off the five-day session. The audience included teachers, representatives from Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), instructional coaches, education consultants, and superintendents. The training featured Jason Zimba, one of the authors of the Common Core State Standards for mathematics; Ken Gross, director of the Vermont Mathematics Initiative at the University of Vermont; and Scott Baldridge, lead writer and mathematician of the Common Core Curriculum Maps in Mathematics. Each presenter offered a unique perspective on three key “shifts” embedded in the CCSS. These shifts involve intensifying the depth and focus of instruction and learning, enhancing coherence within and between grades, and stepping up the rigor of what students will be expected to know and be able to do.

Those “shifts” formed the basis for a series of dynamic gradespan-based training sessions that were conducted by several of the curriculum’s teacher-writers and professional development leaders, including Catriona Anderson, Bill Davidson, Janice Fan, Melanie Gutierrez, Lisa Watts-Lawton, and Johnette Roberts. This team demonstrated lessons taken directly from drafts of Common Core’s curriculum. A highlight for one teacher was “actually seeing a lesson in action – especially seeing a kindergarten lesson and having an upper grade teacher bridge the concept to those grades.”

New York educators participate in a Kindergarten lesson modeled by Melanie Gutierrez.

Educators began each day by completing a stimulating math fluency activity, known as a “sprint,” designed to establish and enhance fluency by developing students’ number sense through a focus on patterns. Educators later had the opportunity to create original fluency activities and practice their delivery. One teacher noted that “practicing the fluencies and sprints will make it easier to use [this activity] in my classroom.”

Participants worked in small groups on various occasions throughout the training. They enjoyed opportunities to work though numerous models that can be utilized throughout the primary and elementary grades, including the use of the “bar model” to solve word problems.

New York educator presents his solution to a word problem.

Participants also had the opportunity to use tools such as place-value number disks, 2-sided counters, and rekenreks, chosen specifically to compliment the curriculum Common Core is developing. These tools will soon be available through Common Core’s website. The teacher-ambassadors who attended the training are now charged with the task of bringing their knowledge of this new content and pedagogies back to their colleagues in districts around the state.

The participants’ candor and willingness to share their experiences in the classroom enabled Common Core’s facilitators to gain a tremendous deal of insight into the challenges faced by teachers in implementing the CCSS. The teacher-writers of the mathematics curriculum will incorporate this knowledge into their work as they continue to develop this teacher-friendly tool.

In a gesture of enthusiasm and appreciation, New York’s teachers concluded the five-day training with a standing ovation. This sentiment is reciprocated by Common Core’s team, who looks forward more than ever to working directly with teachers throughout the development and implementation of Common Core’s mathematics maps.

Hillary Marder

Posted in Curriculum, Math and Science, Standards, Uncategorized | No Comments »

I Can’t Read My Watch! Algebra Is to Blame.

Monday, August 6th, 2012

I visited a Swatch store last week.  I was at a train station, heading home from a trip, looking for gifts for my children.  I decided it was a good time to buy my two toddlers their first watches.

After selecting a gold-faced timepiece with a dinosaur wristband for my son and a Rapunzel watch with pink and purple hands for my daughter—I stepped up to the counter.  Tucking my purchases into their bags, the salesman commented on the fact that I’d not selected watches with digital displays.  Sure, I said, I want to teach my kids how to tell time.

He explained that an increasing number of customers have been asking for digital watches.  Swatch is of course known for taking the traditional, round watch and interpreting it in beautifully hip, colorful ways.  The Swiss company offers a seemingly endless variety of designs—in neon, metallic, with pop culture references, or rather plain.  Some display the hour or even minute numbers, while others have completely blank faces or little slashes called “tick marks,” as the salesman explained.

I asked what he does when a customer wants a digital watch.  He asks them why, and when the answer is that they cannot tell time, he tries to teach them how.  He says that he’s rarely successful.  And that he typically ends up selling them one of the handful of digital watches that Swatch now sells.

Since I was returning from a professional development workshop on mathematics, I could not help but spend the cab ride home reflecting on what the salesman’s story said about these customers’ lack of understanding of mathematics.

Now telling time is not doing math.  But it does require knowledge of math fundamentals.  You cannot tell time on a traditional clock without knowing that numbers are symbols that represent units, or without some basic grasp of estimation and ratios.  In other words, if you cannot tell time, it most likely means that you would still struggle with third and fourth-grade math concepts.

***

This watch salesman’s experience made me think more about a New York Times op-ed I and countless others read last week by Queens College political scientist Andrew Hacker.  Hacker argued that it is not just wrong but unfair of our high schools and colleges to assume that all students should understand Algebra.  He claims that the math demands in our schools are responsible for upping dropout rates and pose a barrier to college attendance.  Hacker’s op-ed attracted 477 comments in 48 hours—nearly all of them critical.

Hacker isn’t the first and won’t be the last to make the untenable argument that teaching less math is what American students need.  This way of thinking, that we need to be creating “escape routes” for underachieving students, is becoming the new mantra.  It is the 2.0 version of what President Bush rightfully called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”  And it crops up not only in discussions of math but in talk about how the entire latter half of high school might be repurposed for career-bound students.  This is pernicious.  Before we know it we will be hearing people propose “escape routes” out of middle school, too.

With regard to mathematics, the problem is not that we are teaching too much of it—but that we are teaching math ineffectively.  The expectations and architecture of the new Common Core State Standards in Mathematics can help to remedy this.  Faithful implementation of those standards will support districts that want to adopt curricula that unfurl mathematics in a rational, coherent program and that jettison approaches that are illogically sequenced and that overuse and abuse manipulatives.

As mathematician Scott Baldridge, the leader of Common Core’s own curriculum mapping project in mathematics, has said:  “Teachers are starving for rational approaches to teaching mathematics.”  So let’s stop talking, like Hacker does, as though the best we can do is to find ways to manage our failure.  Instead, let’s give teachers the quality curriculum materials and content-rich training they need to effectively teach students Algebra and much, much more.

Lynne Munson

 

Posted in Curriculum, Math and Science, Standards | 1 Comment »

California’s Governor Cuts Arts, Foreign Language—Now Science. What’s Next?

Monday, March 5th, 2012

California Governor Jerry Brown is proposing to cut the state’s already minimal high school graduation requirement for science in half.  Currently California students must complete two courses – one in the biological sciences and another in the physical sciences – to graduate.  Brown has released a budget that replaces this with just one class.  That means California high-schoolers could graduate having taken only an earth science class and have no knowledge of the basics of biology, chemistry, or physics and zero exposure to laboratory practice.  

Brown’s pitiful proposal is not worthy of the Silicon Valley state, or any state for that matter.  Most states require at least 2 years of science as a minimum graduation requirement.   However, many states, such as Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Virginia (whose 4th and 8th graders performed above the national average on the 2009 NAEP science exam) require at least 3 years of science for graduation.  In contrast, California’s fourth graders tied Mississippi’s for the lowest scores on the 2009 NAEP exam.  Based on this evidence, the logical response would be to increase California’s science requirement, not reduce it.

In fact, Common Core conducted an analysis of the NAEP science data in 2009 and found that the number of courses students took appeared to have a significant impact on their performance.  Here’s the key data from that analysis:

Students who took both biology and chemistry scored 15 points higher than those who just took biology or any other single science course, and those who took physics in addition to biology and chemistry scored 33 points higher than single science course-takers.  A quick analysis shows that this amounts, approximately, to an 11% improvement for each additional science course taken.  So students who took three science courses scored 22% higher than those who took just one.

Governor Brown is establishing a track record for lowering expectations for California public school students. Just last year the Governor put the arts and foreign languages on the chopping block.  In October, Brown signed a bill into law that eliminates the requirement for all students to take either a foreign language or arts course to graduate.  Students can now take career-technical education courses instead.  At the behest of Common Core and California-based arts and foreign language advocates, former Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill containing this same proposal in 2010.

Brown’s curriculum proposal would guarantee that thousands of students graduate high school unqualified for admission to California’s public universities.  CA’s state schools mandate that students take at least two years of a foreign language, and one year of art to qualify for admittance.   The California State University system requires applicants to have two years of science, while the University of California system recommends three science courses and mandates laboratory experience.  Thus, lowering the bar to only one year of science, while also eliminating any coursework in foreign language or the arts, puts California high school students at a terrible disadvantage.  If this trajectory continues, we hate to think what subject could be next on Brown’s hit list.   

Senate President Darrell Steinberg indicates he is in no hurry to validate the Governor’s budget plan: “We’re not going to rush to make any of these decisions, especially on the cuts side.”  This delay is an opportunity for concerned parents, teachers, and students to voice their opposition.  In fact, some districts, including Vacaville Unified School District and Travis Unifies School District, have taken an immediate stand and announced that they have no plans to reduce the 2-year science requirement.  We hope Governor Brown heeds these warnings and retracts his proposal.

Lynne Munson, Emily Dodd, and Hillary Marder

 

Posted in Arts, Curriculum, Foreign Language, Math and Science, Standards | 3 Comments »

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 | 1 Comment »

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 »

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